Mimesis (58 page)

The wealth of stylistic levels contained in Shakespeare’s tragedy goes beyond actual realism. At the same time it is freer, harder, more unqualified, more godlike in its nonpartisan objectivity than the realism of his admirers about 1800. On the other hand, as we attempted to show above, it is conditioned by the possibilities of the mixture of styles which the Christian Middle Ages had created. Only this Christian mixture of styles could realize the prophecy which Plato formulates at the end of the
Symposium
, when in the gray light of dawn Socrates explains to the only two revelers who have not yet succumbed to sleep, Agathon and Aristophanes, that one and the same poet should master both comedy and tragedy, and that the true tragic poet is also a comic poet. That this Platonic anticipation or demand could mature only by way of the Christian-medieval conception of man, that it could be realized only after that conception had been transcended, is an observation which has been made and formulated, at least in general terms, by a number of writers, among them Goethe. I shall quote a passage in which he expresses it—a passage which, again, is a stylistic self-mirroring. It combines keen insight with a certain critical shortsightedness, which in this case appears as an old-bourgeois humanism without sympathy for the Middle Ages. The passage occurs in his notes on his translation of Diderot’s
Neveu de Rameau
, toward the end of the section on taste, which is remarkable in other respects too. It was written in 1805 and runs as follows:

In the Greeks and many Romans there is to be found a very tasteful distinguishing and purifying of the various forms of literary composition, but we Northerners cannot be exclusively
referred to their example. We have other ancestors to be proud of and many other models to bear in mind. If the romantic trend of ignorant centuries had not brought the monstrous and the insipid together, whence should we have a
Hamlet
, a
Lear
, a
Devoción de la Cruz
, a
Principe Constante?

To maintain ourselves at the height of these barbarous advantages—since we shall never attain the superiorities of Antiquity—and to do so with courage is our duty. …

The two plays which Goethe cites after the two by Shakespeare are by Calderón; and this brings us to the literature of the Spanish
siglo de oro
, in which, notwithstanding its very different premises and atmosphere, there is a treatment of the reality of life quite similar to that of the Elizabethans, both in regard to the mixture of stylistic levels and to the general intent which, while including the representation of everyday reality, does not stop there, but goes on beyond it. The constant endeavor to poeticize and sublimate reality is still more clearly noticeable than in Shakespeare. Even in regard to separation of styles in terms of class, certain parallels can be traced. But they are quite superficial; the Spanish national pride makes it possible for every Spaniard to be treated in the elevated style, not merely the Spaniard of noble descent; for the motif of woman’s honor, which is so important and actually central in Spanish literature, occasions tragic complications even among peasants, and in this way popular dramas of a tragic character come into existence, as for example Lope de Vega’s
Fuente Ovejuna
or Calderón’s
El Alcalde de Zalamea
. In this sense Spanish realism is more decidedly popular, more filled with the life of the people, than English realism of the same period. In general it gives much more of contemporary everyday reality. While in the majority of the countries of Europe, especially in France, absolutism silenced the people so that its voice was hardly heard for two centuries, Spanish absolutism was so intimately connected with the very essence of the national tradition that under it the people attained the most variegated and lively literary expression.

Yet in the history of the literary conquest of modern reality, the literature of Spain’s great century is not particularly important—much less so than Shakespeare, or even Dante, Rabelais, or Montaigne. To be sure, it too had a strong influence on the romantic movement from which, as we hope to show later, modern realism developed; but within romanticism it stimulated the fanciful, adventurous, and theatrical
far more than it did the trend toward reality. Spanish medieval literature had been realistic in a peculiarly genuine and concrete fashion. But the realism of the
siglo de oro
is itself something like an adventure and seems almost exotic. Even when it depicts the lower spheres of life, it is extremely colorful, poetic, and illusionistic. It brightens everyday reality with ceremonious forms of social intercourse, with choice and precious turns of phrase, with the emotional force of chivalric ideals, and with all the inner and outer enchantment of Baroque and Counter-Reformation piety. It turns the world into a magic stage. And on that magic stage—this again is very significant for its relation to modern realism—a fixed order reigns, despite all the elements of adventure and miracle. In the world, it is true, everything is a dream, but nothing is a riddle demanding to be solved. There are passions and conflicts but there are no problems. God, King, honor and love, class and class decorum are immutable and undoubted, and the figures neither of tragedy nor comedy present us with questions difficult to answer. Among the Spanish authors of the golden age whom I know, Cervantes is certainly the one whose characters come nearest to being problematic. But if we want to understand the difference, we need only compare the bewildered, easily interpreted, and ultimately curable madness of Don Quixote with Hamlet’s fundamental and many-faceted insanity which can never be cured in this world. Since the pattern of life is so fixed and secure, no matter how much that is wrong may occur within it, we feel in the Spanish works, despite all their colorful and lively bustle, nothing of a movement in the depths of life, or even of a will to explore it in principle and recast it in practice. The actions of the persons in these works predominantly serve to let their ethical attitudes, whatever they are, whether tragic or comic or a mixture of both, strikingly demonstrate and prove themselves. Whether or not the actions produce, promote, or initiate anything, is of lesser importance. In any case, the order of the world is as immutably fixed afterward as it was before. It is only within that order that one can prove oneself or go astray. How much more important ethical attitude and intention are than the success of an action is parodied by Cervantes in chapter 19 of book 1 of
Don Quixote
. When the knight is informed by the wounded
bachiller
Alonso Lopez of the harm he has done by his attack on the funeral procession, he feels nowise mortified or abashed. He had taken the procession for a Satanic apparition, and so it was his duty to attack it. He is satisfied that he has done his duty and feels proud of it. Seldom, indeed, has a subject
suggested the problematic study of contemporary reality as insistently as does Don Quixote. The ideal conceptions of a past epoch, and of a class which has lost its functions, in conflict with the reality of the contemporary present ought to have led to a critical and problematic portrayal of the latter, the more so since the mad Don Quixote is often superior to his normal opponents by virtue of his moral steadfastness and native wit. But Cervantes did not elaborate his work in this direction. His representation of Spanish reality is dispersed in many individual adventures and sketches; the bases of that reality remain untouched and unmoved.

14

THE ENCHANTED DULCINEA

—Yo no veo, Sancho, dijo Don Quijote, sino a tres labradoras sobre tres borricos.

—Ahora me libre Dios del diablo, respondió Sancho; ¿y es posible que tres hacaneas, o como se llaman, blancas como el ampo de la nieve, le parezcan a vuesa merced borricos? Vive el Señor, que me pele estas barbas si tal fuese verdad.

—Pues yo te digo, Sancho amigo, dijo Don Quijote, que es tan verdad que son borricos o borricas, como yo soy Don Quijote, y tú Sancho Panza: a lo menos a mí tales me parecen.

—Calle, señor, dijo Sancho, no diga la tal palabra, sino despabile esos ojos, y venga a hacer reverencia a la señora de sus pensamientos, que ya llega cerca: y diciendo esto se adelantó a recebir a las tres aldeanas, y apeándose del rucio tuvo del cabestro al jumento de una de las tres labradoras, y hincando ambas rodillas en el suelo, dijo:

—Reina y princesa y duquesa de la hermosura, vuestra altivez y grandeza sea servida de recebir en su gracia y buen talante al cautivo caballero vuestro, que allí está hecho piedra mármol, todo turbado y sin pulsos de verse ante vuesa magnífica presencia. Yo soy Sancho su escudero, y él es el asendereado caballero Don Quijote de la Mancha, llamado por otro nombre el Caballero de la Triste Figura.

A esta sazón ya se había puesto Don Quijote de hinojos junto a Sancho, y miraba con ojos desencajados y vista turbada a la que Sancho llamaba reina y señora; y como no descubría en ella sino una moza aldeana y no de muy buen rostro, porque era carirredonda y chata, estaba suspenso y admirabo, sin osar desplegar los labios. Las labradoras estaban asimismo atónitas viendo a aquellos dos hombres tan diferentes hincados de rodillas, que no dejaban pasar adelante a su compañera; pero rompiendo el silencio la detenida, toda desgradiada y mohina, dijo:

—Apártense nora en tal del camino, y dejenmos pasar, que vamos de priesa.

A lo que respondió Sancho:

—Oh princesa y señora universal del Toboso, ¿cómo vuestro magnífico corazón no se enternece viendo arrodillado ante vuestra sublimada presencia a la coluna y sustento de la andante caballería?

Oyendo lo cual otra de las dos dijo:

—Mas yo que te estrego burra de mi suegro: mirad con qué se vienen los señoritos ahora a hacer burlas de las aldeanas, como si aquí no supiésemos echar pullos como ellos: vayan su camino, y déjenmos hacer el nueso, y serles ha sano.

—Levántate, Sancho, dijo a este punto Don Quijote, que ya veo que la fortuna, de mi mal no harta, tiene tomados los caminos todos por donde pueda venir algún contento a esta ánima mezquina que tengo en las carnes. Y tú, oh extremo valor que puede desearse, término de la humana gentileza, único remedio de este afligido corazón que te adora, ya que el maligno encantador me persigue, y ha puesto nubes y cataratas en mis ojos, y para sólo ellos y no para otros ha mudado y transformando tu sin igual hermosura y rostro en el de una labradora pobre, si ya también el mío no le ha cambiado en el de algún vestiglo para hacerle aborrecible a tus ojos, no dejes de mirarme blanda y amorosamente, echando de ver en esta sumisión y arrodillamiento que a tu contrahecha hermosura hago, la humildad con que mi alma te adora.

—Toma que me agüelo, respondió la aldeana, amiguita soy yo de oír resquebrajos. Apártense y déjenmos ir, y agradecérselo hemos.

Apartóse Sancho y déjola ir, contentísimo de haber salido bien de su enredo. Apenas se vió libre la aldeana que había hecho la figura de Dulcinea cuando picando a su hacanea con un aguijón que en un palo traía, dió a correr por el prado adelante; y como la borrica sentía la punta del aguijón, que le fatigaba más de lo ordinario, comenzó a dar corcovos, de manera que dió con la señora Dulcinea en tierra: lo cual visto por Don Quijote, acudió a levantarla, y Sancho a componer y cinchar el albarda, que también vino a la barriga de la pollina. Acomodada pues el albarda, y queriendo Don Quijote levantar a su encantada señora en los brazos sobre la jumenta, la señora levantándose del suelo le quitó de aquel trabajo, porque haciéndose algún tanto atrás tomó una corridica, y puestas ambas manos sobre las ancas de la pollina
dió con su cuerpo más ligero que un halcón sobre la albarda, y quedó a horcajadas como si fuera hombre, y entonces dijo Sancho:

—¡Vive Roque, que es la señora nuestra ama más ligera que un alcotán, y que puede enseñar a subir de la jineta al más diestro cordobés o mejicano; el arzón trasero de la silla pasó de un salto, y sin espuelas hace correr la hacanea como una cebra, y no le van en zaga sus doncellas, que todas corren como el viento!

Y así era la verdad, porque en viéndose a caballo Dulcinea todas picaron tras ella y dispararon a correr, sin volver la cabeza atrás por espacio de más de media legua. Siguiólas Don Quijote con las vista, y cuando vió que no parecían, volviéndose a Sancho le dijo:

—Sancho, ¿qué te parece, cuán mal quisto soy de encantadores? …

(“I see nothing,” declared Don Quixote, “except three farm girls on three jackasses.”

“Then God deliver me from the devil!” exclaimed Sancho. “Is it possible that those three hackneys, or whatever you call them, white as the driven snow, look like jackasses to your Grace? By the living God, I would tear out this beard of mine if that were true!”

“But I tell you, friend Sancho, it is as true that those are jackasses, or she-asses, as it is that I am Don Quixote and you Sancho Panza. At least, that is the way they look to me.”

“Be quiet, sir,” Sancho admonished him, “you must not say such a thing as that. Open those eyes of yours and come do reverence to the lady of your affections, for she draws near.”

Saying this, he rode on to meet the village maids and, slipping down off his donkey, seized one of their beasts by the halter and fell on his knees in front of its rider.

“O queen and princess and duchess of beauty,” he said, “may your Highness and Majesty be pleased to receive and show favor to your captive knight, who stands there as if turned to marble, overwhelmed and breathless at finding himself in your magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he is the world-weary knight Don Quixote, otherwise known as the Knight of the Mournful Countenance.”

By this time Don Quixote was down on his knees beside Sancho. His eyes were fairly starting from their sockets and there was a deeply troubled look in them as he stared up at the one whom Sancho had called queen and lady; all that he could see in
her was a village wench, and not a very pretty one at that, for she was round-faced and snub-nosed. He was astounded and perplexed and did not dare open his mouth. The girls were also very much astonished to behold these two men, so different in appearance, kneeling in front of one of them so that she could not pass. It was this one who most ungraciously broke the silence.