128 6 9MB
English Pages 160 [180] Year 2022
Won in Translation
MATER IAL TEXTS Series Editors Roger Chartier
Leah Price
Joseph Farrell
Peter Stallybrass
Anthony Grafton
Michael F. Suarez, S.J.
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Won in Translation Textual Mobility in Early Modern Europe
Roger Chartier Translated by John H. Pollack
Universit y of Pennsylvania Press Phil adelphia
Copyright © 2022 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8122-5383-2 Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8122-9844-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chartier, Roger, author. | Pollack, John, translator. Title: Won in translation : textual mobility in early modern Europe / Roger Chartier ; translated by John H. Pollack. Other titles: Material texts. Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2022] | Series: Material texts | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021042948 | ISBN 9780-8122-5383-2 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Casas, Bartolomé de las, 1484–1566. Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. | Gracián y Morales, Baltasar, 1601–1658. Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia. | Vega, Lope de, 1562–1635. Fuente Ovejuna. | Silva, António José da, 1705–1739. Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança. | Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547–1616. Don Quixote. | Spanish literature—Classical period, 1500–1700—Translations—History and criticism. | Spanish literature—Classical period, 1500–1700—History and criticism. | Literature—Translations—History and criticism. | Translating and interpreting—Europe—History. Classification: LCC PQ6066 .C47 2022 | DDC 468/.04—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042948
CONTENTS
Preface vii Chapter 1. Publishing: The Seven Lives of the Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias 1 Chapter 2. Staging: Fuente Ovejuna 28 Chapter 3. Translating: From Oráculo manual to L’Homme de cour 53 Chapter 4. Adapting: Don Quixote and the Marionettes of Lisbon
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Epilogue
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Notes 107 Index 161
PR EFACE
The four chapters of this book address the same topic: the mobility of texts, or, put another way, the plurality of texts that circulate the same work. In early modern Europe, such mobility was the result of different decisions or choices made by all those individuals who not only made the books but also, and more fundamentally, made the texts. These actors included copyists, who established fair copies of authors’ autograph manuscripts; censors, who suppressed or corrected texts as they thought necessary; publishers (who were at that time both printers and booksellers), who made the decision to publish and chose format, layout, and fonts; copy editors, who prepared the copy text for the printer; and compositors, whose habits and preferences gave material forms to printed texts. In some cases, the chain of interventions that produced the forms and meanings of texts was still more complex. This was true of translations. Through their lexical, aesthetic, and cultural decisions, translators were able to assign new signification or new status to the works they translated. It was also the case with all the texts that were spoken before they were printed, such as speeches, sermons, or plays. The case studies gathered in this book are devoted to textual migrations moving from one language to another, or from one genre to another: for example, from historical chronicle or prose narrative to dramatic plays. Three out of these four chapters are dedicated to Spanish texts, and the fourth one to a Portuguese adaptation of Don Quixote. This attention to Iberian materials continues studies I have previously devoted to the French translation and editions of Francisco de Quevedo’s Buscón; to Lope de Vega’s Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo; to different chapters of Don Quixote; and to English and French theatrical appropriations of Cer vantes’s “historia,” beginning with the lost Shakespearean Cardenio. The prominence of these texts here is grounded in powerful historical realities. In early modern Europe, the Castilian language was considered by many writers (for example, Ronsard) as the least imperfect of all modern languages, and it became the vehicle for the most exciting literary novelties: chivalric
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romances, picaresque autobiographies, the new “comedia,” and a work that trespassed all the conventional genres, the history of the errant knight who named itself Don Quixote of La Mancha. Read in Spanish by all those who learned the language, translated for those who could not, and imitated and adapted by many, this textual repertoire had only Petrarch, Ariosto, or Tasso as serious competitors. Paradoxically perhaps, the two Castilian works whose translations are analyzed in this book are neither romances nor plays. But they traveled throughout Europe and were translated more often than any other books. Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación, printed in 1552 in Seville, was the most widely circulated denunciation of the tyrannies and cruelties committed by the Spaniards in the New World. The text was a powerful instrument for the construction of what was called much later the “black legend” of the Spanish monarchy. Across Europe, translating, commenting upon, and illustrating Las Casas’s short book was a way of warning all peoples threatened by the Spanish power and showing them that they could be, in their turn, the “Indians” of Europe. Reading Las Casas was necessary to ward off such mortal peril. Baltasar Gracián’s Oráculo manual, published in 1647 in Huesca, did not have the same immediate success. It is only with its French translation in 1684 that the book became a European steady seller. Itself then translated into several languages, the French translation transformed Gracián’s aphorisms, addressed to those few who could understand them, whatever their social condition, into a courtier’s manual. Gracián’s three hundred maxims became, therefore, the indispensable guide for all those who desired to know, to practice, or to imitate the behaviors governing the court society. These two works are examples of the great power of translations. They gave new relevance to Las Casas’s Relacíon by relocating it in multiple and successive contexts. They attributed a radically new meaning to Gracián’s Oráculo. Two chapters are dedicated to plays, one by Lope de Vega, the other one by Antônio José da Silva. The textual migrations that are at stake here are different. Lope’s Fuente Ovejuna, printed in 1619, allows us to understand how the “same” story could be moved from historical chronicle to dramatic performance, and how this shift permitted, or required, the imposition of reconstructed representation of a past event. Lope’s play also allows us to analyze two fundamental textual trajectories: from the composition of a play by a dramatist to its production by a theatrical company, and from the staged performance to the printed publication. Both processes were characterized by constraints and competitions, rivalries and ruses, that were not unique to Golden Age Spain.
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Antônio José da Silva’s Vida do grande D. Quixote provides another example of migration between genres. This play, performed by the puppets of the Theater of the Bairro Alto in Lisbon in 1733, is one of the numerous theatrical adaptations of Cervantes’s “history” of Don Quixote, in this case, of the second part of the book. As in the case of Lope’s play, the shift from one genre to another allows the playwright to introduce new motives, to reinterpret famous passages, and to show inventiveness within the obligation of imitation. However, Silva’s Don Quixote demonstrates not only mobility between genres: the play was also the first “translation” of Cervantes’s book into Portuguese, sixty years before the genuine translation of the work. It is with Don Quixote that this book concludes: Pierre Menard’s Don Quixote. The fiction written by Jorge Luis Borges presents us with a more radical formulation of the different modalities of textual mobility proposed by the works of Las Casas, Lope de Vega, Gracián, and Silva. In the case of Menard’s Don Quixote, it is the absolute immobility of the text, reinvented word for word, comma for comma, that creates the condition for its spectacular mutation, or even the complete inversion of its meaning. A work changes over time, of course, because none of its texts is perfectly identical to other ones. In early modern Europe, these differences concern the modes of attribution of the work, its textual variants, its materiality, its genre, or its language. Borges’s literary hypothesis reminds us that even if a work could always remain the same, from Cervantes to Pierre Menard, it would nevertheless change because the world of its readers changes. * * * The essays gathered here are largely based upon books and manuscripts in the University of Pennsylvania Library. The collections assembled by Robert Dechert and by Henry Charles Lea enabled my study of the translations of Las Casas’s Relacíon and allowed me to consult documents from the Portuguese Inquisition that persecuted Antônio José da Silva. The important collection of Golden Age comedias—including sets of printed plays gathered by the Count of Harrach, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor to Madrid in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and autograph manuscripts of two of Lope de Vega’s plays—were essential to my analysis of Fuente Ovejuna. Finally, the library’s important collection of editions of Gracián, in Spanish and in French translation, made it possible for me to follow the trajectory of a work that became the most famous courtly manual
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in early modern Europe, even if the word “court” did not appear in the original text. We must stress the essential role played by libraries in scholarship for two reasons. First, even (or especially) in a world where digital reproduction and online consultation permit us easy and rapid access to texts, it is necessary to recall that only the precise analysis of printed or manuscript objects themselves allows us to understand how the materiality of “books” shaped the meanings of “texts” they communicate. It is only by studying the books themselves, and not only their digital surrogates, that we can comprehend the multiple existences of the “same” work. Its intended audiences and constructed meaning may be transformed by changes in its format, by mutations of the modalities of its publication, or by the introduction of illustrations. Thus, the 24mo first printing of Gracián’s Oráculo manual is quite distinct from the large quarto format of its French translation. The “same” comedia could circulate as a separately printed pamphlet, or be inserted in a collection of plays by different authors, or appear in a volume of plays all by the same author. And the introduction of illustrations into the translations of Las Casas’s Relacíon profoundly changed how European readers read this text. I would like also to stress the importance of the work of librarians and curators for scholarly research. This research is always characterized by unexpected discoveries, bibliographical findings, and new interpretations made possible only thanks to their knowledge and experience. This book is the result of such a collaborative work, developed over the years with John Pollack. He guided my research in the rich collections of the Library of the University of Pennsylvania; he assisted with the presentations of these textual studies when I gave them as lectures or seminars; and, finally, he was their translator. His friendly and learned presence has accompanied each stage of the composition and publication of this book. As Borges would write, I do not know which of us has written these pages.
CHAPTER 1
Publishing The Seven Lives of the Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias
One text that crossed frontiers, circulating in multiple languages and taking on new meanings in different times and places, is of remarkable importance: the Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias, written by the Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas and printed in Seville in 1552. The Brevísima relación became central to the construction of the “Black Legend,” the trans-European polemic condemning the cruelty of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas. This chapter focuses on this text’s editions and translations. It is based in large part upon the collection of Las Casas editions assembled by Robert Dechert and housed at the University of Pennsylvania Library. Thanks to this collection, we can follow the uncommon destiny of this text and trace its “seven lives” from 1552 to the early nineteenth century.
Seville, 1552 The first and most famous life of the Brevísima relación begins at its first printing in 1552, together with seven other Spanish treatises that had been prepared by Las Casas over the ten preceding years.1 Its title page presents us with a stark contrast. We see the royal coat of arms of Emperor Charles V and the device “P V,” “Plus Ultra,” the chivalric motto used, after 1516, to designate the emperor’s sovereignty over the newly discovered territories lying beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Figure 1). At the same time, we note the absence of any privilege, or permission to publish, granted to the text by the sovereign.
Figure 1. The title page of Las Casas’s Brevísima relación (Seville: Sebastián Trujillo, 1552), here bound with the seven other treatises by Las Casas. Robert Dechert Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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This text, in fact, lacks all of the censorial approbations normally obligatory in Spanish Golden Age books. How can we explain the absence of these preliminary texts? Their absence may suggest Las Casas’s wish to avoid the censorial regime of Seville, which had since 1502 been under the archbishop’s control.2 On the title page, Las Casas’s title of bishop appears ahead of his position in the Dominican order: “por el Obispo dõ fray Bartolome de las Casas / o Casaus de la orden de Sãcto Domingo.” The phrase announces Las Casas’s place within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, despite the fact that, although named bishop of Chiapas in 1543, he had renounced his bishopric in 1550. Another possibility is that Las Casas received a tacit, or unwritten, permission to publish from Prince Philip, who as regent of the Spanish kingdoms was at that time responsible for Spanish territories in the Indies. Philip had received Las Casas favorably upon his return to Spain in 1547, and the Brevísima relación is addressed directly to him. Each word of Las Casas’s title—Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias: colegida por el Obispo dõ fray Bartolome de Las Casas—is carefully placed in order to assure readers of the text’s authenticity. A relación’s authority derives from the facts it relates, which are directly reported by eyewitnesses. The “relación” here is “brevísima,” very brief, according to one of the classical rhetorical figures of speech, the “brevitas.” It is a summary of an infinite history of cruelties, each one of which was, in itself, arguably a mortal sin. This relación is also colegida, a collection of several accounts or documents. This claim might appear paradoxical if the text’s veracity rests upon the personal, eyewitness observations of its author, Las Casas. Yet the verb colegir, as defined in Sebastián de Covarrubias’s Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611), meant “to assemble numerous, different things heard, seen, or read.” Direct observations and written texts —what is seen and what is read—have equivalent authority in Las Casas’s account, as they had in anthologies of commonplaces. Also serving as guarantors of the credibility of the text are the claims of social rank Las Casas makes for himself: as a bishop but also as a member of the noble Casaus family. His noble lineage may well have been open to dispute, but it would have carried particular value in a time when aristocratic testimony was held likely to be true because it was not biased by any economic interest.3 The printer’s name does not appear on the title page, which includes only the date of printing, 1552. However, the text’s colophon tells us that it was printed in Seville, “En casa de Sebastian Trujillo,” in the printing shop of Sebastian Trujillo. Las Casas had written the text ten years prior to its 1552
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publication date, after his return to Spain in 1540 and on the occasion of his attempt to convince the emperor to reform the Laws of Burgos. These laws, first promulgated in 1512, organized the American colonies into a series of encomiendas. Each encomendero was allotted a land parcel and a group of Indians, whom he was expected to evangelize and who, in turn, owed him tribute and forced labor. In this system, according to Las Casas, lay the seeds of the destruyción of the Indies—understood in the Latin meaning of the verb destruere as signifying ruination, desolation, and depopulation. Encomiendas were not founded upon legitimate property rights. They led to no significant increase in efforts to instruct Indians in Christianity, and they shattered Indian communities and families, whose members were distributed among different Spanish masters according to various repartimientos. All in all, the system destroyed Indian populations, who had already been enslaved and were further weakened by forced labor and martyrized by Conquistador cruelty. Las Casas puts the number of victims of this tyranny at fifteen million: “We are able to yeeld a good and certaine accompt, that there is within the space of the said 40. yeeres, by those said tyrãnies & divlish doings of the Spaniards doen to death unjustly and tyrannously more than twelve Millions of soules, men, women, and children. And I verilie do beleeve, and think not to mistake therein, that there are dead more than fifteene Millions of souls.”4 Alain Milhou has situated Las Casas’s 1542 account at the center of a two- pronged intellectual crisis of Spanish colonization: a crisis of conscience over the eternal damnation of victims of conquistador atrocities and a legal crisis surrounding the legitimacy of Spanish sovereignty in the New World.5 Legal title had been based upon the doctrine of the pope’s potestas, universal sovereignty, received from Christ and transmitted to the kings of Portugal and Spain. In opposition to this doctrine, theologians at the University of Salamanca cited the Thomist philosophy of natural right, which recognized the legitimate sovereignty of indigenous rulers and required, consequently, that possession by the conquering Spaniards be based upon “just titles.” In Las Casas’s text, these themes took on prophetic, even apocalyptic, overtones. By destroying Indians, through forced labor, excessive taxes and tributes, and violent massacres—by imposing upon them, that is, the most extreme hardships—the Spaniards had gravely offended God. Divine anger would lead to divine retribution. Those who drowned their victims or burned them alive would suffer these same fates themselves. But God’s vengeance would be far more sweeping than that: the destruction of the Indies, Las Casas implies, foretold the forthcoming destruction of Spain itself. This prophetic
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theme, forecasting the punishment of a cruel and tyrannical kingdom, was frequent in millenarian and Morisco circles. Here it is linked closely to the horrors of the conquest. It was a critique that opponents of the Catholic king of Spain could and would return to. A particularly strident prophetic moment concludes the final chapter of the Brevísima relación, on the kingdom of “New Granada,” and serves as a summary of Las Casas’s motives for writing. I quote here from the 1583 English translation of this passage: I brother Bartholomewe de las Casas or Casaus, religious of the order of S. Dominicke, which by the mercie of God am come into this courte of Spayne, to sewe that the hell might bee withdrawen from the Indes, and that these innumerable soules, redeemed by the blood of Iesus Christ, shoulde not perishe for euermore without remedie, but that they might knowe their creator and bee saued: also for the care and compassion that I haue of my countrey, which is Castile, to the ende that God destroy it not for the great sinnes thereof, committed against the fayth and his honour, and against our neighbours: for certaine mens sakes notablie zealous of the glory of God, touched with compassion of the afflictions and calamities of others, followers of this court: . . . I atchieued this treatise and summarie at Valencia, the 8. of December, 1542. the force beeing mounted to the highest type of extremitie, and all the violences, tyrannies, desolations, anguishes, and calamities abovesayde, spread ouer all the Indies, where ther are any Spaniardes, although they bee more cruell in one part then they bee in an other, and more sauage, and more abhominable.6 The 1552 edition of the Brevísima relación opens with an “Argument” that evokes the text’s origins, a decade earlier, for its readers. Las Casas asserts that the acts of carnage and destruction perpetrated by the Spanish in the Indies and that he has detailed in his narrative provoked a sensation of éxtasi and a suspensión de ánimos among witnesses to them. This phrase merits close attention. It was later translated in the 1583 English translation as “a kind of extasie and maze.” The meaning of “éxtasi” in the early modern period was close to the modern “stupor,” a condition that left an individual temporarily disturbed or deranged. This condition could lead—as European texts suggests did happen to some at the moment of the discovery of the new American lands—from wonder to fright. “Suspensión de ánimos” could be rendered as a freezing or capture of one’s spirit or senses.
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Las Casas continues by noting that he had been asked to set down these events in writing in order to warn the king of the abominations that had been committed, and in the hope that the king would act to put a stop to them. One copy of this manuscript account, completed at Valencia in 1542, is known to survive, and was probably made by two Dominicans from that city’s convent. In 1542, it seemed, Las Casas’s voice was heard. The “New Laws of the Indies” were published in Barcelona in November and in Madrid the following year. These laws forbade the enslavement of Indians and freed those already enslaved, “given that those who were slaves in the Indies had been enslaved against all law and justice and against the formal orders and decrees of the Spanish sovereigns.” Although the encomienda was not officially banned, the laws limited its spread: it placed all Indians owned by officers of the king, and by convents, hospitals, and confraternities, under the direct authority of the Crown. It also took all Indians found to have suffered ill treatment at the hands of encomenderos under the Crown’s protection and banned any new assignments of Indians from being transmitted through inheritance to the heirs of an encomendero.7 Ten years later, when he had his eight treatises including the Brevísima relación printed, Las Casas was a deeply disappointed man.8 His attempt, begun in 1537, to forge an evangelical conquest of the Americas by creating a peaceful, Christianized colony, the Vera Paz, out of the embattled Tierra de Guerra of Guatemala, had failed. His appointment as bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, in 1544 had sparked conflicts with colonists and with local authorities, forcing his return to Spain in 1547. The colonists’ revolt against the New Laws had led the king to revoke one of their fundamental provisions in October 1545: the suppression of the encomiendas upon the death of their owners. And Las Casas’s dispute with Juan de Sepúlveda in Valladolid in 1550 had ended inconclusively. Nevertheless, in 1552 Las Casas attempted one more time to convince the king to act to counter the exactions that, he was certain, were ruining the kingdom, depopulating Spanish territories, and risking divine wrath. Evidence of the bishop’s strength of feeling comes in the final pages of the Relacíon, composed in 1546, when Las Casas was in Mexico at a conclave of the bishops of New Spain. These passages address the events of the conquest of Peru, where “are committed actes so horrible and frightfull, as neuer were the like, neither in the Indies, nor in all the worlde besides, not onely agaynst the Indians, the which all or in a maner all are slayne, all those regions being dispeopled: but also betwixt themselues by a iust iudgement of God, who hath permitted
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that they shoulde bee the butchers one of an other of them.”9 In the Relacíon’s “Argument,” too, Las Casas argues that the printed publication of his relation will make easier reading for the prince: “he thought best to put in print, to the ende, his highnesse might with more ease reade the same.”10 To convince the prince to act against those who would “dishonour God, and rob the king”:11 those are the text’s final words. Along with the Brevísima relación (which included the fragment of another relation),12 Las Casas also printed three treatises seeking to justify the “universal principle” or “universal sovereignty” of the kings of Castille and León over the Indies, while nevertheless recognizing the legitimacy of the kings and natural rulers of the Indies. This legitimacy, he suggested, could be forfeited only if these rulers blocked the spread of the Christian faith, or governed their subjects tyrannically, or practiced human sacrifice.13 At the same time, Las Casas did not renounce his project of missionary colonization. In 1552, he was in Seville to recruit and train the twenty-one Dominican friars who would be setting out for Chiapas. In the end, only six departed Seville. They would carry with them copies of the four other printed treatises: the summary of the arguments exchanged during the Valladolid controversy;14 the tratados denouncing the encomienda system and slavery;15 and the texts stipulating the rules for the confession of the encomenderos who were obliged to repent and grant proper restitution and reparations to their victims.16 These eight separately printed treatises are generally found bound together: the binding transforms these brief octavo pamphlets into a book, although this was a book that Las Casas never actually composed in that form.17
Protestant Translations (1578–83) The Brevísima relación took on a second life when three translations were published in a politically charged moment dominated by two crises: the Protestant revolt in the Spanish Netherlands and the conflict between Spain and England. The first translation, into Dutch, was published in 1578, in Antwerp or possibly in Brussels.18 The second, a French version by a Flemish Protestant, Jacques de Miggrode, appeared in 1579 in Antwerp.19 Miggrode claims to have completed his before seeing what he called the version “in the Brabançonne language” or “Flamengue,” referred to the Dutch edition issued the previous year. He also writes that he had consulted both the “Spanish original” and the “Brabançonne copy” when translating excerpts from Las Casas’s
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treatises that he included.20 Miggrode’s translation was, in turn, translated into English in 1583 as The Spanish Colonie.21 The name of the English translator is unknown. The appearance of these Dutch and French translations signaled a profound shift in the text’s meanings for its new readers. In Spain, a reaction against the theses of Las Casas had been under way for at least a decade. Although royal directives and decrees seemed to call for a peaceful path to colonization, they countenanced, de facto, the use of force to overcome any native resistance and ensured the perpetuation of the colonial encomienda regime. In the Low Countries, the seven united Calvinist provinces in the north had formed the Union of Utrecht in January 1579 to defend their religious identity against the tyranny of a foreign sovereign, the king of Spain. The title page of Miggrode’s translation clearly sets out his intentions: the French subtitle claims this account will “serve as an example and a warning to the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries.” The distich below the title reads: Heureux celuy qui devient sage En voyant d’autruy le dommage As translated in The Spanish Colonie, the couplet is: Happie is hee whome other mens harmes doe make to beware.22 A more contemporary translation might read: Happy he who becomes wise By learning from others’ demise By recalling the crimes committed by the Spanish in America, the text warns anyone who might be tempted to ally with them. The destruction of the Indies, which for Las Casas prefigured that of Spain, suggests, in Miggrode’s version, the possible future of the Low Countries: “here ensueth a true history written by one of their owne nation, wherein they may learne not that which is yet fully executed in these low countries, but which (had not god stopped their course) they had long since put in execution.”23 This intent justified the change of title, to the “Tyrannies and Cruelties of the Spaniards.” The text’s credibility is enhanced with the statement that it is a “Spaniard” who, “in the Castilian language,” denounces the atrocities
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committed by his fellow Spaniards. In addition, two strong words substitute for Las Casas’s word “destruction.” “Cruelties” undermine both Christian morality, which calls for love of one’s neighbor, and natural law, which demands the pursuit of the common good. “Tyrannies,” a word frequently used by Las Casas in his Spanish text, designates, in the sixteenth-century political lexicon, the arbitrary and illegitimate seizure of subjects’ goods and bodies by a despotic prince. The conquest of territories in the Indies without regard for the title held by their natural rulers, along with the violence committed upon the Indians, who were massacred indiscriminately or worked to death through forced labor, were frightening examples of these “tyrannies,” violations of divine and natural law. The text of Las Casas, “faithfully translated” and without the liberties sometimes taken by translators, was the severest and most truthful indictment of the nefarious plans of the Spanish nation, more effective even than anti-Spanish polemical pamphlets could be. It could serve as an “example,” like the exempla deployed by preachers in their sermons, and a warning to readers. Once aware of this recent history, they could and should act to avoid its repetition in the Low Countries, here figured as the new Indies. The prefatory “To the Reader” that opens the Miggrode translation is structured by two questions. First: why does God punish not only evildoers but also the good? The phenomenon is made clear with multiple biblical examples—Job, the prophets, Christian martyrs, and even Christ himself— and by historical examples as well—for instance, the Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Why had God allowed the “murder [of] 12, 15, or 20 millions of poore reasonable creatures, created (as our selues) after the image of the liuing God”?24 The text’s first sentence provides the answer: “Gods judgements are so profound as mans wisdom, no not the power of Angels is able to enter into their depth.”25 But—to follow this logic—should not the evildoers who carry out God’s will, which itself must be just, albeit unknowable to mankind, be themselves excused, as mere instruments of that will? To this second question, Miggrode responds: “And yet are not the Spaniardes beeing the executors of this vengeance, more excusable then Pilate for condẽning our sauiour, or Annas or Caiphas for procuring his death notwithstanding gods counsaile and hand wrought those things. For behold gods sentence pronounced against the wicked, whom he useth in chastening the good, whom by those meanes he doth trie, and punisheth the wicked according to their desarts.”26 Having absolute confidence in God’s justice—a central principle of the Reformers’ emphasis on sole fide (salvation by faith alone)—does
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not excuse believers from respecting the Commandments and in particular from loving their neighbors as themselves. For Las Casas, it is the neglect of this obligation that provokes God’s anger and vengeance against Spain. The “Infidels” serve as the instrument of that vengeance. In the treatise entitled “Entre los remedios” portions of which were translated by Miggrode and appended to his translation of the Brevissima relación, Las Casas had warned readers that the kingdome of Spaine is in great danger to be lost, robbed, oppressed and made desolate by forraigne nations, namely by the Turks and Moores, because that God who is the most iust, true, and soueraigne king over all the worlde, is wrath for the great sinnes and offences that the Spaniardes haue committed throughout the Indies, by afflicting, oppressing, tyrannous dealings, robbing and slaying such and so many people without law or equitie, and for the wasting of such and so large lands in so short a space, whose inhabitants had reasonable soules, and were created and framed to the image and likenesse of the soueraigne trinitie, and beeing gods vassals, were bought with his most precious blood, who keepeth account, and forgetteth not one of them.27 Jacques de Miggrode adopts Las Casas’s tone of apocalyptic prophecy, but he rearranges the terms. In his version, the Spaniards become the scourge of a God enraged by the errors of those who had arrogantly believed themselves free from sin. The need to convey this message is, he says, one of the reasons he undertook his translation: “But two reasons haue moued me to publish this preface, which I do dedicate to all the prouinces of the Lowe countreys: The one, to the end, awaking themselves out of their sleep, may begin to thinke upon Gods iudgements: and refraine from their wickednes and vice. The other, that they may also consider with what enemie they are to deale, and so to beholde as it were in a picture or table, what stay they are like to be at, when through their rechlessnesse, quarrels, controversies, and partialities themselves haue opened the way to such an enemie: and what they may looke for.”28 His warning is clearly addressed to those, particularly those Catholics, who had refused to join the revolt of the provinces joined together in the Union of Utrecht. But he makes clear that the Reformers themselves should also heed his words: “So that although the wicked for a time doe triumph, yet doth not God leaue their abhominable cruelties unpunished. But Gods iudgements being in the mean time such, that by the wicked he
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punisheth those that be wicked: notwithstanding their wickednes be somewhat lesse, also the good chastised by the cruell and bloodthirstie: it is certaine that wee are not thereby to iudge that our selves shall haue the victorie over our enemies, because our cause is the better, for we are replenished with vice enough, whereby to leaue unto god sufficient matter to punishe us.”29 The danger is significant, Miggrode argues, due to errors or laxity on the part of the Reformed. Some are indifferent to the public good; others lack the courage to remedy abuses in order to better serve God; while still others pretend to be “reformed, being neuer the lesse reformed but in mouth.”30 Miggrode’s conclusion reimagines the “true history” of Las Casas in his own context. Miggrode links his absolute faith in God’s judgment, which up to then had prevented the destruction of the Low Countries, with the need for reform and unity among the inhabitants of the provinces. Miggrode writes, “hereby I hope al good men will learne to be resolute, and amending their lives will ioyne couragiously, not in words only, but in deedes also, to repell so arrogant and intollerable an enemie.”31 Miggrode’s translation also appends other writings by Las Casas to the Brevísima relación, forming a “Lascasian” corpus that would be frequently followed in subsequent translations. The first of these additions is the text here entitled “The Missive,” a translation from the Spanish original called “Lo que sigue es un pedazo de una carta y relación que escribió cierto hombre de los mismos que andaban en estas estaciones.” Following this are three extracts from other Las Casas treatises originally issued in the 1552 edition. The first, as we have seen above, consists of ten of the twenty reasons in the “Eighth Remedy.” Miggrode carefully avoided including the first and ninth reasons, both of which allude to the papal bull of 1493 granting the king of Castile and Léon sovereignty over the West Indies along with the responsibility to evangelize its inhabitants. The second extract is a prologue addressed to “Don Philip our goode Lorde” from the Tratado comprobatorio. The third is drawn from the Valladolid controversy and entitled “The summe of the disputation between Fryer Bartlemewe de las Casas or Casaus, and Doctor Sepulueda.”32 This same content is contained in the English translation of Jacques de Miggrode’s translation, printed in London in 1583. The unnamed and still unknown English translator—we have only the initials “M.M.S.” on the title page—cites the French title in his preface “To the Reader”: “Spanish cruelties and tyrannies, perpetrated in the West Indies, commonly termed The newe found worlde,” along with the phrase proclaiming that the account would “serve as a President and warning to the XII [sic] Prouinces of the lowe Countries.”
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Like the French text, this English translation underscores the “Spanishness” of Las Casas, which serves to bolster the truth of his claims condemning the “Spanish colonie”: “Briefly described in the Castilian language, by the Bishop Fryer Bartolomew de las Casas or Casaus, a Spaniarde of the order of Saint Dominick, faithfully translated by James Aliggrodo” (an odd version of the name Miggrode). The body of the account is printed in “black letter” or Gothic typeface, a typographical choice that anglicizes the text, whereas the preliminaries—“To the Reader”; a translation of Miggrode’s version, “The Argument of this present Summarie”; and “The Prologue of the Bishop Frier Bartholomewe de las Casas or Casaus, to the most high and mighty prince, Our Lord Don Philip Prince of Spaine”—along with the concluding extracts of the three treatises of Las Casas are all printed in roman typeface.33 We must also locate the publication of The Spanish Colonie among a group of books and pamphlets produced in the early 1580s, all of which focused English readers’ attention on events in the Low Countries and, more generally, on the threat represented by the Spanish enemy. In 1582, William Broome, the bookseller who would publish the Las Casas translation the following year, printed a translation of a French pamphlet first published in Antwerp that condemned an assassination attempt on the life of Prince William of Orange.34 In 1583, a powerful account by Thomas Stocker on the violence in the Low Countries used nearly the same language on its title page as the translation of the Brevísima relación: it denounces “the barbarous crueltie and tyrannie of the Spaniard” and its allies, the “treacherous hispaniolized Wallons.”35 Five years before the defeat of the “Invincible Armada” in 1588, these publications of litanies of cruelties perpetrated by the Spanish in the Low Countries and in the New World sought to convince readers that the Spanish were prepared to commit similar crimes against any peoples and nations who rebelled against or resisted their authority.
Frankfurt, 1598: The Power of Images In 1598, the first Latin translation of Las Casas’s text was published in Frankfurt by Theodor de Bry.36 This edition was illustrated by a series of seventeen engravings, which give the Brevísima relación its third life. The images depict the most horrifying of the torments described in the book. The Indians of De Bry—tormented, mutilated, killed—are modern martyr figures. The massacres of Indians recall the Massacre of the Innocents; the tortures they endure
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recall those of the saints; and their sufferings recall those of the flagellated, humiliated, and crucified Christ. The engravings use three iconographic repertoires for exposing Spanish barbarity: the tradition of martyrdom, the metaphor of hell, and the representation of hunting.37 These seventeen engravings were issued in the context of a war of images between Protestants and Catholics, amid the tumult of the Wars of Religion. They themselves respond to another powerful group of twenty-nine engravings, published in 1587 in Antwerp, a bastion of Catholicism, by Richard Verstegan and entitled Théâtre des cruautés des héretiques de notre temps (The theater of cruelties committed by the heretics of our time).38 The images were accompanied by a Latin text in the first edition and by a French translation the following year. Produced by Verstegan, an English Catholic in exile, and published at a moment between the beheading of Marie Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots) and the launch of the Spanish “Invincible Armada” for the invasion of England, these images portray violent acts committed by Protestants in England, the Low Countries, and France. They are an implicit appeal for vengeance against a cruel, barbarous enemy. The conflicts of the Wars of Religion were of course political as well as religious, and the graphic display of violence committed by the enemy, the religious “other,” took on an important place in the polemics. Such visual representation may have presented little problem for Catholics, but it was more troubling for Protestants, who were often reluctant to deploy images in this way. This reticence explains the displacement performed by Miggrode and by De Bry, who substitute American Indians for Protestants and describe violent acts located in America in order, first, to show Europeans the horrific cruelties inflicted upon the Indies by Spanish Catholics and, second, to warn against equally horrific acts threatening Reformed peoples and nations. Based upon a set of watercolors in a manuscript of Jacques de Miggrode’s translation, which were likely prepared for a 1582 Parisian reprint of Miggrode’s book that was issued without illustrations,39 the seventeen De Bry engravings circulated in Germany and the Low Countries in two parallel ways: as a separate set of images and as a group included within the German and Dutch translations of the Brevísima relación. A German translation had first been printed in 1597, a year before the Latin edition, likely by De Bry but without illustrations. This translation, entitled Newe Welt, contains a lengthy title page text that is essentially that of the 1579 Miggrode version.40 It refers to Spanish “tyrannies”; it stresses the author’s Spanish identity (he is “gebornen Hispaniern”) and that of the work (“written in Castilian and
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published in Seville”); and it includes the translator’s name and cites the text’s purpose of serving both as a warning and as a mirror. In 1599, the engravings present in the Latin translation were issued separately, as a series of quires in quarto, single sided, with four images. Each page contained one engraving along with a brief text in German citing the passage illustrated by the image (Figure 2).41 In the same year, the German edition printed two years earlier was republished by De Bry: some copies contain the seventeen engravings and texts at the end of the book, with their own title page and separate signatures.42 The engravings were also included in numerous later Dutch editions published at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Cornelis Claesz in 1609 and 161043 and by Lodewijcks van der Plasse in 1620 (with new editions in 1621, 1623, and 1624).44 In 1620, Jan Everts Cloppenburg made the parallel evoked by the De Bry engravings explicit, by joining together in a single volume two “mirrors”: the mirror of Spanish tyranny in the West Indies, in his own reedition of Las Casas, and the mirror of cruelties committed by the Duke of Alba in the Low Countries.45 The book opens with an address to the reader, written in awkward, unaccented French, that explains the objective: My subject will be war, and the Tyrannies perpetrated upon the Low Countries by the Spanish in a short few years, under the pretext of changing their Religion: over the course of one hundred years they did the same in the Indies, as you will see hereafter, claiming that the inhabitants were Pagans, idolaters, devil-worshippers, and deceitful people who lacked reason. They did all of these same things in our own lands, the United Provinces; claiming, in order to argue that they were conducting a just war, that the inhabitants are heretics, Lutherans, disobedient subjects of their King of Spain; and thereby hoping to destroy the Concordat that linked them together.46 The illustrations in these two “Mirrors,” each of which is accompanied by eight lines of verse, set up systematic parallels between the violence committed by the Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic. The seventeen engravings by De Bry are preceded by twenty others that show, in an unfolding dramatic sequence, the executions of Dutch nobility followed by the massacres committed by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Parma in cities of the Low Countries: Rotterdam, Malines, Zutphen, Narde, Haarlem, Antwerp, Maastricht. The lesson is clear: even if Spain and the United Provinces had not been at
Figure 2. This De Bry engraving, here in the 1599 separate issue, depicts the Indians as modern martyrs being hunted, tortured, and mutilated by the Spanish. The German caption summarizes material in the section on the Kingdom of Guatemala, in which Las Casas describes the Spaniards’ “butcher’s shop” displaying the body parts of massacred Indians. Las Casas, Kurtze Erklärung der fürnembsten Thaten so durch die Spanier beschehen in etlichen Orten der neuwen Welt . . . ([Frankfurt: n.p., 1599]), plate 10 (leaf C3r). Robert Dechert Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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war since 1609, when a twelve-year truce was signed, the threat remains ever present, and the reader must be vigilant: “I beg you, reader, to read and reread this, so that you may flee Tyranny and take up arms against any Tyrants who would impose tyranny everywhere.”47 Circulating in different forms, the seventeen De Bry engravings thus played a crucial role in the construction of what Julián Juderías, early in the twentieth century, labeled the leyenda negra, the Black Legend that stigmatized Spain (even if Juderías himself denied there was any reality to the “legend” that he named).48 At the same time, the significance of these engravings should not entirely overshadow others, engraved shortly before these for the three-volume Latin and German editions of Girolamo Benzoni’s Historia del mondo nuovo (History of the New World), published by De Bry in Frankfurt between 1594 and 1597.49 Benzoni’s Historia had been first published in Italian in Venice in 1565, reprinted in 1572, translated into Latin in 1578 and into French in 1579 by the Genevan pastor Urbain Chauveton, and also translated into German in 1579. It was Benzoni’s text, as much as or perhaps even more than the work of Las Casas, that most fueled anti-Spanish sentiment in the early modern period.50
Venice, 1626, and Barcelona, 1646: Political Appropriations The fourth life of the treatise of Las Casas was a Mediterranean and a politicized one. Three Venetian editions were published: the first in 1626, and subsequent editions in 1630 and 1643.51 All three editions have the same translator, Giacomo Castellani, who gave up the pseudonym “Francesco Bersabita” and revealed his identity on the title page of the 1630 edition. All were printed by Marco Ginammi. They share the same page layout: in two columns, with the Spanish text on the right side of the page, printed in Roman characters, and the Italian translation on the left, printed in italics. The content of all three editions is also identical and consists exclusively of the translation of the Brevísima relación, without the selections from other Las Casas works which had been included in previous translations. The preface, “Dell’utilita di questa Istoria,” presents the purpose of this edition. Its first intention is to describe “the most tragic, most horrible of Histories that has ever been seen in this World. It will profoundly move anyone who does not have a heart harder than stone.”52 But there is also another, more political, motive for the publication of this translation: “The Pontiffs will see how, on the pretext of
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the concessions granted by their predecessors to the King of Spain, in order to convert the Indians to the faith of Christ, and to fill the vacant seats in the sky, they sent thousands upon thousands into the maw of Hell.”53 The publication of this translation of the Brevísima relación served as a polemical weapon for the Republic of Venice. Two other books of Las Casas, also printed by Marco Ginammi, are closely linked to it: Il Supplice schiavo indiano, a translation of Las Casas’s Sobre la materia de los indios que se han hecho esclavos, which was published in 1636, 1640, and 1657; and the Conquista dell’Indie Occidentali, printed in 1644 and 1645, a translation of the summary of the Sepúlveda controversy. This Lascasian corpus could be as effectively deployed against the papacy, with which Venice had been in conflict since the Venetian Interdict of 1606, as against Spain, as represented by the diplomatic and military tensions between the republic and the viceroy of Naples in 1617 and again in 1622. It is not surprising, given these connections, that some readers had these three treatises printed by Ginammi bound into a single volume.54 The sole seventeenth–century Spanish edition shows us another, different example of the political appropriation of the Brevísima relación. Printed in Barcelona in 1646 by Antonio Lacavalleria, this version unites, under the title Las Obras del Obispo D. Fray Bartolome Las Casas, o Casaus, five of the 1552 treatises. In addition to the Brevísima relación de la destruycion de las Indias, also included are: the Treinta proposiciones; the Disputa entre el dicho Obispo, y el doctor Gines de Sepulveda; the Tratado sobre la materia de los Indios que se han hecho esclavos; and the Remedios por la reformación de los Indios of 1542 (this text is that of the Eighth Remedy). The text’s “Approbation et Licencia” (“Approval and License” to publish) were given by a Dominican friar after the master of the Dominican Order had ordered its examination.55 Slight modifications in the titles of three of the treatises give us an indication of the purpose of this new edition. The words “por los Castellanos” (“by the Castilians”) are added to the end of the title of the Brevísima relación—thus, the destruction of the Indies was carried out “by the Castilians.” Similarly, the fourth treatise refers to the Indians forced into slavery “by the Castilians.” In the title of the Thirty Propositions, the claim of sovereignty over the West Indies is said to have been granted to “los Reyes de Castilla” (“the Kings of Castile”) without reference to the province of León. The term castellano is here not a synonym for “Spaniard,” as it had been, for instance, in 1611 in the title of Covarrubias’s Tesoro (de la lengua castellana, o española). Instead, it stigmatized the Castilians as solely guilty of the crimes committed in America, exempting the other peoples of Spain.
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The Catalans here co-opt Las Casas for their war against Philip IV and the Count-Duke of Olivares. This war began with the revolt of the “Segadors” in June 1640 and led Pau Claris and the Junta of Braços to proclaim, in January 1641, the Catalan Republic and to place it under the protection of Louis XIII of France, whom the Catalans named a count of Barcelona. The war consisted mainly of sieges between the Catalan insurgents, their French allies, and the armies of the Castilian king. This 1646 publication of five Las Casas treatises is part of this context of war, and it unites Catalans and Indians as previous or as potential victims of Castilian tyranny.
London, 1656: Biblical Tears In 1656 a new translation of the Brevísima relación was published in London.56 It was the work of John Phillips, a nephew of Milton. The text was newly retitled as The Tears of the Indians, a title perhaps inspired by a 1642 pamphlet, The Teares of Ireland, which was a denunciation of massacres committed by the “Popish Faction” upon Irish Protestants.57 This small book (in octavo format) was illustrated with an added engraving made up of four images that are free and rather poor imitations of four of the De Bry engravings. The images are presented under the title “Teares of ye Indians or inquisition for Bloud. Being a Relation of ye Spanish Massacres in those parts” (Figure 3). In the translation by Phillips, the “tears of the Indians” are biblical tears, based upon a passage from the ninth chapter of the book of Jeremiah. In an opening address “To all true English-men,” Phillips writes, “Never had we so just cause to exclaim in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah; O that our heads were waters, and our eyes fountains of tears, that we might weep for the Effusion of so much Innocent Blood.”58 The text presents itself, on its title page, as a “Historical and true Account of the Cruel Massacres and Slaughters of above Twenty Millions of innocent People; Committed by the Spaniards.” It reminds readers that the account was written by a Spanish “Eye-witness” to the cruelties, a claim that helps guarantee the reality of the crimes that are recounted—even if, in this version, Las Casas is no longer described either as a bishop or as a Dominican. The listing of the sites of the massacres—Santo Domingo, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru—follows the order presented by Las Casas in his treatise, and the number of victims, “more than Twenty Million[s],” is the same figure Las Casas had declared in his debates with Sepúlveda.
Figure 3. Foldout engraving in The Tears of the Indians (London: J. C. for Nath. Brook, 1656), showing four De Bry images reduced, simplified, and engraved on a single plate. Robert Dechert Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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The Tears of the Indians has three goals. The first is to praise “His Highness, Oliver Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, & Ireland, With the Dominions thereto belonging,” to whom the book is dedicated. Cromwell, here, is a new David or a new Joshua, crushing idolatry in the world. By presenting Spanish cruelties, this publication will ensure that “all good men may see and applaud the Justness of Your Proceedings: Being confident that God, who hath put this Great Designe into Your Hands, will also be pleased to give it a signal Blessing.”59 A second goal is to advocate for unity among those who are God’s chosen instruments, a point made explicitly in the address “To all true English-men.” They must not tear themselves apart in civil wars but instead fight together against the formidable enemy: “Consider this, moreover, That you are not now to fight against your Country-men, but against your Old and Constant Enemies, the spaniards, a Proud, Deceitful, Cruel, and Treacherous Nation, whose chiefest Aim hath been the Conquest of this Land, and to enslave the People of this Nation.”60 In addition, Phillips asserts an English right to the West Indies. Had they not, he argues, been discovered by Sebastian Cabot, one of Henry VII’s captains? But the “Poor Spirit” of English kings had caused them to neglect this initial advantage, and this neglect has also made them responsible for the blood shed there. To conquer these “Golden Regions” would be the surest means of weakening an already-weakened Spanish Empire, an empire surviving on blood and on tyranny: “Should we chase him from his Indian Treasures, he would soon retire to his Shell, like a Snail tapt upon the horns.”61 This version of Las Casas presents the Spanish, who claim to be Christians, as barbarians worse even than Scythians or Turks. They persecute the Indians as the Roman emperors had persecuted the first Christians. These peoples’ innocent souls demand a “Redeemer”: “Yet me-thinks I hear a sudden stillness among them; the cry of Blood ceasing at the noise of Your great transactions, while You arm for their Revenge.”62 In John Phillips’s reading of Las Casas, the political interests of England and the God-given mission of Lord Protector Cromwell and his people are one and the same.
Paris, Amsterdam, London, 1697–98: A Travel Narrative At the very end of the seventeenth century, a group of three editions gave yet another life to the text of Las Casas, its sixth—and a surprising new significance. The first of these editions appeared in Paris in 1697, and on its title page
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“destruction,” “cruelties,” and “tears” have entirely vanished. Morvan de Bellegarde, the translator, and André Pralard, the publisher, entitled their version La Découverte des Indes Occidentales, “The Discovery of the West Indies.”63 The frontispiece shows a formal, civil meeting between Hernán Cortés and Emperor Moctezuma, with the pair exchanging gifts in a pastoral landscape. The book’s running titles, printed above each page, read “Voyages des Espagnols dans les Indes,” “Spanish Voyages to the Indies.” Las Casas’s text has been reimagined as a voyage tale, part of the genre of travel narratives describing the riches of the New World, as the dedicatory epistle makes clear: “You will read here a description of the most beautiful, richest, most fertile and happiest country in the world, where God has assembled all things necessary for preserving life’s pleasures, where there are quantities of gold, silver, pearls, emeralds, and an infinite number of other precious treasures, whose inhabitants scarcely labor and live at ease; and you will see how Europeans came for all of this, braving many perils.”64 The work is dedicated to the Count of Toulouse, one of the legitimized “royal bastard” sons of Louis XIV, then eighteen years of age. Perhaps the description of the wonders of the New World would inspire in the young prince a desire to observe them for himself and to lead the king’s navy there. The writer of the “Avertissement” or preface to the reader, though, grapples with one important difficulty. This voyage narrative is also a tale of cruelties: “All of the cruelties committed by the Spaniards in the New World could scarcely be believed, if they had not been reported by the Spaniards themselves, by several faithful eyewitnesses, and, among others, by the most reverend Dom Barthelemy de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapas, who often pleaded before the Royal Council of the Indies for a halt to the Spanish persecutions that were destroying the Indies and which were hindering the preaching of the Gospel in the New World.”65 For its new form, therefore, the text requires some modifications: “We have in some places softened things that may seem too cruel and that might have offended genteel persons.”66 Despite this curious move, the work is nevertheless faithful to the Lascasian corpus: it adds to the translation of the Brevísima relación excerpts from the Eighth Remedy, from the Thirty Propositions, and from the debate with Sepúlveda.67 The next year, 1698, a pirated version of the Parisian edition was printed in Amsterdam. This edition is an exact reprint of the French, with the nearly identical title, dedication, advertisment, and frontispiece: Relation des Voyages et des Découvertes que les Espagnols ont fait dans les Indes Occidentales [Relation of the Voyages and Discoveries made by the Spanish in the West
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Indies].68 The Dutch bookseller-publisher Jean Louis de Lorme does, though, add a preface to readers who, we can surmise, would have been surprised by the publication of this text in France, only twelve years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had ended all toleration for Protestants in French territory. Here, he acknowledges that “it may appear unusual that a book condemning religious violence so stridently was printed with official license in France, where persecution has occurred for so long.”69 Alluding to Sepúlveda’s arguments in his debates with Las Casas, the preface continues: “We see here a Spanish Doctor, filled with a persecuting zeal and won over by the persecutors of the Indians, using nearly the same arguments against them as we have seen lately used against Protestants in France. . . . But we shall see, on the other hand, Dom B. de Las Casas Bishop of Chiapas presenting the same arguments in favor of the Indians that Protestants have presented and are still presenting today, in opposition to this persecuting spirit.”70 Despite this reminder of the original reasons for the book’s publication and of the related writings of Las Casas, this version is presented as an amusing travel narrative: “The known countries of America are here so well described that we have no doubt it will be read with pleasure.”71 Further reinforcing the placement of the text into the voyage narrative genre is another “récit de voyage” or voyage tale that is included with it. The editor writes, “We have also added to this account that of the voyage of Montauban, both because it relates to the countries of America, and because this Pirate Captain has been a figure in the public news, and many of good taste have asked for the speedy publication of this Relation.”72 The two narratives, of Las Casas and of Montauban, are printed with continuous pagination and signatures. They form one book, intended for collectors of voyage tales. The Montauban account does include a separate title page and a dedicatory epistle signed “B**,” which concludes with this assertion of the tale’s veracity: “Finally if you have doubts about the truth of the combat in which the Lord Montauban was drowned, you have only to recall having read it in the Gazette from September or October of this very year.”73 A third text is also bound in some, but not all, copies of this edition: L’Art de voyager utilement. This brief text was first published in Paris in 1695 as the last part of Jean-Baptiste Chèvremont’s La connaissance du monde.74 Here, the printer Lorme’s “avertissement” informs readers that the piece had recently come to him from Paris and that he would have included it as an intregral part of the Las Casas edition if he had access to it sooner, but that he has printed it at the same size as the Las Casas-Montauban edition, so that readers may have them bound together.75
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In 1699, a London edition was published containing, in one volume, the 1697 French translation (including the excerpts of the three Las Casas tracts that had been added to the Brevísima relación) and L’Art de voyager utilement, translated as The Art of Travelling to Advantage, making evident the ambiguous new status of the Las Casas text.76 On the title page of each of the two issues of this edition, the number of victims of Spanish cruelty is twice that reported in the John Phillips edition of 1656—from twenty million to forty million. The text is also accompanied by a series of engravings, drastically simplified versions of the De Bry plates, that associate a single image not only with one page of the text but with all the different passages of the book narrating the same barbarous acts (Figure 4). Even if it is presented as travelogue, Las Casas’s text remains fundamentally a denunciation of Spanish cruelties. The intent of this edition, as announced in the preface, is, first, to minimize the Catholic dimension of the Las Casas text: “What the Bishop says here and there in favor of his own Religion, is so weak, and has been so often exploded here and every where else where the Reformation has obtain’d, that ’twould be unnecessary to confute any of those Popish Fancies in this Preface.”77 The Las Casas treatise is much more than a manifestation of this “Popery,” stigmatized in a prior English edition of his text entitled Popery Truly Display’d in its Bloody Colours.78 Instead, here the bishop of Chiapas becomes a precursor embodying principles that created the “Glorious Revolution”: “It may well surprize the Reader to hear a Spanish Prelat declaim so loudly against Persecution, and plead so freely for Liberty of Conscience in a Country subjugated to the Inquisition . . . to hear him assert the Natural Right of all Mankind to Liberty and Property, and inveigh against all Usurpation and Tyranny in the smartest Termes.”79 Of course, Las Casas had been wrong to recognize the pope’s power and authority, but, nevertheless, “This Bishop writes with such an Air of Honesty, Sincerity, and Charity, as would very well have become one of a better Religion than that in which he had the unhappiness to be educated.”80 His writings “may serve to convince one how great an advantage or disadvantage a Man has as he pleads the Cause of Truth or Error; and of the great difference there is between the genuin Language of Reason and good Sense, and the servil Prejudices of Bigotry and Superstition.”81 Liberty of conscience, the natural right of property, the language of reason: the ideas of Las Casas are, therefore, not at all “Popish Fancies.” It would seem that he should have been a Protestant rather than a Catholic. And, without knowing it, he was more English than Spanish: “the above-mentioned Principles of the
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Figure 4. The first of two foldout engravings in A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries Made by the Spaniards in America (London: Daniel Brown and Andrew Bell, 1699). These greatly reduced adaptations of the De Bry engravings are linked to one or several pages in the text. Robert Dechert Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
Bishop of Chiapa concerning Property and Liberty both Civil and Religious, are more agreeable to the Genius and Constitution of this Island, than to the present temper of that part of the Continent which lies nearest to it.”82
American Liberty, 1810–20 The final metamorphosis, and the seventh life of the Brevísima relación (at least that I shall trace in this essay), emerges in the multiple reeditions of the Spanish text that were produced during the Wars of Independence between
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the colonies and the metropole, during the decades of the 1810s and 1820s. The original text of Las Casas had, I have noted, never been reprinted in Spanish since 1552, with the sole exception of the Barcelona edition of 1646 discussed above. Now it came to serve the cause of American liberty. The geography of the printing of these editions is new, with Spanish editions printed in London and in Philadelphia and with a series of editions issued in the Spanish colonies as they moved toward independence. The title page of the 1821 Philadelphia edition notes editions previously printed in Seville (in 1522) and London (in 1812). Las Casas’s text was also reprinted in Bogota (in 1813), Puebla (in 1821), and Guadalajara and Mexico City in 1822. 83 In the Philadelphia and Guadalajara editions, Doctor Don Servando Teresa Mier, author of an 1813 Historia de la Revolución de Nueva España, transforms Las Casas into a saint and a prophet of these American revolutions. In his “Preliminary Discourse” to Breve relación, he addresses the peoples of America: “Americans! We have no statue of this saint on our territory. If you are free peoples, as I do not doubt, the very first statue that you erect must be that of the first and oldest defender of American liberty. Around this statue you may make alliances and sing the praises of liberty; no incense would be more appropriate for this saint. I shall have these words inscribed upon it: Halt here, lovers of virtue! This is its face. Venerate Las Casas, the father of our Indians.”84 Since it would be impossible to restore the rights of the first inhabitants, destroyed as they were by the tyranny Las Casas had denounced, the criollos (Creoles), born in America, become the new Indians, themselves threatened as were the Indians by the “war to the death” declared upon them by metropolitan Spain. The wars pursued by Spanish generals and Spanish armies “repeat over and over the tragic scenes of the Conquest.”85 Ironically, Las Casas’s treatise, which denounced the cruelties of conquistadors and of encomenderos, is brandished here by their descendants as a weapon in their battle for independence. They will vanquish their enemies because the course of history will prove the prophetic Dominican right: “It is possible that the prediction of Las Casas of the end of the Spanish empire in the Indies has come true.”86 The publication of a two-volume Œuvres of Las Casas in Paris in 1822 is the final stage in our journey. This edition was edited by Juan Antonio Llorente, who was also the author of a four-volume Critical History of the Spanish Inquisition, published in French in 1817–18 and translated into Spanish in 1822 and into English in 1826.87 The 1822 Œuvres includes a “Life of Don Barthémy de las Casas”; edited versions of five of the treatises, including
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the Brevísima relación and previously unpublished manuscripts held in the Royal Library; and letters and writings relating to Las Casas’s controversial position on the importation of African slaves into the Indies.88 In his preface, Llorente takes up the line of argument asserting that, in the Americas, the rights of current inhabitants—those who are part of “the body of the nation” (“en corps de nation”)—had superseded the rights of the first inhabitants: “The circumstances are such that a moral return to the ancient order cannot take place, even if one would wish for the fullest recompense to the suffering parties for the wrongs done to them.”89 It would, therefore, be impossible “to restore things to the condition they were before the ‘usurpation.’ ”90 Because of this fact, “it is today of no consequence that those whom Las Casas labeled tyrants are Europeans, since their descendants have now the rights that Don Bartelemy had argued once belonged to the indigenous peoples.”91 Llorente thus resolves in this manner the difficulty of adopting Las Casas in support of the cause of “American liberty,” not for the Indians whose dispossession of lands and rights he had chronicled, but for the descendants of those who had martyred them. A second problem for Llorente to resolve concerned the accusation against Las Casas of having helped establish the African slave trade in the New World.92 This claim was founded on the Memorial de remedios para las Indias, prepared by Las Casas in 1516 to argue for reforms in the government of the Indies (then consisting only of the Caribbean islands). In the Memorial, Las Casas alludes to the possibility of having twenty black slaves work in the fields and in the mines, as part of each community of peasant colonists and Indians that would be created to replace the encomiendas.93 Las Casas later admitted his error and affirmed that neither his own ignorance nor his good intentions would be sufficient excuses when he was faced with God’s judgment. However, his written repentance was contained only in his monumental Historia de las Indias, a work that remained in manuscript until 1875.94 It was thus unknown to Enlightenment writers, including Cornelius de Pauw and William Robertson, who assigned blame for the origin of the slave trade between Africa and the Americas to Las Casas. Llorente sought to exonerate the Dominican by citing in his favor the Abbé Grégoire’s “Apologie de Barthélémy de Las Casas” (an address Grégoire presented on May 12, 1800 at the Institut National), but without blaming the chronicler Antonio de Herrera for originating the false accusation.95 Grégoire’s address was reprinted by Llorente in his Œuvres de Barthélémy de Las Casas.96
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Llorente’s edition is a strident plea in favor of the criollos, an attempt to rehabiliate Las Casas’s reputation, and a learned work of Lascasian studies. In this edition we may perceive the beginning of a new, different age of interpretation of the Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias, a little book so often adopted, as we have seen, to serve diverse political causes.
CHAPTER 2
Staging Fuente Ovejuna
Two perspectives shape my analysis of a comedia by Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna. First, I wish to stress the capacities of dramatic genres to capture discourses, cultural practices, and realities of the social world or of the past. The play on which I focus powerfully “dramatizes” a past event: the 1476 revolt of the inhabitants of the village of Fuente Ovejuna in Andalusia against their feudal lord, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, grand commander of the military Order of Calatrava. This event was first narrated by the chronicler Francisco de Rades y Andrada in his Chronica de las tres Ordenes y Cavallerias de Santiago, Calatrava y Alcantara, published in 1572. My second perspective centers on the issues raised by this capacity of theater to appropriate historical realities, when the event depicted on stage is a popular revolt that undermines the social order—like that of Jack Cade and the artisans of Kent in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, or like the rebellion of the villagers of Fuente Ovejuna. The sharply differing interpretations of Lope’s “comedia,” which was likely written in late 1612 and was first printed in Madrid in 1619, in the twelfth part (Dozena Parte) of his comedias, reveal the tension or ambivalence inscribed within this representation of revolt. Fuente Ovejuna has been read or performed, on the one hand, as a thoroughgoing justification of rebellion against a tyrannical master: that is the reading of Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, who argues that “there is no more democratic a work in Castilian theater.”1 On the other hand, the episode has been interpreted as a celebration of the power of Catholic monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. As we will see, in his “dramatic translation” of his source, the Chronica written by Rades y Andrada, Lope de Vega attempts to connect the village inhabitants’ justifiable defense
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of their honor with a monarchical ideology that rejects any rebellion against legitimate authority.
The Event: From Chronicle to Proverb The principal source used, and transformed, by Lope de Vega is the Chronica published in Toledo in 1572 by the “Licenciado Frey Francisco de Rades y Andrada,” one of the king’s chaplains and a member of the military Order of Calatrava.2 The chronicle narrates the history of the three military orders founded in the twelfth century to advance the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula and to provide support for the Crusades. Rades y Andrada devotes chapter 38 of the section of his chronicle devoted to the Order of Calatrava to the years when Don Rodrigo Téllez Girón was the master and Fernán Gómez de Guzmán the grand commander of the order, serving under him. It was during Téllez Girón’s tenure as master, which began in 1466, when he was only eight years of age, that “El hecho de Fuenteovejuna” (the “event of Fuenteovejuna”) took place.3 The printed chronicle includes six printed marginal rubrics that mark key sections of the account. The first reads “The fury of the angered people” and designates this episode:4 The affairs of this Order being in the state already described, don Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, the Commander of Calatrava, who resided in Fuente Ovejuna, a town that formed part of his concession, inflicted so many and such great wrongs upon its inhabitants, that being no longer able to endure or excuse them, they all decided with one consent and will to rise up against him and kill him. With determination and the fury of an angered township, raising the cry “Fuente Ovejuna,” the Magistrates, Aldermen, Justices and Councillors, together with its other inhabitants, assembled one night in the month of April 1476, took up arms and entered by force the property of the concession, in which the said Commander was residing. All kept clamouring “Fuente Ovejuna, Fuente Ovejuna,” and crying “Long live the King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, and let the traitors and false Christians die.”5 The narration continues with an account of the massacre of fourteen men who were the commander’s attendants. Following this, and accompanied
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by the dramatic marginal rubric “Cruel Death Suffered by the Grand Commander,” is a long passage detailing the commander’s ordeal: In this way, with accursed and rabid fury, they reached the Commander and laid hands on him; and they inflicted on him so many wounds, that they made him fall senseless to the ground. Before he surrendered his soul to God, they seized his body with a great delighted shriek, crying ‘Long live the King and Queen, and let traitors die’: and they flung him through a window into the street, and others who were there with lances and swords, raised their points upward, to receive his body, which was still alive. After he had fallen to the ground, they tore his beard and hair with great cruelty, and others broke his teeth with the pommels of their swords. To all this they added foul and indecent words, and great insults against the Grand Commander and against his father and mother.6 Next to enter are the “Women of Fuenteovejuna,” who play their own part in the narration: At this point, before he finally expired, the women of the town approached, with tambourines and rattles, to rejoice in the death of their lord: and for this purpose they had made a banner and appointed a captain and ensign. The young too, in imitation of their mothers, elected officers, and forming up in such order as their age allowed, went to celebrate that death, so great was the enmity all harbored against the Grand Commander. When the men, women and children were gathered, they bore the body with great rejoicing to the square: and there all, both men and women, hacked it to pieces, dragging it about, and inflicting great cruelties and indignities upon it: and they refused to give it to his servants for burial. In addition to this they sacked his house and stole from it all his property.7 An investigative magistrate was sent to Fuente Ovejuna by the Spanish sovereigns to punish those responsible for the death of the commander. The magistrate summoned many of those present in order to uncover the crime’s instigators. Their collective answer seems to have astonished even the chronicler. Under the marginal heading, “The remarkable response of the inhabitants of Fuenteovejuna,” we read: “The Judge kept asking them: ‘Who killed
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the Grand Commander?’ They kept answering: ‘Fuente Ovejuna’. He kept asking them: ‘Who is Fuente Ovejuna?’ They kept answering: ‘All the inhabitants of this town’. To the last all their answers were in this same vein, because they had conspired together, that even though he should torture them to death they were not to give any other answer. And what is most to be wondered at is that the Judge had many women and lads of tender age put to the torture, and they showed the same constancy and spirit as the strongest men.”8 The sovereigns then ordered the judge to halt his inquiry. According to the chronicle, the reasons for this included not only the refusals of the inhabitants of Fuente Ovejuna to respond to questions, but also the actions of the commander himself, “The wrongs and offences of the Grand Commander for which he was killed”: “That knight had ill-treated his vassals, maintaining many soldiers in the town in order to support in it the cause of the King of Portugal, who was claiming to be King of Castile: and he allowed those insolent troops to commit great wrongs and offences against the people of Fuente Ovejuna, as well as consuming their property. Besides this, the Grand Commander himself had inflicted great wrongs and dishonour on the inhabitants of the town, taking their daughters and wives by force, and robbing them of their property.”9 The chronicler Rades y Andrada suggests here—incorrectly, according to other sources10—that the grand commander had sided with Afonso V, the king of Portugal, who fought against Isabella of Castile and her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, in the war of succession that followed the death of Henry IV of Castile in 1474. Isabella was Henry’s sister, and Afonso of Portugal had married Juana, Henry’s daughter, nicknamed “la Beltraneja” because of the suspicion that her real father was Henry’s favorite Beltrán de la Cueva. Immediately before his narrative of the “event of Fuenteovejuna,” the chronicler notes that the young grand master of the Order of Calatrava, Rodrigo Telléz Girón, had also aligned himself with the king of Portugal and had captured the city of Ciudad Real in 1474, massacring and decapitating many of his adversaries in the act. The city was retaken the following year by the Count of Cabra and Don Rodrigo Manrique. However, the year after the defeat of Afonso V at the Battle of Toro on March 1, 1476, the grand master changed his allegiance, pledging support to Ferdinand and Isabella. Three years later, in 1479, the king of Portugal renounced his claim to the throne of Castile. Rades y Andrada concludes this portion of the chronicle with an account of Fuente Ovejuna’s rebellion against the Order of Calatrava, under the rubric “Fuente Ovejuna rises up against the Order.” He relates how the townspeople
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refused to accord judicial authority to those named by the order: “Then they had recourse and entrusted themselves to the city of Córdoba, saying that they wanted to be subject to its jurisdiction, as they had been before the town came into the power of don Pedro Girón.”11 The municipal authorities of Córdoba accepted this request. Upon its reentry into the legal jurisdiction of the city of Córdoba, Fuente Ovejuna, previously labeled a “villa” or town, became an “aldea,” or a village dependent of the city.12 The villagers’ response rapidly took on legendary status. Spanish histories like that of Juan de Mariana, published in Latin in 1592 and then translated by Mariana into Castilian in 1601, took note of it.13 Mariana follows the version in Rades y Andrada’s chronicle, although he omits mention of the offenses committed upon the village’s women and girls: “At Fuenteovejuna, one night in April, the People took arms to kill Fernan Perez de Guzman, chief commendatory of Calatrava, which he had well deserved for the Insolencies committed in that Town. Such was the resolution of those People, that though many young Men and Women were put upon the Rack to discover the Authors of that Design, nothing more could ever be got from them, but that Fuentovejuna did it.”14 In 1611, the Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana of Covarrubias provides further evidence that the villagers’ response, “Fuente Ovejuna did it,” had become “un proverbio trillado” (“a too-often repeated proverb”). In the article “Fuente,” the dictionary notes that many villages and towns have names beginning with “fuente,” water source, because where there is no water, there can be no inhabitants. Noting the proverb’s origins, the definition goes on to relate how in the year 1476, the year of the battle of Toro, when Castile was divided into factions, the inhabitants of Fuente Ovejuna assembled during one night in the month of April to kill Hernán Pérez [sic] de Guzmán, Grand Commander of Calatrava, because of the great wrongs they said he had inflicted on them. They entered his house and they stoned him to death, and even if some judges were sent to investigate the crime, who tortured many of the inhabitants, both women and men, they could get nothing more from them more than these words: Fuente Ovejuna did it; whence the proverb, when a crime is notable and when it is impossible to find who did it, because the guilty people are numerous, one says: Fuente Ovejuna did it.15 Covarrubias was familiar with the chronicle of Rades y Andrada. However, like the historian Mariana, he fails to mention the offenses inflicted upon
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the women of Fuente Ovejuna. Furthermore, he is more cautious than either Rades or Mariana about assigning blame to the commander. Whereas the chronicler Rades had cited as known fact the commander’s “agravios,” “great wrongs,” and Mariana had written that his death was merited on account of his “tiranías,” “insolencies” for his translator, Covarrubias, by contrast, does not take a position, leaving to the inhabitants of Fuente Ovejuna the claim about the “wrongs they said he had inflicted on them.” These were the principal sources for Lope de Vega in writing his comedia. He was doubtless inspired by the proverb, just as his 1620 comedia El Caballero de Olmedo was inspired by a well-known seguidilla or poem made up of four lines of verse.16 To understand how he “dramatized” such materials, it is necessary to examine his theatrical poetics and his composition methods.
Writing a Comedia Lope’s first principle is that comedias are written for the stage, not for print. The needs of performance and the expectations of the audience, rather than Aristotelian rules, must shape their composition. He makes this assertion in his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo [“New Art of Writing Plays for Our Times”], first read in public in Madrid in 1609 before the small Academy of the Count of Saldaña:17 and when I plan to write a play, I put the precepts firmly under lock and key, and ban Plautus and Terence from my room, so that they may not cry me shame (for Truth will often shout aloud from silent books), and substitute the rules that were invented by those who sought the plaudits of the mob, for since it is the mob that pays, it’s right to act the fool to give such fools delight.18 As a consequence of this attention to popular demands, the length of a play is determined by the patience of its spectators: I find the fiery temper of a Spaniard who sits to see a play will not be calmed
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unless he’s told a story, in two hours, from Genesis right up to Judgment Day; and I say, if the aim is to delight, whatever serves that purpose must be right.19 We might recall in this context that Elizabethan playwrights and playgoers also seem to have considered two hours to be the normal, expected length of a play.20 However, in contrast to playwrights like Shakespeare who wrote plays that were too long to be performed and were therefore probably intended for print publication,21 Lope de Vega set forth a precise relationship between the length of a play’s performance and the length of his manuscript. He makes this equivalence quite clear in the Arte nuevo: Each act should be four gatherings, no more; ninety-six pages is the proper length to suit the time and audiences’ patience.22 The term pliego [gathering] means here a sheet of paper folded twice, like the gathering for a book that is composed in quarto. Each pliego consists of four leaves, or eight pages. Each act takes up thirty-two pages (four pliegos), and the three acts (jornadas) all together take up ninety-six pages. The autograph manuscript of the comedia entitled Carlos Quinto en Francia, written in 1604, confirms that Lope de Vega actually followed these rules: the text of this play is written on twelve pliegos and two leaves, making up fifty leaves, or one hundred pages for the three acts of the comedia (Figure 5).23 Autograph manuscripts by Lope de Vega are not rare. Forty-six are known to survive, of which twenty-two are in the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.24 Two are in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania.25 Nor is Lope the only author whose manuscripts survive: the Biblioteca Nacional also holds seventeen by Pedro Calderón. Their survival may be linked to their dual uses: as “prompt books” consulted during performances and also as record-keeping documents, containing authorizations for performance granted by bishops and inquisitors in each town in which a play was performed. Thus the final leaves of the manuscript of Carlos Quinto en Francia, at the University of Pennsylvania, record the “licencias” permitting the performances of this comedia in several Spanish cities between 1607 and 1620: Valladolid, Madrid, Saragossa, Jaén, Malaga, and Cartagena (Figure 6).
Figure 5. The first page (fol. 1r) of the autograph manuscript of Lope de Vega’s Carlos V en Francia (Toledo, 1604), corresponding to the first leaf of the first of the four pliegos that make up Act 1. UPenn Ms. Codex 63, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
Figure 6. The last page (fol. 64r) in the autograph manuscript of Carlos V en Francia. The final leaves record the “licencias” or permissions from episcopal and inquisitorial authorities allowing its performance in multiple cities. UPenn Ms. Codex 63, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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This record suggests strongly that this manuscript belonged to a company of strolling players who kept it for use as a prompt book. In addition to Lope de Vega’s fastidious accounting of the number of pliegos corresponding to each act, he harbors another quantitative obsession, for measuring the amount of his output along with his popular success. In the Arte nuevo of 1609, he writes: What can I do though, if the plays I’ve written, including one I finished just this week, add up to—let me count—four hundred eighty-three? For but for half a dozen, all the rest sinned grievously against the hallowed precepts. In fine, I stand by what I’ve done, and know that though they might, if different, have been better, they’d not have proved as pleasing as they did; for sometimes what is anything but right will for that very reason give delight.26 In the first edition of his novel El peregrino en su patria (1604), Lope de Vega presented a list of titles of the 219 comedias that he had previously written in order to warn readers that if in a volume of plays with his name on the title page they saw plays with other titles, they would know these plays were not actually written by him.27 In the sixth edition of this work, published in 1618, he added 114 new titles to the list, for a total of 333 plays.28 Yet his desire to show readers that he possessed unprecedented powers of writing also made him affirm, in the same work, that he had written four hundred and sixty-two comedias as well as many other works.29 In the dedication to his son that precedes El verdadero amante, published in the 1620 Parte catorze [fourteenth part] of his comedias, he doubles again this already-impressive figure, relating that “I wrote nine hundred comedias, twelve books about various topics, in prose and in verse, and so many manuscript pieces that all that remains unprinted will never be printed.”30 This stunning capacity for script making that Lope so ostentatiously flaunts is certainly one of his peculiar obsessions. At the same time, it should remind us of the demands placed upon dramatists by the autores de comedia, the directors of theatrical troupes, who constantly demanded new plays for the corrales or theaters in Madrid and other Spanish cities and for the compañías de la legua, the itinerant troupes who played across the country.31
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Publishing Comedias Although written for performance, Lope de Vega’s comedias were, nevertheless, printed. Several reasons may explain this. The first has nothing to do with any authorial intention but instead with that of the autores de comedia, who sold plays to publisher-booksellers. These publishers issued them either separately in pamphlet form as comedias sueltas, or in collected volumes, called partes, which gathered together multiple plays, usually twelve, by one or multiple authors.32 Publication of Lope’s plays began in 1603 in Lisbon,33 with a volume entitled Seis comedias de Lope de Vega y de otros autores—a volume that actually contains only one comedia by Lope.34 This edition pushed Lope the following year, in the prologue to the first edition of the Peregrino en su patria, to protest the unauthorized use of his name, and his fame, and to issue the first list of his plays. And yet in that same year, 1604, a volume considered to be the first of his partes was published in Saragossa without his permission.35 The edition was reprinted seven times over the next five years, notably in Antwerp by Martín Nucio. This was followed in 1609 by a Segunda Parte, with plays only by Lope,36 and then in 1612 by a Tercera Parte, this one containing only two plays by him out of twelve.37 The publication of the following five partes followed the same editorial logic: lacking both the participation and the agreement of the author, they alternate between volumes containing only plays by Lope and those containing comedias by different authors.38 A single exception to this model, however, is the fourth parte. Although it was published by bookseller Miguel de Siles, the actor and company director Gaspar de Porres acquired the privilege for the book and prepared the plays for publication. Porres also signed the dedication to the Duke of Sessa, which requested the duke’s indulgence for these plays, conceived “con tan differente intento” [“with a very different intention”]—that is, for performance rather than for print. Yet a draft of this dedication in Lope’s own handwriting survives, thus clearly suggesting his own involvement with this particular edition.39 The prologue “To the Readers” justifies this printing of works intended for performance with two arguments: on the one hand, the need to fight back against corrupted texts being circulated by dishonest publishers and, on the other hand, the hope of blocking the sale of partes using his name to sell plays he never wrote: “Every day numerous persons offend the Author of this book by printing his Comedias in such a base manner, that he found them so many years after they left his
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own hands, with nothing in them well ordered. Others offend him by printing or performing under his name comedias that are not by him, for their own self-interest. All of these offenses oblige me, on account of the friendship and affection that I have had for him for many years, to publish these twelve comedias, for which I possess the originals.”40 The sense of obligation to print the plays alluded to here is also a way of rendering them a kind of justice. Those who read them will grasp the truths or sententiae that they contain more fully than when attending a performance: “The Reader will see in these twelve Comedias many serious and sententious things and also many others that are uttered with great acuity and subtlety. Although it may be true that the author did not write them with the intent of having them printed and although, in many cases, he had to compose them very rapidly because the actors had such limited time to learn them, they allow nevertheless to recognize his fertile, rich inspiration, that is well known to everyone.”41 Printing will permit the reader to profit from the commonplaces (“cosas sentenciosas”), statements of universal truth that these plays declaim, and also to appreciate the author’s poetic invention. In the dedicatory of his comedia El verdadero amante, Lope recommends this method of reading to his son Carlos Félix.42 With the exception of the fourth parte—and perhaps of the sixth, whose second edition the year after its first states that it was “corrected and amended according to the original copy of the Author”43 —Lope de Vega remained consistently separated from the publication of comedias done against his will and without his authorization. One piece of evidence suggesting this conclusion is the lawsuit he brought in 1616 against the Madrid merchant Francisco de Avila, who had already published the fifth and sixth partes and who was preparing to publish two further volumes. Seeking to ban the printing of these twenty-four additional comedias, Lope asserted, “He said that he had not sold the aforementioned plays to the company directors so that they would be published, but only so that they would be performed on stage.”44 Francisco de Avila argued that the comedias he had acquired from two company directors were identical to the original texts written by Lope and, furthermore, that the author, having sold his plays, had thereby given up any right to them. The King’s Council ruled in Avila’s favor. He was granted a privilege for the printing of these twenty- four comedias, which he then ceded to the bookseller Miguel de Siles. Siles had these seventh and eighth partes printed at the shop of Alonso Martin’s widow. This lawsuit convinced Lope to take the publication of his plays into his own hands. He did so with the ninth parte—thus, paradoxically, following in
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numerical sequence the unauthorized versions that had come before.45 In the prologue to this ninth parte, he justified his decision to do so: After seeing my comedias printed every single day, with the result that it became impossible to even call them my own, and after having been condemned in lawsuits that I brought to defend myself by those who had more application and success in them, I resolved to print them myself following my original texts: and although it is true that I did not write them with that intent, nor that they might move from the ears of theatergoers to the critical eyes of the reader’s cabinet, I thought this better than having to watch as certain parties cruelly tore my reputation into shreds. This book will be the first one of this series, that begins with this ninth Parte, and the others will follow.46
Textual Theft and Name’s Usurpations By becoming the editor of his own plays, Lope de Vega was attempting to halt the circulation of corrupted texts, which had been published based on bad copies made from originals acquired by theatrical troupes, or from memorial reconstructions, versions made by memoriones, playgoers who transcribed and sold the versions they had memorized. In the 1620 dedication to La Arcadia, a comedia printed in the thirteenth parte47—the first parte in which Lope included separate dedications for each of the twelve plays—Lope condemns the practice, which he argues had done harm to both troupe and dramatists: I hope that now we can succeed in what we have tried numerous times to do: to banish from the theaters these men who live, nourishing and clothing themselves, by stealing comedias from troupe directors, claiming that they have memorized them only by hearing them and that this act is not theft since the actors are selling them to the public, and because their memories are so excellent. . . . I wished to know whether one of these men, nicknamed the “man of prodigious memory,” really was gifted with such a memory, and I found out, by reading his transcriptions, that for each one of my lines there were an infinite number of his own, which were full of extravagant nonsense and absurdities. These are enough to destroy the honor and
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reputation of the best writer both at home and even abroad, where his comedias are now read with great delight.48 Lope de Vega, it seems, did not accomplish his goal: the commerce in non-autograph manuscripts of the comedias, often based upon memorial reconstructions of plays sold to publishers by retired actors or by professional memoriones, with popular names like “Memorilla” or “Gran Memoria,” persisted.49 For example, in 1631 a “merchant and dealer in comedias,” Diego Martinez de Mora, who was also a professional copyist, claimed in a manuscript of the comedia El mayor rey de los reyes, likely written by Andrés de Claramonte, that the text had been edited “from memory.”50 Lope was no more successful in his attempt to restrict the use of his name on the title pages of partes that included comedias he had not written. One good example of the continuation of this practice that he so detested is a volume entitled Doze Comedias Nuevas de Lope de Vega Carpio y Otros Autores, printed in 1630. The volume contains only four plays by Lope; among the eight others is the first printing of El Burlador de Sevilla; y combidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina. The volume claims that it was printed in Barcelona by Jerónimo Margarit; however, analysis of the type used in it has shown that it was in fact printed in Seville by several printers, including Simón Faxardo, who printed six of the comedias, and Manuel de Sande, who printed two others.51 The market for “manuscript editions” based upon memorial reconstructions and for composite partes made up of the plays of multiple authors actually received a boost when the Council of Castile refused to grant publication authorizations (licencias) for any “books of comedias, novels, and other works in the same genre” (“libros de comedia, novela ni otros deste género”) over the ten-year period between 1625 and 1634.52 This ban, declared in response to an initiative of the Junta of the Reformation for the Kingdom of Castile, impacted the publication of Lope’s partes. Seville printings were concealed with false Barcelona addresses on their title pages, since Barcelona, in the Kingdom of Aragon, was not under the ban. Thus, the twentieth-fifth parte, which claims in the imprint to have been printed in Barcelona by Sebastián de Cormellas in 1631, was in fact printed in Seville.53 Of the twelve comedias included in it, only three can with certainty be attributed to Lope. The case of the twenty-third parte is similar: it also includes only three comedias that were definitely composed by Lope and, although it claims to have been
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printed in Valencia by Miguel Sorolla in 1629, was quite possibly produced by Seville printers.54
The Merits, and Dangers, of Print The Comedia Famosa de Fuente Ovejuna is the twelfth and last of the plays collected in the twelfth parte.55 It opens with an address from Theater (Teatro) to the Amiable Reader (Lector amigo) in which Lope expands upon the presentation of Gaspar de Porres from the fourth parte in making readers, rather than spectators, the true audience for his works. To be sure, readers of the comedias are also to recall their performance: “I know that, in reading, you will remember the actions of those who gave soul to this body; this memory will render more pleasant these figures, which are moved now only by your own will.” At the same time, all of the bothersome accidents of the theater will no longer bother the well-informed spectator. “I take consolation in this, because the vulgar public will not spoil me as it usually does. In your room where you will be reading these plays, no one will be allowed to make noise or to criticize that which you will be appreciating for yourself. You will be freed from the unpleasantness caused by the gentleman who arrives late, by the actor who makes mistakes, or by the actress who is unpleasant either because she is ugly and badly dressed or because she has trod the boards for too many years, whereas the playwright did not write the part for a woman of her age but instead for a woman he imagined to be fourteen or fifteen years old.”56 This ambivalent attitude toward print—faithful or corrupting—is dramatized in the comedia Fuente Ovejuna itself at the opening of the second act, in a dialogue between Barrildo the peasant and Leonelo, a student returning from the University of Salamanca. When Barrildo announces, “You see so many printed books these days / That everyone thinks they know it all,” Leonelo responds with a very different interpretation: For that same reason, I think they know less, now learning’s not condensed in summaries; so much is printed that it breeds confusion, knowledge is mixed with airy-fairy nonsense, and those who spend most time in reading find so many titles just bemuse the mind.57
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Leonelo here introduces a discussion about the merits and dangers of printing, which had appeared about thirty years before the rebellion of Fuente Ovejuna. One might, he notes, praise the capacity of printing, the invention of “one Gutenberg, from Mainz in Germany,” to spread and to preserve texts. Leonelo says: I don’t deny the art of printing’s raised a lot of wits above the common herd, And does appear to have saved and sanctified their works against the ravages of time, and spread the knowledge of them far and wide. But the drawbacks are numerous: on the one hand, the printing press can publicly expose authors’ ignorance and thereby destroy their reputations; on the other hand, it can also enable the theft of identities: and other, envious men have written rubbish, ascribed it to the man whose name they hated, and spread it round as his, maliciously.58 Here Leonelo echoes both the common denunciation of printing—as a technique that corrupted texts because of clumsy compositors, careless correctors, and ignorant readers—and, at the same time, the obsessions of Lope de Vega about the theft of his author’s name. Behind Leonelo’s words we can hear Lope’s protests against dishonest publishers whose tricks could convince readers that he was the author of comedias that he had not written, and also against all those who were circulating false, defamatory texts under assumed names, actions that would only end up ruining the reputations of their supposed authors. In a manuscript “Memorial” that has been edited and published by María Cruz Garcia de Enterría,59 Lope condemned the business conducted by blind booksellers who peddled printed texts (“Relaciones, Coplas, y otros generos de versos”), which were absurd and indecent and defamed the entire nation: “It would be necessary to punish them for the events they invent, the tragical histories they make up, the tales they come up with—about men in Spanish towns who rape their daughters, kill their fathers, converse with the Devil, or blaspheme and deny the Faith—and they claim that they have been punished in places where no one has ever seen or heard of such things. At other
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moments, they invent fake miracles, claiming with absurd verses, indecent words, and obvious lies that the Virgin comes down from the sky.”60 In order to convince people to believe these tales, which convince foreigners that blasphemers, parricides, and relapsed heretics are punished in Spain every day, those who publish these texts “print them and claim that they were written by Alonso de Ledesma, Liñan de Riaza, Baltasar de Medinilla, Lope de Vega, and others well known for their books and other writings, doing great harm to their honor and even putting their lives at risk, by claiming that they are the authors of satires against towns and against persons known for their titles, offices, or deeds.”61 During his condemnation of the usurpation of authorial names, Lope must of course turn to the comedias, which are being sold as the work of famous authors, to whom credit is naturally assigned: “It would also be just if Your Majesty would rectify the current situation, whereby booksellers sell manuscripts entitled Comedias . . . on which names are given as the authors, such as the men I have already cited, and other well-respected persons, such as the Doctor Mira de Mesqua, and the Canon Tarrega, both famous scholars of divine and humane letters.”62 The same abuses, which destroy authors’ reputations and besmirch their honor, take place when slanderous libels are presented as if they were translations, or when manuscripts that had been approved by censors are modified in the printing shop by those who, “during the printing of books add their own nasty comments, satires, and opinions, introduce the passages that were indicated to Your Majesty as to be censored, and flatter themselves by usurping the names of well-known authors.”63 For comedias as well as for other texts, what obsesses Lope de Vega is not plagiarism—the theft of works published under his name by someone who was not their author—but its opposite: the theft of a name and its use to sell mediocre plays or to circulate defamatory texts. Of course, manuscript publications also shared these despicable tendencies, but for Lope they reached their apex in printed editions with wide circulation: either the pliegos sueltos, or chapbooks sold by peddlers, or the corrupt editions that the presses printed. It is therefore not surprising that when Barrildo the peasant observes, “But, printing is a great advance,” Leonolo responds: We’ve done without for many centuries now, and I can’t see that this one has produced another Saint Jerome, or an Augustine!64
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Does Leonelo speak with the voice of Lope de Vega, who expressed both confidence in and skepticism of printing? Perhaps. But why assign this speech to a character with only a very limited role in the comedia and one who is on the margin of the community of villagers? Leonelo’s ambivalence, expressed by a character who comes back to Fuente Ovejuna without sharing the destiny of its inhabitants, could be interpreted as an image of the ambiguous relations between the learned and the people—or, more precisely, between the discretos, or those who claim to be learned, and the vulgo, the people who are scorned but also able to affirm their honor.
Fuente Ovejuna: Loyalty to the Monarch, and Revolt Against a Tyrant In writing Fuente Ovejuna, Lope de Vega borrowed from the chronicle of Rades y Andrada, while distancing his work from it at several points. Like Shakespeare in his history plays, Lope substituted a dramatically shaped chronology for the chronicler’s narrative. In this case, Lope attempted to link the revolt of the villa’s inhabitants tightly to the dynastic conflict between the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella and the king of Portugal. In the comedia, the capture of Ciudad Real by the master of Calatrava, Rodrigo Téllez Girón (with the help of the commander, according to the aldermen of the city), and its reconquest by the “Rulers of Castile,” and the murder of the commander at Fuente Ovejuna take place simultaneously. In the chronicle’s version, the events at Ciudad Real refer only to the master himself, first as victor and then as expelled from the city, and occur before the revolt in Fuente Ovejuna. The narrative of the rebellion begins with these words: “The affairs of this Order being in the state already described.”65 It was in fact the case since the Count of Cabra and Don Rodrigo Manrique, master of the Order of Santiago, recaptured the town in 1475, one year before the rebellion in the villa. The goal of taking these liberties with the chronology of historical events was to show the loyalty of the inhabitants of Fuente Ovejuna to Ferdinand and Isabella. Both have the same enemy: the commander, who in the comedia incites the young master of Calatrava to support the cause of the king of Portugal and who fights alongside him while he is at the same time oppressing his vassals in the village. The villagers’ fidelity to the monarchs and their revolt against a tyrannical lord are linked in their rallying cry, cited in Rades y Andrada’s chronicle and shouted several times in Lope’s play:
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“Long live the King and Queen; let tyrants die!”; “Fuente Ovejuna! Long live Ferdinand, and let all traitors and false Christians die!” and, when the head of the commander is carried on a lance into the villa’s square,66 the villagers sing out, May Isabella and Ferdinand ever rule our happy land, and all tyrants be dead and damned!67 Tyranny inflicted upon the townspeople and treason against the legitimate sovereigns are the two closely knit justifications made for the killing of the commander.68 In the play’s last scene, when the inhabitants of Fuente Ovejuna appear before the king and queen to petition for a pardon—as the Master of Calatrava had done previously—the elder Esteban, mayor of Fuente Ovejuna, connects once again loyalty to the sovereigns with the revolt against the tyrannical commander: These, madam, are the peasants of Fuente Ovejuna, who have come to offer you their humble service here. The late Commander’s tyrannous excesses, his cruelties, his countless provocations, which passed all human bearing, were the cause of so much strife; he plundered our possessions and raped our girls, with utter ruthlessness.69 Esteban adopts the classical definition of tyranny as the opposite of just kingship, recalling that the commander had deliberately and cruelly abused both the persons and the properties of his vassals.
Women’s Violence One further distinction between the comedia and the chronicle is the significant role given to the villa’s women by Lope de Vega. At the opening of
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act 3, Laurencia, described as “disheveled” (desmelenada) interrupts a meeting held by the magistrates and men of the villa to decide upon an appropriate response to the injustices they have endured. She forces them to act. In the last scene of the preceding act, the commander had brutally interrupted the wedding of Laurencia, daughter of Esteban, and Frondoso. He had Frondoso placed under arrest for having (in the first act) threatened him with a crossbow in order to keep him away from Laurencia. The commander also stripped Esteban of his authority (“You, seize his staff ”), took his daughter from him, and imprisoned her (“Take her away, and set ten men to guard her”).70 After being sexually assaulted by her captors, Laurencia escapes. In a passionate monologue, she confronts the men of the village and gives tragic significance to the image of the “world turned upside down,” the traditional figure in prints and texts of the exchange of roles between humans and animals, between nobles and peasants, or, often, between men and women. The men of Fuente Ovejuna, who had done nothing to defend the honor of their wives and daughters, are sheep (ovejas): Does this my hair not tell the tale? Can you not see these scars, these signs of savage blows, this blood? And are you men of honour? Are you my father and my kin? Are you so cold, so cruel your very souls aren’t torn apart To see such suffering? But no, your town is aptly named, And you’re not men, but sheep!71 These unworthy, barbarous men—in the sense of foreigners lacking the virtue of true Spaniards—are merely timorous animals: Not tigresses, but timid hares, not Spaniards, but barbarians, too chicken-hearted to deny your women to other men!72 Her accusations follow the trope of the world turned upside down, where men who are dressed like women spin wool while the women bear arms:
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Why not wear distaffs at your waists? Why gird on useless swords? I swear to God we women alone shall make those tyrants pay for our indignities, and bill those traitors for blood. And you, you effete effeminates, I sentence to be stoned as spinsters, pansies, queens and cowards, and forced henceforth to wear our bonnets and our overskirts, with painted, powdered faces.73 Laurencia gives literal meaning to the inversion fantasies—which, by showing the exchange of roles between men and women to be as impossible as the notion that fish could fly and birds swim, served to reaffirm an immutable distribution of tasks and attributes between the sexes. This natural order has been destroyed by the men-turned-women of Fuente Ovejuna (Laurencia calls them amujerados, effeminates), who are more concerned to debate the legitimacy of a rebellion against their lord then to avenge their honor and that of their wives and daughters. In order for justice to be done, she continues, an era of women warriors must be revived: Our valorous Commander means to have Frondoso hanged —uncharged, untried and uncondemned— from yonder battlements. He’ll serve all you unmanly men the same, and I’ll rejoice; for when this honourable town is womanless, that age shall dawn which once amazed the world, the age of Amazons.74 Laurencia’s desperate and cruel irony convinces the town’s magistrates and men that they must act. And for the first time in the comedia, the cries of revolt are raised. The first to speak out is Mengo, who represents the
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poorest peasants and who had previously favored moderation, followed by the others: [Mengo] Long live our lords the King and Queen! [All] Long live the King and Queen! [Mengo] And let the tyrants and traitors die! [All] Let traitors and tyrants die!75 The men’s resolution does not push the women into the background. Indeed, while they are not absent from the chronicle, they play a more significant role in the play. Rades y Andrada states that “the women of the town . . . had made a banner and appointed a captain and ensign.”76 Lope keeps this image of a squadron of women (escuadra de mujeres), with Jacinta, who had been raped by the commander’s soldiers, as corporal (cabo) and Laurencia as standard-bearer (alférez). But there is no time to sew a banner, and, as says Laurencia, We’ll have to be content to bear no banners but our caps. In contrast to the chronicle, no “captain” is named in the play. Laurencia’s bravado means there is no need for one: You’ll never see a Rodamonte or a Cid so valiant as me!77 Another difference between the comedia and the chronicle is worth noting. In Rades y Andrada’s narrative, women arrive on the scene after the body of the commander, still breathing, has been thrown out of a window onto the upturned lances and swords of his assailants below. In the revolt as represented on stage, the body falls onto the women’s lances. Jacinta proposes this idea to her companions: “We’ll spike his carcase on our pikes and lances.”78 And Flores, one of the commander’s servants who has managed to escape, verifies this in the account of the killing that he makes to the Catholic monarchs on the road to Córdoba:79 Then from his highest balconies they fling him to the ground
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where women wait to raise his corpse On lances, pikes and swords.80 Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century descriptions of violence, killings, and massacres commonly attest to the participation of women and children in those events.81 In the comedia, though, these actions have particular resonance. Humiliated and raped by the commander and his men, the women turn upon them with an avenging violence that allows them to regain their lost honor. Their response, central to the revolt, underscores its collective character, which is that of a community, united as one in a heroic solidarity.82
Denouement Lope de Vega takes his greatest liberties with his source, Rades y Andrada’s chronicle, in the denouement to the comedia. The play notes on several occasions the loyalty of Fuente Ovejuna’s inhabitants to the “Christian monarchs,” Ferdinand and Isabella. After the commander is killed, the townspeople improvise a series of coplas, couplets, that celebrate the sovereigns—and the tyrant’s death, with his severed head as a celebratory sign. Frondoso sings a copla of love and praise to the monarchs: Long life to Isabella fair and Ferdinand of Aragon who live and love and rule as one. she his, he hers, a happy pair; and when at last to Heaven they fare, may Michael lead them by the hand. May Isabella and Ferdinand, ever rule our happy land, and all tyrants be dead and damned. The copla sung by Barrildo anticipates the play’s conclusion: Long live the Catholic Kings, whose might has given them the victory, whose subjects we are glad to be, and whom to serve is our delight.
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May they maintain, whether they fight with giants or dwarves, the upper hand. May Isabella and Ferdinand, ever rule our happy land, and all tyrants be dead and damned.83 As part of this celebration, the town mayor, Juan Rojo, brings the royal coat of arms, just as Flores had announced to the king that they would in his account of the massacre: They rend his coat-of-arms with pikes and shout that they intend to raise your coat-of-arms instead, for his is an offence.84 The leaders of Fuente Ovejuna accord this act deep significance because they place the royal arms on the ayuntamiento, or town hall. Esteban recalls this act in the play’s final scene, when Fuente Ovejuna’s inhabitants ask to be considered subjects of the Crown itself—not, as the chronicle had stated, to return to being subjects of the city of Córdoba: Your Majesty, we want to be your vassals. You are our natural lord, as we’ve proclaimed, displaying your escutcheon in our town. We seek your clemency, and trust you’ll find our innocence a plea in our defence.85 The king grants their request and becomes the legitimate lord of the villa: now that the town’s appealed direct to me, I shall myself assume its jurisdiction until a new Commander can be found to whom perhaps authority may pass.86 Esteban’s second petition to the king, to grant clemency to the townspeople, presents us with another discrepancy between Lope’s play and Rades y Andrada’s chronicle. In the chronicle, as we have seen, the Catholic monarchs order the magistrate to halt his inquiry because, “being informed of the
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tyrannies of the Grand Commander, for which he has deserved death, [they] commanded that the matter should be left without further investigation.”87 In the comedia, the magistrate presents his report to the sovereigns immediately after they have pardoned the master of Calatrava, who pays homage to them with these words: “You, madam, are as fair and wise as Esther; you, sire, more righteous than her consort Xerxes.”88 The judge, recalling that he has subjected three hundred inhabitants to torture but in answer to his demand, “who have done it?” received in answer only the words “Fuente Ovejuna,” presents the king with a dilemma: “No more can determined; you must either pardon them all, or put the town to death.”89 Thus the king grants a pardon because he has no other choice: as he himself states: This was a serious crime; but since it cannot be verified by written evidence, I cannot choose but pardon it.90 This royal pardon is not granted to the townspeople because the grand commander had deserved to die. His murder was a serious crime, and the act of rebelling against legitimate authority—even an unjust authority opposed to monarchical sovereignty, like that of the commander, an enemy of Ferdinand and Isabella—must be condemned. However, in this case, lacking written admissions of guilt, the king has no choice but to pardon the crime. With this dramatic, but ahistorical, denouement to his comedia, Lope de Vega attempts to resolve the fundamental tension that pervades his play. On one hand, the play upholds a monarchical and aristocratic ideology that must, necessarily, condemn all resistance to legitimate authority. On the other, the play presents, on stage, a community of dignified villagers who defend the solidarity of their town and their own honor in the face of the insults and offenses of the commander. It is, perhaps, this fundamental tension that has led to so many contradictory interpretations and stagings of Fuente Ovejuna. Heroic or carnivalesque, subversive or reactionary—in these contradictions resides the play’s continuing power.
CHAPTER 3
Translating From Oráculo manual to L’Homme de cour
In recent decades, translation has become a central object of reflection and study, with a copious critical literature focused upon it. Behind many of these studies is a central question: can a translation tell us more about its translator, and about the society for which the translation was made, than about the text that itself moves from one language to another? This apparently paradoxical perspective shapes my study of the French translation of a book by a Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracián’s Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia. One of the readers of this work also inspires my own inquiry. In his great book devoted to the “civilizing process,” Norbert Elias cites the Oráculo manual, in the French translation by Amelot de la Houssaie published in 1684 under the title L’Homme de cour (which we might translate as “The Courtly Man” or “The Man of the Court”). Elias describes the book as, “in a sense the first handbook of courtly psychology, as Machiavelli’s book on the prince was the first classical handbook of courtly-absolutist politics.” He adds, “In a word, we find in Gratian, and after him in La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère in the form of general maxims, all the modes of behavior which we encounter, for example in Saint-Simon, in the practice of court life itself.”1 However, in Gracián’s Castilian Spanish text, the word “court” never appears. Elias is thus not reading the original Castilian version but instead the interpretation of it by the French translator. The translation leads him, and might lead us, wrongly, to conclude that Gracián wrote a book entitled L’Homme de cour.2
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Lorenzo or Baltasar? The book that Gracián actually did write had a different title: Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia.3 Its title page demonstrates three layers of authorial caution or “prudence” (Figure 7). First, the aphorisms gathered in the book are attributed not to Baltasar Gracián, a Jesuit, but instead to Lorenzo, his brother. This device allowed the book to avoid possible censorship by the Company of Jesus. The work had received two approvals that authorized its printing: one from Father Gabriel Hernández, professor of theology at the University of Huesca and an Augustinian brother, who read it at the request of the archbishop’s vicar general; and from Doctor Juan Francisco Andrés de Uztarroz, the royal chronicler of Aragon. Hernández’s approval, dated March 11, 1647, notes that the book “contains nothing contrary to our Holy Faith but is a mirror of reason and a marvelous modern collection of clever truths.”4 The vicar general, on this basis, accorded a “license” or authorization to print. Several days later, on March 24, Doctor Andrés, a friend of Gracián, also recommended that permission to print the book be granted by the Royal Chancellery of Aragon, stating that it merited “applause and admiration.”5 Second, on the title page the aphorisms that are collected in the work are presented as publicala Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, “published by Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa.” Lastanosa, a noble patron from Huesca, book collector,6 and owner of a cabinet of curiosities, hosted gatherings in his house and garden of a society of men of letters that included Baltasar Gracián.7 The verb publicar used here can be taken to mean any of various possible roles played by Lastonosa: as the one who commissioned the work, or compiled it, or edited it. Finally, as an additional layer of protection, the work is dedicated to Luis Méndez de Haro, nephew of and successor to the Count-Duke of Olivares, the chief minister or valido of Philip IV. The dedicatory epistle, signed by Lastonosa, transforms the dedicatee Méndez into the living model for the ideal varón de prendas, the “man of quality” that is presented in the text: “This Oracle of Prudence . . . presents, enciphered, those qualities in your Grace that dazzled him so, and those graces that first he so admired in you, he has transformed into art.”8 Although the author’s name is hidden in these ways behind the names of his brother and of Lastonosa, his identity is, nonetheless, strongly hinted at by the very genre in which this book is placed. The Oráculo manual is a collection of aphorisms extracted from writings of a single author: in a break
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Figure 7. Title page of one of only two known copies of the editio princeps of Baltasar Gracián’s Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (Huesca: Juan Nogués, 1647), a very small book, in 24mo format. The title page shows the author’s rhetorical prudence: it presents his brother Lorenzo as the author and refers prominently to Gracián’s patron don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa and the book’s dedicatee, Count Duke Luis Méndez de Haro. Courtesy of the Royal Danish Library.
with the Renaissance tradition of anthologies of miscellaneous passages collected from various modern authors, it is linked instead to an older tradition of writings drawn from ancient authors.9 By 1647, Gracián had already published, under Lorenzo’s name, four books: El Héroe (Huesca, 1637); El Político Don Fernando el Católico (Saragossa, 1640); Arte de Ingenio: Tratado de la Agudeza (Madrid, 1642); and El Discreto (Huesca, 1646).10 Seventy-two of the
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three hundred aphorisms in the Oráculo manual had first appeared in these prior publications.11 The Oráculo manual was printed in Huesca by Juan Nogues, continuing a publication partnership that had begun with El Héroe in 1637 and was continued in 1646 with a new edition of El Político and the publication of the first edition of El Discreto. All of these editions from the same printing shop share common characteristics. Their very small (16mo) format makes them easily portable; their title pages are simple; and they lack frontispieces or other illustrations, a trait which no doubt lowered printing costs but also underscores the power of their author’s words, unadorned.12 In 1684, the title page of the French translation restored the author’s true identity by naming him: Baltasar Gracián (Figure 8).13 In the preface, Amelot justifies this new attribution: “But since everyone who has seen the Works of Gracian certainly will ask why my title gives the name of Baltasar instead of Laurent, which is the name given in the editions of Madrid, Huesca, Brussels, and Antwerp, I must state my reasons.”14 Amelot relies upon two authorities to justify his decision: the article on Baltasar Gracián in Nicolás Antonio’s Bibliotheca Hispana, which describes him as a member of the Company of Jesus and a man of great erudition who published his books under the name of his brother Lorenzo (Laurentius),15 and the Company’s “Catalog of Writers,” which calls him only “Balthasar.”16 According to Amelot, either Baltasar’s modesty or his “pious scruples” could explain why the Jesuit had chosen to use his brother’s name, “not believing, perhaps, that it would be fitting for a man of his profession to be classed with the profane authors.”17 Amelot goes on to list the books written by Baltasar Gracián, recalling for his readers that the first, El Héroe, was the only one previously translated into French, “by a doctor named Gervaise, fairly well, if not faithfully.”18 He also describes how he has “gleaned” from El Discreto and El Héroe throughout his book “to enrich my translation with the most beautiful and fruitful passages in his writings.”19 The translator Amelot de la Houssaie was likely known to some readers in 1684 for his translation, eight years previously, of the History of the Government of Venice, prepared while he was serving as secretary to the French ambassador to that city.20 The translation proved controversial, because in it Amelot borrowed a critical point of view sometimes deployed by historians of Venice and reshaped it into a condemnation of the current republic. After the Venetian ambassador in Paris became angered, a lettre de cachet led to Amelot’s imprisonment in the Bastille for six weeks. In the year prior to the publication of
Figure 8. The title page of Amelot de la Houssaie’s translation, L’Homme de cour (Paris: [widow of] Martin, and Jean Boudot, 1684). In this elegant quarto edition, Baltasar Gracián is prominently credited as the author. However, the original title has disappeared, and the book has become a different work, focused on courts and courtiers. Rare Book Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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the Homme de cour, Amelot published three other translations: of Paolo Sarpi’s History of the Council of Trent, Machiavelli’s Prince, and Tibère, discours politiques sur Tacite.21 All of these translations, like the History, attempt to justify reason of state in politics and express hostility to papal authority. Two of them were first published under a pseudonym: “by the Sieur de la Mothe-Josseval d’Aronsel.”22 Like Gracián, Amelot thus acted, or published, with prudence, even if he did not use the word in the title of his translation.
From One Title to Another Amelot’s choice of title, L’Homme de cour, envisions an audience for the work that was never proposed by the book’s first author, Gracián. Amelot explains his choice in his opening Epitre au Roi [“Epistle to the King”] and his “Preface.” His book, he claims, needs no preface at all, because “its title explains not only its subject, but also its intended uses, and those for whom it is intended. Is it not for everyone, you may ask? No, not at all—it is only for high society and for those individuals familiar with the ways of the world. It is intended for a Man of Court: one who does not associate with the Vulgar and is comfortable only with his equals. Because such a man ordinarily speaks little, he need not speak either with those of the lower orders, nor with those small-minded people who can only understand what one is telling them through insistent repetition.”23 The book’s style will thus protect against corrupting interpretations that may be made by readers for whom it was not intended. Its addressee is an “Homme de Cabinet, a counselor who whispers in someone’s ear, though it is still necessary to have sharp ears to lose nothing of what is said,” and an Homme d’Etat, who advises princes and courtiers.24 The qualities of this “Man of Court” reflect the glory of his prince. In his “Epistle to the King,” Amelot de la Houssaie thus imagines the panegyric that Gracián might have written had he known Louis XIV (who in the frontispiece to this edition is pictured as a Roman general): “And while I was working on the translation, which I have the honor to present to him today, I lamented time and again the loss of this Spaniard, who, I am certain, was possessed of such a great spirit, and such a beautiful style, and who had such passion for memorializing the glory of Heroes. He would have had the ambition to ensure his own immortality with a beautiful panegyric for Your Majesty, and a translation of it would have served as a worthy Dedicatory Epistle to my book. Only transcendent figures like him are capable of
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properly praising a Prince like you.”25 Adapting the powerful language that Gracián had deployed to celebrate Ferdinand of Aragon in his Político (1640), Amelot here grants the same titres extraordinaires, exemplary qualities, to his own king. This is a strikingly original panegyric. Louis XIV is labeled a monarch who is both plausible—evidently meritorious—and grand—great.26 He unites within himself “Diligence” and “Intelligence,” industry and intelligence.27 Borrowing terms from Gracián, Amelot calls Louis “a Prince . . . who encompasses all things, or, a Universal Prince; a Prince whose secret is undecipherable and whose depth is unfathomable; who, to use again Gracian’s words, which I am only translating, is a great whole.”28 Amelot concludes by humbly offering to the king “this book, which is a collection of the best and most graceful maxims of Civic Life, and of Court Life. In several of them, your Majesty will recognize your own portrait. The Despejo, that enigma for which the French Language has not yet found a sufficiently expressive name, will not puzzle Your Majesty, for You will recognize that Gracian, in seeking to define the perfect man, has defined you.”29 The perfect prince fully embodies the ideal form of the Man of Court. More than a living model who must be imitated, he is the incarnation of perfection. The word that is here declared untranslatable, the despejo, is nevertheless translated in the title of maxim 127 as “Le je-ne-sais-quoi” and defined not as one particular quality but as the adornment of all perfections. I quote here from the 1685 English translation of Amelot by an unidentified translator: “The secret charm, or the unexpressible somewhat; which the French call Le je-ne-sais-quoi. And the Spaniards El despejo. Is the life of great qualities, the breath of words, the soul of actions, and the lustre of all beauties. Other perfections are the ornament of nature; the unexpressible somewhat, that of perfections. It is observable even in the way of reasoning.”30 Despejo and Je- ne-sais-quoi represent virtuous behavior that takes place effortlessly, in an entirely free and detached manner: “It holds much more of privilege than of study; for it is even above all discipline. It is not limited to facility, but reaches the finest Gallantry. It supposes a free and unstinted mind, and to that unstintedness it adds the last strokes of perfection.”31 In his own choice of title Amelot does not adopt any of Gracián’s four key title words (Oráculo manual o arte de prudencia). Oráculo had polysemic resonance, suggesting not only equivocating, false-speaking pagan gods but also those persons respected for their learning and knowledge. Early modern Spanish-language dictionaries note the term’s ambivalence. Covarrubias, in his 1611 Tesoro de la lengua castellana, defines the word thus: “Among the
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Gentiles, it was the answer given by demons and by their false gods, which was always equivocal and ambiguous.”32 The definition echoes the contemporary proverb “There is no oracle without an occult science behind it”33 and the expression “Words of the Oracle,” suggesting any answer that is obfuscating or obscure.34 But oráculo, as defined in the Diccionario of the Real Academia at the beginning of the eighteenth century, can also mean a wise person who is “listened to with respect and with veneration, because of his wisdom and knowledge.”35 In El Pólitico, for example, Gracián depicts Ferdinand of Aragon as “the greatest oracle of Reason of State.”36 With its ambivalent meanings, the term alludes to secrets known only to those who can decipher their truth. Here, then, is the paradox introduced by the word manual. This word also has multiple meanings, both material and textual. It evokes, first of all, anything than “can easily be carried in the hand without difficulty,” according to Covarrubias’s definition.37 This was certainly the case for Gracián’s book, which was published in a tiny 24mo format. But the term refers also to the genre of anthologies and compendia, books in which copious materials are briefly summarized. In the 1611 Tesoro, manuales are “summaries of abridged books”; in the 1734 Diccionario of the Real Academia, one definition of a manual is “a Book in which many scattered materials are summarized.”38 This suggests the second characteristic of Gracián’s book, which claims to be a collection of three hundred aphorisms drawn from the author’s prior works. The address to the reader at the conclusion of the book’s preliminaries asks the reader to pardon the paradoxical title, Oráculo manual, that is given to this “summary of rules of life because it is sententious and concise”—sentencioso, sententious, here being used in its early modern meaning, as a set of “sentences” or statements setting out universal truths, truths that are sublime because they are universal.39 The meaning of the term arte is perhaps more expected: it suggests both a set of precepts necessary for correct actions and a book that contains those precepts. Covarrubias begins with the Latin definition and sets forth an equivalency between arte and a set of well-ordered rules: “Lat. Ars, defined as right reason in the doing of things; and so we say of all things that lack order, reason, or harmony, that they are done without art.”40 Arte also can also have a hermetic, secret sense; one book owned by Lastanosa is called the Arte magna, the tree of all sciences and learning.41 Like oráculo, the term may have been chosed by Gracián for its ambivalence. The word is situated between an order of reason, accessible to all, and a cryptic wisdom open only to those who know how to decipher it.
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These precepts, well ordered and operating in harmony, in the Oráculo become the art of prudence. In its canonical, Christian definition, prudence is one of the cardinal virtues. In the perspective of Thomas Aquinas, prudence is a sign of the presence of divine light in each human being: according to Marie- Dominique Chenu, “Prudence is precisely the endowment through which my reason, true to itself, is able to govern the vast changeableness of my behavior and to refract into my most difficult actions the eternal divine attributes of Truth, Justice, and authentic fulfillment.” As a partner to wisdom, Prudence, writes Chenu, “directs the activity of the virtues toward eternal life.”42 Gracián transforms this virtue, which in the Thomist vision is a sign of the presence of God in human actions, into a set of rules for practical conduct, rules that may avoid the pitfalls of a corrupt and sinful world.43 This world is meaningless, as aphorism 211 makes clear: “In Heaven all is pleasure; in Hell all pain. The world being in the middle, has a share of both. We are betwixt two extremes, and so we participate of both. There is an alternative of destiny, neither can all be happiness, nor all unhappiness. This world is a cypher, all alone it is of no value, joined to Heaven it is worth a great deal.”44 In the impure world after the Fall of Man, and in a century of “iron” governed by “malice”— as Gracian labels it in aphorism 219—prudence, founded on good judgment, is a necessary defense against disappointment or distress.45 Covarrubias, in his definition of prudencia, links this cardinal virtue with the capacity for good judgment of the “prudent one”: “The Prudent one, is a knowing man of good sense who weighs all things with a great deal of judgment.”46 Although the Oráculo manual diverges sharply from Christian morality, it is, nevertheless, not without an ontological foundation that commands the practical rules necessary for living: “Vivir a lo plático” are the first words of aphorism 120, translated by Amelot as “S’accomoder au temps” and by the English translator as “To comply with the Times.”47 Precaution, or prudence, should guide one’s conduct in a world marked by evil. One fundamental rule for this is presented in aphorism 64. The English translator of Amelot, following the French version rather than Gracián’s own, begins the maxim as follows: “To vex as little as may be. Is a most usefull Science. It’s as the Midwife to all the happiness of life.” Compare Gracián’s text: “Saberse escusar pesares. Es cordura povechosa ahorrar de disgustos.”48 Instead of being a “science,” this skill requires the careful use of judgment. The opening of Gracián’s following sentence reads, “La prudencia evita muchos [disgustos]”; Amelot, and the English translator, omit this sentence altogether. We might render it in English as “Prudence avoids many dislikes.” Here “prudence” is proposed as an ability
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to judge, to evaluate, to weigh options. This quality is associated, metaphorically, with the Roman goddess who watches over women in childbirth: “es Lucina de la felicidad, y por esso del contento.” (In Amelot and in the English, the goddess Lucina becomes “la sage-femme,” “the Midwife.”) For Gracián, this ability to discern, to judge, and to evaluate is not one that belongs only to courtiers. Instead, it characterizes the Discreto, a term for, according to Covarrubias’s definition, “a wise man, with good sense, who knows how to weigh things carefully and to put each thing in its proper place.”49 Amelot was well aware of the sharp difference between the title of his translation and Gracián’s, but he justifies his choice in an easy manner in his preface: “The reader will note that the title L’Homme de Cour accords quite well with the Art of Prudence, since nowhere is prudence so necessary as it is at court.”50 He gives a second reason for his change of title—to make the work’s significance clearer: “There are almost as many precepts and mysterious terms as lines; it is certainly for this reason that its compiler called it Oracle Manuel: I have changed this to Homme de Cour, a title that, while less showy and exaggerated, gives a better sense of the value of the book, which is a kind of handbook for court and guide for politics.”51 Here Amelot makes clear as he does in his dedicatory epistle to Louis XIV the two dimensions of the book: courtly and absolutist. The book, however, is not addressed only to courtiers. It can be useful for all of those readers whose social condition separates them from commoners: “Even if the title L’Homme de Cour, taken at its face-value, seems to exclude all who are not courtiers, if taken in its true meaning it excludes only those who are prohibited by the Courtly Poet from reading his Odes, that is to say, ignorant ones, mechanical artisans, and malicious spirits.”52 Amelot glosses here the first line of the ode that opens the third book of Horace’s Odes: “Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo” (“I abominate the uninitiated vulgar, and keep them at a distance”).53 Amelot thus presents his translation as a tool for those who are not courtiers, but who, he argues, would be well advised to use prudence as a rule for living.
Brevity and Printing Amelot evokes the difficulties that Gracián’s works pose for all those who would translate them: “We should not be surprised to learn,” he writes, “that
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Gracián is for many an abstract Author, unintelligible and therefore untranslatable, for that is how most readers have described him: I myself know one learned man who, when told by one of my friends that someone was translating him, responded that it was a foolhardy action, for who should dare to translate works that Spaniards themselves cannot understand.”54 Despite his warning to readers, and perhaps even emboldened by this challenge, Amelot seeks to prove that Gracián is intelligible in French, even if “our Language is poorer in words, and less capable of metaphor or hyperbole, than the Spanish language.”55 For Amelot, Gracián’s style merits particular praise (I follow here the translation of Amelot’s preface in the second English translation of the Oráculo manual, published in 1702 and attributed to John Savage):56 “Also that perpetual Laconism, wherewith he abounds, is so far from being a Fault to be reproach’d in him, that he ought rather to be esteem’d the more for it, inasmuch as he propos’d to himself a commendible Brevity, exempt from all Superfluities, and intended his Works only for persons of the best Understanding, who always delight more in Thoughts than Words.”57 Gracián’s style had been condemned by Dominique Bouhours in his 1671 Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène.58 Amelot, however, considers it worthy of praise, and arguing that it fits Gracián’s intentions perfectly. “‘Tis true, his language,” Amelot argues, “is a kind of Secret-Writing, but however all ingenious persons will be easily able to uncypher it.”59 Amelot goes on to explain the reasoning behind the style: “Gracian affected Obscurity, that he might not debase himself to the Level of the Vulgar; or rather, that he might please only Great Men, in like manner as Aristotle wrot obscurely to please his Disciple Alexander, who could not endure that any one should share with him in Knowledge, no more than in Power. Thus we see that altho’ the Works of Gracian be printed, yet are they not nevertheless to be generally understood, in that it is not in the Ability of every Buyer to purchase the Capacity of comprehending them.”60 Gracián’s style thus serves as a defense against unpolished, ignorant readers who are unable to grasp the text’s meanings. Amelot borrows and translates, almost word for word, the prefatory address “To Readers” composed by Lastanosa for El Discreto, published by “Lorenzo” Gracián in 1646. In that preface, Lastanosa links the sublimity of things with the mysterious way of expressing them. He links a refusal to “vulgarize” rules of prudence with an enigmatic style that will be understood only by astute readers.
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Amelot presents Lastanosa’s extended defense of Gracián against criticisms leveled by “two sorts of Readers”: One has taken disgust at his Matter, and the other at his Stile; the former, I suppose, on account of the great Value they have had for the Subjects he treats of, and the latter because they would have had them more calculated to common Understanding. The first . . . was not a little scandaliz’d, that Matters of such weight, and proper only for Heroe’s, should become common, and be prostituted to all sorts of Readers. The second Object, that so concise and comprehensive a Stile tends to the ruine of the Spanish Language, inasmuch as it deprives it of its Brightness, and consequently of its Purity. I will answer both these Objections at once, and confute the one by the other. I say then that as Gracian wrot not for every body, so ought he to have us’d the obscure Stile he did, and that to beget the more Veneration for the sublimeness of his Understanding, the misterious manner of Expressing Things, being more than sufficient to extol their Worth.61 Amelot does take some liberties with the text he is translating. Lastanosa refers to “cualquier plebeyo,” describing this generic vulgo as a reader who lacks the judgment or discernment that only the discreto possesses. Amelot turns this figure into a moindre bourgeois, a petty bourgeois, thereby invoking the opposition between court and city, between bourgeois and gentleman. The English translator, Savage, simply gives the generalized “all sorts of Readers.” Lastanosa’s magnificent turn of phrase, “la arcanidid del estilo”—roughly, the arcane writing style—seems to bother Amelot. He chooses to translate the phrase with the phrase “un style coupé et énigmatique,” referring to Gracián’s “tight, enigmatic” style, which he also labels “si concis et si pressé,” “so concise and so compressed.” In Savage’s version, we read of Gracián’s “so concise and comprehensive a style” and his “obscure Stile.” The obscurity of Gracián’s style must protect his writings from any misunderstanding or misinterpretation that could be made by the unlettered. The arcane style is a response to the innovations of the printing press, a new technology that generated a fear among many that works would be corrupted by clumsy typesetters, greedy publishers, and ignorant readers. The deliberately obscure style of Gracián—a kind of code that required deciphering—could overcome the contradiction between the publication of the works, circulated through print, and their appropriation only by those few who were capable of fully understanding them.
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The Oracle Turned Courtier It was Amelot’s French text, his translation of an untranslatable work, that circulated widely in Europe, with seven editions published between 1685 and 1702. Only one other translation preceded it, an Italian version issued with a title faithful to the original—Oracolo manuale e Arte di prudenza62—published in Parma in 1670 and republished in Venice in 1679. All subsequent translations take Amelot’s book and his additions to the Spanish text as their source text: the English edition of 1685,63 the German of 1686,64 the Dutch of 1696,65 the second Italian translation of 1698,66 and the Latin edition of 1731.67 These editions all include Amelot’s paratextual materials: his “Notes,” actually excerpts from Gracián’s 1637 El Héroe and his 1646 El Discreto; his numbering of the three hundred maxims, which were unnumbered in Gracián’s original; his system of italicized titles, often consisting of the first sentence or few words of the maxim; and his series of bibliographical aids that make the work easier to follow. French editions were published in 1684, 1685, 1688, 1691, 1693, 1696, 1698, and 1702. Appended to all of these editions, following the “Table of Maxims,” are three sections. The first one is entitled “Chapters from Gracián’s Héroe and his Discreto, in excerpt or complete form and placed as notes at the end of several of the Maxims.” Then follows a “Recapitulation of the Precepts contained in the Three Hundred Maxims of L’Homme de Cour.” These “precepts” are divided into thirty alphabetical entries, from “Admiration” to “Truth” (“Verité”)—though there is no entry “Prudence.” The last section is devoted to “Particular Maxims from Great Princes and Men, both ancient and modern.” The “ancients” include Agricola, Alexander, Caesar, Galba, Tiberius, Vespasian, and Hadrian, who is cited the most with eight maxims. The “moderns” include kings of Spain (Alphonse of Aragon, Ferdinand the Catholic, Isabelle of Castile, and Philip II), kings of France (Charles VII, Louis XI, Francis I, and Louis XII), King Matthias of Hungary, and Empress Isabelle of Portugal. Only three men of the church are included: Cardinals Giovanni Battista Cicala and Cristoforo Madruzzo and Pope Alexander VI. Crucially, all of the translations adopt Amelot’s transformation of the text into a work centered upon the court. The German and Dutch translations preserve the French title, L’Homme de cour, in the first words of their own titles. The English translation attempts to yoke the French title to the original, with the formula The Courtier’s Manual Oracle; or, The Art of Prudence. The 1698 Italian editor translates Amelot’s title without alteration: L’Huomo
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di Corte. Through these editions, the link between the book and court life became solidified. We should note, in contrast, that the three Spanish reeditions published in 1653, 1657, and 165968 remain faithful to the first edition, lacking the added apparatus of numbered maxims, maxim titles, notes, or indexes, and containing no reference to the court. A copy of the 1669 Antwerp edition held by the University of Pennsylvania shows an owner’s efforts to add, by hand, the apparatus necessary for a thematic reading of the work. This copy includes underlined words and sentences and the word nota in the margins, along with references to Latin authors and marginal headings indicating that extracts were being commonplaced. The manuscript rubrics include “sinderesis,” “amigos,” “emulos,” “cortezia,” “negociante,” and “Idades varias.”69 But these Spanish editions remain an exception: other early modern European readers read Gracián as he had been refashioned by Amelot. This was the textual tradition passed down to Norbert Elias.
The Lynx and the Cuttlefish Comparing Gracián’s original with Amelot’s translation of several key maxims can help us evaluate the difficulties Amelot confronted, his resolution of those difficulties, and the changes he imposed upon Gracián’s text. My first example is maxim 98, and I present four versions: in Spanish; in Amelot’s French translation; in the first English translation, which is a translation of Amelot’s translation; and in a modernized English version: Cifrar la voluntad. Son las passiones los portillos del ánimo. El más plático saber consiste en dissimular; lleva riesgo de perder el que juega a juego descubierto. Compita la detención del recatado con la atención del advertido: a linces de discurso, xibias de interioridad. No se le sepa el gusto, porque no se le prevenga, unos para la contradición, otros para la lisonja. Dissimuler. Les passions sont les brèches de l’esprit. La science du plus grand usage est l’art de dissimuler. Celui, qui montre son jeu, risque de perdre. Que la circonspection combatte contre la curiosité. A ces gens, qui épluchent de si près les paroles, couvre ton cœur d’une haie de défiance et de réserve. Qu’ils ne connaissent jamais ton goût, de peur qu’ils ne te préviennent, ou par la contradiction, ou par la flatterie.
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To dissemble. Passions are the breaches of the mind. The most usefull knowledge is the art to dissemble. He that shews his Game, runs the risque of losing it. Let circumspection combat against Curiosity. Cover thine heart with a hedge of diffidence and reserve, from those who nibble too nicely at words. Let them never know thy disposition, lest they prevent thee either by contradiction or flattery. Conceal your wishes. Passions are breaches in the mind. The most practical kind of knowledge is dissimulation; whoever plays their hand openly runs the risk of losing. Let the reserve of the cautious compete against the scrutiny of the perceptive; against the sharp eyes of the lynx, the ink of the cuttlefish. Don’t let your desires be known so that they won’t be anticipated, either by opposition or flattery.70 From the outset, we see a discrepancy. Amelot assigns the title “Dissimuler” in French —“To Dissemble” in the English version. This is not a translation of the first words of the Spanish text—“Cifrar la voluntad”—but is instead taken from the maxim’s third sentence. By selecting this title, Amelot eliminates Gracián’s metaphor. “Cifrar la voluntad” relates the practice of prudent conduct to the practice of “enigmatic writing,” that is, writing that is not subject to immediate comprehension, following the definition of “cifra” (“cipher”) in Covarrubias’s Tesoro.71 Amelot translates Gracián’s “ánimo,” in the second sentence, as “esprit,” which becomes “the mind” in English versions. Gracián’s phrase in the third sentence “el más plático saber” becomes “la science du plus grand usage” and “the most usefull knowledge.” Through these subtle choices, Amelot turns the practical art of dissimulation proposed by Gracián into a rational procedure requiring that a precise series of rules be followed. Gracián himself had subtly transformed the implications of the concept or practice of dissembling. In the Tesoro’s article “Disimular,” we can see how the word’s meanings slide from neutral to negative: from “Dissemble, to act so that a thing is not understood” to “A cunning dissembler, one who hides his malice.”72 Gracián, though, transforms a behavior that is often to be condemned into a legitimate, necessary act. He implicitly follows Covarrubias’s very next definition, of the word “Dissimuladamente” (which we might translate as “in a dissembling manner”): “con silencio, y como al descuido”— “silently, and with nonchalance.” In 1534, the Spanish translator Juan Boscán had used the word “descuido”—inattention, negligence, or carelessness—to translate the neologism “sprezzatura” coined by Castiglione in The Courtier.73
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Gracián, like Castiglione and his translator Boscán, attempts to shift the generally negative connotations of the notion of dissembling to a positive one. In the next sentence, Gracián conveys his notion of dissimulation though a lexical, and aural, pair of oppositions: “Compita la detención del recatado con la atención del advertido.” The reserve (“detención”) of the cautious person (“recatado”) can block the scrutiny (“atención”) of the perceptive person (“advertido”) seeking to decipher the other’s intentions.74 Amelot simplifies, or reduces, this formulation and renders it more abstract: “Que la circonspection combatte contre la curiosité,” which becomes in English, “Let circumspection combat against Curiousity.” Amelot’s next challenge was Gracián’s intriguing, elliptical phrase with its double metaphor: “a linces de discurso, xibias de interioridad.” Modern English translator Jeremy Robbins renders this phrase as “against the sharp eyes of the lynx, the ink of the cuttlefish.” Amelot, though, seems to have been discomfited by the images of lynx and the cuttlefish, for he substitutes a vegetable metaphor, “une haie,” a hedge, for Gracián’s bestiary: “A ces gens qui épluchent de si près les paroles, couvre ton cœur d’une haie de défiance et de réserve,” which in the 1685 English translation becomes, “Cover thine heart with a hedge of diffidence and reserve, from those who nibble too nicely at words.” The Jesuit Gracián’s laconic style implies the presence of an informed reader who is capable of unpacking the implicit meanings of his metaphor’s six words: one’s intentions should be hidden from the penetrating eyes of the lynx, in the same manner as the cuttlefish hides itself by projecting a veil of black ink. The comparison operates on two levels. First, the biological: opposing the lynx, defined by Covarrubias as an “animal with penetrating eyesight,” and the cuttlefish, which is described in the second edition of the Tesoro in a long entry noting that “the Ancients identified this fish with lying and deceit, because it allows itself to be seen and, when enemies attempt to capture it, it covers itself with the darkness of its ink, as liars cover themselves with their deceptions and tricks.”75 But for Gracián, the ink projected by the fish is not a dishonest trick to frustrate fishermen, but rather a necessary protection against the evil intentions of curious persons. Lastonosa had previously referred to the cuttlefish in similar terms in his address to readers in El Discreto, in a passage arguing that neither Aristotle nor Seneca deformed either Greek or Latin by using an obscure style (estilo recondito). They did so, he asserts, so that their philosophies—natural or moral—would not be misunderstood by vulgar readers, even if they were mocked: Aristotle for being
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like the cuttlefish hiding behind his black ink and Seneca for being devoid of any ornament.76 This same sentence also introduces a contrast between discurso and interioridad. Discurso is defined by Covarrubias as “a form of reasoning by considering one point or subject, along with different goals and concepts.”77 In the 1732 Diccionario de la Real Academia, the word takes on a sense of conversation and verbal exchange.78 Discurso is what an individual allows another person to understand. It must therefore be protected by caution, by the prudent acts of one who is skilled at dissimulation. Interioridad is not defined by Covarrubias but is included in the Diccionario de la Real Academia, where it is described as “an interior space or thing, or the act of keeping something secret and hidden.”79 Although Gracián relies upon shared understandings of certain key words—which is why I have compared his lexicon to that in Covarrubias—he also invents terms and shifts accepted meanings. Interioridad may not be a neologism coined by Gracián, but, nevertheless, the Real Academia, by including references to hidden secrets and to obscured feelings, records to a certain degree the sense of the word captured in the Oráculo manual. These two texts, by Gracián and by Amelot, reunite in the aphorism’s final sentence—in this case, Amelot’s translation follows his source, and the early modern English version follows Amelot: “Let them never know thy disposition, lest they prevent thee either by contradiction or flattery.” Yet immediately following this, we see another significant difference between the texts. In the 1647 small format (24mo) Oráculo manual, the aphorism ends there, and the next one begins: Realidad, y apariencia. Amelot de la Houssaie, however, introduces a translated passage from the second chapter of El Héroe as a kind of gloss upon the concluding phrase. The gloss, in the English translation, is, “To dive into the will of another, is a mark of a sublime wit: to be able to hide ones own, is to get the superiority over another. To discover ones thought, is to open the gate of the fort of the mind.”80 In later re-editions of Amelot, this passage from El Héroe is accompanied by a note added by Amelot on Alexander de Medici. According to Amelot, Alexander, the first Duke of Florence, “took pride in being guardian of his secrets and in never letting what was in his heart escape from his mouth.” Amelot adds, “Queen Catherine was a very fitting sister to him.”81 Amelot’s glossing of Gracián by Gracián himself continues with a strong warning, intended to teach prudence: “A complete man must then in the first place apply himself to the subduing of his passions, and then to the dissembling of them so artfully, that no spie can ever be able to unmask his thought.
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This Maxime teaches one to become an able man, when he is not; and so cunningly to hide all his imperfections, that all the sharp-sighted spies of another man’s road lose their way in seeking it.”82 In Gracián’s text, as translated by Amelot, the lynx reappears, as the spying observers attempting to penetrate the dissembling of the “habile homme” (“complete man”). The 1685 English translator, however, drops the reference to the lynx: “que tous ces lynx, et les espions de la route d’autrui” becomes “all the sharp-sighted spies of another man’s road.” This precept is illustrated by the example of the Catholic queen of Castille Isabel, and in later editions by an additional note referring to Isabel of Portugal, both of whom confined themselves during childbirth. As we have seen, Amelot’s translation concludes with a Récapitulation des Maximes Particulières, or “Summary of certain Maxims.” In it Alexander and the two queens reappear: “Of Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence: He never revealed his secret to anyone”; “Of Isabella, Queen of Castille: Her constancy, in the depths of childbirth”; “Of Empress Isabella of Portugal: She preferred death to complaint.”83 Part of Amelot’s effort to resituate the text in a courtly context involves the book’s mise en texte, a phrase I borrow from Henri-Jean Martin: that is, the material form and layout of his translation.84 His edition is notable for its large in-quarto format and its elegant typography. It also features a liberal use of white space on the pages, between the numbers of the maxims, their added titles, and their texts, and between the maxims and the “notes” that accompany them. L’Homme de cour becomes, through these choices, a luxury book instead of a portable “pocket manual.” It also functions as a compendium or anthology of several Gracián’s works. Instead of a set of universal rules of prudence necessary in a fallen world, intended for those who know how to read them, L’Homme de cour is a collection of maxims and precepts that unveil the rules of courtly civility.
The Wise Man and the Discreet Man Amelot deploys a similar intellectual operation in his translations of maxims 120, Vivir a lo plático (“To comply with the Times”), and 291, Saber hazer la tentativa (“To know how to make an essay”).85 In maxim 120, Amelot translates and transforms one of Gracián’s sentences to emphasize detachment
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over discernement. I cite, as before, four versions: in Spanish; in Amelot’s French translation; in the first English version; and in a modernized English version: Viva el Discreto como puede, si no como querría. Que le Sage vive donc comme il pourra, s’il ne le peut comme il voudrait. Let a wise man then live as he can, if he cannot as he would. Let those with discretion live as they can, if not as they would prefer.86 Gracián’s lexicon in this maxim emphasizes the need for discernment, judgment, and evaluation. In addition to his term “discreto,” he uses in the same aphorism the word “cuerdo,” “a prudent man” in the early modern English, and “los varones buenos,” or “good men.” He writes, for example, “Acomódese el cuerdo a lo presente,” translated as “Let a prudent man accommodate himself to the present” in 1685, or as “A sensible person must adapt the trappings of both body and soul to the fashion of the times” in the modern translation. The translations of “los varones buenos parecen hechos al buen tiempo” are, respectively, “If any doe so, they pass for old-fashioned people” or “Good men, though always loved, seem relics of better times.”87 In his Tesoro, Covarrubias defines “varón” as “a man of good judgment, sound reason, and good conscience.”88 Amelot chooses in some cases not to translate certain phrases at all: he renders “varones buenos” simply as “quelques-uns,” “some people.” Or he emphasizes wisdom and detachment with his word choices. This is no small or insignificant decision: it substitutes an ancient ideal of being removed from the world for a practice of acting in the world. A comparison of the aphorism’s opening words reveals the distance between the two versions: the Spanish “Vivir a lo plático,” “Live according to common practice,” becomes in French, “S’accomoder au temps,” “To comply with the Times.” The first and last phrases of the opening of aphorism 291 stymie Amelot. “Saber hazer la tentativa” might be translated as “Know how to appraise,” or “Know how to probe.”89 Amelot’s literal version makes no sense: “Savoir faire une tentative”—literally, “To know how to make an attempt,” or in the early
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modern English version, “To know how to make an essay.” Here is Gracián’s challenging final sentence and Amelot’s version of it: Aquí es menester el extravagante reparo, la observación profunda, la sutil nota y la juiziosa Crisi. C’est ici, qu’il est besoin de beaucoup de pénétration, de circonspection, et de précaution. In this, much penetration, circumspection and caution is required. What is needed here is extraordinary reflection, profound observation, subtle scrutiny and judicious analysis.90 Amelot chooses three words—“pénétration,” “circonspection,” and “précaution”—that are an extremely concise reformulation of the rich lexicon present in the original. Only the word “reparo” used by Gracián is present in the Tesoro, defined as a remedy or cure.91 Gracián, however, forges his own meaning for this term by adding to it the adjective “extravagant.” He coined original expressions for designating the subtle judgment, the acute observation, and the judicious critical faculty that are all needed to penetrate another’s thoughts and to interpret their words. At issue is the ethics of dissimulation. In an early aphorism, number 98, Gracián justifies dissimulation, but here the formula is turned almost exactly on its head. These excerpts show Gracián’s inversion of his earlier phrase: Aphorism 98: Compita la detención del recatado con la atención del advertido Que la circonspection combatte contre la curiosité. Let circumspection combat against Curiousity. Let the reserve of the cautious compete against the scrutiny of the perceptive.92 Aphorism 291:
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Compita la atención del juizioso con la detención del recatado Que l’adresse de l’homme judicieux contrepèse la retenue de l’homme fin. Let the address of a Judicious man counterbalance the reservedness of a cunning man. Let the observation of the judicious vie with the reserve of the cautious.93 The point of view has shifted. In the earlier aphorism, the cautious one, or “recatado,” is the book’s intended reader. In the second, he has become the other, whose secrets must be revealed and whose motives can be understood by the “judicious” man, who can use the tools of discernment, attention, and observation, in a manner akin to a legal investigation (the standard meaning of “juizioso”). My final example takes us to an earlier aphorism in the collection, number 69, which begins: No rendirse a un vulgar humor. Ne point donner dans l’humeur vulgaire. Not to be of the humour of the vulgar. Don’t give in to vulgar humours.94 This aphorism foregrounds the tension between dangerous impetuousness, which may cause one to sacrifice reason and judgment, and self-knowledge, which is vital for the regulation of such impulses. Amelot describes this control over one’s impulses as “l’équilibre de la raison entre la Nature et l’Art,” or, in early modern English, “the poise of reason betwixt nature and art.”95 Gracián chooses a particular metaphor to characterize this self-control, that of the scales, or balance: he associates a material object, the needle of a balance, with the concept of sindéresis or synteresis, meaning accurate judgment and the capacity to think lucidly.96 This art of balance is opposed, in Gracián,
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to “destemplança civil”: “débordement civil,” “civil torrent,” or “vulgar disarray.”97 “Civil” is here being used in the sense of popular, or “vulgar.” Gracián’s choice of “destemplança” suggests, metaphorically, that someone who is the prisoner of his natural passions is like an instrument that is out of tune. In the Tesoro, the verb “destemplar” is defined as causing the strings of an instrument or voices to fall into discord, and “destemplarse el hombre” is glossed as the disruption of the harmony of one’s reason.98 We can find in aphorism 69—with Gracián’s own metaphors, or without them—one of the book’s defining principles: that self-knowledge is the fundamental precondition for the exercise of control over one’s own desires. It allows the concealing of one’s intentions, and the revealing of others’. Norbert Elias, who often cites Amelot while thinking he is citing Gracián, takes this self-mastery, the mastery of one’s own actions and emotions, to be the fundamental element of courtly rationality. And because, for Elias, court society was the laboratory of the modern structure of personality, this mastery is fundamental for the “civilizing process” itself.99
From the Courtly Man to the Honest Man However, beginning as early as the late seventeenth century the Oráculo manual became removed or disassociated from its courtly contexts. To follow this process, let me return to the 1685 English translation that I have been quoting throughout this essay. It has a very courtly title, The Courtiers Manual Oracle; or, The Art of Prudence. In the preface, the anonymous translator begins with an assertion that this book’s style renders it unfit for many readers: “Oracles are the glimmerings of a supernatural light, which do rather dazzle than illuminate those who are not both attentive and sharp sighted: And therefore the Maximes which here bear this name are not calculated for all degrees of Men, nor for all sorts of Understandings. There is an art of short speaking, no less than that of short hand-writing, and both are obscure, but to the intelligent and thinking, who may draw considerable advantage from both.”100 With this comparison of the book’s laconic style to the contemporary practice of “short hand-writing” or notetaking in shorthand, the translator argues that only a certain few can follow its arguments. Nevertheless, and despite the English title, the book is not intended only for those who frequent court circles, but instead for a wider group: “The title and design of the Book, I think, may solve the doubt; for it is the Courtiers Manual Oracle, not of
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him onely who has the honour to be actually in that station, but of others also, who by knowing, and reflecting upon the transactions of the world, may be capable, if not to serve the Publick, yet to live like men in their generation, and to such it cannot be unseasonable, if they have the ingenuity to act according to its maximes.”101 The act of reading Gracián can teach them “that a Man may be a Politician successfully, and with applause, without forsaking the rational Rules of Morality and Religion, for the deceitfull Sophistry of Cunning and Artifice, which commonly soon or too late shews its own perniciousness by the fatal disappointments of those that practice it.”102 By teaching readers the practices of dissimulation (“deceitfull Sophistry”), the book will permit them to recognize when others are engaging in it and, therefore, enable them to guard against it. This paradoxical lesson, to be sure, is not intended for “unintelligent” men, who are “the greatest part of Mankind.”103 As the preface puts it, in harsh, crude terms, these men are fit to be ruled: “To these Animals then for whom the Bit and Bridle is designed, the Discipline of the Whip is the Best Doctrine, and nothing of this nature can be seasonable or unseasonable, but as it may influence those of the smaller number, who are their Riders, and spur them at their pleasure.”104 This scorn for the profanus vulgus, the vulgar, profane masses, substitutes a distinction between “animals” and their masters for that between courtiers and commoners. Here, human beings who lack both manners and mental capacity must be governed by their betters. The second English translation of the Oráculo manual, published in 1702 and attributed to John Savage,105 further distances the text from the courtly context by retitling it The Art of Prudence; or, A Companion for a Man of Sense. The title page recalls the Spanish: “Now made English from the best Edition of the Original,” but this edition also retains Amelot de la Houssaie’s added notes, though not the separate titles Amelot had assigned to each maxim. Savage’s preface closely follows both the 1685 English edition and Amelot’s 1684 preface. In it, he explains the change of title: “In this Treatise of Maxims, there are almost as many Precepts as Words; wherefore its Compiler and Commentator Don John de Lastanosa, call’d it, The Manual Oracle, a Title which I have chang’d into The Art of Prudence; or, a Companion for a Man of Sense, being, in my Opinion, much more suitable to the Subjects it treats of.”106 But who, exactly, are the men who lack “Sense”? Savage explains: “Now tho’ the Title of The Man of Sense, which I have given this Book, seems to exclude all that are not so from reading it, yet being rightly understood, it prohibits only those which the Poet forbid to read his Odes, which were Blockheads, Mechanicks,
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and perverse Tempers. Odi profanum Vulgus, & arceo.”107 After Amelot and the 1685 translator had done so, Savage gives his own interpretation of Horace’s famous verse. Instead of being a book reserved for courtiers, Savage suggests, The Art of Prudence is useful for anyone who, either because of their social status or their mental capacity, has common sense.108 We can observe a similar removal of the book from the courtly world in a new French translation prepared and published in 1730 by François de Courbeville, a Jesuit. The title of this version removes all references to the “man of court”: Maximes de Baltazar Gracien [sic] traduites de l’Espagnol.109 In his preface, Courbeville argues for the book’s universal value: “In truth, a book such as this one should not be limited in its utility only to those of the Court. Instead, it should be available to all of those with enough intelligence to benefit from it, whatever their social station.”110 Courbeville points out that the phrase “homme de cour,” the man of court, is not in Gracián’s original title, “no more than man of war, or nobleman, or businessman, or churchman, etc. For is not Prudence necessary to all of these social conditions?”111 Courbeville argues, furthermore, that the “man of court” does not represent a model worthy of imitation: “a Man of Court is not what we might term in French a truly honest man: and those who know our language are not praising someone when they say, ‘He is a man of Court.’ ”112 Here, Courbeville follows writers such as Charles de Saint-Évremond, Bouhours, and Jean de La Bruyère, inverting the morality of dissimulation and arguing that the practice deserves condemnation rather than praise: “A man of Court is a man who is adroit and flexible, but also false and artificial; a man who constrains his tempers, who acts contrary to his passions, who acts and speaks in opposition to his own feelings.”113 Courbeville tells us not to read Gracián in search of exemplary models of behavior to imitate. On the contrary, the actions Gracián describes are to be avoided, and studied only so that we not to fall victim to those who practice them: “Gracián, far from promoting vice, sought only to lead us to virtue, but to an enlightened, prudent virtue, one that would be deceived neither by pretense nor by trickery.”114 This lesson is intended for all men, whatever their social rank. Courbeville’s edition is thus retitled and redirected to a new public. But why retranslate the text—since, as Courbeville himself notes, “L’Homme de Cour has been reprinted constantly, since most are accustomed to and satisfied with it, and since Amelot’s translation is not old enough to be outdated”?115 Courbeville argues that his new translation is necessary because of Amelot’s obscure passages, his omissions, and his odd word choices. He is
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highly critical of his predecessor and enumerates his errors in detail: Amelot mistranslates the titles of many maxims; he omits essential words, and even entire sentences; he employs inappropriate expressions that men of sense cannot understand; he ascribes only a single meaning to Spanish terms that have multiple significations; he adds trivial, out-of-place metaphors to the text; and he makes general statements that turn out to be false, because he has not sufficiently qualified them.116 For all of these reasons, no part of his translation can be salvaged, and Courbeville announces that his new translation differs “nearly entirely” from Amelot’s.117 As key example, Courbeville cites his translation of maxim 281 and compares it with Amelot’s translation. But the precision that Courbeville argues for may itself introduce some flaws. Consider maxim 98, which I have discussed above, Cifrar la voluntad, which became, in Amelot’s translation, “Dissimuler,” “To dissemble.” Courbeville assigns a new title, “Mettre un sçeau sur son cœur,” or “Seal up your heart,” arguably a more respectful rendering of the Spanish. Compare how Amelot and Courbeville render Gracián’s first sentences: Gracián: Son las passiones los portillos del ánimo. El más plático saber consiste en dissimular; lleva riesgo de perder el que juega a juego descubierto. Compita la detención del recatado con la atención del advertido: a linces de discurso, xibias de interioridad. Amelot: Les passions sont les brèches de l’esprit. La science du plus grand usage est l’art de dissimuler. Celui, qui montre son jeu, risque de perdre. Que la circonspection combatte contre la curiosité. A ces gens, qui épluchent de si près les paroles, couvre ton cœur d’une haie de défiance et de réserve. Courbeville: Les passions de l’homme sont comme les avenuës de son cœur: la science la plus utile dans l’usage est celle de cacher ces mêmes penchans. Celui que ne prend pas garde à ne pas montrer son jeu, court fortune de perdre. Que la réserve de l’homme prudent le dispute à l’attention que celui qui l’étudie: qu’aux yeux des lynx, on oppose un triple voile sur son cœur. Our translation: Man’s passions are like passages into his heart. The science that is most useful in practice is that of knowing how to hide
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one’s own intentions. He who does not take care to hide his hand, runs the risk of losing. Let the prudent man’s caution compete with the inquisitive: against the eyes of the lynx, place a treble-thick veil over your heart.118 In his first sentence, Courbeville chooses cœur, heart, rather than Amelot’s esprit to translate Gracián’s ánimo, a choice that again seems closer to Gracián’s version. In his next sentence he seems at pains to avoid the verb that Amelot had preferred, dissimuler, to dissemble or conceal, as a translation of Gracián’s dissimular. Courbeville also provides a more emphatic, if less concise, translation of Gracián’s card-playing metaphor in his phrase “lleva riesgo de perder el que juega a juego descubierto,” “whoever plays their hand openly, runs the risk of losing.”119 Amelot had turned it into “Celui, qui montre son jeu, risque de perdre,” or “He who shows his hand may lose the game.” Courbeville’s version is more literal and less elegant: “Celui que ne prend pas garde à ne pas montrer son jeu, court fortune de perdre,” or “He who does not take care to hide his hand, runs the risk of losing.” And finally, we return to the mysterious lynx and cuttlefish. Courbeville seems comfortable with the sentence’s opening, avoiding the abstract translation Amelot had chosen. Instead of Amelot’s “Que la circonspection combatte contre la curiosité,” “Let circumpection combat against Curiousity,” Courbeville substitutes, “Que la réserve de l’homme prudent le dispute à l’attention que celui qui l’étudie,” “Let the prudent man’s caution compete with the inquisitive.” This phrase comes close to capturing the dichotomy in Gracián between “la detención del recatado,” “the reserve of the cautious,” and “la atención del advertido,” “the scrutiny of the perceptive.” However, the cuttlefish’s black ink obscures Courbeville’s vision as a translator, just as it had Amelot’s. Gracián’s laconic phrase, “a linces de discurso, xibias de interioridad”—“against the sharp eyes of the lynx, the ink of the cuttlefish”—implies that the reader oppose to the penetrating eyes of the lynx the protective ink of the cuttlefish. Courbeville manages to harness the first of these creatures, but not the second, in his phrase: “qu’aux yeux de lynx, on oppose un triple voile sur son cœur”: “against the eyes of the lynx, place a treble-thick veil over your heart.” Amelot had chosen the “hedge,” Courbeville the “veil.” Both choices deform Gracián’s text. Translating Gracián, it seems, throws everyone off balance.
CHAPTER 4
Adapting Don Quixote and the Marionettes of Lisbon
Throughout the early modern period, translators enabled the migration of texts from one language to another. These “translators” included the publishers and the editors who relocated texts in new contexts or gave them meanings quite different from those their authors, or their first readers, might have conceived of. Some works could also move from one genre to another—thus, for example, a chronicle might be turned into a theatrical drama or a novel into a play. This essay focuses on such a case, with the first “translation” of Don Quixote in Portuguese. In 1733, the marionettes of the Teatro do Bairro Alto in Lisbon put on a new play: the Vida do grande dom Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança (The Life of the great don Quixote de la Mancha and the fat Sancho Pança). In 1996, the Brazilian film director Jom Tob Azoulay devoted a film to the tragic life of the play’s author, Antônio José da Silva. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1705 into a family of Jewish conversos, Silva was condemned to be burned at the stake by the Portuguese Inquisition in 1739. In his film, Azoulay presents two scenes from Silva’s play as (perhaps) the marionettes of Lisbon might have presented them.1 In the first of these scenes, Don Quixote and his squire Sancho meet the theatrical company of Angulo el Malo, who are on their way to perform an auto sacramental or passion play entitled Las cortes de la muerte (The court of death) during the feast of Corpus Christi. In the second scene, Sancho, who has become the governor of an island called the “Ilha de los Lagartos” (the isle of lizards) by Silva and the “Island of Barataria” by Cervantes, provides a commentary on the allegory of Justice that squints and acts willy-nilly. As reimagined by Azoulay, these scenes reveal significant gaps between the text of Don Quixote and Antônio José da Silva’s adaptation. Cervantes’s Sancho Panza, for instance, never explains why Justice is represented wearing
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a blindfold and wielding a sword when he dispenses justice as the island’s governor. There is of course also a gap between the film’s contemporary vision and what occurred in the eighteenth-century play. After his speech on Justice, Azoulay’s Sancho sodomizes the figure of Justice, a visually audacious choice that would have been impossible for Antônio José da Silva to make.
Don Quixote on Stage Textual mobility and textual malleability: Antônio José da Silva’s Dom Quixote shows us both. His play, the first edition of which was published in Lisbon in 1744, is part of a longer history of theatrical adaptations of the second part of Don Quixote, which was first published in Madrid in 1615.2 The first stage version came from Daniel Guérin de Bouscal, a French dramatist. Bouscal began a “quixotic” trilogy in 1640 with the joint publication of Dom Quixote de la Manche, a play that included scenes from the second part of Cervantes’s novel, and Dom Quichot de la Manche: Seconde Partie. The last in the trilogy was Le Gouvernement de Sanche Pansa, printed in Paris in 1642 by two booksellers located at the Palais Royal, Antoine de Sommaville and Augustin Courbé.3 First performed in 1641 and 1642, Le Gouvernement was revived by Molière after his arrival in Paris in 1658. In his biography of Molière (1705), J.-L. de Grimarest refers to a play “named Dom-Quixote” in which Molière, playing Sancho Panza, rode a donkey that refused to walk on stage. The anecdote must refer to Guérin de Bouscal’s adaptation, since Grimarest notes that it “takes place during the episode when Don Quixote makes Sancho Panza a Governor.”4 The play must have enjoyed popular success, and it was frequently reprised by Molière’s company: eight times in 1659, seven in 1660, two in 1661, and one in 1662.5 Several episodes from the second part of the novel, although not the episode of Sancho’s governorship, were also added into the third of the Spanish comedias inspired by Don Quixote. The first two comedias were Guillén de Castro’s Don Quixote de la Mancha, written between 1605 and 1608 and published in 1618,6 and Caldéron de la Barca’s Los disparates de Don Quijote, performed at the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid during the Carnaval in 1637 but now, sadly, lost.7 In 1676, a play entitled El Hidalgo de la Mancha written collaboratively by Juan de Matos Fragoso, Juan Bautista Diamante, and Juan Vélez de Guevara was performed. This play was never printed and survives only in one manuscript copy, in Vienna.8
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The episodes recounting Sancho’s governorship proved attractive to French playwrights and were adapted for multiple theatrical forms. One was popular festival or théâtre de foire (street theater). Bellavoine’s Sancho-Pança was performed at the Foire Saint-Germain in 1705.9 Governor Sancho also appears in the third act of Louis Fuzelier’s Arlequin et Scaramouche, which was played at the Foire Saint-Laurent in 1710; in this version he is identified as “Pierrot Sancho Pansa Governor of Barataria Island.” This play combines pantomime and dance, along with “écriteaux,” or placards, that indicated the lyrics of the songs. A printed pamphlet describing the farce characterizes Sancho’s entry as follows: “Sancho Pansa, who has finally gained the well-paid governorship that he so long sought and struggled for, enters onto Barataria Island, accompanied by musical instruments. Sancho rides his faithful donkey Grison. Both are dressed exactly as described in the faithful chronicle of Cid-Hamet-Benengely.”10 Sancho’s government then found its way into French theatrical comedies. Maupoint, in his 1733 theatrical catalogue called the Bibliothèque des théâtres, claims that, after Guérin de Bouscal’s 1642 production, “the two modern plays” that introduced the episode were by “Monsieur Dufresny in three prose acts, a play not printed in his Works, and by Sieur Dancourt in five verse acts, performed in November 1712, to little acclaim.”11 According to Maupoint, after being accused of plagiarizing Guérin de Bouscal, Dancourt admitted “he had kept several sections of an old Comédie about Sancho.” The play’s performances were halted, and he added several new scenes before giving the play to the bookseller Pierre Ribou, who printed it.12 Sancho’s parodic government also inspired musical comedies. In Paris, a work by Thierry and Jean-Claude Gillier titled La Bagatelle, opéra comique en deux actes, avec Prologue, ou Sancha Pança Gouverneur was presented in 1727.13 In Vienna at the Teatrino di Corte (Court Theater), two Italian operas by Antonio Caldara, with libretti by Giovanni Claudio Pasquini, were performed within a few years of each other. The first, a 1727 version entitled Don Chisciotte in corte della duchessa, was billed as an opera serioridicola per musica, a “serio-ridiculous” musical opera. The second, in 1733, Sancio Panza Governatore dell’Isola Barattaria, was labeled more simply as a commedia per musica, or comic opera.14 By the time that Antônio José da Silva decided to write his own Don Quixote for the Lisbon Teatro do Bairro Alto, the novel’s second part had thus already provided a great deal of rich material for European dramatists. Most of these showed particular interest in the episodes in chapters 42–53 of the
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second part, devoted to Sancho on his island or rather, on the island that is not an island given to him by the Duke and Duchess, who cleverly mock the Knight and his squire. Silva must have used a Spanish edition of Don Quixote as his source, since the first Portuguese translation dates only to 1794 (that edition, O Engenhoso fidalgo Dom Quixote de la Mancha, does not include the translator’s name, which remains unknown).15 We can also surmise that he owned an edition published after 1662 because, in Silva’s play, Sancho cites the book that narrates Don Quixote’s adventures and misadventures as “A Vida de vossa mercê,” (“The Life of Your Grace”), using the first word of the title (“Vida”) that was given to the edition of the two parts of the novel published in Brussels in 1662 by Joannes Momaert II.16 All later editions cite the same title, including those printed in Antwerp (1672–73) and Madrid (four editions between 1674 and 1723).17 Antônio José da Silva must have had one of these in hand when he wrote the first of his comédias for the marionettes of the Teatro do Bairro Alto.
Lisbon Theaters The Teatro do Bairro Alto was one of the places in Lisbon where, in the first third of the eighteenth century, residents could see plays performed.18 There had been others prior to that era. Before 1727, comedias by Spanish troupes were performed at the Pátio das Arcas. This corral de comedias (open-air theater) belonged to the Royal Hospital of Tudos os Santos, which benefited from a significant portion of the proceeds. It was closed in 1727, however, after an effective campaign against the immorality of theatrical productions, and comedias did not return there until 1737. Beginning in 1731, Italian operas, or selections of their arias, could be sung by traveling companies only in the royal palace in Lisbon and in private aristocratic theaters. It was not until 1735 that the Academia da Trindade presented an opera to a broader public, Gaetano Maria Schiassi’s Farnace.19 The Teatro do Bairro Alto was able to take advantage of the closure of the Pátio das Arcas and the absence of public performances of Italian opera to present a marionette performance, the Vida do grande d. Quixote de la Mancha. This dramatic form represented a new genre, combining comédia and opera and mixing spoken dialogue and sung airs, duets, and choruses. Silva’s Dom Quixote features three choruses, eleven airs, one duet, and one song for four voices.
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Europe’s Marionettes: Pupazzi, Titeres, Puppets, and Bonifrates Notwithstanding Jom Tob Azoulay’s cinematic imagination, it remains difficult to reconceive the workings of performances at the Teatro do Bairro Alto. The marionettes there must have resembled those that belonged to touring companies that performed Italian operas for aristocratic audiences in private theaters in Paris and Vienna.20 These marionettes were operated by strings attached to their hands and feet and by an iron bar inserted into their heads. The first description we have in print of these or similar figures, known in Italian as pupazzi, dates from 1646 and was written by an Italian Jesuit, Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli, in his Della christiana Moderatione del Theatro. According to Ottonelli, “the figures have a head of paper-maché, a body and legs of wood, arms made of rope, and hands and feet of lead.”21 Ottonelli specifies that while a puppeteer moves the “pupazzi,” “un’ altro Recitante” (“another puppeteer”) speaks their parts: “before him was a copy of the play marked up in several colors showing changes in voice: red for the voice of a young lady, blue for a man, and green for a buffoon.”22 The Italian marionettes and those at the Bairro Alto differed from others in Europe, some of which were moved on rails laid into the stage and others manipulated with an iron rod controlled by an operator underneath the stage.23 In Lisbon, the marionettes, called figuras artificiais, bonecos, or bonifrates, were made of cork instead of wood. Their lightness allowed for a spectacular range of movement and for rapid mutações or changes of scenery. In 1733, spectators watching the first part of Silva’s Dom Quixote could witness the knight-errant kill a lion, enter the cave of Montesinos surrounded by lightning and thunder, and fly up to Parnassus on a cloud. This theatrical form was aimed at a public made up of members of the minor nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. This kind of puppet theater differs significantly from more popular marionette shows such as the ones depicted in chapters 25 and 26 of the second part of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and also from the “puppet show” or “motion” featured in the last act of Ben Jonson’s comedy Bartholomew Fair, a play first performed in 1614. In chapter 25, the innkeeper introduces Don Quixote to the marionette operator Master Pedro, also known as Ginés de Pasamonte, describing him as “a famous puppet master who’s been traveling the Aragonese side of La Mancha for some time, showing a puppet play about Melisendra being freed by
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the famous Don Gaiferos.”24 Master Pedro’s stage is installed in the inn, and he operates it in this manner: “Master Pedro went inside the puppet theater, for it was he who would manipulate the figures inside the play, and outside stood a boy, a servant of Master Pedro’s, to act as interpreter and narrator of the mysteries on stage; in his hand he held a rod with which he pointed to the figures as they came out.”25 Master Peter is thus moving his marionettes from below, as shown in an illustration from the Brussels 1662 edition of Don Quixote.26 This position, fortunately, saves his life when Don Quixote leaps up and cuts apart the “titerera morisma” (crowd of Moorish puppets) that chase Melisander and her savior and spouse Don Gaiferos.27 Don Quixote nearly decapitates the puppet-master in the process: “he delivered so powerful a downstroke that if Master Pedro had not stooped, crouched down, and hunched over, he would have cut off his head more easily than if it had been so much marzipan.”28 We should, however, be cautious about reading Cervantes’s text too literally. It attributes to Master Pedro’s marionette theater some remarkable scenic capacities, including the possibility that Pedro could show multiple actions simultaneously, which may in fact have been impossible for a single operator to perform. The passage may instead refer to the theatrical effects created by automatons: Cervantes, that is, may be mixing together several forms of actor-less theater in his fictional scene.29 In Ben Jonson’s comedy Bartholomew Fair, Leatherhead, who renames himself the “puppet master” Lantern, puts on a play called “The Ancient Modern History of Hero and Leander, otherwise called The Touchstone of True Love, with as true a trial of friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o’ the Bankside,” a parody of Marlowe’s famous 1598 poem.30 By introducing this puppet play—a sight that would have been as familiar to London theatergoers of the seventeenth century as to Parisians in the eighteenth century—Jonson draws an unfavorable comparison between the puppets, who make up what the character Cokes calls a “civil company,” and the actors, who are always complaining, poking fun at and insulting one another, and getting drunk.31 He also uses the puppet play to contrast poetry, dramatic or nondramatic, with popular spectacles, which debase the theater with performances by dancing dogs and sideshows of monstrous creatures.32 It is somewhat difficult to imagine Leatherhead’s “puppet show,” however. Like the supposed recitator or narrator in Greek and Roman drama (at least, as Renaissance readers imagined that practice),33 he performs all characters’ parts, as would the “recitante” of the Italian pupazzi. “I am the mouth of them
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all,” he says.34 He does appear to share the stage with marionettes that are manipulated by an assistant—since one of them arrives to knock him on the head. It is, therefore, possible that marionettes and actors are performing side by side here, on the same stage, as was the case in some Italian commedia dell’arte troupes.35 Such a scenario seems to be suggested at the play’s conclusion in the dialogue between “Puppet Dionysius” and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, the Puritan who interrupts the show and attempts to close the theater, calling it immoral and idolatrous. Leatherhead’s “puppet show” is clearly part of the carnivalesque tradition in public squares, festivals and fairs, and itinerant shows, and we could compare it to the “motion of the Prodigal Son” mentioned by Autolycus the peddler in The Winter’s Tale,36 and to Master Peter’s stage in Don Quixote. But the bonecos and bonifrates of Lisbon belong to a very different theatrical world.
Antônio José da Silva: “New Christian,” Poet, and Playwright The first attribution of the 1733 Vida do grande dom Quixote to Antônio José da Silva dates from 1741, two years after the playwright’s death. We find it in the Bibliotheca Lusitana by Diogo Barbosa Machado. Machado gives a brief biography of Silva in the first volume: “Antonio Joseph da Silva born in Rio de Janeiro son of João Mendes da Silva lawyer at Lisbon and Lourença Coutinho, He studied Civil Law at the University of Coimbra then settled in Lisbon where he practiced as a Lawyer in the courts of the city. He had a genius for Comic Poetry.”37 “He had a genius for Comic Poetry”: the Bibliotheca refers to six of his comédias that were performed to “audience applause.” Three of these, Machado tells us, were printed (all three in octavo format): Labirinto de Creta (Cretan Labyrinth) in 1736 and As Variedades de Proteu (The Variations of Proteus) and Guerras do Alecrim e Manjerona (Wars of Rosemary and Marjoram) in 1737. Machado puts the letters “M. S.” next to three other titles, indicating that they remained in manuscript: Anfitrião, ou Júpiter e Alcmena (Amphitryon, or Jupiter and Alcmena), Vida do grande d. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança (The Life of the great don Quixote de la Mancha and the fat Sancho Pança), and O Precipício de Faetonte (The Fall of Phaeton).38 In 1744, these six works were published in a volume entitled Theatro Comico Portuguez, along with two others: Esopaiada ou Vida de Esopo (Aesopiad, or the life of Aesop) and Os Encantos de Medéia (the charms of Medeia),
Figure 9. The first volume of the second edition of the Theatro comico portuguez (Lisbon: Francisco Luis Ameno, 1759), featuring José Antonio da Silva’s plays including the Vida de D. Quixote de la Mancha. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.
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dating from 1734 and 1735 respectively. The edition was reprinted in 1759 (Figure 9). No author’s name appears on the title page of this volume, but Silva’s name can be surmised from an acrostic that concludes the preface, addressed “ao leitor desapaixonado” (to the dispassionate, unbiased reader). The initial letters of the first words of the two final décima stanzas, when read vertically, produce: antonio joseph da silva.39 Who was Antônio José da Silva, in 1713? Thanks to two magnificent works by Nathan Wachtel, we are able to track his tormented life and his tragic fate in detail.40 He was born in 1705 in Rio de Janeiro into a family of cristãos novos, New Christians—Portuguese Jews forcibly converted to Christianity after 1497—who had probably relocated to Brazil at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1711, both of his parents along with a significant portion of his entire family were denounced to the Inquisition for practicing rites of Judaism: ritual fasting, dietary restrictions, and the wearing of freshly laundered clothing on Saturdays. All of the accused, including Antônio José and his two brothers, Balthazar and André, were sent to Lisbon. Imprisoned as of October 1712, his father, João, and his mother, Lourença, both confessed to Judaizing. On July 9, 1713, during an auto-da-fé, they were publicly “reconciled” to the Catholic Church and were condemned to having their properties confiscated and to wear the obligatory “penitential garment” on Sundays and feast days. This first encounter with the Inquisition tribunal in Lisbon would not be the last (see Figure 10). In 1726, Brites Coutinho, Antônio José’s cousin, was denounced to the Inquisition by her fiancé, Luis Terra Soares, a student in canon law at the university in Coimbra, who himself may have been part New Christian and may have feared for his own life. Antônio José was also arrested along with his mother, his aunt Isabel Cardoso Coutinho, his two brothers, and a number of cousins. He confessed that he had lapsed back to “Mosaic Law” and denounced other family members but not his mother. For this refusal, he was tortured. Seriously wounded, he was unable to sign his abjuration statement: the inquisitorial formulaic printed document read, por não poder asinar por causa de tormento, “unable to sign due to torture.” After being “reconciled” to the church in an auto-da-fé on October 13, 1726, he was sentenced to having his properties confiscated, to wearing the “penitential garment,” and to receiving lessons in Christian faith.41 Now freed and resident in Lisbon, Antônio José, trained like his father as a lawyer, began a remarkable literary career. He wrote the eight operas or comédias published in the 1744 collection. Two poems were published
Figure 10. First page of one of the lists published by the Portuguese Inquisition documenting public condemnations and sentences. This Lista, from the auto- da-fé of July 25, 1728, includes the names of Antonio José da Silva’s brothers Andres Mendes da Silva and Balthazar Rodrigues Coutinho, his cousin Branca Maria de Castro Lara, and his future sister-in-law Pascoa do Rios. All were “reconciled” with the church and sentenced to wear the penitential habit. Lista das pessoas que sahiram, condenaçoens, que tiveram, e sentenças, que se lèram no Auto publico da Fè, que se celebrou na Igreja do Convento de S. Domingos desta cidade de Lisboa Occidental, em domingo 25. de Julho de 1728 (Lisbon, 1728). Henry Charles Lea Library, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.
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under his name in 1736 in two anthologies: these poems reveal his connections with the court of João V and members of the aristocratic elite. The first poem is a Glosa or “gloss” on a sonnet by Luiz de Camões in which “Portugal” expresses sadness for the death of the beautiful Infanta D. Francisca. According to the 1759, updated edition of Machado’s Bibliotheca Lusitana, the poem was printed in 1736 in a poetic anthology entitled Acentos Saudosos das Musas Portuguezas.42 The second, also dated 1736, is a poem presented as a Romance héroïco in praise of João Cardoso da Costa, printed in the preliminaries of a collection of Cardoso’s poetic works entitled Musa Pueril.43 The 1759 edition of Bibliotheca Lusitana also attributes to Antônio José a comédia written in Castilian, named El prodigio de Amarante S. Gonçalo. This religious play, possibly from 1735 or 1737, could be one of the proofs Antônio José gave that his abjuration was genuine.44 Also mentioned in the Bibliotheca Lusitana is a “Sarzuela Epithalamica” in Castilian, entitled Amor vencido de amor, written for the celebration of the marriage of João V and the daughter of Philip V of Spain.45 However, even his connections with such powerful figures did not protect Antônio José from being arrested a second time by the Inquisition. In 1737, Silva, his wife, Leonor Maria de Carvalho, and his mother were all arrested after his brother André and André’s family were denounced as “judaizers” by a New Christian whom they had sheltered. Antônio José was imprisoned for two years. During this period, his play O Precipício de Faetonte (the fall of Phaeton) was performed at the Teatro do Bairro Alto—but the actual fall was his own. He denied all of the accusations leveled against him, but his testimony was undermined by reports from spies who observed him through holes in his cell walls, and by the testimonies of “sheep” prisoners who were placed there with him. These informers attested that he followed Jewish fasting practices, that he performed Christian acts incorrectly, and that he mocked the prayers made by a cellmate. Despite testimony in his favor by three Dominicans and one Augustinian friar, who called him a good Christian, he was declarado por convicto, negativo, pertinaz e relapso no crime de heresia e apostasia e que foi hereje apostato de Nossa Santa Fe Catolica (“found guilty for having denied, been obstinate, and for having relapsed into the crime of heresy and apostasy, and for being a heretic and apostate from our Holy Catholic faith”). Remanded to the civil authorities, he was strangled, then his body burned to ashes (his punishment was called queimar de garrote and was actually considered to be a sign of the Inquisition’s leniency). This took place following an auto-da-fé of October 18, 1739, during which his wife,
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mother, brother, sister-in-law, and aunt were, once again, “reconciled” to the church, despite the accusation that they had relapsed into Judaism—a crime that meant almost certain death by burning at the stake.46
The Voyage to Parnassus Is it possible to connect Antônio José da Silva’s life, marked by these persecutions, and his works, in particular the Vida do grande d. Quixote, written following his first trial, torture, and sentencing? Before turning to this question, however, we should examine how Antônio José adapted the Cervantine text in order to create a stage performance. I focus on two scenes from the first part of the Vida.47 In the eighth and ninth scenes, Don Quixote and Sancho travel to Parnassus, following the command of the muse Calliope, who had summoned them to assist in combat against the bad poets in league against Apollo. The ninth and last scene in the first part presents the battle won by Don Quixote against these poetazinhos, concluding with a burlesque song sung by Sancho: Since I will be braying my song, Here is the pitch: Hee haw! Hee haw! Haw!48 In Cervante’s Don Quixote, we find no such “Poetomachy” that might resemble Silva’s combat, and Don Quixote never visits Parnassus. But the dramatist knew his Cervantes very well and found his theatrical inspiration in another of the author’s works: the Viaje del Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus), published in Madrid in 1614.49 The Viaje is a poem of over three thousand lines recounting Cervantes’s voyage to Parnassus and a battle of the books, between good and bad poets. As part of a genre of “Parnassus voyages,” it explicitly imitates Cesare Caporali’s 1582 Viaggio in Parnaso.50 Cervantes turned his imitation into a satire directed at his contemporary poets, a burlesque parody of mythology, and a disguised autobiography.51 Antônio José da Silva borrows and adapts material from this Cervantes poem with a great deal of subtlety. Silva’s Don Quixote meets Calliope and not Mercury, as Cervantes supposedly had, and this meeting introduces a series of three arias sung by the Muses Calliope, Euterpe, and Terpsichore. The journey to Parnassus takes places not in a boat but on a cloud, a device that allows for spectacular stage effects. The Portuguese dramatist also inserts
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a series of comic effects that gesture to theatrical illusion and the willing suspension of disbelief that the fiction requires. When Calliope appears to Don Quixote, he declares to her, Sovereign Nymph, Veil of Iris on the horizon. Tearing the diaphanous skies, Show us your divinity [deidade]. But Sancho breaks this poetic enchantment by echoing each phrase of his master with his far more prosaic exclamations: Sovereign Nymph. Rainbow on the horizon. Tearing the papier mâché clouds . . . Show us your old age [de idade in two words]!52 Silva’s Sancho thus takes on a Brechtian role, undermining the theatrical illusion. In the first part’s seventh scene, Don Quixote observes the cave of Montesinos with wonder: “Do you see this admirable palace, Sancho? Do you see these Doric and Corinthian columns? Look at this beautiful jasper! What do you think of it all?” But his squire pulls him back to reality, and to the reality of the theater: “I have the sense that this is all painted on some pine planks.”53 And in the second part’s first scene, when asked, “Do you know where we are?,” Sancho replies, “I know perfectly well. In the Teatro do Bairro Alto.”54 Silva also demonstrates his theatrical genius in his highly condensed version of the battle between the two poetical armies, which Cervantes had described at length. The 231 verses of chapter 7 of the Viaje al Parnasso that provide a detailed inventory of poetic weapons of mass destruction55 is drastically abridged by Sancho in Silva’s version. Sancho describes the army of bad poets thus: “Can you not see their army, of ten thousand poetic romances, four thousand sonnets, two hundred décimas, eighty madrigals, and a squadron of satires flying as thorns, that scratch.”56 Silva also transforms some poetic details. In Cervantes’ text, Mercury got a blow on his right hand From an old Satire rotten at the core, Piquant in style, but of unsavoury brand.57
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Here, it is Sancho who sustains a wound: “Help me, a razor-sharp rhyme has pierced me through and through!”58 Silva transformed Cervantine texts such as Don Quixote and the Viaje del Parnasso in order to adapt to three particular constraints of the plays he was writing for the Teatro do Bairro Alto. The play, first, had to include songs: these had increased steadily in number over the course of his previous plays, reaching to thirty-one in the Labirinto de Creta in 1736 and thirty-two in O Precipicío de Faetonte in 1738. We do not know who composed the music and songs for the Vida do grande dom Quixote, but we do know that Silva worked with Antônio Teixeira on the plays Os Encantos de Medeia, Variedades de Proteu, and the Guerras do Alecrim e Manjerona, and perhaps also on Anfitrião and on Labirinto de Creta.59 His play had, second, to take advantage of the liberty permitted by marionette theater in order to astonish viewers with spectacular stagecraft. And third, he took liberties with the text that must have delighted those who knew Cervantes’s text well.60 One example is at the opening of the eighth scene in part 1, when Don Quixote is fooled into believing that evil magicians have transformed Sancho into Dulcinea. “I am speaking to you, false Sancho, and to Dulcinea transformed,” he says. Sancho, in responding to his master’s wild imaginings, alludes directly to the novel: “I do not believe that in the Life of Your Highness anything like this was ever told.”61 The spell dissipates when Don Quixote approaches Sancho to kiss him; Sancho refuses, vehemently: “You insist that I must be Dulcinea, sanchopanza- ized, or Sancho, dulcinea-ized! Well, if you want me to be Dulcinea, come here and I’ll kick the stuffing out of you!”62 His response awakens Don Quixote back to reality, because he admits that, “Dulcinea, the beautiful, the wise, is not a being who would ever be capable, even transformed, of insulting me in such a base manner.”63 The portrayal of Sancho is another example of the freedom Silva takes with Cervantes’s text. Sancho proves able to deploy scholastic reasoning in order to deny the existence of Dulcinea in the third scene in part 2. When Don Quixote attempts to persuade him of her reality, Sancho responds, “I do not deny the existence of beauteous divinities who should be worshipped; but that there are Dulcineas . . . ex parte objecti, I concede it, but a parte rei I deny it.”64 At the opening of this same scene, Sancho had begun to tell a tale; as in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, Sancho’s storytelling style, so full of parentheses and subordinate clauses, repetitions and switchbacks, exasperates his master: “Por minha vida, que acabes. Se não, te moerei os ossos” (“Upon my life, will you
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finally finish? If you do not, I will grind up your bones”). Yet the story Sancho tells in this comedia is not simply a way of passing time, as it is in the novel.65 It is actually an astute fable reminding Don Quixote of the promise he has made to Sancho that he will receive an island. The Knight understands him all too well: “You will pay for this, Sancho. I understand your story perfectly.”66 Silva met the challenges that adaptation posed with great ingeniousness: by introducing song into prose, by creating spectacular effects, and by inventing while also imitating. A strong proof of his success comes from the fact that, after his Don Quixote, the Teatro do Bairro Alto commissioned from him or agreed to perform seven other plays he authored.
Writing and Experience Can we locate traces of Antônio José da Silva’s own experience as a converso—under suspicion by the Inquisition and suffering brutal treatment during his 1726 trial—in his dramaturgical or poetic inventiveness? There is a critical tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which follows this line of thought, and in fact sees the playwright as a martyr for freedom of conscience, a victim of Catholic fanaticism, and a hero fighting for the rights of the colonials against the dominant metropole. This interpretation of Silva as hero and martyr began in 1839 with the “romantic tragedy” by Domingo José Gonçalves de Magalhães entitled Antônio José ou O poeta e a Inquisição (Antônio José, or the poet and the Inquisition).67 A subsequent version of this theme emerges in 1866 in a novel by the Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco, O Judeu (the Jew).68 In the twentieth century we can find this interpretation in the “dramatized narrative” by the Portuguese playwright Bernardo Santareno entitled O Judeu and in the film of the same title by Jom Tob Azoulay with which this essay began.69 But can we locate any echoes of Silva’s sufferings in his own plays? The Brazilian novelist and critic Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis did not think so, and he chose to separate his critical judgment on Silva’s works from any emotional response to his tragic fate. In a 1906 essay, Machado de Assis writes, “Pity cannot be a determining guide for the critic, and some bad poets who have been victims of social injustice may attract our compassion but do not inspire us to analyze their work. This is not the case of Antônio José: we should study him because of his work, even leaving aside the tragic circumstances attached to his name.”70 Machado de Assis here refutes the possibility
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of locating any intent to denounce authority, or even to suggest tragedy, in the “comédias” of Antônio José da Silva. These plays were written, he would argue, only to make audiences laugh, in the spirit of the baixo-cômico, or low comedy. According to Machado de Assis, “despite traces and memories of the first action taken by the Inquisition against him [the condemnation of 1726], and despite the dramatic spectacle of his family’s punishment, Antônio José’s operas convey the sentiment of one of who had an unperturbed, happy youth, who enjoyed lewd pranks, in keeping with popular tastes, and who showed no signs that he was marked by these tragic events.”71 We can find a similar attempt to separate the life and the work in the thesis by José Oliveira Barata, presented in Coimbra and published in two volumes between 1983 and 1985, entitled Antônio José da Silva: Criação e realidade (Antônio José da Silva: creation and reality).72 In the French preface to the translation of four of Silva’s plays, Barata criticizes what he labels “a kind of new scholasticism”: “Given that the Jew was a victim of the Inquisition, his works must necessarily reflect his own animosity toward his ferocious persecutors. Thus, by reading his works superficially, many believe they can locate in them the signs of the writer’s revolt against an oppressive institution.”73 Barata presents three arguments that suggest such a reading is misguided. First, the Inquisition never refers to Silva’s plays in its accusations against him. Indeed, Cardinal Nuno da Cunha, who signed the order condemning him in 1739, was also the one who granted the licença or permission allowing the publication of his works in 1744. Second, prudence would have required Silva to self-censure his work carefully and to avoid all references that might have been taken to be subversive. Third, all of his works are parodic rewritings of previous stories or works (with the sole exception of Guerras do Alecrim e Manjerona), rather than narratives drawn from his own experience. More recently, however, Nathan Wachtel and Roberto Paulo Pereira have argued that this thesis may itself need to be revised. Wachtel, in his magisterial study of the so-called conversos who were condemned as Judaizers by the Inquisition in Lisbon, cites Silva, whose incarceration, trial, and torture between 1737 and 1739 he reconstructs in precise detail, as an example of someone whose work may have been under suspicion: “A solid argument can be made that António José da Silva was convicted because of the subversive ideas his theater diffused to the public.”74 According to Wachtel, satire may be a vehicle for social criticism, even if that criticism takes place in a comic form and if the author must hide himself behind his characters and their burlesque speeches. Wachtel argues that “there are numerous citations that can be
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drawn from the plays of ‘the Jew’ that, considered in their historical context, seem to display a rare courage, even alluding to the author’s experience of the Inquisition’s jails.”75 Pereira argues in an introduction to a Portuguese edition of four of Silva’s plays that we should recognize an autobiographical element in several of the plays, particularly Anfitrião, and he notes the unusual level of violence present in Silva’s satires of social institutions.76
Painted Justice To evaluate these opposed points of view, we must return to the text itself, and first to the scenes in the Vida do grande d. Quixote de la Mancha in which Sancho renders judgments and comments upon the allegory of Justice, in scenes 3 and 4 of the play’s second part.77 Antônio José da Silva takes the many warnings Don Quixote has given to Sancho before he takes possession of his island, in the novel, and reduces them to three principles.78 He must, first of all, be just in his decisions: “Sancho, keep in your mind that you will govern: remember that you must always keep Justice in front of your eyes.” His injunction is taken literally by Sancho: “Yes, sir, and I will ask for its portrait to be made, and I will put it right in front of my eyes.” 79 His comic request here leads to his explanation of the allegory of Justice that begins the fourth scene in the second part. Don Quixote’s second command to Sancho is, “Do not allow yourself to be corrupted by gifts” and his third, “Love God and your neighbor as yourself.”80 Sancho’s explication of the allegory of Justice is Silva’s invention and is entirely absent from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. For Sancho, Justice “is only a painting” and “is a figure needed on earth to make important people afraid, just like the bogey-man makes children afraid.” He describes the meanings of each of the attributes of this “figure”: she is “dressed as in a tragedy, because all justice ends in tragedy.” Her eyes are blindfolded “because it is said that she squints and is nearsighted.” She carries a double-edged sword “because she gestures in all directions, that is to say, wildly here and there” and she holds a scale “whose arm is unreliable.” Whether painting or allegory, Justice, here, is no more a reality than the bogeyman, or Dulcinea del Toboso.81 The cases judged by the Sancho we see in Silva’s comédia are each different than those adjudicated by Cervantes’s Sancho. Every one of them makes clear that justice may produce iniquity, cruelty, or corruption. In answer to a man who comes seeking justice, Sancho presents him with an image of justice,
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“uma justiça pintada,” because, he says, “there is no justice on this island, only a painted version of it.”82 When a women denounces the man who has seduced her and refuses to marry her despite promising to do so, Sancho imposes a cruel punishment upon her: “let this woman be put into prison, clapped in irons, chained at the neck and with ball and chain on her feet, until the man she wishes to marry returns to her.”83 And when Sancho must sentence his own donkey, proven guilty of having kicked a man, he declares in an aside, “What I can do is prevent this sentence from being carried out.”84 Thus, in the world of Silva’s Dom Quixote, justice itself does not exist: it is only an illusion, a snare, and a trick. How are we to interpret this significant rewriting of Cervantes’s text? One important shift is that here we find a series of comical parodies of judicial rhetoric. The play includes several burlesques of lawyers and of legal codes: for example, again in the fourth scene in the second part, Sancho quotes an utter jumble of sources rendered into impenetrable legal references: “just as no one can refuse being looked at, as the text states, in l. Caecus, § Tortus ff. de his, who keeps an eye on another, and as is also clearly proven by Moist Bread in his chapter on Old Croutons, also one cannot stop ones ears and one must listen to all plaintiffs, as is decreed in the Twelve Tables of Pine in the second book of Lumber, in the Cod.de Barrotis.”85 In an equally absurd moment, Sancho pronounces sentence on his donkey, in a parody of judges and tribunals.86 These farcical episodes are, of course, part of a long theatrical tradition in which doctors and judges are mocked, and this, for some critics, makes it difficult or impossible to claim any biographical basis for the satires of justice in the play. Thus for Machado de Assis, “even if we admit that the allegory of Justice in the Vida de Dom Quixote may be a summary of the poet’s personal complaints . . . the truth is that the events of his life neither influenced nor diminished the unique strength that his talent granted him, no more than they could change his nature, which was anything but hypochondriac.”87 More recently, Pereira has pointed out the forceful nature of Silva’s satire of corrupted justice, and Wachtel suggests that two of the central motifs in “the Jew’s” plays may have biographical significance: metamorphosis and the labyrinth.88 We can identify both of these motifs in one scene in S ilva’s play Anfitrião (a scene that is alluded to by both Machado de Assis and by José Oliveira Barata, although neither of these critics noted any connection to the playwright’s own life).89 In this episode, scene 6 of the second part (a scene also presented in Jom Tob Azoulay’s film), the character Saramago, Amphitryon’s valet, is locked up in Limoeiro Prison along with three
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others. To extort money from Saramago, the three other prisoners torture him using the same technique employed by the Inquisition: the “polé,” or the strappado, during which a prisoner is bound by ropes and hoisted up to the ceiling of the torture chamber. Before beginning the torture, one of the men demands of Saramago, “why did they arrest you?”—“For nothing” (“Por nada”) the valet replies.90 Later, when his torturers demand why he will not speak freely, he responds, “What kind of liberties can a man take who doesn’t have any?”91 Held in the same prison as Saramago, Amphitryon narrates his own misfortune in a recitative that is followed by an aria. In his recitative, he proclaims his innocence: Cruel destiny and unkind star that with malignant beams sends forth a baleful fate for innocence, what have I done that I should feel the weight of this most cruel, harsh chain amid the horrors of this jail in which lugubrious, sad place confusion dwells, and fear resides? But if perhaps, cruel heartless star, it’s blameful to be blameless, then I am to blame; but if my fault’s no fault, why do you take from me my honor, wife, and liberty? 92 When we read these lines, it is surely not too forced an interpretation to hear in them an echo of sufferings endured in prison, under tortures inflicted by the Inquisition. At the same time, we may also hear a denunciation of a violent injustice, which condemned innocents to the flames for crimes that exist only in their judges’ obsessions. Antônio José da Silva’s Vida do grande d. Quixote de la Mancha interweaves three histories. The first is that of theatrical adaptations of the second part of Cervantes’s Don Quixote. A second history is that of an early modern theatrical form that is too often overlooked: puppet theater, which situated itself somewhere between comedy and farce, between popular festival and elite opera, and between the cultures of court and the city. The third history is that of a playwright summoned before the Inquisition two times, one of the many
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so-called conversos who became trapped, sorrowfully, between their own private beliefs and the permanent suspicions harbored by their inquisitors. The tragic fate of Antônio José da Silva allows us to address, in a particularly dramatic manner, the question of the relationship between lived experience and written works. This question is a particularly challenging one to address when we investigate dramatic works that are largely based upon retold narratives, shared commonplaces, and imitation. Is it possible to locate in these texts, which rely upon shared practices, traces of torments, both personal and communal? The hand of Antônio José da Silva—that tortured hand that could no longer sign his name—is also the hand of a playwright who rewrote well-known tales for the marionettes of Lisbon without forgetting the memories of his sufferings.
EPILOGUE
Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” is without doubt one of the most cited and frequently interpreted texts of twentieth- century world literature.1 I invoke it here because excavating its many layers of meaning can help us reexamine the mobile, shifting relations between texts and the “author’s name” assigned to them. In the Middle Ages, the scholastic doctors interpreted the Scriptures on four distinct levels: the literal, the figurative, the allegorical, and the anagogical.2 In this epilogue, I propose to expand beyond these categories and consider six ways of interpreting this Borges fiction. Its first meaning is biographical, related to the writer’s life. The story was first published in May 1939 in the fifty-sixth number of the journal Sur and then reprinted two years later in a book whose title is a botanical metaphor: El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths).3 In the autobiography he dictated to Thomas di Giovanni, Borges explicitly links its composition to an accident that took place on December 24, 1938, causing him to lose, temporarily, the ability to speak: It was on Christmas Eve of 1938—the same year my father died—I had a severe accident. I was running up a stairway and suddenly felt something brush my scalp. I had grazed a freshly painted open casement window. In spite of first-aid treatment the wound became poisoned, and for a period of a week or so I lay sleepless every night and had hallucinations and high fever. One evening, I lost the power of speech and had to be rushed to the hospital for an immediate operation. Septicemia had set in, and for a month I hovered, all unknowingly, between life and death. Much later, I was to write about this in my story “The South.” When I began to recover, I feared for my mental integrity. . . . A bit later, I wondered whether I could ever write again. I had previously written quite a few poems and dozens of short reviews. I thought that if I tried to write a review now and failed, I’d
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be all through intellectually but if I tried something I had never really done before and failed at that it wouldn’t be so bad and might even prepare me for the final revelation. I decided I would try to write a story. The result was “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote.”4 The story of Pierre Menard is that of a writer who gives up on original creations and reinvents a work that is already written. He is a mirror image, inverted, of Borges himself, the writer who, in order to prove to himself that he still had the capacity to write, renounced all his previous work in multiple genres—poetry, reviews, journal articles5—and adopted a new genre that he described as “a halfway house between the essay and the true tale.”6 A second way of reading the tale autobiographically is to locate the author within the fiction itself. Consider, for example, the nineteen titles that constitute Pierre Menard’s “visible work.” The playful catalogue that distributes them into nineteen items recasts Borges’s own work while he was working in the very minor position of first assistant in the Miguel Cané de Boedo Library, a municipal library branch located in a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. His job was to catalogue uncatalogued books.7 Many of the nineteen books in the catalogue of Menard could have been written by Borges himself. The list, therefore, becomes a pastiche of his own writings. It contains authors, works, and themes which preoccupied Borges a long time before 1939: for example, the Ars magna generalis of Raymond Llull, the universal language invented by Leibniz and John Wilkins, Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, and the French poets Paul-Jean Toulet and Paul Valéry. The drafts left by Pierre Menard even resemble those left by Borges: “I remember his quadricular notebooks, his black crossed-out passages, his peculiar typographical symbols, and his insect-like handwriting.”8 The autobiographical, reflexive dimension of “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” goes beyond simple pastiche, however. In an interview with James Irby published in the Cahier de l’Herne in 1964, Borges notes that some of his stories “are only glosses of other books.”9 Indeed, several of the texts included in the 1944 Ficciones (Fictions) are rewritings of earlier works: for instance, José Hernández’s Martín Fierro in “The End” and Thomas de Quincey’s Judas Iscariot in “Three Versions of Judas.” The fiction of Pierre Menard that Borges imagined in 1939 alludes, in an ironic form, to this writing practice: Menard is reinventing the Quixote just as Borges himself is reinventing the works that infused his own reading.
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But Borges, we are told, is not the author of “Pierre Menard.” It was supposedly written in Nîmes, France, in 1939 by a friend of Menard, one who shared his strongly anti-Protestant, anti-Semitic, and anti-Masonic opinions. It was not by chance that Borges chose Nîmes as a setting, because, since the sixteenth century, the city had been deeply divided between Protestants and Catholics. Nor is the dating of the tale, 1939, accidental. Borges well knew that Provence was one of the bastions of Action française, whose antirepublican, anti-Semitic ideas reached a fever pitch when the Front Populaire government led by Léon Blum entered power three years earlier.10 The story is a response to the “fallacious catalogue” of Menard’s work prepared by Madame Bachelier, “which a certain daily, whose Protestant tendency is no secret, has had the inconsideration to inflict upon its deplorable readers—though these be few and Calvinist, if not Masonic and circumcised.”11 Menard’s true friends attempt to set the record straight. Borges himself never commented upon the political backdrop to the story’s time and place. He asserted only that “I thought that the hero of this story should be French, because such an idea would only be plausible if set in French culture.”12 Borges himself suggested a third way of reading his story in his interviews with George Charbonnier when he said about Pierre Menard: “He is overly intelligent, and he has a sense of the uselessness of literature: the idea that there are already too many books, and that is a lack of politeness and a lack of culture to fill up libraries with more books; a kind of resignation, you might say.”13 The reinvention of the Quixote—the writing of a book that has already been written—may therefore be understood as an allegory for a world that is saturated with and choked by books. In a sense, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” is an inversion of the “The Library of Babel,” a text written also in 1939: “When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all the books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness.”14 This happiness, however, is followed by “an excessive depression” produced by the fear of the excess and leading to the elimination of useless works or to the desire to find the one book that encompasses all the other ones.15 The “rarefaction” or delimitation of discourse, to borrow terms used by Michel Foucault, becomes the necessary response to discourse’s frightening proliferation.16 This allegorical tale is also an experimental one. As he would do again in “The Mirror and the Mask,” in this fourth reading Borges poses questions about the relation between the stability of a text and the mobility of its meaning. In the case of Pierre Menard, we see how the significance of a fixed text
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may vary when it is written and read in 1605 and in 1939. In “The Mirror and the Mask,” we see how the “same” text, a poem composed by Ollan for praising his victor king, can vary according to its mode of publication, the aesthetic of its composition, and the relationship between words and things.17 The two tales belong to a large family of texts that interrogate why the same work may be understood in so many different ways. Fernando de Rojas’s prologue to the 1502 edition of La Celestina is part of this tradition, as is chapter 3 of the second part of Don Quixote. Rojas alludes to differences in age, in humor or temperament, in reading habits, and to variations in how a text is transmitted to readers or listeners: Some gnaw at the bones, which have no virtue, for that is in the whole story. They do not avail themselves of the particulars—as if it were some mere traveller’s tale! Some other dabble about among the plaisantries and proverbs known to all—praising them to high heaven— but neglecting what would really be most pertinent and useful. But those who derive the proper pleasure from this book will take little interest in its plot. They will understand its essential matter and profit from it, they will be amused at its wit, and they will store away in their memories the maxims and sayings of the philosophers, in order, when the proper time comes, to use them to advantage. So then, when persons congregate to hear this play there will naturally be a variety of reactions among them. Who will deny that there will arise dissension about something which may be understood in so many different ways?18 Cervantes paraphrases this prologue in Don Quixote when he has the student Samson Carrasco describe the universal success that his story (the history written by Cide Hamete Benengeli) has had and how it has been read by all ages and by all social classes: “Children look at it, youths read it, men understand it, the old celebrate it, and, in short, it is so popular and so widely read and so well-known by every kind of person that as soon as people see a skinny old nag they say: ‘There goes Rocinante.’ And those who have been fondest of reading it are the pages. There is no lord’s antechamber where one does not find a copy of Don Quixote.”19 In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Borges introduces yet another variable that reshapes reading: time. Readers in different time periods will have radically different horizons of expectation for what they read.
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The most striking example demonstrating how the interpretation of a text is reshaped by readings of other texts written after it is the opposing meanings of the expression used by Cervantes in chapter 9 of part 1 of Don Quixote: “truth, whose mother is history.” The phrase’s meaning cannot be the same before and after the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and of William James. As Menard’s friend writes: It is a revelation to compare Menard’s Don Quixote with Cervantes’. The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine): . . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and reviser to the present, and the future’s counselor.” Written in the seventeenth century, written by the “lay genius” Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes: truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and reviser to the present, and the future’s counselor. History, the mother of truth: the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases— exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor—are brazenly pragmatic.20 “We forget that a book changes by virtue of the fact that it does not change, whereas the world does,” declared Pierre Bourdieu, crediting this observation to the historian of China Joseph Levinson.21 The idea permeates Borges’s tale. It shifts the creation of meaning from the text itself to the reader of the text: “Cervantes’ text and Menard’s are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say, but ambiguity is richness.)”22 In a letter sent to his friend on September 30, 1934, Menard acknowledged the complexity, or even the impossibility of his endeavor. Even if the Quixote reinvented was literally identical to the original
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text, its meaning was necessarily transformed by the events and works that changed the world: “To compose the Quixote at the beginning of the seventeenth century was a reasonable undertaking, necessary and perhaps even unavoidable; at the beginning of the twentieth, it is almost impossible. It is not in vain that three hundred years have gone by, filled with exceedingly complex events. Amongst them, to mention only one, is the Quixote.”23 The reader is thereby invited to perform an exercise in reading anachronistically. Of course, this is very often our own ordinary reading experience. We rarely read authors’ works in the order they were composed, nor do we read authors themselves in a strict chronological succession: “Menard (perhaps without wanting to) has enriched, by means of a new technique, the halting and rudimentary art of reading: this new technique is that of the deliberate anachronism and the erroneous attribution. This technique, whose applications are infinite, prompts us to go through the Odyssey as if it were posterior to the Aeneid and the book Le Jardin du Centaure of Madame Henri Bachelier as if it were by Madame Henri Bachelier. This technique fills the most placid works with adventure. To attribute the Imitatio Christi to Louis Ferdinand Céline or to James Joyce, is this not a sufficient renovation of its tenuous spiritual indications?”24 Alberto Manguel recalls the pleasure Borges took in applying this method to his own “readings”: “He amused himself with such subversion. ‘Imagine, he would say, reading Don Quixote as if were a detective novel En un lugar de la Mancha de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme . . . [In a certain place in La Mancha, whose name I don’t wish to remember. . .]. The author tells us he doesn’t want to remember the name of the village. Why? What clue is he concealing? As readers of a detective novel we are meant to suspect something, no?’ And he would laugh.”25 A fifth and aesthetic reading of the story would lead us to recognize its poetics: the story implicitly defines all writing as rewriting. Borges suggests this in his series of interviews with Georges Charbonnier. Speaking of Menard, he says, “He does not copy it [Quixote] exactly. He forgets it and then recovers it from inside himself. In this the idea that nothing is invented, that we work with memory, or, to be more accurate, that we work with forgetting.”26 That is, rewriting is a form of inventing. Pierre Menard has not copied the Quixote, nor has he modernized it. Nor does he identify himself with its author. He rejects making a mechanical transcription of the work, or creating a contemporary version of it, and he refuses the inevitably futile effort to become Cervantes: “His admirable ambition was to produce a few pages
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which would coincide—word for word and line for line—with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”27 This aesthetic, in its most extreme, absurd, and humorous form, casts creation as repetition and rejects a Romantic ideal of pure originality. It returns us to an earlier understanding that invention must be located within imitation, an idea that is characteristic of the aesthetic proper to the time of the Quixote itself. Such an aesthetic leads us to a final reading of Borges’s tale, this one bibliographical. Pierre Menard’s project is to reinvent Don Quixote, “word for word and line for line.” But which Don Quixote would be thus reinvented? The Quixote of a late nineteenth-or early twentieth-century Spanish edition, like the Garnier edition read by Borges when he was a child?28 The Quixote of the first edition, printed in Madrid in 1605—which lacks the episodes of the loss and recovery of Sancho’s donkey? Or the Quixote of a later edition, one of those printed between 1605 and 1608, containing the additional passages added by Cervantes in order to correct his negligence?29 The text of Cervantes is never fixed or stable, from these editions to hundreds of others published from 1605 to 1939. From one to another, the text may vary as certainly as does its materiality—from punctuation, to spellings, to chapter divisions, to page layouts. Borges and Menard implicitly suggested that Don Quixote remained always the same, in its literality if not in its meaning, ever since Cervantes himself imagined the history. They tried to tame its infinite textual variations. They dreamed of an impossible text, a text that would have been forever identical with itself.
NOTES
Chapter 1 1. Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevissima relacíon de la destruycíon de las Indias: colegida por el Obispo dom fray Bartolome de las Casas / o Casaus de la orden de Sancto Domingo. Año 1552 (Seville: Sebastian de Trugillo, 1552). The number of tracts in this collection is sometimes stated as nine, rather than eight. However, I consider the text that immediately follows the Brevissima relacíon, entitled Lo que sigue es un pedazo de una carta y relación que escribió cierto hombre de los mismos que andaban en estas estaciones, to be part of the same bibliographical unit as the Brevissima relacíon, because the continuous page signatures indicate that the two texts were printed together. Modern editions of this text include: Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, ed. André Saint-Lu (1982; Madrid: Cátedra, 2005), from which I will cite (subsequent references to Brevísima relación are to this edition), and Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, ed. José Miguel Martínez Torrejón (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 2013). When referring to titles in the text, I use modern spelling and diacritics. Citations in the notes follow early modern spelling and typographical conventions. 2. An ordinance (Pragmática) dated July 8, 1502, includes the following section, no. XVI: “De los libros y sus impresiones, licencias y otros requisitos para su introducción y curso” (“Concerning books, their printing, and the licenses and other requirements for their introduction and dissemination”). The first clause (Ley I) requires a license, “licencia,” for the printing of any work, “los dichos libros y obras, de cualquier calidad que sean, pequeña o grande, en latín o en romance” (“small or large, in Latin or in the vulgar tongue”). The bishops delegated to grant these licences were those of Toledo, Seville, Grenada, Burgos, and Salamanca (cited in Novísima recopilación de las Leyes de España (Madrid: n.p., 1805–7). The legal text makes clear that even short treatises like those of Las Casas were not exempt from censorial examination. 3. See Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth- Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 4. The Spanish Colonie; or, Briefe Chronicle of the Acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, called the newe World, for the space of xl. yeeres: written in Castilian tongue by the reuerend Bishop Bartholomew de las Casas or Casaus, a Friar of the order of S. Dominicke. And nowe first translated into english, by M.M.S. (London: William Brome, 1583), fol. A2r–v. Las Casas, Brevísima relación, 78: “Daremos por cuenta muy certa y verdadera que son muertas en los dichos cuarenta años, por las dichas tiranías e
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infernales obras de los cristianos, injusta y tiránicamente, más de doce cuentos de ánimas, hombres y mujeres y niños; y en verdad que creo sin pensar engañarme, que son más de quince cuentos.” 5. Alain Milhou, introduction, La Destruction des Indes de Bartolomé de Las Casas (1552), traduction de Jacques de Miggrode (1579), gravures de Théodore de Bry (1598), historical introduction by Alain Milhou, edition and iconographic analysis by Jean-Paul Duviols (Paris: Chandeigne, 1995), 7–69 (hereafter Las Casas, La Destruction des Indes, ed. Milhou and Duviols). 6. Trans. in The Spanish Colonie, fol. M3r. Note that the English translator translates Las Casas’s “cristianos” as “Spaniards.” Las Casas, Brevísima relación, 174–75: “Fue inducido yo, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas o Casaus, fraile de Sancto Domingo, que por la misericordia de Dios ando en esta corte de España, procurando echar el infierno de las Indias, y que aquellas infinitas muchedumbres de ánimas redimidas por la sangre de Jusucristo no perezcan sin remedio para siempre, sino que conozcan a su criador y se salven; y por compasión que he de mi patria, que es Castilla, no la destruya Dios por tan grandes pecados contra su fe y honra cometidos y en los prójimos, por algunas personas notables, celosas de la honra de Dios, y compasivas de las aflicciones y calamidades ajenas, que residen en esta corte. . . . Acabéla [esta obra] en Valencia, a ocho de diciembre de mil y quinientos y cuarenta y dos años, cuando tienen la fuerza y están en su colmo actualmente todas las violencias, opresiones, tiranías, matanzas, robos y destruiciones, estragos, despoblaciones, angustias y calamidades susodichas, en todas las partes donde hay cristianos de las Indias. Puesto que en unas partes son más fieras y abominables que en otras.” 7. Marcel Bataillon and André Saint-Lu, Las Casas et la défense des Indiens, Collection Archives 40 (Paris: Julliard, 1971), 195–96. 8. See Marcel Bataillon’s essential study, Études sur Bartolomé de Las Casas: Réunies avec la collaboration de Raymond Marcus (Paris: Centre de recherches de l’Institut d’études hispaniques, 1966). See also Bataillon’s essay “Las Casas dans l’histoire,” in Bataillon, Las Casas et la défense des Indiens, 7–49. 9. The Spanish Colonie, fol. M4r. Las Casas, Brevísima relación, 176: “se cometen tan horribles y espantables y nefarias obras, cuales nunca se hicieron ni en las Indias ni en el mundo, no sólo en los indios, los cuales ya todos o cuasi todos los tienen muertos, y aquellas tierras dellos despobladas, pero en sí mesmos unos a otros, con justo juicio de Dios, que pues no ha habido justicia del rey que los castigue, viniese del cielo, permitiendo que unos fuesen de otros verdugos.” The English translation leaves out an allusion in the Spanish text to the conquistadors’ defiance of royal justice (“justicia del rey”), leaving the punishment of their tyrannical behavior to divine justice alone. 10. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶¶2r. Las Casas, Brevísima relación, 70: “Y parecióle cosa conveniente ponella en molde, porque su Alteza la leyese con más facilidad.” 11. The Spanish Colonie, fol. M4r. Las Casas, Brevísima relación, 177: “deshonran a Dios y roban y destruyen al rey.” 12. The fragmentary treatise is entitled Lo que sigue es un pedazo de una carta y relación que escribió cierto hombre de los mismos que andaban en estas estaciones, refiriendo
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las obras que hacía e consentia hacer el capitan por la tierra que andaba. This treatise, as I have noted above, follows the Brevísima relación, continuing the same series of signatures. 13. The three treatises which present this argument are entitled Aquí se contienen treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, en las cuales, sumaria y succintamente, se tocan muchas cosas pertenecientes al derecho que la Iglesia y los príncipes cristianos tienen, o pueden tener sobre los infieles de cualquier especie que sean. Mayormente se asigna el verdadero y fortísimo fundamento en que se asienta y estriba el título y señorío supremo y universal que los reyes de Castilla y León tienen al orbe de las que llamamos occidentales Indias. Por el cual son constituidos universales señores y emperadores en ellas sobre muchos reyes; Tratado comprabatorio del Imperio y principado universal que los reyes de Castilla y León tienen sobre las Indias; and the Latin treatise Principia quedam ex quibus procedendum est in disputatione ad manifestandam et defendendam jiusticiam Indorum. 14. The treatise entitled Aquí se contiene una disputa o controversia entre el Obispo don fray Bartolomé de las Casas o Casaus, Obispo que fue de la Ciudad Real de Chiapa, que es, en las Indias, parte de la Nueva España, y el doctor Ginés de Sepulveda, coronista del Emperador, nuestro Señor, sobre que el doctor contendía, que las conquistas de las Indias contra los Indios eran lícitas, y el Obispo, por el contrario, defendió y afirmó haber sido y ser imposible no serlo tiránicas, injustas e inicuas. 15. The treatise entitled Entre los remedios que don fray Bartolomé de las Casas, obispo de la ciudad real de Chiapa, refirió por mandado del Emperador rey, nuestro señor, en los ayuntamientos que mandó hacer su majestad de perlados y letrados y personas grandes en Valladolid, el año de mill y quinientos y cuarenta y dos, para reformación de las Indias. El octavo en orden es el siguiente: donde se asignan veinte razones, por las cuales prueba no deberse dar los indios a los Españoles en encomienda ni en feudo ni en vassallaje ni de otra manera alguna. Si su Majestad, como desea quiere libralos de la tiranía y perdición que padecen, como de la boca de los dragones, y que totalmente los consuman y maten y quede vacío todo aquel orbe de sus tan infinitos naturales habitadores como estaba y lo vimos poblado; and the treatise entitled Tratado sobre la materia de los indios que se han hecho esclavos. 16. The treatise entitled Aquí se contienen unos avisos y reglas para los confesores que oyeren confesiones de los Españoles que son o han sido en cargo a los Indios de las Indias del Mar Océano, and Este es un tratado que el obispo de la Ciudad real de Chiapa, don fray Bartolomé de las Casas o Casaus, compuso por comisión del Consejo Real de las Indias, sobre la materia de los indios que se han hecho en ellas esclavos. El cual contiene muchas razones y autoridades jurídicas que pueden aprovechar a los lectores para determinar muchas y diversas cuestiones dudosas en materia de restitución y de otras que al presente los hombres el tiempo de ahora tratan. 17. The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania holds two copies of these treatises bound together: the seven in Spanish and an eighth treatise in Latin (Dechert Collection F1411.C36 1553 and Rare Book Collection F1411.C36 1553). Both copies are in early bindings; the copy in the
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Robert Dechert Collection contains a continuous manuscript foliation in a contemporary or near-contemporary hand. On the distinction between the treatises addressed to Spanish authorities and those brought with them by the missionaries see José Miguel Martínez, prologue, in Las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias (ed. Torrejón, 2013), xxxv–xxxvii. 18. Seer cort Verhael vande destructie van d’Indien vergadert deurden Bischop don fray Bartholome de las Casas oft Casaus van sinte Dominicus orden. In Brabantsche tale getrouwelick uyte Spaensche ouergeset ([Antwerp?]: n.p., 1578). Place of publication cited from the edition at the John Carter Brown Library (JCB B578 .C334s). According to Las Casas’s bibliographers Lewis Hanke and Manuel Giménez Fernández, the place of publication of this edition may be Brussels: see Hanke and Fernández, Bartolomé de las Casas, 1474–1566: Bibliografía crítica y cuerpo de materiales para el estudio de su vida, escritos, actuación y polémicas que suscitaron durante cuatro siglos (Santiago, Chile: Fondo Histórico y Bibliográfico José Toribio Medina, 1954), 205 (entry 473). 19. Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols, perpetrees es Indes Occidentales, qu’on dit Le Nouueau Monde; brievement descrites en langue castillane par l’Euesque Don Frere Bartelemy de Las Casas ou Casaus, Espagnol, de l’ordre de S. Dominique; fidelement traduictes par Jacques de Miggrode: Pour servir d’exemple & advertissement aux XVII Provinces du pais bas (Antwerp: François de Raveleghien, 1579). For a modern edition, see Las Casas, La Destruction des Indes, ed. Milhou and Duviols. 20. Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols (trans. Miggrode, 1579), “Le Translateur,” 142: “comme ce traicté . . . estoit achevé de traduire, estant prest à ester imprimé; Voicy venir en mes mains le mesme traicté en langue Brabançonne outre mon esperance; & toutesfois à mon tresgrand contentement, pour me voir deschargé du reste de la mesme version Brabançonne ou Flamengue, de laquelle i’en avoye déjà fait un tiers; desirant aussi servir au public en ma langue, après qu’auroye fait ce qui me sembloit estre le plus expedient ou necessaire; qui estoit de tourner premierement lesdites tyrannies en tel langage, qui est le plus usité & cognu de ceux là qui c[h]erchent d’apprendre & cognoistre quelque chose par lecture.” 143: “je m’advisay de traduire aussi sus l’original Espagnol lesdits extraicts qui sont de plus en la copie Brabançonne, suivant l’ordre du temps, auquel les choses ont esté escrites. Et d’abondant j’y ay adiouté quelques prefaces ou prologues faits à l’occasion desdits traictés par ledit Evesque nostre aucteur.” [“just as this treatise had been translated and was ready to be printed, there came into my hands the same treatise in the Brabançonne language, which was beyond my hopes; and nevertheless was a great satisfaction to me, relieving me of the necessity of completing the Brabançonne or Flemish version, one-third of which I had already done; and desiring to serve the public good in my own language, after having done what seemed to me the most expedient and necessary parts, which is to first turn these tyrannies into words that are the most know and used by those who seek to learn from their reading. . . . I decided to translate also from the original Spanish those extracts that were not in the Brabançonne copy, following the order in which those had been written. And
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furthermore I added certain prefaces or prologues done on that occasion by the Bishop, our author.”] 21. See note 4. 22. Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols, fol. *1r (title page); The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶2r. 23. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶¶1r. Miggrode’s version reads: “voici une histoire vraie, et composée par l’un d’entre eux de cette nation même, qui leur apprendra, non pas ce qu’ils ont encore du tout exécuté aux Pays-Bas, mais si Dieu ne les avait empêchés, ce qu’ils eussent déjà mis à fin.” Text in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 78. 24. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶3v. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 75: “de tuer douze ou quinze ou vingt millions de pauvres créatures raisonnables, créées, comme nous, à l’image de Dieu vivant?” 25. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶2r. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 73: “Les jugements de Dieu sont des abîmes auxquels n’est en puissance des hommes, non pas des Anges, de pénétrer.” 26. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶4r. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 76: “Pour cela néanmoins, ne seront excusables les Espagnols exécuteurs de telles vengeance, non plus que Pilate condamnant notre Sauveur, ni Anne ou Caïphe le poursuivant à mort, ores que le conseil de Dieu et sa main fissent ces choses. Car voici la sentence que Dieu prononce contre les méchants, desquels il se sert pour châtier les bons, lesquels par ce moyen il éprouve, et punit les méchants pour leurs démérites.” 27. The Spanish Colonie, fol. P4v. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 57: “Le royaume d’Espagne est en grand danger de se perdre et détruire, d’être dérobé, oppressé et désolé par autres nations étrangères, et nommément par les Turcs et les Maures, parce que Dieu, qui est très juste, véritable et souverain roi de tout l’univers, est fort courroucé par les grandes offenses et péchés que ceux d’Espagne ont commis pour toutes les Indes, en affligeant, opprimant, tyrannisant, dérobant et tuant tant et de telles gens, sans raison ni justice, et en dépeuplant en si peu de temps un tel et si grand pays; toutes les gens duquel avaient des âmes raisonnables, et étaient créées et formées à l’image et semblance de la très haute Trinité, et étant vassaux de Dieu rachetées de son sang précieux et qui tient compte et ne s’oublie pas d’un seul d’eux.” In the 1579 printing of Miggrode, the extracts of the “Remedies” are on 145–70. The Spanish text is Entre los remedios que don fray Bartolome de las Casas: obispo de la Ciudad Real de Chiapa: refirió por mandado del Emperador rey, nuestro señor: en los ayutamientos que mando hazer su majestad de perlados y letrados y personas grandes en Valladolid el año de mill y quinientos y quarenta y dos: para reformación de las Indias. El octavo en orden es el siguiente (Sevilla: Iacome Cromberger, 1552), fol. IIIv–IVr: “Estos reynos de España de que vuestra majestad es rey natural y señor / estan en muy gran peligro de ser perdidos y destruydos y robados / oppresos y assolados de otras estrañas naciones: y especialmente de turcos y moros y enemigos de nuestra sancta fe catholica. La razon desto es / porque Dios que es justissimo y verdadero y summo rey de todos universal: esta
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Notes to Pages 10–12
muy indignado / enojado y ofendido de graves offensas y peccados que los de España han cometido y obrado en todas las indias: afligiendo y opprimiendo / tyranizando y robando y matando tantas y tales gentes sin razon y justicia alguna / y en tan poquitos años despoplando tantas y tales tierras. Todas las quales gentes eran animas racionales / criados y formados a la ymagen de dios y semejança de la altissima trinidad todos vassallos de dios y redemidos con su preciosa sangre: y que tiene cuenta y no se olvida de uno ni ninguno dellos.” 28. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶2v. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 73: “Mais deux raisons m’ont fait mettre en avant cette préface, laquelle j’adresse à toutes les provinces du Pays-Bas, l’une afin que tous se réveillent de leur sommeil et qu’ils commencent à penser aux jugements de Dieu, pour se retirer de leurs vices, l’autre afin qu’ils considèrent de plus près à quel ennemi ils ont affaire et qu’ils voient dépeint comme en un tableau quel sera leur état, quand par leur nonchalance, querelles divisions et partialités ils auront ouvert la porte à un tel ennemi et ce qu’ils en doivent attendre.” 29. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶4v. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 77: “Tellement, ores que pour un temps les méchants s’éjouissent, toutefois Dieu ne laisse leurs cruautés abominables impunies. Mais, cependant, étant les jugements de Dieu tels que souvent il punit par les méchants ceux qui sont méchants, encore que leur méchanceté soit moindre, et les bons pareillement sont battus par les cruels et sanguinaires, il est certain qu’il ne faut pas par là juger que nous serons victorieux sur nos ennemis d’autant que notre cause est la meilleure, car il y aura assez de vices en nous pour laisser à Dieu suffisante matière pour nous punir.” 30. The Spanish Colonie, fol. ¶¶1r. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 78: “Autres se diront réformés, mais la plupart ne sont réformés que de bouche.” 31. The Spanish Colonie fol. ¶¶1r. Miggrode, in Milhou and Duviols, La Destruction des Indes, 78: “Et par ce moyen, j’espère que tous les gens de bien seront appris de se résoudre, s’amendant en leur vie, se conjoindre courageusement, non point seulement de parole, mais aussi par effet, pour repousser un ennemi si arrogant et si insupportable.” 32. In the 1579 Antwerp edition, Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols, the “Partie de Missive” is on 130–41, and the three extracts from Las Casas’s treatises are on 145–84. 33. The colophon of The Spanish Colonie (fol. R2v) states that the book was printed in London “by Thomas Dawson, for William Broome.” 34. A True Discourse of the Assault committed upon the Person of the most noble Prince, William Prince of Orange, Countie of Nassau, Marquesse de la Vere &c. by Iohn Iauregui Spaniarde. With the true Copies of the Writings, Examinations, Depositions, and Letters of sundrie offenders in that vile and diuelish atempte. Faithfullye translated out of the frenche Copie printed at Antwerp by Christopher Plantin (London: Thomas Charde and William Broome, [1582]). 35. [Thomas Stocker], A Tragicall Historie of the troubles and ciuile warres of the lowe Countries, otherwise called Flanders. Wherein, is sett forthe the originall and full
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proceedyng of the saied troubles and Ciuile warres, with all the stratagemes, sieges, forceble takynges, and manlike defenses, of diuers and sondrie Cities, Tounes, and Fortresses of the same, together, the Barbarous crueltie and tyrannie of the Spaniard, and trecherous hispaniolized Wallons, [and] others of the saied lowe Countreis. And there withall, the Estate and cause of Religion, especially, from the yere 1559. vnto the yere 1581 (London: John Kyngston for Tobie Smith, [1583]). 36. Narratio Regionum Indicarum per Hispanos quosdam devastattarum verissima: priùs quidem per Episcopum Bartholemæum Casaum, natione Hispanum Hispanicè conscripta, & Anno 1551. Hispali, Hispanicè, Anno verò hoc 1598. Latinè excusa (Frankfurt: Theodor de Bry and Johannes Saur, 1598). 37. José Emilio Burucúa and Nicolás Kwiatowski, “Como sucedieron estas cosas”: Representar massacres y genocidios (Buenos Aires: Katz, 2014), 76–79, 117–22, 153–56. 38. Theatrum Crudelitatum Hæreticorum Nostri Temporis (Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1587) and Theatre des Cruautez des Hereticques de nostre temps. Traduit du Latin en François (Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1588). For a modern edition of the French translation, see Le Théâtre des cruautés des hérétiques de notre temps de Richard Verstegan, ed. Frank Lestringant (Paris: Chandeigne, 1995). 39. This manuscript is held by the William I. Clements Library, University of Michigan: Bartolomé de las Casas, Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols Perpetrees es Indes Occidentales [manuscript, C 1582 Ca]. The seventeen watercolors are reproduced in La Destruction des Indes de Bartolomé de Las Casas (1552), ed. Jean-Paul Duviols (Paris: Chandeigne, 2013), 72–88. It has been studied by Rolena Adorno in “The Not- So-Brief Story of the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias,” in Bartolomé de Las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David Thomas Orique, O.P., and Rady Roldán-Figueroa, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 189 (Amsterdam: Brill, 2018), 29–57 (see esp. 42–54). 40. Newe Welt: Warhafftige Anzeigung der Hispanier grewlichen abschewlichen vnd vnmenschlichen Tyranney von jnhen inn den Indianischen Ländern so gegen Nidergang der Sonnen gelegen vnd die Newe-Welt genennet wird begangen. Erstlich Castilanisch durch Bischoff Bartholomeum de las Casas oder Casaus, gebornen Hispaniern Prediger Ordens beschrieben: Und im Jahr 1552 in der Königlichen Statt Hispalis oder Sevilla in Spanien gedruckt: Hernacher in die frantzösische Sprach durch Jacoben von Miggrode den 17 Provincien desz Niderlands zur Warnung vnd Beyspeil gedracht: Jetzt aber erst ins Hochteutsch durch einen Liebhaber desz Vatterlands vmb ebenmässiger vrsachen wissen vbergesetzt (Frankfurt: n.p., 1597). 41. Kurtze Erklärung der fürnembsten Thaten so durch die Spanier beschehen in etlichen Orten der neuwen Welt so in folgenden Kupfferstücken schön zierlich vnd künstlich derselben bey jeder Historien jetzt ins Teutsch dar gegeben werden ([Frankfurt: n.p., 1599]). The separate title page suggests that the engravings may have been available for separate purchase. 42. There are two variants of the 1599 printing: Warhafftiger und gründtlicher Bericht Der Hispanier grewlichen, vnd abschewlichen Tyranney von jhnen in den West
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Notes to Pages 14–16
Indien so die Neuwe Welt genennet wirt begangen. . . . mit siebzehn Figurem gezieret ([Frankfurt]: Johannes Saur for Theodor de Bry, 1599), with an engraved title page; and Newe Welt: Warhafftige Anzeigung der Hispanier grewlichen, abschewlichen vnd vnmenschlichen Tyranney, von jhnen in den indianischen Ländern, so gegen Nidergang der Sonnen gelegen, vnd die Newe Welt genennet wird, begangen, which includes a letterpress as well as an engraved title page. Not all surviving copies include the Kurtze Erklärung with the engravings at the end. 43. Den Spieghel vande Spaensche tyrannie beeldejicken afgemaelt (Amsterdam: Cornelis Claesz, 1609); Spieghel der Spaenscher tyrannye in West-Indien (Amsterdam: Cornelis Claesz, 1610). 44. Den Spiegel der Spaensche tierannije geschiet in Westindien waerin te sien is de onmenschelijcke wreede feijten der Spanjarden met samen de beschrijvinge der selver lant en volcken aert en nature allen vaderlant lieuende en vrome vooerstanders ten exemplel voor gestelt. In Spans beschreven door den E. bischop don fray bartholome de las Casas van S. Dominicus oorden (Amsterdam: Cornelis Lodewijck van der Plasse, 1620). 45. Le miroir de la Cruelle, & horrible Tyrannie Espagnole perpetree au Pays Bas, par le Tyran Duc de Albe, & aultres Comandeurs de par le Roy Philippe le deuxiesme. On a adjoinct la deuxiesme partie de les Tyrannies commises aux Indes occidentales par les Espagnols. Nouvellement exorné avec taille douçe en cuyvre (Amsterdam: Jan Everts. Cloppenburg, 1620); [issued with] Le Miroir de la Tyrannie Espagnole perpetree aux Indes Occidentales: On verra icy la cruaute plus que inhumaine, commise par les Espagnols, aussi la description de ces terres, peuples, et leur nature. Mise en lumiere par un Evesque Bartholome de las Casas, de l’Ordre de S. Dominic. Nouvellement refaicte avec les Figures en cuyvre (Amsterdam: Cloppenburg, 1620). 46. “Au lecteur Salut,” fol. (:)2r: “mon subject sera la guerre, & les Tyrannies perpetrees aux Pays bas par les Espagnols en peu d’annees, soubs la pretexte de changement de la Religion: Devant cent ans ont ilz faict les mesme aux Indes, comme vous verrez icy apres, disants que les inhabitants estoyent Payens, idolatres, invoquers de Diables, gens inhonestes, & sans raison: tout le mesme ont ilz practique en ces terres, et provinces unies, pour avoir semblançe d’une guerre juste, disants, que les inhabitants estoyent heretiques, Lutheriens, inobedients a leur Roy d’Espaigne, voulant deschirer le lien du Concorde avec lequel ilz estoyent liez entre eux.” English translation ours. 47. “Au lecteur Salut,” fol. (:)2v: “Je te prie lecteur de le lire, & relire, à fin que tu puissez fuir la Tyrannie & prendre les armes contre tels Tyrans, voulant tyranniser par tout.” 48. Julián Juderías, La leyenda negra y la verdad histórica: Contribución al estudio del concepto de España en Europa, de las causas de este concepto y de la tolerancia política y religiosa en los países civilizados (Madrid: Tipografía de la Revista de Archivos, 1914). 49. De Bry’s Latin editions of Benzoni: Americae pars quarta. Sive, Insignis & admiranda historia de reperta primùm Occidentali India à Christophoro Columbo anno M CCCCXCII (Frankfurt: Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1594); Americae pars quinta [Frankfurt: Theodor de Bry, 1595]; Americae pars sexta [Frankfurt: s.n., 1596].
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De Bry’s German editions of Benzoni: Das vierdte Buch von der Neuwen Welt.: Oder neuwe und gründtliche Historien, von dem Nidergängischen Indien, so von Christophoro Columbo im Jar 1492. erstlich erfunden (Frankfurt: Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1594); Americae das fünffte Buch (Frankfurt: s.n., 1595); Das sechste Theil der Neuwen Welt (Frankfurt: Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1597). 50. On Benzoni’s work, see Ricardo García Cárcel, La leyenda negra. Historia y opinión (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 235–38; and Milhou, introduction, in Las Casas, La Destruction des Indes, ed. Milhou and Duviols, 65. 51. Istoria ò breuissima relatione della Distrvttione dell’ Indie Occidentali di Monsig. Reverendiss. Don Bartolomeo dalle Case, ò Casaus, Sivigliano Vescovo di Chiapa Città Regale nell’Indie. Conforme al svo vero originale Spagnuolo, già stampato in Siuiglia. Con la tradutione in Italiano de Francesco Bersabita. Dedicata vall’Amicita (Venice: Marco Ginammi, 1626). 52. Istoria ò breuissima relatione, “Ai lettori,” fol. +7r: “la più tragica, e la più terribile Istoria, che da occhi humani, nella grande scena del Mondo, fosse veduta giammai: Ella commovera per certo, in chi non haverà il cuore piu duro, che di macigno.” 53. Istoria ò breuissima relatione, “Ai lettori,” fol. +7r–v: “Vederanno I Sommi Pontifici, sotto il pretesto delle giuste concessioni da’ loro predecessori fatte all’ Re di Castiglia, accioche procurassero la conversione degli Indiani alla fede de Christo, per riempire le sedie vacanti del Cielo, siano state precipitate migliaia, e milioni d’anime nel baratro dell’Inferno.” 54. The copy in the Henry Charles Lea Library at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center (Lea S-14.5.2) is an example of this phenomenon: bound together are a copy of the Istoria o brevisima relatione of 1643, a copy of Il Supplice schiavo indiano of 1657, and a copy of the Conquista dell’Indie Occidentali of 1645. 55. Las Obras del Obispo D. Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, o Casaus, Obispo que fue de la Ciudad Real de Chiapa en las Indias, de la Orden de Santo Domingo (Seville: Sebastian de Trugillo, 1552; Barcelona, Antonio Lacavalleria, 1646). 56. The Tears of the Indians: Being An Historical and true Account of the Cruel Massacres and Slaughters of above Twenty Millions of innocent People; Committed by the Spaniards In the Islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, &c. As also, in the Continent of Mexico, Peru, & other Places of the West-Indies, To the total destruction of those Countries. Written in Spanish by Casaus, an Eye-witness of those things; and made English by J.P. (London: J. C. for Nath. Brook, 1656). 57. [James Cranford], The Teares of Ireland: Wherein is lively presented as in a Map, a List of the unheard off Cruelties and perfidious Treachery of bloud-thirsty Jesuits and the Popish Faction. As a warning piece to her Sister Nations to prevent the like miseries, as are now acted on the Stage of this fresh bleeding Nation. Reported by Gentlemen of good Credit living there, but forced to flie for their live, as Jobs Messengers, to tell us what they have heard and seene with their eyes, illustrated by Pictures (London: A. N. for John Rothwell, 1642). Twelve “pictures” or engravings show cruelties inflicted by Catholics that resemble those depicted in the De Bry engravings.
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58. The Tears of the Indians, “To all true English-men,” fol. A7r–A7v. Authorized (King James) Version, Jeremiah 9:1: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” 59. The Tears of the Indians, “To His Highness, Oliver, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, & Ireland, With the Dominions thereto belonging,” fol. A5v–A6r. 60. The Tears of the Indians, “To all True English-men,” fol. b3v–b4r. 61. The Tears of the Indians, fol. b5v. 62. The Tears of the Indians, “To His Highness, Oliver,” fol. A3v. 63. La Découverte des Indes occidentales par les Espagnols. Ecrite par dom Balthazar de Las-Casas, evêque de Chiapa. Dedié à Monseigneur le comte de Toulouse (Paris: André Pralard, 1697). 64. La Découverte des Indes occidentales, “A Son Altesse Serenissime Monseigneur Le Comte de Toulouse, Grand Amiral de France,” fol. *iiiv: “Vous y verrez la description du plus beau, du plus riche, du plus fertile & du plus heureux Païs du monde, où Dieu a ramassé toutes les choses necessaires pour la conservation & pour les plaisirs de la vie; où il a prodigué l’or, l’argent, les perles, les emeraudes, & une infinité d’autres richesses tres-precieuses, à des Peuples qui ne s’en mettoient gueres en peine; & que les Européens vont chercher au-travers de tant de périls.” English translations by John Pollack. 65. La Découverte des Indes occidentales, “Avertissement,” fol. *vv–*vir: “On auroit de la peine à croire toutes les cruautez que les Espagnols ont exercées dans le nouveau Monde, si elles n’étoient remportées par les Espagnols mêmes, par plusieurs témoins dignes de foi, & entr’autres, par le Reverendissime Dom Barthelemy de Las-Casas, Evêque de Chiapa, qui en a souvent fait des plaintes au Conseil Roïal des Indes, pour arrêter les persécutions des Espagnols qui desoloient les Indes, & qui empêchoient qu’on ne prêchât l’Evangile dans le nouveau Monde.” 66. La Découverte des Indes occidentales, “Avertissement,” fol. *vir: “On a adouci en quelques endroits des choses qui paroissoient trop cruelles, & qui auroient pû faire de la peine aux personnes delicates.” 67. La Découverte des Indes occidentales: “Moyens & remedes proposez par le Seigneur Barthelemy de Las-Casas, dans l’Assemblée des Prelats & des Doctes convoquez à Valladolid pour la reformation des Indes,” 173–210; “Proposition touchant le droit des Rois d’Espagne sur les Indes, & leurs devoirs tant au spirituel qu’au temporel,” 211–27; and “Dispute entre D. Barthelemy de Las-Casas, Evêque de Chiapa & le Docteur Sepulveda, touchant les guerres & les cruautez des Espagnols dans les Indes,” 228–382. 68. Relation des Voyages et des Decouvertes Que les Espagnols ont fait dans les Indes Occidentales; Ecrite par Dom B. de Las-Casas, Evêque de Chiapa. Avec la Relation curieuse des voyages du Sieur de Montauban, Capitaine des Flibustiers, en Guinée l’an 1695 (Amsterdam: J. Louis de Lorme, 1698). 69. Relation des Voyages, “Le Libraire de Hollande aux Lecteurs,” fol. *4v: “Il paroîtra assés singulier, qu’en France où l’on persecute depuis si long-tems, on ait
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imprimé avec privilege un livre qui condamne si hautement la violence en matière de Religion.” English translations by John Pollack. 70. Relation des Voyages, “Le Libraire de Hollande aux Lecteurs,” fol. *4v: “On verra un Docteur Espagnol, animé de l’esprit de persécution, & gagné par les persecuteurs des Indiens, faire valoir contr’eux les mêmes raisons à peu-prez dont on s’est servi dans ces derniers tems contre les Protestants en France. . . . Mais on verra d’un autre côté Dom Barthelemy de Las-Casas Evéque de Chiapa, alléguant pour les Indiens les mêmes raisons que les Protestans ont allégué & alleguent encore aujourd’hui contre l’esprit de persecution.” 71. Relation des Voyages, “Le Libraire de Hollande aux Lecteurs,” fol. *4r: “Les pays connus de l’Amérique y sont si bien décrits, qu’on ne doute pas qu’il ne se fasse lire avec plaisir.” 72. Relation des Voyages, “Le Libraire de Hollande aux Lecteurs,” fol. *5r: “Au reste on a ajouté à cette Relation, celle du Voyage de Monsieur de Montauban, tant à cause qu’elle regarde les pays de l’Amerique, qu’à cause que ce Capitaine des Flibustiers a fait du bruit dans les Nouvelles publiques, et que plusieurs personnes de bon goût ont demandé cette Relation avec empressement.” 73. Relation des Voyages, “Relation du Voyage du Sieur de Montauban,” “Lettre a Monsieur ***,” fol. Q3r: “Enfin si vous doutez du combat dans lequel le Sieur de Montauban fit naufrage, vous vous souviendrez de l’avoir lu dans les Gazettes de mois de Septembre ou d’Octobre de la presente année.” 74. Jean-Baptiste Chèvremont, La Connaissance du monde, ou l’Art de bien élever la jeunesse pour les divers états de la vie (Paris: Jean Guignard, 1694). The last volume of the series, published in 1695, was entitled L’Art de voyager. Both of the Amsterdam 1698 copies of the Relation des Voyages in the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center (Dechert Collection SC5 C2648 Eh698m and Rare Book Collection F1411 C437 1698) include this text. 75. L’Art de Voyager Utilement. Suivant la Copie de Paris (Amsterdam: J. Louis de Lorme, 1698), fol. a2r: “Si on l’avoit reçû un peu plû-tôt, on l’auroit joint à la Rélation des Découvertes & des Voyages des Espagnols dans les Indes Occidentales: Mais ayant jugé qu’il pouvoit bien se produire tout seul, on l’a imprimé de la même grandeur, afin que ceux qui souhaiteront de l’y joindre le puissent faire aisément.” 76. The edition was issued with two slightly different title pages. The first was A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries Made by the Spaniards in America. With An Account of their unparallel’d Cruelties on the Indians, in the destruction of above Forty Millions of People. Together with the Propositions offer’d to the King of Spain, to prevent the further Ruin of the West-Indies. By Don Bartholomew de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, who was an Eye-witness of their Cruelties. Illustrated with Cuts. To which is added The Art of Travelling, shewing how a Man may dispose his Travels to the best advantage (London: Daniel Brown and Andrew Bell, 1699). On the other set of copies, the title page reads, An Account of the First Voyages and Discoveries Made by the Spaniards in America (London: J. Darby for D. Brown, J. Harris and Andr. Bell, 1699).
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77. A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries, preface, fol. A3r. 78. Popery Truly Display’d in its Bloody Colours; or, A Faithful Narrative of the Horrid and Unexampled Massacre, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the Inhabitants of West- India: Together With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. Composed first in Spanish by Bartholomew de las Casas, a Bishop there, and an Eye-witness of most of these Barbarous Cruelties; afterward Translated by him into Latin, then by other hands, into High-Dutch, Low-Dutch, French, and now Taught to speak Modern English (London: R. Hewson, 1689). In contrast to this vehemently anti-Catholic title, however, the preface to this edition accords a universal moral to the account, denouncing the “Avarice,” the thirst for gold that makes men commit the most horrible crimes (preface, unsigned, fol. 3v: “Learn to abhor and destest it, Cane pejus & angue: it being the predominant and cheifest motive to the commission of such inexpressible Outrages, as here in part are faintly, not fully represented”). 79. A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries, preface, fol. A2v. 80. A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries, preface, fol. A2v. 81. A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries, preface, fol. A2v. 82. A Relation of the First Voyages and Discoveries, preface, fol. A3r. 83. Bartolomé de las Casas, Breve relacion de la destruccion de las Indias occidentales. Presentada A Felipe II. Siendo Príncipe de Asturias. Por Don Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, Del Orden de Predicadores, Obispo de Chiapa (Seville, London, and Philadelphia: Juan F. Hurtel, 1821); Breve relacion de la destruccion de las Indias occidentales. Presentada Á Felipe II siendo Príncipe de Asturias. Por Don Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, del Orden de Predicadores, Obispo de Chiapa (Seville, London, Philadelphia, Mexico City, and Guadalajara: D. Urbano Sanroman, 1822). 84. Las Casas, Breve relacion (Philadelphia 1821), “Discurso preliminar,” xxxv: “Americanos! la estatua de este santo falta entre nosotros. Si sois libres, como ya no lo dudo, la primera estatua debe erigirse al primero y mas antiguo defensor de la libertad de América. Alrededor de ella formad vuestros pactos y entonad á la libertad vuestros cánticos; ningún incienso puede serlo más grato. Yo le pondría esta ó semejante inscripcion. ‘Pára, si amas la vitud, / Pasagero: esta es su imágen / Venera á Casas, que fué / De nuestros Indios el Padre.’ ” Fourty years before Mier, the Abbé G. T. Raynal had already imagined the statue that the newly free Americans would erect in honor of Las Casas: “O Las Casas! Tu fus plus grand par ton humanité que tous tes compatriotes ensemble par leurs conquêtes. S’il arrivoit, dans les siècles à venir, que les infortunées contrées qu’ils ont envahies se repeuplâssent & qu’il y eût des loix, des mœurs, de la justice, de la liberté, la première statue qu’on y élèveroit seroit la tienne. On te verroit t’interposer entre l’Américain et l’Espagnol, & présenter, pour sauver l’un, ta poitrine au poignard de l’autre. On liroit sur le pied de ce monument: Dans un siècle de férocité, Las-Casas, que tu vois, fut un home bienfaisant. En attendant, ton nom restera gravé dans toutes les âmes sensibles; & lorsque tes compatriotes rougiront de la barbarie de leurs
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prétendus héros, ils se glorifieront de tes vertus. Puissent ces tems heureux n’être pas aussi éloignés que je l’appréhende!” Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les Deux Indes (Geneva: Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1782), 4:220–21. This passage is found in book 8, chapter 23 (volume and pagination vary by edition). “O! Las Casas! thou wast greater by thy humanity, than all thy countrymen were by their conquests. Should it happen in future ages, that these unfortunate regions which they have invaded should be peopled again, and that a system of laws, manners, and liberty, should be established among them, the first statue they erect would be thine. We should see thee interposing between the American and the Spaniard, and presenting thy breast to the poniard of the one, in order to save the other. We should read, at the bottom of the monument, in an age of barbarity, las casas, whom thou seest, was a benevolent man. In the meantime thy name will remain engraved upon every feeling heart; and when thy countrymen shall blush at the barbarism of their pretended heroes, they will take pride in thy virtues. May these fortunate times not be so far distant as we apprehend they are!” Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, trans. J. O. Justamond (2nd ed.; London: A. Strahan, 1798), 3:197. 85. Las Casas, Breve relacion (Philadelphia 1821), xxiii: “que á la cabeza de tropas regladas de España han repetido y están repitiendo las escenas trágicas de la conquista.” 86. Las Casas, Breve relacion (Philadelphia 1821), “Discurso preliminar,” xxxiv: “Quizá ha llegado ya el cumplimiento de la profecía de Casas sobre el término de su Imperio en las Indias.” 87. Juan Antonio Llorente, Histoire critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne (Paris: Treutel and Wurtz, 1817–18); Historia crítica de la Inquisición de España (Madrid: el Censor, 1822); The History of the Inquisition of Spain (London: Geo. B. Whittaker, 1826). 88. Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, Évêque de Chiapa, Défenseur de la liberté des naturels de l’Amérique; Précédées de sa Vie, et accompagnées de notes historiques, additions, développemens, etc., etc.; avec portrait; par J.-A. Llorente, 2 vols. (Paris: Alexis Eymery, 1822). The same year saw the publication in Paris of the Coleccion de las Obras del Venerable Obispo de Chiapa, Don Bartolomé de Las Casas, Defensor de la Libertad de los Americanos (Paris: Rosa, 1822). 89. Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, preface, i–ii: “En effet, il est des circonstances où le retour moral à l’ancien ordre ne peut avoir lieu, lors même qu’on voudrait faire aux parties souffrantes la réparation la plus complète des torts qu’elles ont reçus.” 90. Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, preface, i: “l’impossibilité de rétablir les choses dans l’état où elles étaient avant l’usurpation.” 91. Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, preface, ii: “il est aujourd’hui sans conséquence que ceux qu’il qualifie de tyrans fussent des Européens, puisque leur descendans ont acquis le titre que don Barthélemi faisait valoir en faveur des indigènes.” 92. On this question, see Bataillon and Saint-Lu, Las Casas et la défense des Indiens, 100–110, and André Saint-Lu, “Bartolomé de las Casas et la traite des nègres,” Bulletin hispanique 94, no. 1 (1992): 37–43.
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93. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Memorial de remedios para las Indias, in Las Casas, Obras escogidas, vol. 5, Opúsculos, cartas y memoriales, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso, (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1958), 5–27. 94. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias Escrita por Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Obispo de Chiapa Ahora por Primera Vez dada a Luz por El Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle y de D. José Sancho Rayon, 5 vols. (Madrid: Miguel Ginesta, 1875–76). 95. Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, Évêque de Chiapa, 2:430–505. 96. Apologie de Barthélémy de Las Casas, évêque de Chiapas par le citoyen Grégoire, lu à l’Institut National le 22 floréal an VIII (Paris: Baudoin, l’Institut National, 1800), and “Apologie de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, Evêque de Chiapas; par le citoyen Grégoire, Ancien évêque de Blois, membre de l’Institut de France, etc., lu à l’Institut National le 22 floréal an VIII–12 mai 1804 [sic for 1800],” in Œuvres de Don Barthélemi de Las Casas, Évêque de Chiapa, 2:336–67. See Bernard Plongeron, “Apologie de Barthélémy de Las Casas, Evêque de Chiapas, par le citoyen Grégoire,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 87, nos. 328–29 (2000): 37–50. Grégoire’s words are quoted on 41: “La traite des Nègres entre l’Afrique et l’Europe commença chez les Portugais, au moins trente ans avant la naissance de Las Casas. Le transport des esclaves noirs en Amérique, de l’aveu de tous les historiens, précède de quatorze ans, peut-être même de dix-neuf ans, l’époque de laquelle on fixe le projet imputé à Las Casas pour les substituer aux Indiens.” [“The trade of Negroes between Africa and Europe was begun by the Portuguese at least thirty years before the birth of Las Casas. The transport of black slaves to America, according to all historians, precedes by fourteen, and perhaps even nineteen years, the time of the plan ascribed to Las Casas of substituting them for the Indians.”]. See also Jean-Daniel Piquet, “Controverses sur l’Apologie de las Casas lue par l’Abbé Grégoire,” Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie religieuses 82, no. 3 (2002): 283–306.
Chapter 2 1. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, “Fuente Ovejuna” (1899), in Menéndez y Pelayo, Estudios sobre el teatro de Lope de Vega, Edición nacional de las obras completas de Menéndez Pelayo (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1949), 5:171–82: “No hay obra más democrática en el Teatro castellano,” 175. 2. Chronica de las tres Ordenes y Cavallerias de Santiago, Calatrava y Alcantara: en la qual se trata de su origen y successo, y notables hechos en armas de los Maestres y Cavalleros de ellas y de muchos Señores de Título y otros Nobles que descienden de los Maestres y de muchos otros Linages de España. Compuesta por el Licenciado Frey Franscisco de Rades y Andrada Capellan de su Magestad, de la Orden de Calatrava. Dirigida a la C.R.M. del Rey don Philippe, nuestro señor, Administrador perpetuo destas Ordenes (Toledo: Juan de Ayala, 1572), fol. 79v–80v. A facsimile edition of the chronicle was published with an essay on Rades y Andrada’s historical works by Derek W. Lomax in Biblioteca de historia hispánica, Ordenes militares, Serie maior, no. 2 (Barcelona: Ediciones El Albir, 1980). 3. Fuente Ovejuna or Fuenteovejuna (both spellings were used) is a town in the province of Córdoba, ninety kilometers from the city. In the mid-fifteenth century, it
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had approximately forty-five hundred inhabitants, including those in the town and its surrounding hamlets. 4. This portion of Rades y Andrada’s Chronicle is translated in Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna, ed. and trans. Victor Dixon (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1989), 217– 23 (hereafter Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon). For an edition of the Spanish text, see “Fragmentos de la ‘Crónica’ de Rades,” in Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna, ed. Donald McGrady, intro. by Noël Salomon (Barcelona: Crítica, 1993), 157–61 (hereafter Crónica, in McGrady). 5. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 158: “Furor del pueblo ayrado.” “Estando las cosas desta orden en el estado ya dicho, don Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, Comendador mayor de Calatrava, que residía en Fuenteovejuna, villa de su encomienda, hizo tantos y tan grandes agravios a los vecinos de aquel pueblo, que no pudiendo ya sufrirlos ni disimularlos, determinaron todos de un consentimiento y voluntad alzarse contra él y matarle. Con esta determinación y furor de pueblo airado, con voz de Fuenteovejuna, se juntaron una noche del mes de abril, del año de mil y cuatrocientos y setenta y seis, los alcades, regidores, justicia y regimiento, con los otros vecinos, y con mano armada, entraron por fuerza en las casas de la encomienda mayor, donde el dicho Comendador estaba. Todos apellidaban ‘¡Fuenteovejun a, Fuenteovejuna!’ y decían ‘¡Vivan los Reyes don Fernando y doña Isabel, y mueran los traidores y malos cristianos!’” 6. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159: “Muerte cruel dada al Comendador mayor.” “Desta manera con un furor maldito y rabioso, llegaron al Comendador, y pusieron manos en él, y le dieron tantas heridas que le hicieron caer en tierra sin sentido. Antes que diese el ánima a Dios, tomaron su cuerpo con grande y regocijado alarido, diciendo ‘¡Vivan los Reyes y mueran los traidores!’, y le echaron por una ventana a la calle, y otros que allí estaban con lanzas y espadas, pusieron las puntas arriba para recoger en ellas al cuerpo, que aún tenía ánima. Después de caído en tierra, le arrancaron las barbas y cabellos con grande crueldad, y otros con los pomos de las espadas le quebraron los dientes. A todo esto añadieron palabras feas y deshonestas, y grandes injurias contra el Comendador mayor, y contra su padre y madre.” 7. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159: “Mugeres de Fuenteovejuna.” “Estando en esto, antes que acabase de espirar, acudieron las mujeres de la villa, con panderos y sonajes, a regocijar la muerte de su señor; y habían hecho para esto una bandera, y nombrado capitana y alférez. También los muchachos, a imitación de sus madres, hicieron su capitanía, y puestos en la orden que su edad permitía, fueron a solenizar la dicha muerte, tanta era la enemistad que todos tenían contra el Comendador mayor. Estando juntos hombres, mujeres y niños, llevaron el cuerpo con grande recocijo a la plaza, y allí todos, hombres y mujeres, le hicieron pedazos, arrastrándole y haciendo en él grandes crueldades y escarnios, y no quisieron darle a sus criados, para enterrarle. Demás desto dieron sacomano a su casa, y le robaron toda su hacienda.” 8. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159: “La respuesta muy notable de los de Fuenteovejuna.” “Preguntábales el juez, ‘¿Quién mató al
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Comendador mayor?’. Respondían ellos ‘Fuenteovejuna’. Preguntábales, ‘¿Quién es Fuenteovejuna?’. Respondían ‘Todos los vecinos desta villa’. Finalmente, todas sus respuestas fueron a este tono, porque estaban conjurados, que aunque los matasen a tormentos, no habían de responder otra cosa. Y lo que más es de admirar, que el juez hizo dar tormento a muchas mujeres y mancebos de poca edad, y tuvieron la misma constancia y ánimo que los varones muy fuertes.” 9. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159–60: “Delictos del Comendador mayor por que le mataron.” “Había hecho aquel caballero maltratamientos a sus vassallos, teniendo en la villa muchos soldados para sustentar en ella la voz del Rey de Portugal, que pretendía ser rey de Castilla, y consentía que aquella descomedida gente hiciese grandes agravios a los de Fuenteovejuna, sobre comérseles sus haciendas. Ultra desto, el mesmo Comendador mayor había hecho graves agravios y deshonras a los de la villa, tomándoles por fuerza sus hijas y mujeres, y robándoles sus haciendas.” 10. Emilio Cabrera and Andrés Moros, Fuenteovejuna: La violencia antiseñorial en el siglo XV (Barcelona: Crítica, 1991), 132–38. These authors cite a contemporary chronicle of these events by Alonso Fernández de Palencia and archival documents showing that Fernán Gómez de Guzmán was a follower of Ferdinand and Isabella, not of Juana and the king of Portugal. Palencia’s chronicle and the travel narrative of Pero Tafur present an image of the grand commander that is entirely different than the one in the comedia: he is a learned Latinist, a liberal noble, and a wise counselor. Lope, however, could not have read these texts, which remained in manuscript until their publication in 1874 (Pero Tafur’s “Andanças e viages”) and 1904–8 (the “Crónica de Enrique IV de Fernández de Palencia,” translated here from Latin into Spanish). He must, therefore, have been following the chronicle of Rades y Andrada, written one century after the events it recounts. See C. E. Anibal, “The Historical Elements of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna,” PMLA 49, no. 3 (1934): 657–718. 11. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 223. Crónica, in McGrady, 160: “Fuenteovejuna se alço contra la Orden.” “Luego acudieron a la ciudad de Córdoba, y se encomendaron a ella, diciendo querían ser subjetos a su jurisdición, como habían sido antes que la villa viniese a poder de don Pedro Girón. Los de Córdoba recibieron a Fuenteovejuna por aldea de su ciudad.” 12. The difference between villa (town) and aldea (village) is not only, or not primarily, one of population size but instead relates to a legal distinction that is specified in volume 6 of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, published in 1739. “Villa” is defined thus (487): “Se llama oy la poblacion, que tiene algunos privilegios, con que se distingue de la Aldea, como vecindad, y jurisdiccion separada de la Ciudad” (“a name used in our times for a locality where the people have certain legal privileges, and is distinguished from the aldea, which is neighbor to and under separate jurisdiction from the City”). In volume 1, published in 1726, “Aldea” is defined thus (187): “Lugar corto, que no tiene jurisdición sobre sí, ni Privilégio de Villa, segun las Leyes de Castilla: y sus moradores son vecínos de alguna Villa, o Ciudad, en cuyo districto, término, jurisdición están” (a “small locality, which possesses neither its own legal jurisdiction nor the legal
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privileges of a Villa, according to the laws of Castile: and its inhabitants live as neighbors of a Villa or of a city and are under its jurisdiction”). 13. Juan de Mariana, Historiae de rebus Hispaniae (Toledo: Pedro Rodríguez, 1592), and Mariana, Historia General de España Compuesta primero en Latin después vuelta en Castellano (Toledo: Pedro Rodríguez, 1601). 14. Obras del Padre Juan De Mariana, vol. 2, Historia de España (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1872), 193 (book 24, chapter 11): “los de Fuenteovejuna una noche del mes de Abril se apellidaron para dar la muerte á Fernan Perez de Guzman, comendador mayor de Calatrava; extraño caso, que se le empleó bien por sus tiranías y agravios que hacia á la gente por sí y por medio de los soldados que tenia allí por órden de su Maestre, y el pueblo por el Rey de Portugal. La constancia del pueblo fué tal que magüer atormentaron muchos, y entre ellos mozos y mujeres, no les pudieron hacer confesar mas de que Fuenteovejuna cometió el caso y no mas.” English translation in Juan de Mariana, The General History of Spain. From the first Peopling of it by Tubal, till the Death of King Ferdinand, Who United the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. With a Continuation to the Death of King Philip III. The whole Translated from the Spanish by Captain John Stevens (London: Richard Sare, 1699), book 24, chapter 4, 426–27. 15. Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana, o española (Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1611), ed. Felipe C. R. Maldonado (Madrid: Castalia, 1995), under the entry “Fuente,” 563: “Es de saber que en el año de mil y quatrocientos y setenta y seis, en el qual se dió la batalla de Toro, como toda Castilla estuviesse revuelta con parcialidades, los de Fuente Ovejuna, una noche del mes de abril, se apellidaron para dar la muerte a Hernán Pérez de Guzmán, Comendador mayor de Calatrava, por los muchos agravios que pretendían haberles hecho. Y entrando en su misma casa le mataron a pedradas, y aunque sobre el caso fueron enviados juezes pesquisidores, que atormentaron a muchos dellos, así hombres como mujeres, no les pudieron sacar otra palabra más désta: Fuente Ovejuna lo hizo; de do quedó el proverbio, cuando el delito es notorio y en particular no hallan quién lo haya hecho, siendo muchos los delincuentes, dezir: Fuente Ovejuna lo hizo.” English translation by John Pollack. 16. Lope de Vega, El Caballero de Olmedo, ed. Francisco Rico (Madrid: Cátedra, 1992); see in particular Rico’s introduction, 51–56. 17. The text was first published in Lope de Vega, Rimas de Lope de Vega Carpio: Ahora de nuevo añadidas con el arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (Madrid: Alonso Martín, 1609). Modern edition: Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, ed. Enrique García Santo-Tomás (Madrid: Cátedra, 2006). 18. This and following translations from: Lope de Vega, New Rules for Writing Plays at This Time, trans. Victor Dixon, Biblioteca digital ArteLope, available at https://emothe .uv.es. Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo, lines 40–48: “y, cuando he de escribir una comedia, / encierro los preceptos con seis llaves; / saco a Terencio y Plauto de mi estudio, / para que no me den voces (que suele / dar gritos la verdad en libros mudos), / y escribo por el arte que inventaron / los que el vulgar aplauso pretendieron, / porque, como las paga el vulgo, es justo / hablarle en necio para darle gusto.”
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19. Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo, lines 205–10: “Porque considerando que la cólera / de un español sentado no se templa / si no le representan en dos horas / hasta el Final Juïcio desde el Génesis, / yo hallo que, si allí ha de dar gusto, / con lo que se consigue es lo más justo.” 20. See Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), chapter 6, “Why Size Matters: ‘The Two Hours’ Traffic of Our Stage’ and the Length of Shakespeare’s Plays,” 131–73. 21. This is one of Erne’s arguments for his view of Shakespeare as a “literary dramatist” who was attentive to the publication of his theatrical works, in contrast to the traditional view that he was uninterested in the print publication of his plays. 22. Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo, lines 338–40: “Tenga cada acto cuatro pliegos solos, / que doce están medidos con el tiempo / y la paciencia del que está escuchando.” 23. The autograph manuscript of Carlos Quinto en Francia is held in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn Ms. Codex 63). The manuscript was edited and published in Lope de Vega, Carlos V en Francia, ed. Arnold G. Reichenberger (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962). 24. See Marco Presotto, Le commedie autografe di Lope de Vega (Kassel: Reichenberger, 2000). 25. The second autograph manuscript of Lope de Vega held at the University of Pennsylvania is that of Los Benavides, composed in 1600 (UPenn Ms. Codex 188). The quires that compose each of the three acts have separate foliation and have not been bound together. The manuscript was published in Lope de Vega, El primero Benavides, ed. Arnold G. Reichenberger and Augusta Espantoso Foley (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973). 26. Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo, lines 367–76: “pero ¿qué puedo hacer si tengo escritas / con una que he acabado esta semana, / cuatrocientas y ochenta y tres comedias? / Porque, fuera de seis, las demás todas / pecaron contra el arte gravemente. / Sustento, en en fin, lo que escribí, y conozco / que, aunque fueran mejor de otra manera, / no tuvieran el gusto que han tenido, / porque a veces lo que es contra lo justo / por la misma razón deleita el gusto.” 27. Lope de Vega, El peregrino en su patria (Seville: Clemente Hidalgo, 1604), “Títulos de las comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio,” fol. ¶1v– ¶2. The list begins with Las Amazones and concludes with El monstro de amor. Modern edition: Lope de Vega, El peregrino en su patria, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce (Madrid: Castalia, 1973), 57–63. 28. Lope de Vega, El peregrino en su patria (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín by Alonso Perez, 1618), “Títulos de las comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio,” fol. ¶¶1r–5v. On the two lists, see Luigi Giuliani, “El prólogo, el catálogo y sus lectores : una perspectiva de las listas de El peregrino en su patria,” in Lope en 1604, ed. Alberto Blecua and Guillermo Serés (Lleida: Milenio, 2004), 123–36. 29. Lope de Vega, El peregrino en su patria (1618), fol. ¶¶5v–6r: “Consideren juntamente los nobles, los doctos, los virtuosos . . . que cuatrocientas y sesenta y dos a
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cincuenta hojas y mas de escrito suman ventitrés mil cien hojas de versos . . . sin muchas de que no me acuerdo, y no poniendo las representaciones de actos divinos para diversas fiestas, y un infinito numero de versos con diferentes propositos.” 30. Parte Catorze de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta, 1620), fol. 196r: “Yo he escrito novecientas comedias, doze libros de diversos sugetos, en prosa, y verso, y tantos papeles sueltos de varios sugetos, que no llegarà jamas lo impresso à lo que està por imprimir.” 31. See Josef Oehrlein, El actor en el teatro español del Siglo de Oro, trans. Miguel Angel Vega (Madrid: Castalia, 1993), esp. “El actor en la compañía,” 65–118; and Josep Lluís Sirera Turo, “Espectáculo y representación. Los actores. El público. Estado de la cuestión,” in La Comedia, Seminario Hispano-Francés organizado por la Casa de Velazquez, Madrid, Diciembre 1991–Junio 1992, ed. Jean Canavaggio (Madrid: Velázquez, 1995), 115–29. 32. Don W. Cruickshank, “Some Problems Posed by Suelta Editions of Plays,” in Editing the Comedia, ed. Frank P. Casa and Michael D. McGaha, Michigan Romance Studies (Ann Arbor: Dept. of Romance Languages, University of Michigan, 1991), 2:97– 123. Cruickshank identifies the three possible fates of comedias sueltas: to be bound with others by their owner; to be assembled by a bookseller in a parte; or to remain as a separate pamphlet. A collection of twenty-two volumes of comedias sueltas is held by the Kislak Center at the Library of the University of Pennsylvania. The collection was formed by Ferdinand Bonaventura, Count of Harrach, the ambassador of Emperor Leopold I of Austria to Madrid from 1673 to 1676 and again in 1697–98. On this collection, see Arnold G. Reichenberger, “The Counts Harrach and the Spanish Theater,” in Homenaje a Rodríguez-Moñino: Estudios de erudición que le ofrecen sus amigos o discípulos hispanistas norteamericanos (Madrid: Castalia, 1966), 2:97–103. 33. For this history, see Alejandro García Reidy, “From Stage to Page: Editorial History and Literary Promotion in Lope de Vega’s Partes de comedias,” in A Companion to Lope de Vega, ed. Alexander Samson and John Thacker (Woodbridge, England: Tamesis, 2008), 51–60; Jaime Moll, “Los editores de Lope de Vega,” Edad de Oro 14 (1995): 213–22; and Victor Dixon, “La intervención de Lope en la publicación de sus comedias,” Anuario Lope de Vega 2 (1996): 45–63. 34. Seis Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio, y de otros Autores (Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeek. 1603). 35. Las comedias del famoso poeta Lope de Vega, Carpio. Recopiladas por Bernardo Grassa. (Saragossa: Angelo Tavanno, 1604). Another edition was published in the same year in Valladolid by Luis Sánchez for Alonso Pérez. 36. Segunda parte de las comedias de Lope de Vega, que contienne otras doze (Valladolid: Alonso Martín for Alonso Pérez, 1609). 37. Tercera parte de las comedias de Lope de Vega y otros auctores ([Barcelona] Seville: 1612), reprinted in Madrid: Miguel Serrano de Vargas for Miguel Martínez, 1613. On this pirated edition, see Jaime Moll, “La ‘Tercera parte de comedias de Lope de Vega y otros autores’: falsificación sevillana,” Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 77 (1974): 619–26.
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38. Doze comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio. Sacadas de sus originales. Quarta Parte (Madrid: Miguel Serrano de Vargas by Miguel de Siles, 1614; Pamplona: Nicolas de Assiayn, 1614) (hereafter Quarta Parte [Madrid, 1614]); Flor de las comedias de España de différentes autores. Quinta Parte, Recopiladas por Francisco de Avila (Alcalá: Viuda de Luis Martínez, 1615); El Fenix de España Lope de Vega Carpio. Sexta parte de sus comedias (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín, 1615); El Fenix de España Lope de Vega Carpio, VII. Parte de sus comedias (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín, 1617); El Fenix de España Lope de Vega Carpio, VIII. Parte de sus comedias (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín, 1617). 39. Quarta Parte (Madrid, 1614), fol. [¶4r]: “Al Duque de Sessa, y de Baena, Marques de Poça, &c.”: “las cosas que escrivio con tan diferente intento.” English translations from this edition by John Pollack. See Luigi Giuliani, “La Cuarta Parte: Historia editorial,” in Comedias de Lope de Vega, Parte IV, ed. Luigi Giuliani and Ramón Valdés (Lleida: Mileno, 2002), 7–30, esp. 10. Lope’s draft of the dedication is in Agustín González de Amezúa, Epistolario de Lope de Vega (Madrid: Tipografia de Archivos, 1941), 3:135, no. 134: “Borrador de la carta dedicatoria, redactada por Lope de Vega, de Miguel de Siles al Duque deSessa de la Parte IV de sus Comedias.” 40. Quarta Parte (Madrid, 1614), fol. [¶4v]: “A los Lectores. Los Agravios que muchas personas haz en cada dia al Autor deste libro, imprimiendo sus Comedias tan barbaras, como las han hallado, despues de muchos años que salieron de sus manos, donde apenas ay cosa concertada, y los que padece de otros, que por sus particulares interesses, imprimen, o representan las que no son suyas, con su nombre me han obligado, por el amor, y amistad que ha muchos años que le tengo, a dar luz a estas doze, que yo tuve originales.” 41. Quarta Parte (Madrid, 1614), fol. [¶4r]: “Aqui pues vera el Lector en estas doze Comedias muchas cosas sentenciosas, y graves, y muchas, aguda y sutilmente dichas, que aunque es verdad que su Autor nunca las hizo para imprimirlas, y muchas dellas en menos tiempo del que fuera necessario, por el poco que para estudiarlas les quedava a sus dueños, no se dexa con todo esso de conocer la fertilidad de su riquissima vena, tan conocida a todos.” 42. Parte Catorce de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta, 1620): El Verdadero Amante. Y la primera comedia de Lope de Vega Carpio. Dirigida a Lope de Vega su hijo, fol. 196r: Si no os inclinaredes à letras humanas, de que tengays pocos libros, y essos selectos, y que los saqueys las sentencias, sin dexar passar cosa que leays notable, sin linea y margen” (“If you do not choose the career of letters, keep only a few books, but well chosen ones, and extract from them the commonplaces; do not pass over anything notable you read without underlining it or indicating it in the margin.” English translation by John Pollack). On Lope de Vega and the intellectual method of commonplacing, see Julián González Barrera, “Lope de Vega y los ‘librotes de lugares comunes’: Su lectura particular de de Ravisius Textor,” Annuario Lope de Vega 13 (2007): 51–72.
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43. El Fenix de España Lope de Vega Carpio. Sexta Parte de sus Comedias, corregida, y emendada en esta segunda impression de Madrid por los originales del propio Autor (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta by Miguel Siles, 1616). 44. “Dixo que el no vendió las dichas comedias a los autores para que se imprimiesen, sino tan solamente para que se representassen en los teatros,” in Angel González Palencia, “Pleito entre Lope de Vega y un editor de sus comedias,” Boletín de la Biblioteca Menéndez y Pelayo 3 (1921): 17–26. English translation by John Pollack. 45. Doze comedias de Lope de Vega. Sacadas de sus originales por el mismo. Novena Parte (Madrid: [widow of] Aloso Martin de Balboa by Alonso Perez, 1617). 46. Doze comedias de Lope de Vega, Novena Parte, fol. [¶4]r, prologue: “Viendo imprimir cada dia mis comedias, de suerte que era impossible llamarlas mias, y que en los pleytos desta defensa siempre me condenavan los que tenian mas solicitud, y dicha para seguirlos, me he resuelto a imprimirlas por mis originales: que aunque es verdad que no las escrivi con este animo, ni para que de los oydos del teatro se trasladaran a la censura de los aposentos, ya lo tengo por mejor, que ver la crueldad con que despedazan mi opinon algunos interesses. Este sera el primer tomo, que comiença por esta novena parte, y assi yran prosiguiendo los demas.” English translation by John Pollack. 47. Trezena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio. Dirigidas, cada una de por si, a diferentes personas (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martin by Alonso Perez, 1620). 48. Trezena Parte: Arcadia, Comedia famosa de Lope de Vega Carpio. Dirigida Al Doctor Gregorio Lopez Madera del Consejo Supremo de su Magestad, fol. A1v–A2r: “Espero que aora tendra remedio lo que tantas vezes se ha intentado, desterrando de los Teatros unos hombres que viven, se sustentan, y visten de hurtar a los Autores las comedias, diziendo, que las toman de memoria de solo oyrlas, y que este no es hurto, respeto de que el representante las vende al pueblo, y que se puede valer de su memoria . . . yo he hecho diligencia para saber de uno destos, llamado el de la gran memoria, si era verdad que la tenia; y he hallado leyendo sus traslados que para un verso mio ay infinitos suyos, llenos de locuras, disparates, y ignorancias, bastantes a quitar la honra y opinion al mayor ingenio en nuestra nacion, y las estrangeras, donde ya se leen con tanto gusto.” English translation by John Pollack. For an example of these memorial reconstructions and an investigation of the differences between them and the playwright’s text, see José María Ruano de la Haza, “An Early Rehash of Peribañez,” Bulletin of the Comediantes 35 (1983): 5–29. 49. Trezena Parte, prologue, fol. ¶4r: “los quales con algunos versos que aprenden, mezclan infinitos suyos barbaros, con que ganan la vida, vendendiolas a los pueblos, y autores extramuros, gente vil, sin oficio, y que muchas vezes han estado presos.” (“These people memorize some verses that they mix with an infinite number of their own savage verses, and they make their living by selling the plays to the people and to the companies of strolling players; they are despicable people, good-for-nothing, who have often spent time in jail.”) 50. Margaret R. Greer, “Early Modern Spanish Theatrical Transmission, Memory, and a Claramonte Play,” in Hispanic Studies in Honor of Robert L. Fiore, ed. Chad M.
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Gasta and Julia Domínguez (Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 2009,) 261–80, and ill. 3 on 268. 51. Doce Comedias Nuevas de Lope de Vega Carpio y Otros Autores. Segunda Parte (Barcelona: Geronimo Margarit, 1630). On this edition, see the magnificent bibliographical study by Don W. Cruickshank, “The First Edition of El Burlador de Sevilla,” Hispanic Review 49, no. 4 (Autumn 1981): 443–67. 52. Jaime Moll, “Diez años sin licencias para imprimir comedias y novelas en los reinos de Castilla: 1625–1634,” Boletín de la Real Academia Española 54, no. 201 (1974): 97–104. 53. Las Comedias del Fenix de España Lope de Vega Crapio [sic]. Parte Veynte y Cinco (Barcelona: Sebastian de Cormellas, 1631). Cruickshank studies this edition in the second part of “The First Edition of El Burlador de Sevilla,” 460–67. 54. El Fenix de España Lope de Vega Carpio, Veinte y Tres Parte de sus Comedias, y la Mejor Parte que hasta oy se ha escrito (Valencia: Miguel Sorolla, 1629). Erasmo Hernández González argues that this is a genuine Valencia imprint in “Una desconocida parte de comedias de Lope (Parte XXIII, Valencia, 1629),” Criticón 56 (1992): 179–86. Don W. Cruickshank, on the other hand, placed this edition in his list of Seville editions printed with false addresses: “Some Notes on the Printing of Plays in Seventeenth-Century Seville,” The Library 11, 6th series, no. 3 (September 1989): 231–52. 55. Dozena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martin by Alonso Perez, 1619), Comedia famosa de Fuente Obeiuna [sic], fol. 262v–280v. Alonso Pérez and the shop of Alonso Martín’s widow published two editions of this parte in 1619 that differ only in their title pages and a few typographical variants. Modern edition: Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna, ed. Donald McGrady (Barcelona: Crítica, 1993), 35–36 (hereafter Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady). 56. Dozena Parte, fol [¶4r]: “Bien se que leyendolas, te acordaras de las acciones de aquellos que a este cuerpo sirvieron de alma; para que te den mas gusto, las figuras que de sola tu gracia esperan movimiento. Quedo consolado, que no me pudrira el vulgo como suele; pues en tu aposento donde las ha de leer, nadie consentiras que te haga ruydo, ni que te diga mal de lo que tu sabras conocer, libre de los accidentes del señor que viene tarde, del representante que se yerra, y de la muger desagradable por fea y mal vestida, o por los años que ha frequentado mis tablas, pues el poeta no la escrivio con los que ella tiene, sino con los que tuvo en su imaginacion, que fueron catorze o quinze.” 57. Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna, ed. and trans. Dixon, 115 (hereafter Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon). “Barrildo: Después que vemos tanto libro impreso, / no hay nadie que de sabio no presume. / Leonelo: Antes que ignoran más siento por eso, / por no se reducir a breve suma; / porque la confusión, con el exceso, / los intentos resuelve en vana espuma; / y aquel que de leer tiene más uso, / de ver letreros solo está confuso.” Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 87. 58. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 117. “No niego yo que de imprimir el arte / mil ingenios sacó de entre la jerga, / y que parece que en sagrada parte / sus obras guarda y contra el tiempo alberga; / éste las distribuye y las reparte. . . . Débese esta invención a
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Gutemberga, / un famosa tudesco de Maguncia. . . . Otros, en quien la baja envidia cabe, / sus locos desatinos escribieron, / y con nombre de aquel que aborrecían / impresos por el mundo los envían.” Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 87–88. 59. See María Cruz Garcia de Enterría, “Un memorial ‘casi’ desconocido de Lope de Vega,” Boletín de la Real Academia Española 51, no. 192 (1971): 139–60. Garcia de Enterría provides a facsimile reproduction of this document in her Sociedad y poesia de cordel en el Barroco (Madrid: Taurus, 1973), inserted between pages 88 and 89 (hereafter Memorial). 60. Memorial, fol. 1v–2r: “Es cosa digna de castigo y de remedio, ver los sucessos que buscan, las Tragedias que fabrican, las fabulas que inventan, de hombres que en las ciudades de Espana fuerçan sus hijas, matan sus madres, hablan con el demonio, niegan la Fe, dizen blasfemias y afirman que los castigaron en tal parte, donde nunca se vio ni oyò tal cosa: Y otras vezes fingen milagros, y que la Virgen nuestra Soñora baxa del cielo, con versos tan desatinados, palabras tan indecentes, y mentiras tan descubiertas.” 61. Memorial, fol. 2r: “imprimen y pregonan que aquello lo compuso, Alonso de Ledesma, Liñan de Riaza, Baltasar de Medinilla, Lope de Vega, y otras personas conocidas por su libros y estudios en este genero, con gran daño de su opinion y aun de su vida, imprimiendo satyras contra las ciudades, y a las personas que se pueden conocer por los titulos, oficios y sucessos.” See also Fernando Bouza, Papeles y opinón: Políticas de publicación en el Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2008). 62. Memorial, fol. 2r: “Asi mismo es justo, que V. Alt. advierta en remediar, que los libreros no vendan papeles manuscritos con retulos de Comedias . . . donde tambien se dan por Autores, los ya referidos, y otras personas calificadas, como son el Doctor Mira de Mesqua, y el Canonigo Tarrega tan celebres en las Divinas y humanas lettras.” 63. Memorial, fol. 2v: “al estampar los libros añaden sus malicias, satyras y opiniones, y algunos mudan las censuras que se embian a V. Alt, ò se alaban a si mismos con los nombres de los ingenios conocidos.” 64. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 117. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 88: “Barrildo: Leonelo, la impresión es importante.—Leonelo: Sin ella muchos siglos se han pasado, / y no vemos que en éste se levante / un Jerónimo santo, un Agustino!” 65. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 158: “Estando las cosas desta orden en el estado ya dicho.” 66. A stage direction in the Madrid, 1619, edition (fol. 277v) reads, “Enter male and female peasants with Fernán Gómez’s head on a lance”: Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 187. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 135: “Salen labradores y labradoras con la cabeça de Fernán Gomez en una lança.” 67. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 187, 189. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 128 (lines 1867–68): “¡Vivan Fernando y Isabel, y mueran los traidores!”; 129 (lines 1884– 85): “¡Fuente Ovejuna! ¡Viva el rey Fernando! / ¡Mueran malos cristianos y traidores!”; 135 (lines 2030–32): “¡Muchos años vivan / Isabel y Fernando, / y mueran los tiranos!” 68. The representation of the crimes committed by nobles who associate tyrannical violence, the raping of women, and defiance of the sovereign’s authority is also present
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in Lope’s comedia El mejor alcalde, el rey, first printed in Veinte y Una Parte Verdadera de las Comedias del Fenix de España Frei Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín, by Diego Logroño, 1635): Famosa Comedia El Mejor Alcalde el Rey, fol. 139r–157v. See Lope de Vega, El mejor alcalde, el rey, ed. Frank P. Casa and Berislav Primorac (Madrid: Cátedra, 1993), esp. introduction, 23. 69. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 211. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 150 (lines 2394–404): “Fuente Ovejuna, señora, / que humildes llegan agora / para serviros dispuestos. / La sobrada tiranía / y el insufrible rigor / del muerto Comendador, / que mil insultos hacía, / fue el autor de tanto daño. / Las haciendas nos robaba / y las doncellas forzaba, / siendo de piedad estraño.” 70. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 159. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 117, line 1633: “¡Hola! La vara quitalde”; lines 1641–42: “Llevadla, y haced que guarden / su persona diez soldados.” 71. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 169. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 123 (lines 1752– 61): “Mis cabellos, ¿no lo dicen? / ¿No se ven aquí los golpes / de la sangre y las señales? ¿Vosotros sois hombres nobles? / ¿Vosotros, padres y deudos? / ¿Vosotros, que no se os rompen / las entrañas de dolor, / de verme en tantos dolores? / Ovejas sois, bien lo dice / de Fuente Ovejuna el nombre.” 72. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 169. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 123–24 (lines 1770–72) : “Liebres cobardes nacistes; / bárbaros sois, no españoles. / Gallinas, ¡vuestras mujeres / sufrís que otros hombres gocen!” 73. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 169–71. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 124–25, lines 1774–85: “Poneos ruecas en la cinta. / ¿Para qué os ceñís estoques? / ¡Vive Dios, que he de trazar / que solas mujeres cobren / la honra destos tiranos, / la sangre destos traidores, / y que os han de tirar piedras, / hilanderas, maricones, / amujerados, cobardes, / y que mañana os adornen / nuestras tocas y basquiñas, / solimanes y colores!” Toca is a bonnet or headdress covering the face and neck; basquiña is a skirt worn over other garments; solimán is a cosmetic that whitens the face; color is a vermillion cosmetic applied to the lips and to the cheeks. 74. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 171. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 124–25, lines 1786–95: “A Frondoso quiere ya, / sin sentencia, sin pregones, / colgar el Comendador / del almena de una torre; / de todos hará lo mismo; / y yo me huelgo, medio hombres, / porque quede sin mujeres / esta villa honrada, y torne / aquel siglo de amazonas, / eterno espanto del orbe.” 75. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 173. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 125, lines 1813–16: “[Mengo:] ¡Los Reyes nuestros señores / vivan! [Todos] ¡Vivan muchos años! / [Mengo] ¡Mueran tiranos traidores!/ [Todos] ¡Traidores tiranos mueran!” 76. Rades y Andrada, Chronicle, in Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159: “las mujeres de la villa . . . habían hecho para esto una bandera, y nombrado capitana y alférez.” 77. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 175. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 127, lines 1844–45: “bien nos basta que llevemos / nuestras tocas por pendones”; lines 1847–49: “Que adonde / asiste mi gran valor / no hay Cides ni Rodamontes.” Rodomonte is the
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leader of the Saracens in Mateo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato de Boiardo and in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. 78. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 179. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 129, line 1894: “Su cuerpo recojamos en las lanzas.” 79. Here Lope de Vega once again alters the chronology: the Catholic monarchs only visited Córdoba in 1478. 80. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 185. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 133, lines 1982–85: “y por las altas ventanas / le hacen que al suelo vuele, / adonde en picas y espadas / le recogen las mujeres.” 81. For examples, see Denis Richet, “Aspects socio-culturels des conflits religieux à Paris durant la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 4 (1977): 764–89, and Denis Crouzet, Les enfants bourreaux au temps des guerres de Religion (Paris: Albin Michel, 2020). 82. See Teresa Kirschner, El protagonista colectivo en Fuenteovejuna de Lope de Vega (Salamanca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Salamanca, 1979). For a critique of the heroic reading and, in contrast, a carnivalesque reading of the comedia, see Ivan Cañadas, Public Theater in Golden Age Madrid and Tudor-Stuart England: Class, Gender, and Festive Community, Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), chapter 5, “Gender, Class, and Carnaval: Communal Heroism in Fuente Ovejuna, 137–83. 83. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 187, 189. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 135, lines 2037–44: “‘¡Vivan la bella Isabel, / y Fernando de Aragón, / pues que para uno son, / él con ella, ella con él! / A los cielos San Miguel / lleve a los dos de las manos. / ¡Vivan muchos años, / y mueren los tiranos!’”; and 136, lines 2049–55: “‘¡Vivan los Reyes famosos / muchos años, pues que tienen / la vitoria, y a ser vienen / nuestros dueños venturosos! / ¡Salgan siempre vitoriosos / de gigantes y de enanos / y mueran los tiranos!’” 84. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 185. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 134, lines 1994–97: “Sus armas borran con picas / y a voces dicen que quieren / tus reales armas fijar, / porque aquéllas les ofenden.” 85. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 213. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 152, lines 2437–40: “Señor, tuyos ser queremos. / Rey nuestro eres natural, / y con título de tal / ya tus armas puesto habemos. / Esperamos tu clemencia / y que veas esperamos / que en este caso te damos / por abono la inocencia.” 86. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 213. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 152, lines 2449–52: “Y la villa es bien se quede / en mí, pues de mí se vale, / hasta ver si acaso sale / comendador que la herede.” 87. Rades y Andrada, Chronica, in Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 221. Crónica, in McGrady, 159: “Y sus Altezas, siendo informados de las tiranías del Comendador mayor, por las cuales había merecido la muerte, mandaron se quedase el negocio sin más averiguación.” 88. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 207. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 148, lines 2347–48: “Vos sois una bella Ester, / y vos un Jerjes divino.”
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89. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 209. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 149, lines 2381–84: “Y pues tan mal se acomoda / el poderlo averiguar, / o los has de perdonar, / o matar la villa toda.” 90. Fuente Ovejuna, trans. Dixon, 213. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. McGrady, 152, lines 2445–48: “Pues no puede averiguarse / el suceso por escrito, / aunque fue grave el delito, / por fuerza ha de perdonarse.”
Chapter 3 1. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 545 n6. This book is the translation of the second part of Elias, Uber den Prozess der Ziivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen, (Basel: Haus zum Falken, 1939; rep. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997), 479 n134. In the German original, the terms are “Handbuch der höfischen Psychologie” and “Handbuch der höfisch-absolutistichen Politik.” 2. This critical tendency remains strong. A recent edition of the text by Sylvia Roubaud gives us “Gracian, L’Homme de cour” on its title page and is subtitled “Traduction de Amelot de La Houssaie” (“Translated by Amelot de La Houssaie”) (Paris: Gallimard, Collection Folio Classique, 2011). See also the Spanish translation of my discussion of court rationality, originally published in “Trajectoires et tensions culturelles de l’Ancien Régime” in Histoire de la France, Les formes de la culture, ed. André Burguière and Jacques Revel (Paris: Seuil, 1993), 316–23. The Spanish version provides the original Spanish aphorisms of Gracián as if they were translations of Amelot de la Houssaie’s French versions—the paradox would have enchanted Jorge Luis Borges. Roger Chartier, Entre poder y placer: Cultura escrita y literatura en la edad moderna, chapter 9, “Prudencia, disumulación y sociedad de corte” (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2000), 163–78. 3. Oraculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia. Sacada de Los Aforismos que se Discurren En las obras de Lorenço Gracian. Publicala D. Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, I la dedica al Excelentisimo Señor D. Luis Mendez de Haro, Conde Duque, Con licencia (Huesca: Juan Nogues, 1647). A facsimile edition of the copy in the library of Jorge M. Furt at Los Talas, in Luján, Argentina, was published in 2001: Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, facsimile edition (Huesca: Juan Nogués, 1647), prologue by Aurora Egido (Saragossa: Institución Fernando el Católico, Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza, 2001). A second copy of the first edition has been identified in the Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen. See Jaime Moll, “En busca de las primeras ediciones de Gracian,” in Baltasar Gracián: Estado de la cuestión y nuevas perspectivas, ed. Aurora Egido and María Carmen Marín (Saragossa: Institución Fernando el Católico, Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza, 2001), 161–63. The call number of this copy of the 1647 editio princeps in Det Kongelige Bibliothek, Copenhagen, is Filos., 3959 oktav 78344. 4. Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (Huesca, 1647; facsimile ed., 2001), “Aprobacion del Padre M. Fr. Gabriel Hernandez,” fol. *3r: “No tiene cosa cõtra nuestra Santa Fè; antes es un espejo de la razõ, moderna maravilla de aciertos.” Modern edition:
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Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, ed. Emilio Blanco (Madrid: Cátedra, Letras Hispánicas, 1995) (hereafter Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco), 92: “No tiene cosa contra nuestra Santa Fe; antes, es un espejo de la razón, moderna maravilla de aciertos.” Translation by John Pollack. 5. Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (Huesca, 1647; facsimile ed., 2001): “aplausos, y admiraciones”: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 93: “Aprobación del Doctor Iuã Francisco Andres,” fol. *4v. 6. Karl-Ludwig Selig has transcribed and published a 1647 inventory of Lastanosa’s private library, held in the National Library of Sweden: Selig, The Library of Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa Patron of Gracián (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1960). Among the titles included in the collection are Juan Boscan, “libro llamado el cortesano Salamanca, 1540,” the Spanish translation of Castiglione’s Corteggiano (Selig 22, no. 131); and Machiavelli, “De la arte de la guerra. Venecia 1541” (Selig 55, no. 742). Lastanosa also owned copies of “Istoria Relacion de la India Ocidental contiene los informes que iço en 4°” and “la misma en lengua espanola I ytalians en 4° Venecia 1626” (Selig 23, nos. 145 and 146): the latter is the bilingual Spanish-Italian edition of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias, published by Marco Ginammi under the title Istoria ò breuissima relatione della distrvttione dell’ Indie Occidentali (Venice, 1626), a translation I discuss in chapter 1. 7. On the relation between Gracián and Lastanosa, see Miguel Batllori and Ceferino Peralta, Baltasar Gracián en su vida y en sus obras (Saragossa: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1969), 99–113 and 133–34. 8. Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 94: “este Oráculo prudencial . . . çifra todo un Varón de prendas, y desçifra las que en Vuestra Excelencia venerò, y de la que fue primero admiracion haze Arte.” My translation. 9. One example is the work compiled by Ortensio Lando, Oracoli di moderni ingegni si d’huomini come di donne, ne quali, unitá si vede tutta la philosophia morale, che fra molti scrittori sparsa si leggeva (Venice: Gabriel Giolitto di Ferrari and Brothers, 1550); this is cited by Aurora Egido: see the prologue to Gracián, Oráculo manual (facsimile ed., 2001), xxv–xxvii. See also Sagrario López Poza, “Sobre el género y las fuentes del Oráculo manual,” in Baltasar Gracián IV Centenario (1601–2001): Actas II Congreso Internacional “Baltasar Gracián en sus obras” (Zaragoza, 22–24 de noviembre de 2001), ed. Aurora Egido, Ma. Carmen Marín, and Luis Sánchez Laílla (Saragossa-Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, Institución “Fernando el Católico,” Gobierno de Aragón, 2003), 53–79; and Giuseppe Grilli, “Los Oracoli dei Moderni y el Oráculo manual de Gracián: Careo textual y realce de valores,” in Baltasar Gracián IV Centenario (1601–2001), 81–96. Lastanosa’s library contained the Aphorismos sacados de la Historia de Publio Cornelio Tacito, por el D. Benedicto Aries Montano (Barcelona, 1614) and the Apophthegmas del escelentisimo Philosopho y orador Plutarcho traduzidos de lengua Griega en Castellana por Diego Gracián (Alcalá de Henares, 1533). See Selig, The Library of Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, 18, no. 58, and 41, no. 482 (Tacitus, Barcelona, 1614); 18, no. 62, and 26, no. 207 (Plutarch, Alcalá, 1533).
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10. El Heroe de Lorenzo Gracian Dedicalo a la S. C. R. M. Del Rey N. S. Don Phelipe el IV (Huesca: Juan Francisco de Larumbe, 1637); El Politico D. Fernando El Catolico de Lorenzo Gracian (Saragossa: Diego Dormer, 1640); Arte de Ingenio, Tratado de la Agudeza. En que se explican todos los modos, y diferencias de Conceptos. Por Lorenço Gracian (Madrid: By Juan Sanchez for Roberto Lorenço, 1642); El Discreto de Lorenzo Gracian, Que publica Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa (Huesca: Juan Nogues, 1646). 11. For a discussion of this, see Blanco, introduction, Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 23. 12. On this collaboration, see Aurora Egido, “Gracián y sus libros,” and Francisco Asín Remirez de Esparza, “La Imprenta en Huesca en la época de Gracián,” in Libros libres de Baltasar Gracián: Exposición bibliográfica patrocinada por el Gobierno de Aragón y su Consejería y Cultura y Turismo (Saragossa: Gobierno de Aragón, 2001), 51–86 and 95–141. 13. L’Homme de Cour Traduit de l’Espagnol de Baltasar Gracian Par le Sieur Amelot de La Houssaie. Avec des Notes (Paris: [widow of] Martin, and Jean Boudot, 1684). 14. Here and subsequently, I quote from the modern edition of this text: Baltasar Gracián, L’Homme de cour: Traduction d’Amelot de La Houssaie; Précédé d’un essai de Marc Fumaroli, ed. Sylvia Roubaud, Collection Folio Classique (Paris: Gallimard, 2011), 273 (hereafter Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud):“Mais comme toutes les personnes, qui ont vu les Œuvres de Gracian, ne manqueront pas de demander, pourquoi je lui donne, dans mon titre, le nom de Baltasar, au lieu de celui de Laurent, qu’il porte dans les éditions de Madrid, de Huesca, de Bruxelles et d’Anvers, je suis obligé d’en dire ici les raisons.” English translations by John Pollack. 15. Nicolás Antonio, Bibliotheca hispana sive Hispanorum, qvi vsquam vnquamve sive Latinâ sive populari sive aliâ quâvis linguâ scripto aliquid consignaverunt Notitia (Rome: Nicolai Angeli Tinassii, 1672), [Vol. 2]:3: “Laurentius Gracian, seu potiùs Balthasar Gracian, Bilbilitanus ex Aragoniae regno, Jesuitarum sodalis, vir eruditionis & doctrine pluribus hoc tempore libris in vulgus editis.” Nicolás Antonio cites ten books written by Gracián, among them “Oraculo manual, y Arte de prudencia.” 16. Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu. Opus Inchoatum a R.P. Petro Ribadaneira, Continuatum a R. P. Philippo Alegambe, Recognitum, & productum ad annum Iubilaæi MCLXXV a R. P. Nathanaele Sotvello (Rome: Jacobi Antonii de Lazzaris Varesii, 1676), 101–2: “Balthasar Gratianus, natione Hispanus, patria Bellomontanus in Aragonis, aggregatus ad Societatem anno salutis 1619 . . . Docuit Humaniores litteras, Philosophiam, & Theologiam de moribus; Concionatorem egit, & Confessarum multis annis. Religiosè defunctus est Turiasone die 6 Decembris 1658. Scripsit Hispanicè. Artem Ingenii.” Arte de Ingenio, Tratado de la Agudeza is the only title cited by Ribadeneyra. For a facsimile of this edition, see Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu: A Petro Ribadeneira, Philippo Alegambe, Nathanaele Sotvello, rep. with a new introduction by A. F. Allison (Farnborough: Gregg International, 1969). 17. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 274: “qui, soit par modestie, ou par un scrupule de piété, n’avait jamais voulu s’en déclarer l’auteur, ne croyant pas peut-être,
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qu’il fut bienséant à un homme de sa profession d’être couché sur le catalogue des Écrivains profanes.” 18. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 275: “par un Médecin nommé Gervaise, et, au langage près, assez bien”; the edition cited here is L’Heros de Laurens Gracian Gentil-Homme Arragonois. Traduit nouvellement en François. Par le Sr Gervaise Medecin Ordinaire du Roy, estably en la ville & Chasteau de Perpignan (Paris: [widow of] Pierre Chevalier, 1645). 19. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 276: “el Discreto, que j’ai moissonné, ainsi que le Héros, pour enrichir ma traduction de tout ce qu’il y a de plus beau, et plus moelleux dans les écrits de mon Auteur.” 20. Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise. Par le Sieur Amelot de La Houssaie (Paris: Frederic Leonard, 1676). Amelot worked as a corrector in the printing shop of Frédéric Léonard and may have been his daughter’s lover. 21. Histoire du Concile de Trente de Fra’ Paolo Sarpio [sic], Téologien de la Sérénissime République de Venise. Traduite par le Sieur De la Mothe-Josseval, ci-devant Secrétaire de l’Ambassade de France à Venise. Avec des Remarques Historiques, Politiques, & Morales (Amsterdam: G. P. and J. Blaeu, 1683) (the second edition printed by G. P. and J. Blaeu in 1686 indicated the identity of the translator: “Traduit par Mr Amelot de La Houssaie, ci-devant Secrétaire de l’Ambassade de France à Venise); Le Prince de Nicolas Machiavel, Secretaire & Citoien de Florence. Traduit & Commenté par A.N. Amelot, Sieur de la Houssaie (Amsterdam: Henry Wetstein, 1683); Tibere, Discours politiques sur Tacite Du Sieur de La Mothe-Josseval, d’Aronsel (Amsterdam: [heirs of] Daniel Elzevier, 1683). The same edition also circulated under a different title: Tibere, Commentaires politiques sur les six premiers livres des Annales de Tacite, Du Sieur de La Mothe-Josseval, d’Aronsel. This edition was likely printed under a false Elzevirian imprint by François Foppens in Brussels: see Edouard Rahir, Catalogue d’une collection unique de volumes imprimés par les Elzevier et divers typographes Hollandais du XVIIe Siècle (Paris: Damascène Morgand, 1896), 398 (entry 3347). 22. On Amelot de la Houssaie, see Jacob Soll, Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and Political Criticsm (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), esp. 83–88 on his translation of Gracián; Marc Fumaroli, “Mais qui était donc Amelot de La Houssaie (1634?–1706)?,” in Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 160–70; and Mercedes Blanco and Riva Evstifeeva, “Un sujet de Louis XIV à l’école de Tacite et de Gracián: La carrière littéraire d’Amelot de la Houssaie (1634–1706) au travers d’un examen critique des données biographiques et bibliographiques,” e-Spania: Revue interdisciplinaire d’études hispaniques médiévales et modernes 35 (2020), at https://doi.org/10.4000/e -spania.34436. 23. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 269: “son titre exprime non seulement tout ce qu’il traite, mais encore à quel usage, et à quelles gens il est propre. Il n’est donc pas propre à tout le monde, me direz-vous? Non certes; il ne l’est qu’au grand monde, et aux personnes, qui savent le monde. C’est un Homme de Cour, qui n’est pas d’humeur à se familiariser avec le Vulgaire, il ne se plaît qu’avec ses égaux: Et comme
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d’ordinaire il ne parle qu’à demi-mot, il ne saurait s’assujettir à converser, ni avec les petites gens, ni avec les petits esprits, qui n’entendent ce qu’on leur dit qu’à force de paroles.” This passage is not translated in the prefaces to the early English editions of 1685 and 1702. 24. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 269: “un Homme de Cabinet, qui ne parle jamais qu’à l’oreille; encore faut-il l’avoir bien fine, pour ne rien laisser échapper” and “un Homme d’État.” 25. Gracián, “Épitre au roi,” L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 260: “Et pendant que je travaillais à la traduction, que j’ai l’honneur de lui présenter aujourd’hui, il m’est arrivé mille fois de regretter cet Espagnol, persuadé que je suis, qu’ayant un si bel esprit, une si fine plume, et tant de passion d’éterniser la gloire des Héros, il eût eu l’ambition de s’immortaliser lui-même par quelque beau panégyrique de votre majesté, dont la traduction eût servi de digne Épître à mon Livre; car il n’y a que des esprits transcendants, comme lui, qui soient capables de faire l’éloge d’un Prince, comme vous.” 26. Gracián, “Épitre au roi,” L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 262: “C’est donc à juste titre, que ceux de plausible et de grand, vous sont dus, puisque jusqu’ici tout votre règne a été militaire et victorieux.” 27. Gracián, “Épitre au roi,” L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 262–63: “Mais ce qu’il y a de plus rare en Vous, SIRE, c’est que vous accordez ensemble deux choses, que l’on croyait être incompatibles, savoir, la Diligence et l’Intelligence . . . Dire el Diligente y Inteligente, c’est dire tout ce que vous êtes.” 28. Gracián, “Épitre au roi,” L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 264–65: “Car s’il est difficile de faire votre éloge par parties, comment fera-t-on votre Histoire, où il faudra dépeindre un Prince de todas prendras, c’est-à-dire, un Prince universel; un Prince incompréhensible, et par son secret, qui impénétrable; et par son fonds, qui est sans fond; enfin un Prince, qui, pour user encore des termes de Gracian, dont je ne suis ici que le truchement, est un grand tout.” 29. Gracián, “Épitre au roi,” L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 267–68: “ce Livre, qui est un recueil des meilleures, et des plus délicates maximes de la Vie Civile et de la Vie de Cour. Il y en a même quelques-unes, où elle se verra représentée au vif. Le Despejo, auquel la langue Française n’a pu encore trouver de nom assez expressif, tout énigme qu’il est, n’en sera point une pour Vous, qui y reconnaîtrez d’abord, que Gracian a fait votre définition, en voulant faire celle d’un homme parfait.” 30. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle; or, The Art of Prudence. Written Originally in Spanish, By Baltazar Gracian. And now done into English (London: M. Flesher for Abel Swalle, 1685), 117 (hereafter The Courtier’s Manual Oracle [London, 1685]). French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 403–4: “Le je-ne-sais-quoi. C’est la vie des grandes qualités, le souffle des paroles, l’âme des actions, le lustre de toutes les beautés. Les autres perfections sont l’ornement de la nature, le je-ne-sais-quoi est celui des perfections. Il se fait remarquer jusque dans la manière de raisonner.” Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 171: “El despejo en todo. Es vida de las prendas, aliento del dezir, alma del hazer, realce de los mismos realces. Las demás perfecciones son ornato
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de la naturaleza, pero el despejo lo es de las mismas perfecciones: hasta en el discurrir se celebra.” 31. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 117. French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 404: “il tient beaucoup plus du privilège, que de l’étude, car il est même au-dessus de toute discipline. Il ne s’en tient pas à a facilité, il passe jusqu’à la plus fine galanterie. Il suppose un esprit libre et dégagé, et à ce dégagement il ajoute le dernier trait de la perfection.” Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 171–72: “Tiene de privilegio lo más, deve al estudio lo menor, que aun a la disciplina es superior; passa de facilidad, y adelántase a vizarría; supone desembaraço, y añade perfección.” 32. Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, o Española. Compuesto por el Licenciado Don Sebastian Covarrubias Orozco (Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1611), ed. Felipe C. R. Maldonado (Madrid: Castalia, 1995) (hereafter Tesoro [ed. 1995]), 788: “Oráculo. Cerca de los gentiles era la respuesta que daban los demonios y sus falsos dioses, que siempre eran equívoquas y ambiguas.” 33. See Blanco, “introduction, Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 25: “No ay de oráculo respuesta / sin alguna occulta ciencia.” 34. Diccionario de la lengua castellana. Compuesto por la Real Academia Española (Madrid: Real Academia Española for [heirs of] Francisco del Hierro, 1737), 5:46: “Palabras de Oráculo. Llaman muchos à aquellas respuestas amphibológicas, que algunas personas dan à lo que se les pregunta, disfrazando lo que quieren dezir.” 35. Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 46: “Se llama la persona à quien todos escuchan con respeito y veneración, por su mucha sabiduria ù doctrina.” 36. Aurora Egido, prologue, Gracián, Oráculo manual (facsimile ed., 2001), xxiii. 37. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 735: “Manual, dicese de toda cosa que se puede llevar en la mano, con facilidad, sin que embarace.” 38. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 735: “sumas de libros abreviados”; Diccionario de la lengua castellana, (1734), 4:490: “Manual. Usado como substantivo, se toma por el Libro en que alguna materia dilatada se resume, conteniendo todo la substancial.” 39. Gracián, “Al lector,” Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 96: “este epítome de aciertos del vivir, pues lo es en el sentencioso y lo conciso.” 40. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 125: “Arte. Lat. ars, quae sic definitur, Ars est recta ratio rerum faciendarum: y así toda cosa que no lleva su orden, razón, y concierto, decimos que está hecha sin arte.” 41. Selig, The Library of Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, no. 785: “Pedro de Guebara arte general y breve para aprehenderlas sciencias, Madrid, 1586, 8°.” The work referred to is Arte general para todas las sciencias, en dos instrumentos. Recopilada del Arte magna y Arbor scientiæ del Doctor Raymundo Lull: Nuevamente adicionada y emendadada por el Licenciado Pedro de Guevara, natural de la villa de Belhorado (Madrid: Pedro Madrigal, 1586). 42. Marie-Dominique Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, trans. Paul Philibert (Collegeville, Minn : Liturgical Press, 2002), 110, 111. Original text in Marie- Dominique Chenu, Saint Thomas d’Aquin et la théologie (Paris: du Seuil, 1959), 146: “la
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ressource par laquelle, sous peine de manquer à elle-même, ma raison va innerver de cette lumière divine le réseau indéfiniment mobile de mes actions, et réfracter dans le plus fragile de mes comportements les attributs éternels de Dieu, Vérité, Justice, Béatitude” and “[La prudence] dirige l’activité des vertus vers la vie éternelle.” 43. Gracián’s prudencia differs from the allegorical Prudentia, which implies memory of the past, knowledge of the present, and anticipation of the future. This virtue is powerfully depicted by Titian and described in two important essays, published thirty years apart, by Erwin Panofsky: Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, “A Late Antique Religious Symbol in Works by Holbein and Titian,” Burlington Magazine 49 (1926): 177–81, and Erwin Panofsky, “Titian’s Allegory of Prudence: A Postscript,” in Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), 146–68. 44. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 191. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 218: “En el Cielo todo es contento, en el Infierno todo es pesar. En el mundo, como en medio, uno y otro. Estamos entre dos extremos, y assí se participa de entrambos. Altérnanse las suertes: ni todo ha de ser felicidad, ni todo adversidad. Este mundo es un zero: a solas, vale nada; juntándolo con el Cielo, mucho.” French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 469–70: “Au Ciel, tout est plaisir; en Enfer, tout est peine: le Monde, comme mitoyen, tient de l’un et de l’autre. Nous sommes entre les deux extrémités, et ainsi nous tenons de toutes les deux. Il y a une alternative de sort; ni tout ne saurait être bonheur, ni tout être malheur. Ce Monde est un zéro, tout seul il ne vaut rien, joint avec le Ciel il vaut beaucoup.” 45. English: The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London 1685), 198: “Candour flourished in the golden Age, Malice has its turn in this age of Iron.” French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 475: “La candeur florissait dans le siècle d’or, la malice règne à son tour dans ce siècle de fer.” Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 222: “Floreció en el siglo de oro la llaneza, en este de yerro la malicia.” 46. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 838: “Prudencia. Es una de las virtudes cardinales. Prudente, el hombre sabio y reportado, que pesa todas las cosas con mucho acuerdo, prudens.” “Reportado” is defined as “el hombre de buen seso” (a man of sense) (under “Reportarse,” 860); “acuerdo” is cross-referenced to “cuerdo,” defined as “el hombre de buen seso” (a man of sound judgment) (under “Cuerda,” 355). 47. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 111; Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 397; Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 167. 48. English: The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 62. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 136. French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 350: “Savoir s’épargner du chagrin. C’est une science très utile, c’est comme la sage-femme de tout le bonheur de la vie.” 49. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 431: “Discernir. Vale vulgarmente distinguir una cosa de otra y hacer juicio dellas. De aquí se dijo Discreto, el hombre cuerdo y de buen seso, que sabe ponderar las cosas y dar a cada una su lugar.” The definition of “Seso” closes the circle of definitions: “Seso. Del nombre latino sensus; tómase seso por el juicio y la cordura.”
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Covarrubias cites a proverb (892): “Falso de seso, menguado de juicio” (“Good sense: from the Latin sensus, signifies judgment and good sense.” Proverb: “false wisdom, weak judgment”). 50. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 276: “Vous remarquerez en passant, que le titre d’Homme de Cour s’accorde très bien avec celui d’Arte de Prudencia, la prudence n’étant nulle part si nécessaire qu’à la Cour.” On Amelot’s translation, see Victor Bouillier, “Notes critiques sur la traduction de l´Oráculo manual par Amelot de la Houssaie,” Bulletin Hispanique 35 (1933): 126–40; and Roubaud, “La traduction d’Amelot,” in L’Homme de cour, 582–91. 51. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 272: “Il y a presque autant de préceptes et de mystères, que de lignes; et c’est assurément pour cela, que le Compilateur l’a intitulé Oracle Manuel: Titre, que j’ai changé en celui d’Homme de Cour, qui, outre qu’il est moins fastueux et moins hyperbolique, explique mieux la qualité du livre, qui est une espèce de Rudiment de Cour, et de Code Politique.” 52. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 269: “Au reste, bien que le titre d’Homme de Cour, pris au pied de la lettre, semble exclure tous ceux, qui ne le sont pas, si est-ce que pris en son vrai sens, il n’exclut que ceux, à qui le Poète de Cour défend des lire ses Odes, c’est-à-dire, les ignorants, les mécaniques, et les esprits mal faits. Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo.” My translation. 53. Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Odes (23–13 bc), book 3 (23 bc): 1. In The Works of Horace Translated literally into English Prose, trans. C. Smart (Dublin: P. Wogan, 1793), 231. Modern translation: Oxford World’s Classics: Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes, trans. David West (1997; online: July 2015), https://dx.doi.org/10.1093 /oseo/instance.00078058: “I hate the profane mob and keep them at a distance.” 54. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 269–70: “Il ne faut pas s’étonner, si Gracian passe pour un Auteur abstrait, inintelligible, et, par conséquent, intraduisible, car c’est ainsi qu’en parlent la plupart de ceux, qui l’ont lu: et je sais même, qu’un Savant, à qui quelqu’un de mes amis disait, qu’on le traduisait, répondit, que celui-là était bien téméraire, qui osait se mêler de traduire des Œuvres, que les Espagnols mêmes n’entendaient pas.” On the reception of Gracián in France, see Suzanne Guellouz, “Gracián en la Francia del siglo XVII,” in Suplementos: Materiales de Trabajo Intelectual 37 (1993), “Baltasar Gracián. Seleccion de estudios, investigación actual y documentación,” 93–104. 55. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 270: “notre Langue, qui n’est pas si riche en mots, ni si amie de la métaphore et de l’hyperbole, que la Langue Espagnole.” 56. The Art of Prudence; or, A Companion for a Man of Sense Written Originally in Spanish by That Celebrated Author Balthazar Gracian; now made English from the best Edition of the Original, and Illustrated with the Sieur Amelot de La Houssaie’s Notes by Mr. Savage (London: Daniel Brown, J. Walthoe, and T. Benskin, 1702) (hereafter The Art of Prudence [London, 1702]). 57. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A3r. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 270: “Et tant s’en faut, que son laconisme perpétuel lui puisse être
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reproché comme un défaut: au contraire, il en doit être plus estimé, attendu qu’il s’est fait une loi de ne rien dire de superflu, et de ne parler qu’aux bons esprits, à qui il faut dire plus de choses, que de paroles.” 58. [Dominique Bouhours, S.J.], Les Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène (Paris: Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1671), 203: “quelques-uns de ses ouvrages ne semblent être faits que pour n’estre point entendus” [some of his books seem written only to not be understood]. 59. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A3r. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 270: “Son langage, il est vrai, est une espèce de chiffre, mais le bon entendeur le peut déchiffrer, sans avoir besoin d’aller aux devins.” Savage translates “bon entendeur,” or “wise reader,” as “all ingenious persons” and omits the reference to the “devins,” or soothsayers. 60. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A4r. Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 271–72: “Gracian a affecté d’être obscur pour ne passe populariser, ou plutôt, pour faire plaisir aux Grands, comme Aristote, qui écrivit obscurément, pour contenter Alexandre son disciple, qui ne pouvait souffrir, que personne en sût autant que lui. Ainsi, quoique les Œuvres de Gracián soient imprimées, elles n’en sont pas plus communes, car en les achetant l’on n’achète pas le moyen de les entendre.” 61. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A3v–A4r. French: Gracián, preface, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 271: “Les uns se plaignent sur la matière, et les autres sur le style; ceux-là, parce qu’ils estiment infiniment ses livres; et ceux-ci, parce qu’ils voudraient, qu’ils fussent un peu plus à leur usage. Les premiers se formalisent de ce que des matières si hautes, et qui ne sont propres, que pour des héros, deviennent communes par l’Impression; de sorte que le moindre bourgeois peut avoir pour un écu des choses, qui, à cause de leur excellence, ne sauraient être bien en de telles mains. Les seconds nous objectent, que ce style si concis et si pressé ne va qu’à la ruine de la Langue Castillane, d’autant qu’il lui ôte sa clarté, et, par conséquent, sa pureté. . . . Je veux répondre tout à la fois aux deux Parties, et payer les uns par les autres: c’est-à-dire, que la première objection servira de solution à la seconde, et la seconde à la première. Je dis donc, que comme Gracian n’a pas écrit pour tout le monde, il a dû user d’un style coupé et énigmatique, pour concilier plus de vénération à la sublimité de la matière, la manière mystérieuse de dire les choses les rendant plus augustes.” Spanish: Baltasar Gracián, El Héroe / El Discreto/ Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia, ed. Luys Santa Marina (Barcelona: Planeta, 1984), from El Discreto, 47–48: “Mas a dos géneros de lectores he oído quejarse des estas obras; a unos de las cosas y a otros del estilo; aquéllos por sobra de estimación, y éstos por deseársela. Objetan los primeros de que materias tan sublimes, dignas de sólo Héroes, se vulgaricen con la estampa y que cualquier plebeyo, por precio de un real, haya de malograr lo que no le tiene. Oponen los segundos, que este modo de escribir puntual, en este estilo conciso, echa a perder la lengua castellana, destruyendo su claridad, que ellos llaman pureza. . . . Intento responder a entrambos de una vez, y satisfacer a los unos con los otros, de suerte que la objeción primera sea solución de la segunda, y la segunda, de la primera. Digo, pues, que no se escribe para todos, y por eso es de modo
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que la arcanidad del estilo aumente veneración a la sublimidad de la materia, haciendo más veneradas las cosas el misterio modo de decirlas.” 62. Oracolo Manuale e Arte di Prudenza Cauata degl’ Aforismi, che si discorrono nell’ Opere di Lorenzo Gratiano Mandalo in Luce D. Vincenzo Giovanni de Lastanosa In Lisboa nell’Officina di Enrico Valente de’ Oliuiera l’Anno 1657. Tradotta della Lingua Spagnuola nell’ Itagliana l’Anno 1670. E dedicato a’ Signori Collegiali di Parma (Parma: Mario Vigna, 1670). The edition used for the Italian translation was Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia. Sacala de los Aforismos, que se discurren en las obras de Lorenzo Gracian. Publicala D. Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa (Lisbon: Henrique Valente de Oliveira, 1657). The Venitian edition, printed in 1679 by Giacomo Hertz, was addressed to the “nobilità veneziana.” 63. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685). 64. L’Homme de Cour Oder Balthasar Gracians Volkommener Staats-und Welt Weiser: mit Chur- Sachsicher Freyheit (Leipzig: Adam Gottfried Kromayer, 1686), 377–690. 65. L’Homme de Cour, of De Konst der Wijsheit, getroken uit de Spaansche Scjriften van Gracian, Dusdanig in ‘t Frans grebragt door den Heer Amelot de la Houssaie, en nu vertaeld door Mattheus Smallegange (The Hague: Pieter Van Thol, 1696). 66. L’Huomo di Corte di Baldassar Graziano Tradotto dallo Spagnuolo nel Francese Idioma, e comentato dal Signor Amelot De La Houssaie Già Segretario dell’Ambasciata di Francia alla Repubblica di Venezia, Nuovamente tradotto dal Francese nell’Italiano, e comentato d’all Abate Francesco Tosques (Rome: Luca Antonio Charcas, 1698). 67. Balthasar Graciani, Hispani Aulicus Sive De Prudentia Civili et Maxime Aulica Liber Singularis: Olim Hispanice Conscriptus Postea Et Gallice, Germanice Editus. Nunc Ex Ameloti Versione Latine Redditus. Et Regulis Meliore Et Naturali Ordine Dispositis in Formam Artis Redactus (Frankfurt: Johann Gottlieb, 1731). 68. They were respectively published in Madrid (for Maria de Quiñones [and sold by] Francisco Lamberto, 1653), in Lisbon (Henrique Valente de Oliveira, 1657), and in Amsterdam (J. Blaeu, 1659). 69. Baltasar Gracián, Obras de Lorenzo Gracian: divididas en dos tomos (Antwerp: Geronymo y Iuanbaut [i.e., Juan Bautista] Verdussen, 1669): Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book Collection, 868 G754, vol. 2. The Oráculo manual is the penultimate text in this edition (2:369–440). An edition of the Obras de Lorenzo Gracián including the Oráculo manual had been published previously, in one volume, in Madrid in 1663 (by the Imprenta Real) and in 1664 (by Pablo de Val). 70. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 155–56. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 379. The maxim appears on 105–7 in Amelot’s 1684 edition. Roubaud discusses the translation of this maxim in her edition on 587. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 92. Modern translation, from Baltasar Gracián, The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence,
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trans. Jeremy Robbins (London: Penguin Books, 2011), 36–37 (hereafter Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins). 71. Tesoro (ed. 1995): “Cifra, escritura enigmática, con caracteres peregrinos, o los nuestros trocados unos por otros, en valor, o en lugar,” 310. My translation: “Cipher, enigmatic writing, in foreign characters, or in our letters but with a different meaning and in a different order.” Maxim 273, “Comprehensión de los genios con quien trata,” also deploys this metaphor of cipher writing (Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 247–48): “Sepa descifrar un semblante y deletrear el alma en los señales.” Amelot, in this case, translates Gracián more precisely (Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 514– 15): “Apprends donc à déchiffrer un faux-semblant, et à épeler les caractères du cœur.” The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685, 246) eliminates the metaphor of decipherment, rendering the sentence as: “Learn then to unmask a counterfeit shew, and to spell out the characters of the heart.” 72. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 433: “Disimular, no darse por entendido alguna cosa. . . . Bellaco, dissimulado, el que encubre su malicia.” My translations. 73. Los Quatro Libros del Cortesano compuestos en ytaliano por el conde Baltasar Castellon agora nuevamente traduzidos en lengua Castellana por Boscan (Barcelona: Pedro Montpezat, 1534), fol. xxviir. Modern edition: Baldassare Castiglione, El Cortesano, prologue by Angel Crespo, trans. Juan Boscán (Madrid: Alianza, 2008), 97. 74. Tesoro (ed. 1995), gives the following definitions. “Recatarse. Andar con aviso y cuidado de alguna cosa que le puede suceder. Recato, el estar sobre aviso y cuidado, no se fiando de todos. A este llamamos recatado, y como no sea con pusilanimidad, es de hombres muy prudentes y avisados,” 852. “Atento. El que está con cuidado, oyendo, o mirando alguna cosa. Atención, el silencio y cuidado con que se escucha alguna cosa,” 135. “Advertir. Estar advertido, estar prevenido y avisado,” 21. 75. Parte Primera del Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana; o Española, compuesto por el Licenciado Don Sebastian de Covarruvias Orozco. Añadido por el Padre Benito Remigio Noydens (Madrid: for Melchior Sanchez by Gabriel de Leon, 1674), [issued with] Parte Segunda (with separate title page dated 1673), fol. 92v: “animal de aguda vista”; fol. 212v: “Xibia, pescado conocido. Latine sepia. Los Antiguos significavan con este pescado a la mentira y al engaño; porque se dexa ver, y quando le van a asir, se encubre con la obscuridad de su tinta, como lo hazen los hombres mentirosos con los engaños y cautelas que usan.” See Tesoro (ed. 1995), 717: “Lince”; 682–83: “Jibia (Xibia).” 76. Gracián, El Héroe / El Discreto/ Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia, ed. Marina, from El Discreto, 48: “Que no echaron a perder Aristóteles ni Séneca las dos lenguas, griega y latina, con su escribir recondito. Afectáronle, por no vulgarizar entrambas filosofías, la natural aquél y la moral éste, por más que el Momo inútil los apode a entrambos, de jibia al uno y de aréna sin cal al otro.” In his translation of this address to the reader, included, as we have seen, in the preface to L’Homme de cour, Amelot, seemingly ill at ease with the cuttlefish metaphor, omits this phrase. 77. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 432: “Discurso. . . . tómase por el modo de proceder en tratar algun punto y materia, por diversos propositos y varios conceptos.” My translation.
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78. Diccionario de la lengua castellana, Vol. III (1732), 300: “Discurso. Vale tambien razonamiento, plática ò conversación ponderada y dilatada, sobre alguna materia.” “Discourse. Is also reasoning, exchange or conversation, deliberative and in-depth, on a subject.” My translation. 79. Diccionario de la lengua castellana, (1734), 4:292: “Interioridad. El espacio ò cosa interior, ò el mismo hecho de tener secreta y oculta alguna cosa.” Translation by John Pollack. 80. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 93. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 378–79: “Pénétrer la volonté d’autrui, c’est la marque d’un esprit sublime; savoir cacher la sienne, c’est prendre la supériorité sur autrui. Découvrir la pensée, c’est ouvrir la porte de la forteresse de son esprit.” 81. These sentences appear in L’Homme de cour de Baltasar Gracian. Traduit et commenté par le Sieur Amelot de la Houssaie. Sixième édition revue et corrigée (Paris: Edme Couterot, 1693). Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 380: “Alexandre de Medicis, premier duc de Florence, se vantait d’être le concierge de son secret, et de ne l’avoir jamais laissé passer de son cœur à sa bouche. La Reine Catherine était donc bien sa sœur.” 82. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 93. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 378–79: “Il faut donc, qu’un habile homme s’applique premièrement à dompter ses passions, et puis à les dissimuler, avec tant d’adresse, que nul espion ne puisse jamais déchiffrer sa pensée. Cette maxime enseigne à devenir habile, quand on ne l’est pas; et à cacher si finement tous ses défauts, que tous ces lynx, et les espions de la route d’autrui, s’égarent à force de chercher.” 83. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 561, 564: “D’Alexandre de Médicis, Duc de Florence: Il ne disait jamais son secret à personne”; “D’Isabelle, Reine de Castille: Sa constance dans les tranchées de l’enfantement”; “De l’Impératrice Isabelle de Portugal: Elle aimait mieux mourir, que de se plaindre.” 84. See Henri-Jean Martin, La Naissance du livre moderne (XIVe–XVIIe Siècles): Mise en page et Mise en texte du livre français (Paris: Editions du Cercle de la librairie, 2000). 85. Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 167, 256. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 111, 263. 86. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 168. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 397. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 111. Modern translation, from Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 45. 87. Early modern and modern attempts to translate Gracián’s terms for this figure of prudence are worth comparing. El cuerdo becomes “a prudent man” in the early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 111; compare the modern translation of Robbins: “a sensible person” (Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 45). For Gracián’s Los varones buenos, the early modern English translation uses only the word “any”; Robbins chooses “good men.” 88. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 952: “Varón”: “vale hombre de juicio, razón, y discurso, y de buena conciencia.”
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89. The former is by Robbins: The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 109. 90. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 256. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 529. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 263. Modern translation, from Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 109. 91. Tesoro (ed. 1995): “Reparar”: “Reparo, el remedio,” 859. 92. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 155. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 379. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 92. Modern translation, from Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 36. 93. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 256. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 529. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 263. Modern translation, from Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 109. 94. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 140. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 356. Early modern English translation, from The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 69. Modern translation, from Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 27. 95. Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 356. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 69. 96. Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 140: “hallar, entre el natural y el arte, el fiel de la sindéresis.” Robbins explicates Gracián’s use of the term “synteresis” in multiple aphorisms: see Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 113n9. 97. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 141. French: Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 357. Early modern English: The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), 69. Modern English: Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 27. 98. Tesoro (ed. 1995), 420: “Destemplar: Desconcertar el armonia de las cuerdas, o vozes de un instrumento. Destemplarse el hombre, perder el concierto de la razón.” 99. See Roger Chartier, “Social Figuration and Habitus: Reading Elias,” in Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 71–94. 100. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), fol. A2r–A2v. 101. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), fol. A3r–A3v. 102. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), fol. A3v–A4r. 103. The English translator thus translates Amelot’s reference to Horace’s verse, in The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), fol. A4r: “For the unintelligent and head- strong Mobile, that makes the greatest part of Mankind, they have nothing to doe with this Book; Odi profanum vulgus & arceo: The author wrote not for them.” 104. The Courtier’s Manual Oracle (London, 1685), fol. A4r–A4v. 105. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702). On John Savage (1673–1747), the author or coauthor of histories of the Ottoman Empire, of Germany, and of Poland, and translator of texts in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, see William Marshall, “Savage, John
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(1673–1747),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September, 23, 2004, https://doi .org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24719. 106. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A4v. 107. The Art of Prudence (London, 1702), fol. A5r. 108. On common sense, see Sophia Rosenfeld, Common Sense: A Political History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011). 109. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien. Traduites de l’Espagnol, Avec les Reponses aux Critiques de l’Homme universel & du Heros, traduites du même Auteur (Paris: Rollin fils, 1730). Courbeville had previously published a translation of El Discreto in 1723, retitled L’Homme Universel, Traduit de l’Espagnol de Baltasar Gracien (Paris: Noel Pissot, 1723). Two years later, he published his translation of El Héroe: Le Heros, Traduit de l’Espagnol de Baltazar Gracien Avec des Remarques (Paris: Noel Pissot, 1725). 110. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiir–Aiiv: “En vérité il n’était point permis d’attribuer aux seuls gens de Cour l’usage d’un livre utile en général à tous ceux qui ont assez d’intelligence pour en profiter, de quelque condition qu’ils soient.” English translation by John Pollack. 111. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiiir: “plutôt que l’homme de Guerre en particulier, ou l’homme de Robe, ou l’homme d’Affaires, ou l’homme d’Eglise, &c. Car la Prudence n’est-elle pas également nécessaire dans ces divers Etats?” 112. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiiv: “D’ailleurs un Homme de Cour n’est pas en bon François un fort honnête-homme: & ceux qui sçavent notre langue ne prétendent pas faire un éloge, quand ils disent de quelqu’un: C’est un homme de Cour.” 113. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiiv: “‘Un homme de Cour est un homme adroit, souple; mais faux & artificieux; un homme qui contraint son humeur, qui dément ses passions, qui agit et parle contre ses sentiments.’ ” 114. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiiv–Aiiir: “Or Gracien bien éloigné de servir le vice, n’a pour but que de porter à la vertu; mais à la vertu éclairée & prudente, qui ne soit point la duppe de l’imposture, ni de la surprise.” 115. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. Aiiiir: “Mais pourquoi donner une nouvelle traduction de cet Ouvrage, vû que l’on r’imprime sans cesse l’Homme de Cour; que la plûpart sont accoutumez à s’en contenter, & qu’enfin la traduction d’Amelot n’est point assez ancienne pour devoir être surannée?” 116. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, fol. A5r–A7r. 117. Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, A7v: “presque du tout au tout.” 118. Spanish: Gracián, Oráculo manual, ed. Blanco, 155. French (Amelot): Gracián, L’Homme de cour, ed. Roubaud, 379. Courbeville: Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, 111. English translation mine. 119. Gracián, The Pocket Oracle, trans. Robbins, 36.
Chapter 4 1. O Judeu, directed by Jom Tob Azoulay, written by Jom Tob Azoulay et al., 35 mm film (Lisbon: Animatógrafo Produções de Filmes e Metro Filme, 1996). For a review of
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O Judeu, see Stephen Holden, “A Jew Trapped in Portuguese Terror,” New York Times, January 8, 1997. 2. Miguel de Cervantes, Segunda Parte del Ingenioso Cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta, 1615). 3. Daniel Guérin de Bouscal, Dom Quixote de la Manche, Comédie (Paris: Toussaint Quinet, 1639); Dom Quichot de la Manche, Comédie. Seconde partie (Paris: Antoine de Sommaville, 1640); Le Gouvernement de Sanche Pansa. Comédie (Paris: Antoine de Sommaville and Augustin Courbé, 1642). Modern editions: Guérin de Bouscal, Dom Quixote de la Manche: Comédie, ed. and intro. Daniela Della Valle and Amédée Carriat (Geneva: Libraire Slatkine; Paris: Libraire Champion, 1979); Dom Quichot de la Manche: Comédie, seconde partie, ed. and intro Marie-Line Akhamlich (Toulouse: Centre XVII siècle “Idées, thèmes et formes,” Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1986); Le Gouvernement de Sanche Pansa: Comédie, ed. C. E. J. Caldicott (Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1981). For further analysis of these plays, the first theatrical adaptations of the second part of Don Quixote, see Roger Chartier, Cardenio entre Cervantès et Shakespeare (Paris: Gallimard, 2011), 103–13. English translation: Cardenio Between Cervantes and Shakespeare: The Story of a Lost Play, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), 65–72. 4. Jean-Léonor Le Gallois de Grimarest, La Vie de M. de Molière (Paris: Jacques le Febvre, 1705), 47: “On l’avoit prise dans le tems que Don-Quixote installe Sancho-Pança dans son Gouvernement. Moliere faisoit Sancho.” Translation by John Pollack. 5. See the “Registre de la Grange,” in Molière, Œuvres complètes, ed. Georges Forestier and Claude Bourqui, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 1:1029–56. 6. On Guillén de Castro’s comedia, see Chartier, Cardenio entre Cervantes et Shakespeare, 55–83, and Chartier, Cardenio Between Cervantes and Shakespeare, 30–49. 7. On Calderón’s lost comedia Los disparates de Don Quijote, see Antonio Regalado, “Cervantes y Calderón: El Gran Teatro del Mundo,” Annales Cervantinos 35 (1999): 407–17. 8. “Primera jornada de el hidalgo de la Mancha,” Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Cod. 13187. See Juan de Matos Fragoso, Juan Bautista Diamante, and Juan Veléz de Guevara, El Hidalgo de la Mancha, ed. Manuel García Martín (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1982), vi. 9. “Pièce en trois actes représentée pour la première fois par la troupe de la veuve Maurice, à la Foire Saint-Germain.” Evidence for the existence of this play is found in Jean Marie Bernard Clément and Joseph de la Porte, Anecdotes dramatiques (Paris: [widow of] Duchesne, 1775), 2:154: “Sancho-Pança: Comédie en trois Actes, par Bellavoine, à la Foire Saint-Germain, 1705.” See also 3:40: “Bellavoine a travaillé pour les Théâtres de la Foire, où il a donné, au commencement de ce siècle, plusieurs Pièces, dont on connoît que son Sancho-Pança” [“Bellavoine worked for the festival theaters, for whom he created several plays in the early part of this century, of which we know of only his Sancho-Pança”]. See also Antoine Alexandre Henri Poinsinet and François Danican Philidor, Sancho Pança dans son isle, opéra bouffon, en un acte, de Poinsinet. Musique de M. A. D. Philidor (Paris: Bureau de la Petite Bibliothèque des Théatres, 1784), which
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contains a “catalogue des comédies qui ont paru sous le titre de Sancho Pança” (ix–xii), x: “Sancho Pança, Pièce en trois actes, de Bellavoine, representée, pour la premiere fois, par la Troupe de la veuve Maurice, à la Foire Saint-Germain, le 3 Février 1705.” 10. In Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs. Divertissement. Précedé d’un Prologue, & suivi de Pierrot Sancho Pansa Gouverneur de l’Isle Barataria, executé au grand jeu du Préau de la Foire S. Laurent au mois de Septembre 1710: “Sancho Pansa qui a enfin attrapé ce gouvernement si désiré et si bien payé par ses épaules fait son entrée au son des instrumens dans l’Isle Barataria. Sancho est monté sur le cher Grison de son âme. Et tous deux sont vêtus ainsi qu’il est écrit dans les fidelles chroniques de Cid-Hamet-Benengely.” For the text of the play, see the website Le Théâtre de la Foire à Paris: Textes et documents, hypertexte de Barry Russell, http://www.theatrales.uqam.ca/foires/play15.html. 11. The two playwrights are Charles Rivière Dufresny (1657–1724) and Florent Carton Dancourt (1661–1725). See Maupoint, Bibliothèque des Théâtres . . . (Paris: Laurent- François Prault, 1733), 278: “les deux modernes sont, l’une de M. Dufresny en trois Actes de Prose non imprimée en ses Œuvres & l’autre du sieur Dancour en cinq Actes de Vers joüée au Mois de Novembre 1712, avec peu de succès.” Claude Parfaict cites the 1694 performance of Dufresny’s play in his Dictionnaire des Théâtres de Paris (Paris: Lambert, 1756), 5:30: “Sancho Pança: Comédie en trois actes & en prose de M. Du Fresny, représentée le Mercredi 27 Janvier 1694. non imp.” 12. Sancho Pança, Gouverneur. Comedie en vers. Mise au Théâtre par M. Dancourt (Paris: Pierre Ribou, 1713). On this play, see André Blanc, F. C. Dancourt 1661–1725: La Comédie française à l’heure du Soleil couchant (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1984), 120–21. 13. For a description, see Parfaict, Dictionnaire des Théâtres de Paris, 1:348–51. Parfaict cites the play’s title as follows: “Bagatelle (la), ou Sancha Pança Gouverneur, Opéra Comique en deux actes, avec un Prologue, des divertissements, & deux vaudevilles, par M. Thierry, Musique de M. Gilliers, représenté le Jeudi 28 Août 1727. non imprimé.” 14. Printed as Antonio Caldara and Giovanni Claudio Pasquini, Don Chisciotte in corte della duchessa (Vienna: Van Ghelen, [1727]) and Sancio Panza Governatore Dell’Isola Barattaria Commedia Per Musica (Vienna: Van Ghelen, 1733). See the catalog of operas composed by Antonio Caldara on the haendel.it website: https://www.haendel .it/compositori/caldara.htm. See also the list of editions on the italianopera website: https://www.italianopera.org/compositori/C/c2174831.htm. Recordings: Antonio Caldara, The Cervantes Operas: Arias and Instrumental Pieces, La Ritirata cond. by Josetxu Obregón, Glossa GCD 923104, 2016, compact disc. 15. Miguel de Cervantes, O Engenhoso fidalgo Dom Quixote de la Mancha (Lisbon: Typographia Rollandiana, 1794). 16. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Vida y Hechos del Ingenioso Cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha, compuesta por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Nueva Edicion, coregida y ilustrada con differentes Estampas muy donosas, y apropiadas à la materia (Brussels: Juan Mommarte, 1662). 17. Vida y Hechos del Ingenioso Cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha, Compuesta por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra . . . Nueva Edicion, coregida y ilustrada con 32 differentes
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Estampas mui donosas, y apropiadas à la materia (Antwerp: Juan Bautista Verdussen, 1672). The four Madrid editions are those printed by María Armenteros in 1674, by Antonio González de Reyes in 1706, by Francisco Laso in 1714, and that published “a costa de la Hermandad de San Jerónimo” (“for the Brotherhood of San Jerónimo”) in 1723. 18. See Juliet Perkins, “Lisbon’s Theaters,” in António Teixeira and Antônio José da Silva, A Critical Study and Translation of António José da Silva’s Cretan Labyrinth: A Puppet Opera, trans. and with a critical study by Juliet Perkins (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), 57–69 (hereafter Perkins, A Critical Study and Translation). 19. Manuel Carlos de Brito, Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). See also the review of this book by Louise K. Stein, Journal of the American Musicological Society 44, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 332–43. 20. Henryk Jurkowski, A History of European Puppetry from Its Origins to the End of the 19th Century, ed. Penny Francis (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 122–28. 21. Editions of Ottonelli were printed in Florence in 1646, 1649, and 1652. I cite from Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli, Della christiana Moderatione del Theatro, Libro, detto L’ammonitioni a’ recitanti, per auuisare ogni Christiano à moderarsi da gli eccessi nel recitare. Sono diuise in tre breui Trattati, cioè Primo intorno à recitanti. Secondo intorno al comico Beltrame, & al suo Libro. Terzo intorno à ciarlatani (Florence: Gio. Domenico Bonardi, 1652), 463: “i Pupazzi, che sono figure composte col capo di carta pesta, col busto, e coscie di legno, con le braccia di corda, con le mani, e gambe de piombo.” 22. Ottonelli, Della christiana Moderatione, 464: “uno teneva aperta l’Opera fregiata in più luoghi con segni di varii colori, per auvisar la mutation delle voce, volendo, che il color rosso significasse la voce delle Donne, il turchino quella de gli Huomini, & il verde le voci buffe, cioè buffonesche.” 23. Jurkowski, A History of European Puppetry from its Origins, 121. 24. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, trans. Edith Grossman (New York: Ecco, 2003), 624 (hereafter Don Quixote, trans. Grossman). Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Edición del Instituto Cervantes, ed. Francisco Rico (Barcelona: Instituto Cervantes / Crítica, 1998), 840 (hereafter Don Quixote, ed. Rico): “Éste es un famoso titerero, que ha muchos días que anda po resta Mancha de Aragón enseñando un retablo de la libertad de Melisendra, dada por el famoso don Gaiferos.” 25. Don Quixote, trans. Grossman, 628. Don Quixote, ed. Rico, 845: “En llegando, se metió maese Pedro dentro de él [el retablo], que era el que había de manejar las figuras del artificio, y fuera se puso un muchacho, criado del maese Pedro, para servir de intérprete y declarador de los misterios del retablo: tenía una varilla en la mano, con que señalaba las figuras que salían.” 26. Vida y Hechos del Ingenioso Cavallero Don Quixote de La Mancha (Brussels, 1662), engraving opposite 237. 27. Don Quixote, trans. Grossman, 633. 28. Don Quixote, trans. Grossman, 633. Don Quixote, ed. Rico, 850–51: “tiró un altibajo tal, que si maese Pedro no se abaja, se encoge y agazapa, le cercenara la cabeza con más facilidad que si fuera hecha de masa de mazapán.”
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29. See J. E. Varey, Historia de los títeres en España (desde sus orígenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII) (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1957), 232–37: “El retablo de Maese Pedro puede que se base en una representación de títeres—de marionetas, de fantoches, de automatas—que viera Cervantes; pero no es una reproducción fotográfica de tal representación” (237) (“Master Pedro’s theater may represent puppet shows that Cervantes had seen—marionettes, puppets, automatons—but it is not a photographic representation of such a performance”; translation by John Pollack). 30. Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair: A Comedie, Acted in the Yeare, 1614. By the Lady Elizabeths Servants. And then dedicated to King James, of most Blessed Memorie (London: I. B. for Robert Allot, 1631). I cite from the most recent scholarly edition: Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ed. John Creaser, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), act 5, scene 3, lines 5–7, p. 394. 31. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, act 5, scene 3, lines 74–77, 4:397: “Well, they are a civil company, I like ’em for that. They offer not to fleer nor jeer nor break jests, as the great players do. And then, there goes not so much charge to the feasting of ’em, or making ’em drunk, as to the other, by reason of their littleness.” 32. See Scott Cutler Shershow, Puppets and “Popular” Culture (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 55–66, 99–106. 33. For an example of this assumption, see Ottavio DiCamillo, “Consideraciones sobre La Celestina y las instituciones dramatúrgicas del humanismo en lengua vulgar,” in La Celestina 1499–1999: Selected Papers from the International Congress in Commemoration of the Quincentenial Anniversary of La Celestina, New York, November 17–19, 1999), ed. Ottavio DiCamillo and John O’Neill (New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2005), 56–57. 34. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, act 5, scene 3, lines 59–60, in Works 4:396: “They are actors, sir, and as good as any, none dispraised, for dumb shows—indeed, I am the mouth of ’em all!” 35. See the interpretation of this passage by Jurkowski, A History of European Puppetry from its Origins, 110–12. 36. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al., in The Norton Shakespeare Based on the Oxford Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), act 4, scene 1, lines 86–89, p. 2920: “I know this man well. He hath been since an ape-bearer, then a process-server—a bailiff—then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife.” 37. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica e Cronologica: Na qual se comprehende a noticia dos Authores Portuguezes, e das Obras, que compuseraõ desde o tempo da promulgaçaõ de Ley de Graça até o tempo presente (Lisbon: Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1741), 1:303: “Antonio Joseph da Sylva natural do Rio de Janeiro filho de João Mendes da Sylva Advogado nesta Corte, e Lourença Coutinho. Estudou Direito Civel em a Universidade de Coimbra donde passando a Lisboa exercitava o officio de Advogado de Causas Forenses. Teve genio para a Poesia Comica.”
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38. Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, 1:303: “Teve genio para a Poesia Comica, de que compoz varias obras, que foraõ reprezentadas com applauso dos expectadores sendo as principaes. Labirinto de Creta Lisboa por Antonio Isadoro da Fonseca. 1736. 8. As Variedades de Protheo. Lisboa pelo dito Impressor. 1737. 8. Guerras do Alecrim e Mangerona Lisboa pelo dito Impressor. 1737. 8. Anfitrião. M. S. D. Quixote. M. S. Faetonte. M. S.” English title translations are those suggested by Philip Krummrich, introduction to António José da Silva, A Critical Portuguese/English Edition of Anfitrião, Ou Júpiter e Alcmena/Amphitryon, or Jupiter and Alcmena, trans. Krummrich (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 3. 39. Theatro Comico Portuguez, ou Collecçaõ das Operas Portuguezas, Que se representaraõ na Casa do Theatro publico do Bairro Alto de Lisboa, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Regia Officina Sylviana et Academia Real, 1744). The Vida de D. Quixote de la Mancha is the first play in volume 1. 40. Nathan Wachtel, La Foi du souvenir: Labyrinthes marranes (Paris: Seuil, 2001), trans. Nikki Halpern as The Faith of Remembrance: Marrano Labyrinths (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013): see chapter 8, “‘For in This Time All Is Lies, and All Is Truth’: João Thomas de Castro and António José da Silva,” esp. 224–41. Also see Nathan Wachtel, La logique des bûchers (Paris: Seuil, 2009), 84–98, 128–41. 41. On the 1726 trial, see Claude-Henri Frèches, António José da Silva et l’Inquisition (Paris: Fundação Gulbenkian, 1982), 25–42. Frèches reproduces and translates the abjuration (Abjuração em forma) that Antônio José da Silva was unable to sign on 41–42. 42. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica e Cronologica, vol. 4 (Lisbon: Francisco Luiz Ameno, 1759), 41. The anthology was published as Acentos saudosos das musas portuguezas na sentidissima morte da Serenissima Senhora a Senhora D. Francisca Infanta de Portugal (Lisbon: Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1736). 43. “Elogios. Do Doutor Antonio Joseph da Silva, Romance Heroico,” in Musa Pueril Dedicada a Excellentissima Senhora D. Ignes Francisca Xavier de Noronha, Por Seu Autor Joam Cardoso da Costa (Lisbon: Miguel Rodrigues, 1736), fol. §6r–v and fol. §7r. 44. Two modern editors concur in attributing the play to Silva: António José da Silva, El prodigio de Amarante, ed. Claude-Henri Frèches (Lisbon: Livraria Bertrand; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967); and O Judeu em cena: El prodigio de Amarante / O prodígio de Amarante, bilingual edition, ed. Alberto Dines and Victor Luís Eleutério (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2005). 45. Bibliotheca Lusitana (1759), 4:41. For a discussion of works attributed to Antônio José da Silva, see Perkins, A Critical Study and Translation, 28–38. 46. On this second trial, see Frèches, António José da Silva et l’Inquisition, 49–167; Wachtel, The Faith of Remembrance, 227–36; and “Traslado do processo feito pela Inquizição de Lisboa contra Antonio Jozé da Silva Poeta Brazileiro,” Revista Trimensal do Instituto Histórico e Geographico Brazileiro, 59:1 (1896, 1st and 2nd trimesters) 5–261. 47. I cite from the following modern edition of the play, using the part and scene divisions and page numbers therein: Antônio José da Silva, As Comédias de Antônio José, o Judeu, ed. and with an introduction by Paulo Roberto Pereira (São Paulo: Martins
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Fontes, 2007): the Vida do grande d. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança is on 77–148 (hereafter Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote). English translations are my own: no English edition of the play has been published. 48. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.9, 116: “Se hoje o meu cantar / Um zurro há de ser, / quero começar: / an, an, an, an!” 49. Miguel de Cervantes, Viage del Parnaso, Compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; Dirigido a don Rodrigo de Tapia (Madrid: [widow of] Alonso Martín, 1614). Modern edition in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Poesías Completas, I. Viaje del Parnaso y Adjunta al Paranaso, ed. Vincente Gaos (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1973) (hereafter Cervantes, Viaje del Parnaso [1973]). English translation: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Journey to Parnassus, ed. and trans. James Y. Gibson (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1883). 50. Cesare Caporali, Il viaggio in Parnaso, in Raccolta di alcune rime piacevoli (Perugia, 1582). On this poem, see Norberto Cacciaglia, Il viaggio di Parnaso di Cesare Caporali (Perugia: Università per stranieri, 1993). 51. Jean Canavaggio, “La dimensión autobiográfica del Viaje del Parnaso,” Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 1:1–2 (1981): 29–41. 52. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.8, 111–12: D. Quixote: “Soberana ninfa, / Íris deste horizonte. / Que rasgando diáfanos vapores / Te ostentas deidad”, and Sancho: “Ninfa soberana / Arco-da-velha deste horizonte./ Que rasgando as nuvens de papelão . . . / Te ostentas já de idade.” 53. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, II, VII, 105: D. Quixote: “Vês, Sancho, que admirável palácio? Vês estas colunas dóricas e corintas? Olha estas jaspes! Que te parece?,” and Sancho: “Parece-me que tudo isto é pintado em tábuas de pinho.” In the third scene of the second part, the Fidalga or Lady, Cervantes’s Duchess, also alludes to the marionettes’s material presence in the theater (Silva, Vida do grande D. Quixote, 129): “Ora, Sancho Pança, na verdade que fizeste uma ação a mais louvável que se pode considerar digna de se estampar em cortiça com lettras de alvaiade” (“Truly, Sancho Panza, what you have done is so worthy of praise, that it is worthy of being stamped upon the cork of our puppets with letters of white lead”). 54. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.1, 118: D. Quixote: “Sabes aonde estamos?,” and Sancho: “Sei muito bem. Estamos no Teatro do Bairro Alto.” 55. Cervantes, Viaje del Parnasso (1973), chapter 7, lines 148–361, pp. 153–60. 56. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.9, 114: Sancho: “Veja vossa mercê que eles trazem um exército de dez mil romances, quatro mil sonetos, duzentas décimas, oitenta madrigais, e um esquadrão de sátiras volantes em silva, que arranha.” 57. Cervantes Saavedra, Journey to Parnassus (1883), 213. Cervantes, Viaje del Parnasso (1973), chapter 7, lines 187–9, pp. 154–55: “Dióle a Mercurio en la derecha mano / Una sátira antigua licenciosa, / de estilo aguda, pero no muy sano.” 58. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.9, 114: Sancho: “Estou passado de parte a parte com um soneto em agudos.” 59. Perkins, A Critical Study and Translation, 47–56.
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60. Some other dramatists also relied on viewers’ foreknowledge of the book written by Cervantes in their plays: for example, Guillén de Castro, in his Don Quijote de la Mancha. The same was true for the festivals and parades that staged characters and episodes from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. See Chartier, Cardenio entre Cervantès et Shakespeare, 60–69, and Cardenio Between Cervantes and Shakespeare, 33–39. 61. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.8, 110–11: D. Quixote: “Falo contigo, Sancho fingido, e com Dulcinea transformada,” and Sancho: “Cuido que nem na Vida de vossa mercê se conta semelhante desaventura.” 62. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.8, 111: Sancho: “Que queira vossa mercê que à força seja eu Dulcinéia ensanchada ou Sancho endulcinado! Ora, pois, já que quer que eu seja Dulcinéia, chegue-se para cá, que lhe quero dar dois coices.” 63. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 1.8, 111: D. Quixote: “Dulcinéia, tão formosa e tão discreta nunca podia ser besta, nem ainda transformada, para dar o que me ofereces com a tua grossaria.” 64. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.3, 125: Sancho: “Eu não nego que há deidades, a quem se deve render tributo no templo da formosura; mas que haja Dulcinéias . . . ex parte objecti concedo, a parte rei nego.” 65. The episode appears in Don Quixote, part 1, chapter 20: “‘If you tell your story this way, Sancho,’ said Don Quixote, ‘repeating everything you say two times, you will not finish in two days; tell it in a continuous way, and speak like a man of understanding, or do not say anything at all.” Don Quixote, trans. Grossman, 145.Don Quixote, ed. Rico, 213: “—Si de esa manera cuentas tu cuento, Sancho—dijo don Quijote—, repitiendo dos veces lo que vas diciendo, no acabarás en dos días: dilo seguidamente y cuéntalo como hombre de entendimiento, y si no, no digas nada.” 66. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.3, 124: Sancho: “Por minha vida, que acabes. Se não, te moerei os ossos,” and “Tu mo pagarás, Sancho, por estas. Bem te entendi a historia.” 67. Domingo José Gonçalves de Magalhães, Antonio Jose ou O poeta e a Inquisicão. Tragedia (Rio de Janeiro: F. de Paula Brito, 1839). For a modern edition, see Gonçalves de Magalhães, Tragédias, ed. Mariângela Alves de Lima (São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2005), 3–128. In his “Breve notícia sobre Antônio José da Silva,” Gonçalves de Magalhães writes (9): “Lembrarei somente que esta é, se me não engano, a primeira tragédia escrita por um brasileiro, e a única de assunto nacional” (“I would remind you that this play, if I am not mistaken, is the first tragedy written by a Brazilian, and the only one to address a national subject”). On Gonçalves de Magalhães as a playwright, one who was reputed to resist both classical constraints and Romantic “disorder,” see André Luís Gomes, Marcas de nascença: A contribuição de Gonçalves de Magalhães para o teatro brasileiro (São Paulo: Antiqua, 2004). 68. Camilo Castelo Branco, O Judeu. Romance histórico (Porto: [widow of] Maré, 1866). The book is dedicated as follows (6): “A Memoria de Antonio José Silva, Escriptor Portuguez, Assassinado nas Fogueiras do Santo Officio em Lisboa, aos 19 d’Outubro de
Notes to Pages 93–95
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1739” (“To the Memory of Antonio José Silva, Portuguese Writer, Murdered by the first of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Lisbon on the 19th of October in 1739”). 69. Bernardo Santareno, O Judeu. Narrativa dramática em trés actos (Lisbon: Edições Atica, 1966). We should also take note of the Yiddish historical drama Dem yidns opere by Alter Kacyzne, which traces the connection between Silva’s fate and his works: Kacyzne’s play was written in Warsaw in 1937 but was not published before his death in 1941. The play was published in the first volume of his works: Alter Kacyzne, Gezamlte Shriftn, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Y. L. Perets, 1967). Accompanying it is his first theatrical work, performed in 1925, Der duhkus. This play was dedicated to the Count Walentyn Potocki, a reputed convert to Judaism who, as Abraham ben Abraham, was burned at the stake in Vilnius in 1749. 70. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, “Antônio José,” in Machado de Assis, Relíquias de Casa Velha, Edição feita de accordo com a primeira de 1906, ed. Adriano de Gama Kury (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Garnier, 1990), 113–25, citation on 114: “A piedade não é decerto razão determinativa em pontos de crítica, e tal poetastro haverá que, sucumbindo a uma grande injustiça social, somente inspire compaixão sem desafiar a análise. Não é o caso de Antônio José: este mereceria por si só que o estudássemos, ainda despido das corrências trágicas que lhe circundam o nome.” Translation by John Pollack. 71. Machado de Assis, “Antônio José,” 124: “não obstante os vestígios e as lembranças desse primeiro ato da Inquisição [a condenação de 1726], não obstante o espetáculo do que padeciam os seus, as óperas de Antônio José trazem o sabor de uma mocidade imperturbavelmente feliz, a facécia grossa e petulante, tal como lhe pedia o paladar das plateias, nenhum vislumbre do episódio trágico.” Translation by John Pollack. 72. José Oliveira Barata, António José da Silva: Criação e realidade, 2 vols. (Coimbra: Edição do Serviço de Documentação e Publicações da Universidade de Coimbra, 1983–85). 73. José Oliveira Barata, preface, António José da Silva, “O Judeu, (dit “Le Juif ”), ed. Pierre Léglise-Costa (Montpellier: Maison Antoine Vitez, Les Cahiers, 2000), 12. Translation by John Pollack. 74. Wachtel, trans. Halpern, in The Faith of Remembrance, 237. A similar thesis is advanced by Lúcia Helena Costiga in Through Cracks in the Wall: Modern Inquisitions and New Christian Letrados in the Iberian Atlantic World (Leiden: Brill, 2010): for Costiga, Silva is made a scapegoat for the diffusion of enlightened ideas: “Despite the fact that the Inquisition condemned the playwright on grounds of Judaism, it is possible that the real motive behind his death lies in the fact that his performances at the Theater of Bairro Alto were attracting the attention of enlightened subjects who were starting to oppose the actions of the Inquisition,” 192. 75. Wachtel, trans. Halpern, in The Faith of Remembrance, 237. 76. Pereira, “Dramaturgia e Inquisição,” in Silva, As Comédias de Antônio José, o Judeu, 30, 34.
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77. In a note in the first French translation of the play, Ferdinand Denis points out, “Il est facile de voir qu’Antonio Jozé faisait la critique de la manière dont on rendait la justice à Lisbonne; il continue dans le reste de la scène à signaler d’autres abus tels que les audiences secrètes, les ajournements, etc.” (“It is easy to see that Antonio José is critical here of the way in which justice was rendered in Lisbon; he goes on later in the scene to point out other abuses such as court sessions that are held in secret, postponements, etc.”): Ferdinand Denis, La Vie du Grand Don Quichotte de la Manche, et du gros Sancho Pança, Par Antonio Jozé, in Chefs-d’œuvre du théâtre portugais. Gomès, Pimenta de Aguiar, Jozé (Paris: Ladvocat, 1823), 355–494, citation on 494. My translation. 78. Don Quixote, trans. Grossman, second part, chapter 42, “Regarding the Advice Don Quixote Gave to Sancho Panza Before He Went to Govern the Insula, Along with Other Matters of Consequence,” and Chapter 43, “Regarding the Second Set of Precepts the Don Quixote Gave to Sancho Panza.” Don Quixote, ed. Rico, 967–79: “De los consejos que dio don Quijote a Sancho Panza antes que fuese a gobernar la ínsula, con otras cosas bien consideradas,” and “De los consejos segundos que dio don Qujote a Sancho Panza.” 79. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.3, 129: D. Quixote: “Sancho, vê que vais a governar; olha que deves ter diante dos olhos a Justiça,” and Sancho: “Sim, senhor, eu logo a mando pintar e a porei diante dos olhos.” 80. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.3, 129: D.Quixote: “Não te corrompas com dádivas,” and “Amar a Deus, e ao teu próximo como a ti mesmo.” 81. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 130: D. Quixote: “isto de Justiça é coisa pintada e que tal mulher não há no mundo, nem tem carne, nem sangue, como v. g. a senhora Dulcinéia del Toboso, nem mais, nem menos, porém, como era necessário haver esta figura no mundo para meter medo à gente grande, como o papão às crianças, pintaram uma mulher vestida à trrágica, porque toda a justiça acaba em tragédia; taparam-lhe os olhos, porque dizem que era vesga e que metia um olho por outro. . . . A espada na mão significa que tudo há de levar à espada, que é o mesmo que a torto e a direito. . . . Na outra mão, tinha uma balança . . . não tem fiel, nem fiados.” 82. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 131: Sancho: “não sabeis que não há nesta ilha outra justiça, señao pintada.” 83. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 132: Sancho: “Olà, metam essa mulher na cadeia com uma corrente ao pescoço, e grilhões aos pés, bem carregada de ferros, até aparecer o homem com ela quer casar.” 84. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 135: Sancho: “Não tem remédio; hei de sentenciar-te; o que poderei fazer é não dar execução à sentença.” 85. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 132: Sancho: “que assim como a ninguém se póde negar a vista, como dispõe o text. In l. Caecus, § Tortus ff. de his, qui metit um olho por outro, e com muitos o provam Pão Mole no cap. das Côdeas, tambem da mesma sórte o ouvido se não deve fechar para ouvir os queixozos, como dispõe a l. das doze tábuas de Pinho na segunda estância de Madeira, Cod. De Barrotis.” 86. Silva, Vida do grande d. Quixote, 2.4, 135: “Va ditando Sancho a sentença.”
Notes to Pages 96–100
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87. Machado de Assis, “Antônio José,” 124: “admitindo que a alegoria da justiça na Vida de D. Quixote seja o resumo das queixas pessoais do poeta . . . a verdade é que os sucessos da vida dele não influíram, não diminuíram a força nativa do talento, nem lhe torceram a natureza, que estava muito longe da hipocondria.” 88. Wachtel, trans. Halpern, in The Faith of Remembrance, 239–40. 89. Antônio José da Silva, Anfitrião, ou Júpiter e Alcmena, in As Comédias de Antônio José, o Judeu, ed. Pereira, part 2, scene 6, 317–19 (hereafter Silva, Anfitrião). Machado de Assis, “Antônio José,” 124; and Barata, preface, 18. 90. English translation from Philip Krummrich, A Critical Portuguese/English Edition of Anfitrião, 286. Silva, Anfitrião, 2.6: Primeiro preso, 317: “Por que te prenderam?,” and Saramago: “Por nada.” 91. Krummrich, A Critical Portuguese/English Edition of Anfitrião, 291. Silva, Anfitrião, 2.6: Primeiro preso, 318: “E para que tambem não fale com tanta liberdade,” and Saramago: “Que liberdades pode falar quem a não tem.” 92. Krummrich, A Critical Portuguese/English Edition of Anfitrião, 291, 293. Silva, Anfitrião, 2.6, 319: Saramago: “Sorte Tirana, estrela rigorosa, / que maligna influis com luz opaca / rigor tão fero contra um inocente ! / Que delito fiz eu, para que sinta / o peso desta aspérrima cadeia / nos horrores de um cárcere penoso, / em cuja triste, lôbrega morada / habita a confusão e o susto mora ? / Mas, se acaso, tirana, estrela ímpia, / é culpa o não ter culpa, eu culpa tenho; / mas se a culpa que tenho não é culpa, / para que me usurpais com impiedade / o crédito, a esposa e a liberdade?”
Epilogue 1. Spanish original: Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” in Ficciones (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, Biblioteca Borges, 1997), 40–55 (subsequent citations are to this edition). English translation: “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” in Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (New York: New Directions, 1962), 35–44. 2. Gilbert Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, XIIe–XIVe siècles (Paris: Cerf, 1999), and Lire la Bible au Moyen Age: Essai d’herméneutique médiévale (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2009). 3. Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote,” Sur: Revista mensual publicada bajo la dirección de Victoria Ocampo, 9, 56 (May 1939), 7–16, republished in Borges, El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1941), 47–62 and in Borges, Ficciones (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1944), 49–63. 4. The text was dictated in English by Borges and published as “Autobiographical Notes” in the New Yorker, September 19, 1970, 40–99 (qtd. on 83–84). It was republished in Jorges Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories 1933–1969, Together with Commentaries and an Autobiographical Essay, ed. and trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni in collaboration with the author (New York: Bantam Books 1971), 135–85. On the different versions of the accident, see James Woodall, Borges: A Life (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 108–10.
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5. Before his accident, Borges had published three poetry collections (Fervor de Buenos Aires in 1923, Luna de enfrente in 1925, and Cuaderno San Martín in 1929) and four essay collections: Inquisiciones in 1925; El Tamaño de mi esperanza in 1926; El Idioma de los Argentinos in 1928; and Discusión in 1932, the only one of the four that he did not later renounce. He had also published three other books: Evaristo Carriego (1930), a book about a popular poet and neighbor of Borges; Historia universal de la infamia (1935), a collection of biographical essays he had prepared over two previous years for the Revista multicolor de los sábados, which was distributed freely with the daily Crítica; and Historia de la eternidad (1936), which includes the first of Borges’s tales that is “both a hoax and a pseudo-essay”: “El acercamiento a Almotásim.” See Nicolás Helft, Jorge Luis Borges: bibliografía completa (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997). 6. Borges, “Autobiographical Notes,” 84. 7. On this job and bitter experience, which lasted nine years, see Borges, “Autobiographical Notes,” 80–83, and “Entretiens avec James E. Irby,” in Jorge Luis Borges, ed. Dominique de Roux and Jean de Milleret (Paris: L’Herne, 1964, rep. 1981), 388–402, citation on 398–99. 8. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 44n3. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 54 n: “Recuerdo sus cuadernos cuadriculados, sus negras tachaduras, sus peculiares símbolos tipográficos y su letra de insecto.” See Daniel Balderston, “Los manuscritos de Borges: ‘Imaginar una realidad más compleja que la declarada al lector,’ ” Cuadernos LIRICO 7 (2012), https://journals.openedition.org/lirico/505; and Borges, el mismo, otro. Una lógica simbólica: Manuscritos de Jorge Luis Borges en la Biblioteca Nacional (Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Nacional, 2016): see facsimiles of pages from the autograph manuscript of Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” on 21–25. 9. Borges, “Entretiens avec James E. Irby,” 398: “ne sont autre chose que la glose d’autres livres.” 10. Eugen Weber, Action française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), 106, reference to the office of the Action française in Nîmes; and Gérard Gaudin, “L’Action française en Provence,” in L’Action française: Culture, société, politique, ed. Michel Leymarie and Jacques Prévotat (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses du Septentrion, 2008), 257–66. 11. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 36. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 41: “un catálogo falaz que cierto diario cuya tendencia protestante no es un secreto ha tenido la desconsideración de inferir a sus deplorables lectores—si bien estos son pocos y calvinistas, cuando no masones y circuncisos.” 12. Georges Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Jorge Luis Borges (Paris: Gallimard, 1967); rep. in Jorge Luis Borges, “Enquêtes suivi de Georges Charbonnier,” Entretiens avec Jorge Luis Borges (Paris: Gallimard, Folio Essais, 1992), 329: “J’ai pensé que le héros de cette histoire fût Français, parce que c’est une idée qui ne serait pas vraisemblable dans une autre culture que celle de France.” 13. Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Jorge Luis Borges, 331: “Il y a chez lui [Pierre Ménard] un excès d’intelligence, un sens de l’inutilité de la littérature; l’idée qu’il y a
Notes to Pages 101–102
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déjà trop de livres, que c’est un manque de politesse ou de culture que d’encombrer les bibliothèques avec de nouveaux livres; une sorte de résignation enfin.” Translation by John Pollack. 14. Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel,” in Labyrinths, ed. Yates and Irby, 51–58, quotation on 54–55. Borges, “La Biblioteca de Babel,” in Ficciones, 1997, 86–99: “Cuando se proclamó que la Biblioteca abarcaba todos los libros, la primera impresión fue de extravagante felicidad,” 92. Borges published a first version of the story in Sur, no. 59 (1939), with the title “La biblioteca total” and changed the title when he included it in El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths) in 1941. 15. Borges, “The Library of Babel,” 55–58. Borges, “La Biblioteca de Babel,” 94–98: “una depresión excesiva.” 16. Michel Foucault, “The Discourse on Language,” appendix to Foucault, Archeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 215–37. Michel Foucault, L’ordre du discours: Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France prononcée le 2 décembre 1970 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). 17. Jorge Luis Borges, “The Mirror and the Mask,” in The Book of Sand, trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni (London: Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, 1979), 53–63. Jorge Luis Borges, “El espejo y la máscara,” in El libro de arena (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, Biblioteca Borges, 1997), 80–86. On this tale, see Roger Chartier, “Le texte entre monument et événement,” in Une voix qui manque: Ecrits en mémoire de Jean Gattégno, ed. Marc Olivier Baruch (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 59–71. 18. Celestina: A Play in Twenty-One Acts Attributed to Fernando de Rojas, trans. Mack Hendricks Singleton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), prologue, 11–12. Fernando de Rojas (y “Antiguo Autor”), La Celestina: Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, ed. Francisco J. Lobera with Guillermo Serés, Paloma Díaz-Mas, Carlos Mota, Iñigo Ruiz Arzálluz, and Francisco Rico (Madrid: Real Academia Española; Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg-Círculo de Lectores, 2011), prologue,” 20: “Unos les [estos papeles] roen los huesos que no tienen virtud, que es la historia toda junta, no aprovechándose de las particularidades haciendo la cuenta de camino; otros pican los donaires y refranes comunes, loándolos con toda atención, dejando pasar por alto lo que hace más al caso e utilidad suya. Pero aquellos para cuyo verdadero placer es todo, desechan el cuento de la historia para contar, coligen la suma para su provecho, ríen lo donoso, las sentencias e dichos de filósofos guardan en su memoria para trasponer en lugares convenibles a sus actos e propósitos. Así que cuando diez personas se juntaren a oír esta comedia, en quien quepa esta diferencia de condiciones como suele acaecer, ¿quién negará que haya contienda en cosa que de tantas maneras se entienda?” 19. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, trans. Edith Grossman (New York: Ecco, 2003), 478. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Edición del Instituto Cervantes, ed. Francisco Rico (Barcelona: Instituto Cervantes / Crítica, 1998), second part, chapter 3, 652–53: “los niños la manosean, los mozos la leen, los hombres la entienden y los viejos la celebran; y, finalmente, es tan trillada y tan leída y tan sabida de todo género de gentes, que apenas han visto algún rocín flaco, cuando dicen: ‘Allí va Rocinante’. Y los
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que más se han dado a su lectura son los pajes: no hay antecámara de señor donde no se halle un Don Quijote.” 20. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 43. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 52–53: “Es una revelación cotejar el Don Quijote de Menard con el de Cervantes. Éste, por ejemplo, escribió (Don Quijote, primera parte, noveno capítulo): . . . la verdad, cuya madre es la historia, émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir. Redactada en el siglo diecisiete, redactada por el ‘ingenio lego’ Cervantes, esa enumeración es un mero elogio retórico de la historia. Menard, en cambio, escribe: . . . la verdad, cuya madre es la historia, émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir. La historia, madre de la verdad; la idea es asombrosa. Menard, contemporáneo de William James, no define la historia como una indagación de la realidad sino como su origen. La verdad histórica, para él, no es lo que sucedió; es lo que juzgamos que sucedió. Las cláusulas finales—ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir—son descaradamente pragmáticas.” 21. Pierre Bourdieu, “La lecture: Une pratique culturelle: Débat entre Pierre Bourdieu et Roger Chartier,” in Pratiques de la lecture, sous la direction de Roger Chartier (Marseille: Rivages, 1985; Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages, 1993), 290: “On oublie qu’un livre change par le fait qu’il ne change pas alors que le monde change.” My translation. 22. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 42. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 52: “El texto de Cervantes y el de Ménard son verbalmente idénticos, pero el segundo es casi infinitamente rico. (Más ambiguo, dirán sus detractores; pero la ambigüedad es una riqueza).” 23. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 41–42. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote” (1997), 50–51: “Componer el Quijote a principios del siglo diecisiete era una empresa razonable, necesaria, acaso fatal; a principios del veinte, es casi imposible. No en vano han transcurrido trescientos años, cargados de complejísimos hechos. Entre ellos, para mencionar uno solo: el mismo Quijote.” 24. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 44. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 55: “Menard (acaso sin quererlo) ha enriquecido mediante una técnica nueva el arte detenido y rudimentario de la lectura: la técnica del anacronismo deliberado y de las atribuciones erróneas. Esa técnica de aplicación infinita nos insta a recorrer la Odisea como si fuera posterior a la Eneida y el libro Le jardin du Centaure de Madame Henri Bachelier como si fuera de madame Henri Bachelier. Esa técnica puebla de aventura los libros más calmosos. Atribuir a Louis Ferdinand Céline o a James Joyce la Imitación de Cristo ¿no es una suficiente renovación de esos tenues avisos espirituales?” (Madame Henri Bachelier is the supposed author of the “fallacious catalogue” of Menard’s work, which is criticized by the narrator.) 25. Alberto Manguel, With Borges (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2004), 84. Alberto Manguel, Con Borges (Madrid: Alianza, 2004), 47: “Se divertía con semejantes subversiones. ‘Imaginemos—decía—que se pueda leer el Quijote como una novela policial. En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme. . . . El autor nos dice que
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no desea recordar el nombre del pueblo. ¿Por qué razón? ¿Qué pista quiere encubrir? Como lectores de una novela policial deberíamos, se supone, sospechar algo, ¿no?’. Y soltaba una risa.” 26. Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Jorge Luis Borges, 331: “Il ne le copie pas exactement. Il l’oublie puis il le retrouve en lui-même. Il y aurait là un peu l’idée qu’on n’invente rien, qu’on travaille avec la mémoire ou, pour parler d’une façon plus précise, qu’on travaille avec l’oubli.” Translation by John Pollack. 27. Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 39. Borges, “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” 47: “Su admirable ambición era producir unas páginas que coincidieran—palabra por palabra y línea por línea—con las de Miguel de Cervantes.” 28. Borges, “Autobiographical Notes,” 42–43: “I still remember these red volumes with the gold lettering of the Garnier edition. At some point, my father’s library was broken up, and when I read the ‘Quijote’ in another edition I had the feeling that it wasn’t the real ‘Quijote’ in another edition. Later, I had a friend get me the Garnier, with the same engravings, the same footnotes, and also the same errata. All those things form part of the book for me; this I consider the real ‘Quijote.’ ” 29. Roger Chartier, “Publishing Cervantes,” in Chartier, The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), 150–57.
INDEX
Abjuration, 87 Academia da Trindade, 82 Acentos Saudosos das Musas Portuguezas, 89 Achilles, 100 Acrostic, 87 Actor, Actress, 42, 84, 85 Adaptation, 79, 90, 92, 93, 97 Afonso V of Portugal, 31 Africa, 26 Alba, Duke of, 14 Alexander, the Great, 63 Alexander de Medici, 69 Aliggrodo, James, 12 Amazons, 48 Amelot de la Houssaie, Nicolas, 56 Histoire du Concile de Trente, 58 Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise, 56 L’Homme de Cour, 53, 56, 58 Epistle to the King, 58, 59 Notes, 65 Preface 58, 62, 63 Tables, 65 Translations: English: The Courtier’s Manual Oracle, 65 Dutch: L’Homme de Cour, 65 German: L’Homme de cour, 65 Italian: L’Huomo di Corte, 65 Latin: Hispani Aulicus sive De Prudentia Civili et Maxime Aulica, 65 Le Prince de Nicolas Machiavel, 58 Tibère, Discours politique sur Tacite, 58 America, (New World, West Indies), viii, 4–6, 8, 11–13, 17, 20, 21, 26 Amsterdam, 21 Anachronism, 45, 104 Ancients, 68 Angels, 9 Anthology, 60, 70
Anti-Semitism, 101 Antonio, Nicolás Bibliotheca Hispana, 56 Antwerp, 7, 12, 13, 38, 56, 66, 82 Aphorisms, viii, 54 Apollo, 90 Apostasy, 89 Aragon, 41, 54 Aria, 82 Ariosto, Ludovico, viii Aristotle, 33, 63, 68 Armada, invincible, Spanish, 12, 13 Arte, 60 Audience, 42, 83, 84 Augustine, Saint, 44 Authorship, 37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 54, 55, 87, 94, 96, 98, 99, 101 Authority, 29, 47, 52 Auto-da-fe, 87, 89 Autolycus, 85 Automaton, 84 Autores de comedias, 37, 38, 39, 40 Auto sacramental, 79 Avila, Francisco de, 39 Azoulay, Jom Tob, O Judeu, 79, 83, 93, 96 Ban on plays and novels, 41 Bankside, London, 84 Barata, José Oliveira, 94, 96 Barataria, 79, 81 Barcelona, 6, 17, 41 Bellavoine Sancho-Pança, 81 Benzoni, Girolamo Historia del mondo nuovo, 16 Bilingual editions, 16 Binding, 7, 17, 22, 38 Black Legend, viii, 16
162
Index
Black letter, 12 Blum, Léon, 101 Bogota, 25 Bookseller, 41, 44 Borges, Jorge Luis Autobiographical Notes, 99, 105 La Biblioteca de Babel, 101 El espejo y la mascara, 101 El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan, 99 El Sur, 99 Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier, 101 Entretiens avec James E. Irby, 100 Ficciones, 100 Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote, ix, 99–105 Boscán, Juan, 67 Bouhours, Dominique, S.J., 76 Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène, 63 Bourdieu, Pierre, 103 Brazil, 87 Brecht, Bertolt, 91 Brevitas, Brevity, 3, 63 Broome, William, 12 Brussels, 7, 56, 82, 84 Bry, Theodor de, 12–14, 18, 23, 24 Buen Retiro, 80 Buenos Aires, 100 Burgos, Laws of, 4 Butcher, 7, 15, 19 Cabot, Sebastian, 20 Cabra, Count of, 31, 45 Cade, Jack, 28 Cahiers de l’Herne, 100 Calatrava, Order of, 29, 45 Caldara, Antonio Don Chisciotte in corte della duchessa, 81 Sancho Panza governatore dell’isola Barattaria, 81 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 34 Los disparates de Don Quijote, 80 Calliope, 90, 91 Camões, Luis Vaz de, 89 Caporali, Cesare, Viaggio in Parnaso, 90 Cardoso da Costa, João Musa pueril, 89 Caribbean islands, 26 Casaus, 3 Castelani, Giacomo, 16
Castelo Branco, Camilo, O Judeu. Romance histórico, 93 Castiglione, Baldassare Il Corteggiano, 67 Castile, Castilian, Castilians 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 18, 41 Castro y Bellvís, Guillén de, Don Quijote de la Mancha, 80 Catalans, 18 Catherine de Medici, 69 Catholic, Catholics, 10, 13, 23, 87, 101 Catholic monarchs, 29, 45, 49, 50 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 104 Censorship, 3, 34, 36, 44, 54, 94 Cervantes, Miguel de, 104 Don Quixote de la Mancha, vii, viii, ix, 79–84, 90, 92, 93, 97, 101–5 O Engenhoso fidalgo Dom Quixote de la Mancha, 82 Viaje del Parnaso, 90–92 Vida y Hechos del Ingenioso Cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha, 82 Chapbooks, 43, 44 Charbonnier, Georges, 101, 104 Charles V, Emperor, 1 Chauveton, Urbain, 16 Chenu, Marie-Dominique, 61 Chèvremont, Jean-Baptiste L’Art de voyager utilement, 22, 23 Chiapas, 3, 6, 7 Children, 30, 50 Christ, 5, 9, 13, 17 Christians, 20, 29, 61, 87 Chronology, 45, 104 Cide Hamete Benengeli, 81, 102 Cipher, 67 Ciudad Real, 31, 45 Claesz, Cornelius, 14 Claramonte, Andrés de El mayor rey de los reyes, 41 Claris, Pau, 18 Clemency, 51, 52 Cloppenburg, Jan Everts, 14 Coat of arms, 1, 51 Coimbra, University of, 85 Colonization, colony, 4, 6, 7, 8, 93 Comedias sueltas, 38 Commonplaces, 39, 98 Company of Jesus, 54, 56, 76 Confession, 7, 87 Conquest, Conquistadores, 4, 5, 9, 25
Index Coplas, 43, 50 Córdoba, 32, 49, 51 Cormellas, Sebastián, 41 Corpus Christi, feast, 79 Corral de comedia, 37, 82 Corrupt editions, 38, 40, 44 Cortés, Hernán, 21 Council of Castile, 41 Courbeville, François de, S.J. Maximes de Balthazar Gracien, 76–78 Courbé Augustin, 80 Court, Courtier, viii, x, 53, 58, 59, 62, 75, 76 The Courtiers Manual Oracle; or The Art of Prudence, 59, 61, 74–75 Court rationality, 74 Covarrubias, Sebastián de Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, 3, 17, 32, 59–62, 67, 68, 71, 72 Cranford, James The Tears of Ireland, 18 Credibility, 3, 8, 13, 21 Criollos, Creoles, 25, 26, 27 Cromwell, Oliver, 20 Cruelties, viii, 4, 5, 9–13, 20, 21, 23, 46, 95, 96 Cuba, 18 Curiosity, 68 Cuttlefish, 68, 78 Cypher, 61, 63, 67 Dancourt, Florent Carton Sancho Pança, Gouverneur, 81 David, 20 Decapitation, 31, 46, 84 Dechert, Robert, ix, 1 De Pauw, Cornelius, 26 Despejo, 59 Despotism, 9 Destruction, 4, 9, 21 Detective novel, 104 Devil, 43 D. Francisca, Infanta, 89 Diamante, Juan Bautista El Hidalgo de la Mancha, 80 Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 60, 69 Di Giovanni, Thomas, 99 Discreto, 45, 62, 64, 71 Discurso, 69 Dissimulation, 67–69, 72, 73, 75, 76 Distich, 8 Dominicans, 3, 5–7, 17, 18, 89
163
Dufresny, Charles Rivière Sancho Pança, 81 Dutch translations, 7, 14, 65 Ecstasy, 5 El Cid, 49 Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, 53, 66, 74 Encomienda, 4, 6–8, 25, 26 England, 13 English translations, 8, 19, 23, 25, 65 Engravings, x, 12–15, 18, 23 Esther, 52 Euterpe, 90 Evangelization, 4, 6, 11, 21 Exemplum, 9 Fall of Man, 61 False imprints, 41, 42 Faxardo, Simón, 41 Ferdinand of Aragon, 28, 29, 45, 46, 51, 52, 59, 60 Foire Saint-Germain, 81 Foire Saint-Laurent, 81 Fold-out engravings, 19, 24 Forgetting, 104 Foucault, Michel, 101 France, 13 Franciscans, 89 Frankfurt, 12 French language, 63 French translations, viii, 7, 13, 16, 20, 94 Front populaire, 101 Frontispiece, 58 Fuente Ovejuna, (town), 28–30, 32, 43, 45–47, 50, 51 Fuzelier, Louis Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, 81 Garcia de Enterría, Maria Cruz, 43 Garnier, 105 Gazette de France, 22 Gentiles, 60 German translations, 13, 14, 16, 65 Germany, 13 Gervaise, Nicolas L’Heros de Laurens Gracian, 56 Gillier, Jean-Claude La Bagatelle, ou Sancho Pança, Gouverneur, 81
164
Index
Ginammi, Marco, 16, 17 Glosa, 89 God, 4–6, 9–11, 20, 21, 26, 48, 61 Golden Age, viii, ix Gómez de Guzmán, Fernán, Commander, 28–31, 45, 46, 48, 50 Gonçalves de Magalhães, Domingo José Antonio José ou O Poeta e a Inquisição. Tragedia, 93 Gracián, Baltasar, S.J., ix, 56 Arte de Ingenio, Tratado de la Agudeza, 55 El Discreto, 55, 56, 63, 68 El Héroe, 55, 56, 69 El Político Don Fernando de Aragón, 55, 56, 59, 60, 66–70 Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, viii, x, 53–56, 66–69 Aphorism 64, 61–62 Aphorism 69, 73–74 Aphorism 98, 66–69, 72, 77 Aphorism 120, 61, 70–71 Aphorism 127, 59 Aphorism 211, 61 Aphorism 291, 71–73 Translation: Oracolo manual e Arte di Prudenza, 65 Gracián, Lorenzo, 54, 56 Greek drama, 84 Grégoire, Abbé, Apologie de Barthélémy de Las Casas, 26 Grimarest, Jean-Léonor Le Gallois de La Vie de M. de Molière, 80 Guadalajara, 25 Guatemala, 6 Guérin de Bouscal, Daniel Dom Quixote de la Manche, 80 Dom Quichot de la Manche, Seconde Partie, 80 Le Gouvernement de Sanche Pança, 80, 82 Gutenberg, 43 Hare, 47 Harrach, Count of, ix Heaven, 61 Hell, 17, 61 Henry IV of Castile, 31 Henry VII of England, 20 Hercules, Pillars of, 1 Heresy, 89
Hernández, Father Gabriel, 54 Hernández José, El Gaucho Martín Fierro, 100 Herrera, Antonio de, 26 History, 103 Homer Odyssey, 104 Honor, Dishonor, 7, 29, 31, 40, 44, 47, 48, 50, 52, 97 Horace, 62, 75 Horizon of expectation, 102 Hospital of Tudos os Santos, Lisbon, 82 Huesca, viii, 54, 56 Imitatio Christi, 104 Imitation, ix, 90, 105 Indies, Indians, viii, 4–8, 10, 12–14, 17, 20–22, 25, 26 Innocents, 12 Inquiry, 30, 31, 51 Inquisition, ix, 23, 34, 79, 87–89, 93–95, 97, 98 Institut National, 26 Interdict, 17 Interioridad, 69 Isabella of Castile, 28, 29, 45, 46, 51, 52, 70 Isabella of Portugal, 70 Italian operas, 82, 83 Italian translations, 16, 17, 65 Ivry, James, 100 James, William, 103 Je-ne-sais-quoi, 59 Jeremiah, 18 Jerome, saint, 44 Jewish rituals, 87, 89 João V of Portugal, 89 Job, 9 Jonson, Ben Bartholomew Fair, 83 Joshua, 20 Joyce, James, 104 Juana la Beltraneja, 31 Juderías, Julián, 16 Judgment, 61, 62, 71, 72 Junta of Braços, 18 Junta of the Reformation, 41 Just titles, 4 Justice, 79, 80, 95
Index King’s Council of Spain, 39 La Bruyère, Jean de, 53, 76 Labyrinth, 96 Lacavalleria, Antonio, 17 Laconism, 63, 68, 74 L’Action française, 101 La Rochefoucauld, François de, 53 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 21–23, 25 Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, viii, ix, x, 1–7, 17, 25, 27 Translations: Istoria o brevissima relatione, 16 La Découverte des Indes Occidentales, 21 Newe Welt, 13 Popery Truly Display’d in its Bloody Colours, 23 Relation des Voyages et des Découvertes que les Espagnols ont dans les Indes Occidentales, 21 The Spanish Colonie, 8, 11, 12 The Tears of the Indians, 18, 19 Tyrannies and Cruautez des Espagnols, 8 Disputa entre el dicho Obispo y el doctor Ginesde Sepulveda, 17, 21 Entre los remedies […] El octacvo en orden es el siguiente, 10, 11, 21 Historia de las Indias, 26 Memorial de remedios para las Indias, 17, 26 Obras del Obispo D. Fray Bartolome Las Casas, 17 Œuvres, 25, 26, 27 Sobre la materia de los indios que se han hecho esclavos, 17 Tratado comprobatorio, 11 Treinta proposiciones, 17, 21 Treatises, 7, 8, 12, 17, 21, 25 Lastanosa, Juan de, 54, 60, 63, 68, 75 Latin translations, 12, 16, 65 Lea, Henry Charles, ix Ledesma, Alonso, 44 Lettre de cachet, 56 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 100 León, 7, 11, 17 Levinson, Joseph, 103 Libel, 44 Liberty, 23, 25, 26, 97 Library, x, 54, 100, 101
165
Liñan de Riaza, Pedro, 44 Lisbon, ix, 38, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 87, 94 Llorente, Juan Antonio, 25–27 Critical History of the Spanish Inquisition, 25 Llull, Raymond, 100 London, 18, 25, 84 Lope de Vega, Felix Carpio, 37–39, 44 Arte Nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo, vii, 33–37 Carlos Quinto en Francia, 34 Doce Comedias nuevas, 41 El Caballero de Olmedo, 33 El peregrino en su patria, 37, 38 El verdadero amante, 37, 39 Fuente Ovejuna,viii, 28, 42–43, 45–52 La Arcadia, 40 Memorial, 42–43 Parte IV, 38, 39, 42 Parte VI, 39 Parte IX, 40 Parte XII, 28, 42 Parte XIII, 40 Parte XIV, 37 Parte XXIII, 41 Parte XXV, 41 Lorme, Jean Louis de, 22 Louis XIV, 58 Low Countries, 8, 10–14 Lucina, 62 Lynx, 68, 70, 78 Machado, Diego Barbosa Bibliotheca Lusitana, 85, 89 Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria Relíquias de Casa Velha, 93, 96 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 53, 58 Madrid, ix, 6, 29, 33, 34, 39, 56, 80, 82, 90 Mainz, 43 Manguel, Alberto With Borges, 104 Manrique, Don Rodrigo, 31, 45 Manual, 60 Manuscript Autograph, 26, 34, 35, 37, 40, 100 Non-autograph, 41, 80 Margarit, Jerónimo, 41 Marginalia, 66 Mariana, Juan de, S.J. Historia de España, 32
166 Marionettes, ix, 79, 82–85, 97, 98 Marlowe, Christopher Hero and Leander, 84 Martin, Alonso, 39 Martin, Henri-Jean, 70 Martinez de Mora, Diego, 41 Martyrs, 9, 13, 15, 93 Masonic, 101 Massacre, 18, 29, 31, 50, 51 Materiality of the text, vii, ix, x, 70, 100, 105 Matos Fragoso, Juan de El Hidalgo de la Mancha, 80 Maupoint Bibliothèque des théâtres, 81 Meaning, ix, x, 95, 99, 101–5 Medinilla, Baltasar de, 44 Memorial reconstruction, 40, 41 Méndez de haro, Luis, 54 Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino, 28 Mercury, 90, 91 Metamorphosis, 96 Metaphor, 63, 68, 73, 74, 99 Mexico, 6, 18, 25 Michael, Saint, 50 Mier, Fray Servando Teresa de, Historia de la Revolución de Nueva España, 25 Miggrode, Jacques de, 7–12 Milhou, Alain, 4 Milton, John, 18 Mira de Mesqua, Antonio, 44 Mirror, 14, 54 Mobility of texts, vii, ix, 101, 105 Moctezuma, 21 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 80 Momaert, Joannes, 82 Montauban, Sieur de, 22 Moors, 10, 84 Moriscos, 5 Morvan de Bellegarde, Jean-Baptiste, 20 Muslims, 9, 10 Nantes, Edict of, 22 Naples, 17 New Christians, Conversos, 87, 89, 94, 98 New Granada, 5 New Laws of the Indies, 6 New Spain, 6
Index Nietzsche, Friedrich, 103 Nîmes, 101 Nogues, Juan, 56 Nucio, Martín, 38 Nuno da Cunha e Ataíde, Cardinal, 94 Obscurity, 63, 64, 68, 74 Olivares, Count-Duke of, 18, 54 Opera, 81, 82, 97 Oráculo, Oracle, 59, 60 Originality, 105 Ottonelli, Giovanni Domenico Della christiana Moderatione del Theatro, 83 Palais Royal, 80 Pamphlets, 9, 12, 44 Panegyric, 58, 59 Pardon, 46, 52 Paris, 13, 20, 22, 25, 80, 81, 84 Parma, 65 Parma, Duke of, 14 Parnassus, 83, 90 Parody, 96 Partes, 38, 39, 40 Pasquini, Giovanni Claudio Don Chisciotte in corte della duchessa, 81 Sancio Panza governatore dell’Isola Barattaria, 81 Pastiche, 100 Pátio de Arcas, Lisbon, 82 Peddlers, 43, 85 Penitential habit, 87, 88 Pereira, Roberto Paulo, 94, 95, 96 Perfection, 59 Performance, viii, 33, 34, 38, 39, 42, 85 Persecution, 21–23, 90 Peru, 6, 18 Petrarch, Francesco, viii Philadelphia, 25 Philip IV of Spain, 18, 54 Philip V of Spain, 89 Philip, Prince, 3, 11 Phillips, John, 18, 23 Pilate, 9 Plagiarism, 44, 81 Plautus, 33 Play, 28, 33, 34, 37, 81, 83, 93, 97, 98 Pliego, 34, 35, 37 Poetomachy, 90
Index Politics, 53, 58, 62 Pope, 4, 11, 16, 23 Popular revolt, 28, 29, 45, 46, 48, 49 Popular spectacles, 81, 84, 85, 97 Porres, Gaspar de, 38, 42 Portugal, 4, 31, 45 Practice, 61, 67, 70, 71 Pralard, André, 21 Printing, viii, 7, 38, 39, 40, 42–45, 63, 64 Prison, 89, 95–97 Private theaters, 82, 83 Proliferation, 42, 101 Prompt book, 34, 37 Property, 23 Prophesy, 4, 5, 8, 10, 25 Protestants, 13, 18, 22, 23, 101 Provence, 101 Proverb, 32, 60 Prudence, Prudent, 54, 61, 62, 69, 71, 76 Pseudonym, 54, 56, 58 Publication, 102 Puebla, 25 Pupazzi, 83, 84 Puppet-master, 84 Puritan, 85 Quarto edition, 57 Quevedo, Francisco de El Buscón, vii Quincey, Thomas de Judas Iscariot, 100 Rades y Andrada, Francisco de, 29 Chronica de las tres Ordenes de Cavallerias de Santiago, Calatrava y Alcantara, 28–32, 45, 49–52 Rape, 43, 47, 49, 50 Rarefaction, 101 Reading, Readers, ix, 9, 11, 16, 21, 22, 38, 40, 42, 43, 58, 60, 62–64, 66, 68, 73, 75, 78, 101–5 Reason of State, 58, 60 Recitator, 83, 84 Reconquista, 29 Reformation, Reformed, 10, 11, 13, 23 Relación, 3, 7, 43 Relapse, 89, 90 Repartimiento, 4 Reputation, 41, 43
167
Rewriting, 98, 104 Ribadeneyra, Pedro de Bibliotheca Scriptorum Sociatatis Iesu, 56 Rio de Janeiro, 79, 85, 87 Robertson, William, 26 Rodomont, 49 Rojas, Fernando de La Celestina, 102 Roman drama, 84 Roman emperors, 20 Roman type, 12 Ronsard, Pierre de, vii Rules, 33, 37, 61, 67, 75 Saint-Evremond, Charles de, 76 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of, 53 Salamanca, University of, 4, 42 Saldaña, Count of, 33 Salvation, 5, 9 Sande, Manuel de, 41 Santareno, Bernardo O Judeu. Narrativa dramática, 93 Santiago, Order, 45 Santo Domingo, 18 Saragossa, 38 Sarpi, Pietro Paolo, 58 Satire, 44, 91, 94–96 Savage, John The Art of Prudence; or a Companion for a Man of Sense, 63, 64, 75–76 Schiassi, Gaetano Maria Farnace, 82 Scholastic interpretation, 99 Scythians, 20 Secret writing, 63, 64, 67 Segadors, 18 Self-control, 73, 74 Seneca, 68 Sense, 23, 75, 76 Sentences, 39, 60 Sepúlveda, Juan de, 6, 11, 17, 18, 22 Sessa, Duke of, 38 Seville, viii, 3, 7, 14, 25, 41, 42 Shakespeare, William, 45 Cardenio, vii Henry VI, Part II, 28 The Winter’s Tale, 85 Sheep, 47 Short-hand, 74
168
Index
Siles, Miguel de, 38, 39 Silva, Antônio José da, ix, 87, 89, 93, 98 Amor vencido de amor, 89 As Variedades de Proteu, 85, 92 Anfitrião ou Júpiter e Alcmena, 85, 92, 95–97 El prodigio de Amarante S. Gonçalo, 89 Esopaiada ou Vida de Esopo, 85 Guerras do Alecrim e Manjerona, 85, 92, 94 Labirinto de Creta, 85, 92 O Precipício de Faetonte, 85, 89, 92 Os Encantos de Medéia, 85, 92 Vida do Grande dom Quixote de la Mancha, ix, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 90–93, 95–97 Silva, Antônio José da, family, 85, 87–90 Slavery, 4, 6, 7, 17, 26 Small formats, 55, 56, 60, 69, 70 Sommaville, Antoine de, 80 Songs, 82, 90, 92 Sorolla, Miguel, 42 Sovereignty, 4, 7, 11 Spain, Spaniards, viii, 4, 5, 8–10, 12–14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 33 Spanish, Castilian language, vii, 8, 13, 63, 64 Spanish translations, 25, 32 Sprezzatura, 67 Spy, 69, 89 Stage, 83, 84, 90 Statue, 25 Stocker, Thomas, 12 Storytelling, 92, 93 Stuart, Mary, 13 Style, 58, 63, 64 Superstition, 23 Sur, 99 Suspension of disbelief, 91 Synteresis, 73 Tables, 65 Tárrega, Francisco Agustín, 44 Tasso, viii Tears, 18–21 Teatrino di Corte, Vienna, 81 Teatro do Bairro Alto, Lisbon, ix, 79, 81–83, 89, 91–93 Teixeira, António, 92 Téllez Girón, Don Rodrigo, Grand Master, 29, 31, 45
Terence, 33 Terpsichore, 90 Théâtre de la foire, Paris, 81 Theatrical companies, viii, 37, 79, 82, 83, 85 Theatro Comico Portuguez, 85, 86 Thierry La Bagatelle, ou Sancho Pança, Gouverneur, 81 Thomas Aquinas, Thomist philosophy, 4, 61 Tirso de Molina, Gabriel Téllez El Burlador de Sevilla, 41 Toledo, 29 Toro, Battle of, 31 Torture, 15, 31, 32, 52, 87, 94, 97, 98 Toulet, Pierre-Jean, 100 Toulouse, Count of, 21 Transcription, 40 Translation, Untranslatable, vii, viii, ix, 9, 53, 63, 64, 71–74, 76–79 Travelogue, 21–23 Trujillo, Sebastián, 3 Truth, 103 Turks, 10, 20 Tyranny, tyrannies, viii, 4, 5, 7–11, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, 25, 28, 33, 46, 48, 50–52 United Provinces, 14 University of Pennsylvania, 1, 34 Ustarroz, Juan Francisco Andrés de, 54 Usurpation of name, 39, 43, 44 Utrecht, Union of, 8, 10 Valencia, 5, 6, 42 Valéry, Paul, 100 Valladolid, 6, 7 Van der Plasse, Lodewijcks, 14 Vélez de Guevara, Juan El Hidalgo de la Mancha, 80 Vengeance, 4, 9, 20, 50 Venice, 16, 17, 65 Vera Paz, 6 Verstegan, Richard, Théâtre des cruautés des hérétiques de notre temps, 13 Vienna, 80, 81 Virgil Aeneid, 104
Index Virgin, 44 Vulgar, Vulgo, 45, 58, 62–64, 68, 75 Wachtel, Nathan, 87, 94, 96 Walloons, 12 War, just, 14 Wars of Independence, 24 Wars of Religion, 13 Watercolors, 13 Wilkins, John, 100 William of Orange, 12
Women Actresses, 42 of Fuenteovejuna, 30, 33 and violence, 32, 42–50, 96 World turned upside down, 47, 48 Xerxes, 52 Zarzuela, 89 Zeno, 100
169