From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
17.2 (1997):
4-24.
Copyright © 1997, The Cervantes Society of
America
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CAROLYN A. NADEAU |
In the prologue to Don Quijote I, Cervantes's anonymous friend tries to ease the author's worries about the quality of his text by suggesting that he cite famous authors. Regarding women and love the friend suggests citing Ovid, Homer, Virgil, and León Hebreo. Cervantes also includes Antonio de Guevara, who was the bishop of Mondoñedo from 1537 to his death in 1545: “En lo que toca el poner anotaciones al fin del libro, seguramente lo podéis hacer desta manera . . . . Si tratáredes de . . . mujeres rameras, ahí está el obispo de Mondoñedo, que os prestará a Lamia, Laida y Flora, cuya anotación os dará gran crédito” (55-6).1 A prolific writer, Antonio de Guevara first collected and published his letters, including the one to which Cervantes's friend refers, in 1543, which circulated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His writings have long been regarded as possible sources for different passages and concepts in Don Quijote.2 However, numerous editors including Vicente Gaos, Luis Murillo, and John Jay Allen, have dismissed the prologue citation as nothing more than a fleeting comic remark where Cervantes
1 All
citations of Don Quijote are from the Murillo
edition.
2 Critics
who treat Guevara's influence on Cervantes include Erna Berndt-Kelley, who
argues that “ecos del contenido y estilo de la prosa de Guevara sirven fines
paródicos” (369). Gaos points out the similarities between Guevara's [p. 5] epistle and the prologue of Don Quijote. In
his edition of Don Quijote, he notes that Cervantes ironically cites this
author: “que era sabido de todos que los libros de Guevara estaban llenos de
falsedades y no eran dignos de crédito; la segunda, mucho más mordaz, el
presentar a un obispo, poniéndolo al descubierto, dedicado a escribir
sobre tales personajes y temas” (28n 130). For a similar opinion, see Murillo's
edition of Don Quijote (56). However, I disagree with his reasoning, as
does Francisco Márquez Villanueva, who aggressively argues how Guevara
constructively used falsification. Some contemporaries, such as Vives and
de Rúa, criticized Guevara's lack of critical judgment and treatment of
antiquity, yet others, like Cervantes, respected and imitated his work. See
Ernest Grey (23-4) and, for the polemic between Guevara and de Rúa, see Asunción
Rallo (89-101). Rosa María Lida de Malkiel addresses the shift from the
popularity of Guevara's writing during the second half of the sixteenth century
to the intense criticism it endured during the following centuries. For general
studies on Guevara and his writing, see Joseph Jones, Rallo and Américo
Castro.
4
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parodies Renaissance writing strategies and notions of authority. While
Cervantes does indeed poke fun at the accepted practice of overciting classical
authors, he also imitates Guevara's text. Before returning to Don
Quijote, I would like to recover characteristics of the ancient prostitutes
and expose how Guevara rewrites these classical women. Then I will examine how
Cervantes imitates Guevara. That Lamia, Laida, and Flora are prostitutes is of
interest to Cervantes to the extent that it substantiates the duality of these
women who are both prostitutes and saints. Cervantes borrows this construct from
Guevara's letter as well as specific qualities with which the prostitutes are
endowed. He then rewrites what he has borrowed from Guevara by redistributing
the notions of identity within new contexts and refiguring the prostitutes'
characteristics in the women in Don
Quijote.
In order to discuss Cervantes's
imitation of Guevara's text, a few words on this widely-debated Renaissance
theory are in order. Although difficult to define, imitation can be understood
as the process of borrowing texts from admired sources both to validate one's
own writing by associating oneself with the classics and to surpass that text.
Imitating classical texts justified an ontological truth that found its source
in Antiquity and true exposition in the Renaissance. Some writers, Erasmus in
particular, stressed the individual nature of the writer who collected and
assembled materials and gave them new meaning.3
3 K.
Lloyd-Jones notes that “Erasmian authenticity flows from the personal, original
quality of the text, where the author's self is the controlling authority”
(354). G. W. Pigman also explains that for Erasmus “the primary duty of the
imitator is to be aware of the differences between his own day and antiquity, in
[p. 6] particular to recognize the moral and stylistic
revolution of Christianity, and to adapt the writings of the past to the
conditions of the present” (30).
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6 | CAROLYN A. NADEAU | Cervantes |
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Most scholars today focus on the self-conscious
awareness Renaissance writers felt when dealing with imitation strategies.4
Thomas Greene, in his seminal work The Light in Troy, points out that in
writing there is a responsibility to remember and preserve the past: “It is
through a diachronic structure, an acting out of passage, that the humanist poem
demonstrates its own conscientious and creative memory” (41). Greene goes on to
categorize and define different types of imitation including heuristic
and dialectic. The former exposes an important poetic distance traversed
while the latter and more courageous leaves a “two-way current of mutual
criticism between authors and eras” (45). However, these definitions of
imitation are inadequate for Cervantes, who does not structure his imitation in
diachronic terms but rather emphasizes a synchronic perspective, measuring his
work in terms of his contemporary readership. Cervantes loosens the ties with
the past and hones in on how imitation affects his relationship with his reader.
By concealing his corrective strategies, Cervantes initiates a kind of hide and
seek, inviting his readers to seek out the dismantled, fragmented narrative
pieces that are the result of a complex rewriting. As E. C. Riley observes,
Cervantes exploits the “complicity of writer, reader and character” (34).
Imitation for Cervantes becomes an imitation of pleasure, a game both for
himself, the writer, and for the reader. In distancing himself from a struggle
with his sources and refocusing the historic effect of his imitation, Cervantes
takes full advantage of his authorial freedom and responsibility; he carefully
dissects and reconstructs his models. The echoes of Lamia, Laida, and Flora's
disguised presence can be heard, but only by the astute listener. Cervantes
offers us, the readers/listeners, an open invitation to share in the pleasures
of literary freedoms and
responsibilities.
Guevara's letter can be
divided into three sections: an introduction that captures the reader's
attention with preliminary remarks about the illicit material; anecdotes that
reveal the women's intelligence, charm, beauty and wealth; and finally, an
ambiguous conclusion that both condemns the women's lives and insists that their
4 Terrence
Cave states that, when imitating models, there exists “the desire to appropriate
or naturalize an alien discourse” (35). Other critics focus on the historical
moment of self-identification (Carron), the self-realization and artistic
originality the imitation of sources can bring about (Lloyd-Jones), or the
historical validity that the recovery of ancient sources offers (Orgel).
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story continue to be told.5 Guevara writes the letter, he says, to correct his misguided friend, Enrique Enríquez, who had sent him portraits of three women he had been worshipping as saints:
Esta Lamia, esta Flora, esta Layda, que vos, señor, tenéis por sanctas, fueron las tres más hermosas y más famosas rameras que nascieron en Asia, se criaron en Europa, y aun de quienes más cosas los escriptores escribieron, y por quienes más príncipes se perdieron. (438)
The women about whom Guevara writes are historical figures with an elaborate literary tradition. Yet Clemencín suggests that Guevara invents the subtexts he cites in recounting the histories of these three famous prostitutes, “citando para ello autores que no han existido” (LII). However, all three of Guevara's subtexts, Plutarch, Aulus Gellius and Suetonius, mention these women or celebrations associated with them. Guevara uses these ancient sources to give authority to his own writing. In ancient Greece there were three types of courtesans: dicteriades, auletrides and hetairae. The hetairae were intelligent, cultivated and artistic; they were spiritually and politically powerful.6 Jess Wells describes their influential status:
The Athenian women with the most exalted position and the most freedom were . . . the hetairae. They were intelligent, witty, articulate and educated, the only women in Athenian society allowed to manage their own financial affairs, stroll through the streets anywhere at any time. They were free to attend plays, ceremonies and speeches, to speak with whomever, whenever they pleased, to share the intellectual activities of Greece. They could take the sexual or romantic initiative with men . . . [T]he hetairae were accomplished conversationalists, the intellectual equals of the men they entertained. They were herbalists and midwives, the mothers and lovers of kings, statesmen, artists and poets. They demanded enough money for their sexual services to keep themselves and the prostitutes in their homes ostentatiously. (6-7)
Like the hetairae, the auletrides enjoyed certain privileges and were recognized as accomplished musicians (Beauvoir 102). Laida was a
5 From the
end of the medieval period through the sixteenth century, Europe experienced a
return to the cult of the courtesan. See Bullough (129-138). This renewed
popularity explains, in part, why a devout bishop of Counter-Reformation Spain
would choose to explore the subject.
6 For information on classical courtesans see Beauvoir
(102), Bell (19-39), Henriques and Wells.
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8 | CAROLYN A. NADEAU | Cervantes |
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hetaira and Lamia, an auletrid. Although Flora comes from the Roman tradition
and is not defined as a hetaira, she was worshipped as a goddess.7
These “sacred prostitutes” attend to both the body and the mind; they embody
both the sexual and the intellectual.8
In
his letter, Guevara retains the women's sexual and intellectual qualities. I
define “intellectual” in terms of the counsel they give to kings, nobles and
other people who approach them for advice on personal matters, particularly
those relating to love and relationships between men and women. Lamia instructs
Demetrius, king of Macedonia, and Laida, daughter of an Apollonian priest,
advises the people of Corinth. She guides men and women alike who seek her
advice on courting, on marital problems, and on how to educate their children in
gender-related issues. Typical of all three women, Laida was so “amorous in
conversation” and “beautiful of disposition,” she could have had anyone. Indeed,
Guevara even restores to these women qualities that are lost to previous
writers. For example, in Plutarch's account of Lamia, he briefly mentions her
rebuking a judgment passed on another prostitute who complained of not having
received her expected payment. However, the situation ridicules Lamia and her
profession; it does not take seriously Lamia's ability to advise others (131-2).
Plutarch, one of Guevara's sources for Lamia, Laida, and Flora, denies Lamia her
intellectual character. In contrast, Guevara emphasizes her ability to reason
and offer guidance.
In recovering these stories
Guevara empowers these women to exaggerated proportions. They are exceedingly
beautiful, the object of all men's desire, incredibly wealthy, and sought after
by men and women for amorous guidance. By recognizing their ability to give
counsel, he recuperates aspects of their lost sacredness and brings them closer
to the saints Enríquez perceives them to be. Yet, in doing so, Guevara separates
their spirituality from their physicality. As he recounts the individual stories
of each woman, he contrasts their good and bad qualities. Lamia was capable of
sound judgment but used it poorly: “Era esta muger Lamia de muy delicado juicio,
aunque en ella estuvo mal empleado” (441). Laida was loved by all but never
reciprocated that love: “cuán bien fortunada fué esta
7
Iconographically, Flora is most often depicted as an allegory of Spring. For
her representation in Spanish Golden Age painting, see López Torrijos
(368-69).
8 Bell
uses the term “sacred prostitute” in her discussion of the hetaira, Diotima
—from Plato's Republic-- whom she reads as a “manifestation of the
goddess whose flesh is not radically distinguished from the spirit”
(19).
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enamorada Layda, pues nadie la aborrescía, y cuán mal acondicionada era, pues
a nadie ella amaba” (443). Flora's background was pure but she was not: “fué de
sangre muy limpia, aunque no de vida muy casta” (445). These conflicts of good
and bad qualities construct a duality of purity / corruption, chastity /
contamination, spritual / physical.
In terms of
imitation strategy, Guevara maintains the cultural context of these women.
Lamia, for example, is still a second-century BCE hetaira who interacts with
nobility and kings. However, by adding to their story a second narrative level
—responding to Enrique Enríquez's prostitute-saint confusion— Guevara segregates
physical pleasure from spiritual pleasure. The hetaira who in antiquity “teaches
simultaneously the receiving and giving of pleasure and the receiving and giving
of knowledge” is now split in two (Bell 19). While Guevara maintains their
cultural context, he overshadows the women's intellectual capacity, that is,
their ability to give counsel, by placing them in a new narrative context.
Lamia, for example, is no longer a small detail in the historical accounts of a
king but rather a central part of a narrative that seeks to correct the
misguided ways of Guevara's reader. Traces of her spirituality remain and in
fact explain why Enrique Enríquez may have thought the women were saints, but
Guevara repeatedly returns to their physical nature. In the end, Guevara reminds
his reader, these women are prostitutes whose presence causes discomfort and
unpleasantness: “yo estoy corrido, y aun afrontado, que tales imágines me
enviásedes, y sobre tales liviandades me consultásedes”
(437).
There is, then, an ambivalence to
Guevara's letter. While he separates the women's purity from their corruption,
their spiritual from their physical, he is, at the same time, fascinated with
them. In spite of Enrique Enríquez's offensive request, he does elaborately
describe each of the three women. He is intrigued by them, wants to tell their
story, and wants others to tell it too: “Allá os torno a enviar las tablas de
estas tres enamoradas, las cuales pienso que, si hasta aquí teníades en mucho,
las tendréis de aquí adelante en mucho más, porque todos los que entraren en
esta vuestra recámera tendrán que mirar en la pintura, y vos, que les contar en
la historia” (448).9
9 Guevara's
insistence that the portraits be retold in other terms is similar to Cervantes's
need to explain his own portrait found in the prologue, i.e., pen behind ear,
elbow on desk, hand resting on his cheek, etc. In both cases, the reader “sees”
the portraits, yet the writers of both the letter and the prologue feel the need
to retell their story.
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Guevara wants their story to be told but on his terms. By inventing this new
narrative context of correcting Enrique Enríquez's misunderstandings, Guevara
denigrates the hetairae. He distinguishes their spiritual knowledge from their
sexual knowledge. Lamia, Laida, and Flora are not enclosed within a space that
allows them to be either saints or prostitutes; they cannot be
both.
As the anonymous friend of the prologue
suggests, Cervantes does turn to Guevara's letter to develop certain female
characters in Don Quijote. However, Cervantes refuses to polarize his
characters as simply good or evil, or in the case of these women, chaste or
lascivious. He resists Guevara's oversimplified duality, which finds its root in
Aristotle's pairs of contraries: good / evil, male / female, etc., and seeks to
complicate Guevara's division.10
The sacred hetairae, who in Guevara's letter are fragmented, misunderstood
“rameras,” are at first glance in Cervantes's novel vulnerable women forced into
their profession by unfortunate circumstances —Maritornes, for example. Guevara
flattens the differences that sets the hetaira apart from the “ramera,” leaving
the two to be erroneously synonymous. Cervantes is not so concerned with these
marginal women that exchange sexual favors for money. Instead, the nobility and
spirituality that previously defined the hetairae now belong to chaste women who
seek to (re)integrate themselves into society via marriage: Luscinda and
Zoraida. Finally, in the figure of Dorotea, Cervantes recalls that sacred space
which combines spiritual and physical, maternal and libidinal, male and
female.
In Don Quijote, gender / class
relations are put to the test a number of times. Ruth El Saffar mentions the
counterbalancing of lofty females and realistic working women. She points, for
example, to Don Quijote who transforms the inn prostitutes into princesses,
Maritornes whose deformity counterbalances Marcela's beauty, and the “non
virginal” Dorotea who plays the role of damsel in distress (Beyond 56).
On a diegetic level, many of the central female characters consciously shift
their social status. Marcela gives up her middle-class lifestyle in the village
to roam the countryside as a shepherdess.
10 In the
Metaphysics Aristotle attributes his 10 pairs of contraries to the
Pythagoreans: “Limit and the Unlimited; (ii.) Odd and Even; (iii.) Unity and
Plurality; (iv.) Right and Left; (v.) Male and Female (vi.) Rest and Motion;
(vii.) Straight and Crooked; (viii.) Light and Darkness; (ix.) Good and Evil;
(x.) Square and Oblong” (986a). For more on Aristotle's pairs of contraries and
their reception in the Renaissance see Diana de Armas Wilson's compelling study
of Persiles and Sigismunda (37-40).
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Zoraida sacrifices her position as daughter of a wealthy Moor and becomes
wife of a Christian soldier as she pursues the teachings of the Virgin. Dorotea
marries into a higher social level, which she loses when Fernando abandons her,
elevates herself once again as she plays the role of princess, and later regains
her upper-class status as Fernando's legitimate wife. These shifts from one
class to another form the backdrop for Cervantes's development of specific
female characters and their interaction with male
characters.
Once Don Quijote leaves in search
of adventures, the first women he encounters are metamorphosed from prostitutes
to court maidens: Doña Tolosa and Doña Molinera. Later, Maritornes is mistaken
for a damsel enthralled with the valiant knight as she attempts a midnight
rendezvous with the mule driver. Maritornes is the most developed prostitute in
Don Quijote. The narrator details at length her physical attributes and
later gives a vague explanation of how she arrived at her condition:
“. . . presumía muy de hidalga, y no tenía por afrenta estar en
aquel ejercicio de servir en la venta, porque decía ella que desgracias y malos
sucesos la habían traído a aquel estado” (201). Mary Elizabeth Perry describes
prostitution in Counter-Reformation Spain as selling what other women gave away;
yet, prostitutes worked under conditions that exploited their physical and
emotional vulnerability. Perry explains that “prostitution was a sexual
transaction so deeply embedded within a power system that it became a
relationship at least as concerned with power as with sex or sin” (138). By the
late sixteenth century, legalized prostitution —restricted to brothels that were
controlled by city-appointed males— was on the decline, although illegal
prostitution continued to flourish (Bullough 153-55). Maritornes, as an illegal
prostitute who finds work outside the brothel, skirts the regulated boundaries
that society has established.
As Don Quijote
settles in to spend his first night at the inn, he fantasizes about the
innkeeper's daughter, and believing Maritornes to be she, transforms the
Asturian working woman into a princess:
Los cabellos, que en alguna manera tiraban a crines, él los marcó por hebras de lucidísimo oro de Arabia, cuyo resplandor al del mesmo sol escurecía. Y el aliento, que, sin duda alguna, olía a ensalada fiambre y trasnochada, a él le pareció que arrojaba de su boca un olor suave y aromático; y finalmente, él la pintó en su imaginación de la misma traza y modo que lo había leído en sus libros de la otra princesa que vino a ver el mal ferido caballero, vencido de sus amores, con todos los adornos que aquí van puestos. (203)
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Cervantes takes advantage of the identity confusion to develop Maritornes in
terms of a prostitute-princess opposition. While the description provokes
laughter and is central to Don Quijote's character and to Cervantes's parody of
chivalric traditions, it also problematizes social and gender status. As both
prostitute and princess, Maritornes brings together lower and upper classes in
one figure, erasing social differences. The prostitute and the princess are the
same, with the same body and the same physical needs. At this point in the
novel, Cervantes does not directly confront gender norms, but, hidden under the
laughter, he conceals an issue that corresponds to every female character in
Don Quijote: how she negotiates her intimate relationship with a
man.
The humorous scene erupts into chaos when
the carrier, infuriated with Don Quijote's interference, attacks him. In the
end, the innkeeper blames Maritornes for the confusion: “¿Adónde estás, puta? A
buen seguro que son tus cosas éstas” (205). Constance Jordan argues that
prostitutes are a scapegoat for the faults of the patriarchal system and points
out that the cliché that women bring men to their ruin is contradicted by the
male presumption that women are inherently weak. How can a weak creature bring
about anyone's ruin? The only way men can blame women for sin is if they first
admit to losing control over women (299). This is the case with the innkeeper
and Maritornes; he has lost control over her actions. Just as many prostitutes
avoided the patriarchal enclosure of the brothel by working illegally,
Maritornes escapes the patriarchal authority of Juan Palomeque. He blames her,
but cannot catch her. If the inn is a microcosm of seventeenth-century Spain,
then Maritornes is the figure who exposes weaknesses in society's effort to
maintain order in the community.
Cervantes's
prostitute has a very different role than Guevara's “rameras,” despite the fact
all have complex histories and multifaceted personalities. Guevara evokes
outstanding elements of the hetairae; Cervantes portrays Maritornes as ugly,
poor, weak, and from a low social standing. She fulfills even her nocturnal
promises with devotion and good will; she brings Sancho water, then wine,
effecting a Christ-like transformation; and she plays painful jokes on the
errant knight. In the bishop's letter, the prostitutes, mistaken for saints by
Enríquez, are undeserving objects of worship. Although Lamia, Laida, and Flora
are graced with desirable qualities, they are offensive to Guevara —in spite of
his extensive writing about them. The bishop feels degraded by the mere mention
of their names. Throughout the letter Guevara repeatedly admits the delicate
situation
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he has put himself in by writing about these women: “no es esta historia tan
honesta y limpia para que ose emplear en ella mucho tiempo mi pluma” (439). With
the exception of the innkeeper, no character or narrative voice in Don
Quijote expresses any violent reaction or discomfort in dealing with
prostitutes. In the early chapters of Don Quijote, apart from having a
scapegoat function, Cervantes uses Maritornes as a device to accentuate Don
Quijote's distorted perception of reality, much like Enrique Enríquez's
perception of Lamia, Laida, and Flora. While Maritornes does share this similar
narrative function and a public sexuality with the women mentioned in the
prologue, her connections with them are limited. Yet all these women are part of
an “Otherness” that is found at the extremes of social
norms.
In exploring social standards for men
and women, Sherry Ortner explains that “[f]emale symbolism, far more often than
male symbolism, manifests this propensity toward polarized ambiguity —sometimes
utterly exalted, sometimes utterly debased, rarely within the normal range of
human possibilities” (86). The “Otherness” that is found at the extremes of
social norms and that the female so often embodies is blended together in Don
Quijote and is an important factor as Cervantes redistributes the “positive”
qualities of Lamia, Laida, and Flora to women who are temporarily outcast and
who strive to (re)integrate into society. Cervantes reverses the notion that
these qualities belong to the extremes, to the prostitutes and virgins, as he
incorporates the prostitutes' characteristics of wealth and verbal discourse,
and the relationship of sex and money that is linked to them, into women who
long to integrate into society as loyal wives: Luscinda, the recently-converted
Zoraida-María, and Dorotea. In one way or another, all these central female
characters pose a threat to the men that surround them and in spite of their
physical beauty, moral standards, or intellectual prowess are eventually
contained —on the basis of their gender— within the institution of
marriage.
In early modern Europe, “women had
economic value —that is, received material compensation for their services—
typically as wives and as prostitutes” (Jordan 298). In Guevara, sex and money
are bound together through the business deals the women negotiate for
themselves. In Cervantes, the business deals focus on marriage and are less
successfully negotiated by a male authority figure. Because of the economic
arrangement underlying marriage and prostitution, the two institutions are
symbolically equivalent. Perry suggests that the dowry system “encouraged
parents and
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other family members to regard marriage as an economic arrangement” (67), one that preserves and increases material wealth.11 Those who marry for money exercise a prostitution of sorts; they negotiate sexual partners exchanging material wealth for women. In Cardenio and Luscinda's love story Luscinda's father plays the role of greedy negotiator. Cardenio remembers the mutual love they shared since childhood.
A esta Luscinda amé, quise y adoré desde mis tiernos y primeros años, y ella me quiso a mí . . . Sabían nuestros padres nuestros intentos, y no les pesaba dello, porque bien veían que, cuando pasaran adelante, no podían tener otro fin que el de casarnos, cosa que casi la concertaba la igualdad de nuestro linaje y riquezas. (292)
From the beginning Cardenio explains the
important relationship between marriage and money. When Cardenio's friend,
Fernando, betrays their friendship and tries to buy Luscinda's love, money
figures three times in the plot. First, Fernando sends Cardenio away to deliver
money to his needy brother. Next, Luscinda can communicate with Cardenio because
she is able to pay a man to deliver her letter. Finally, the connection between
personal possession and financial gain is best manifested in Luscinda's father
and his treatment of her marriage plans. In Luscinda's first letter to Cardenio
she tells him that she is ready for her father to negotiate their marriage with
Cardenio: “si quisiéredes sacarme desta deuda sin ejecutarme en la honra, lo
podréis muy bien hacer. Padre tengo . . . cumplirá la que será justo
que vos tengáis” (332-33). However, after Fernando's interruption of their
plans, in her second desperate letter Luscinda explains the disrupted situation
to Cardenio: “y mi padre, llevado de la ventaja que él piensa que don Fernando
os hace, ha venido en lo que quiere” (336). Her epithet for her father
explicitly reveals his shortcomings: “ya me están aguardando en la sala don
Fernando el traidor y mi padre el codicioso” (337). Thus, it is through the
power of money that Luscinda is forced into marriage with someone other than the
man she loves. Like the prostitutes in Guevara's letter and Maritornes, her body
is exchanged for financial gain.
Zoraida's
situation offers an interesting twist to the monetary-marriage ties. In spite of
Moors' association with dishonesty and
11 Fray
Luis de León supports this economic view of marriage in La perfecta
casada. For more on the relationship between marriage and prostitution in
the Renaissance see Pearson and Perry (53-74).
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lasciviousness in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain, Cervantes
sympathetically portrays this Moorish woman.12
In an illuminating article on Zoraida's veil, María Antonia Garcés discusses
Zoraida both in terms of Moorish women's association with prostitution and in
terms of her Marianization, the two images being reflected in her dual name:
Zoraida / María and in the Captive's description of her true identity: “Mora es
en el traje y en el cuerpo; pero en el alma es muy grande cristiana” (463) (76).
When she initiates contact with the Captive, Zoraida is the daughter of one of
the wealthiest Moors in Algiers, Agi Morato. She sends messages to the captive
offering him freedom in exchange for her own marriage to him.13
In her first note she proposes to him: “. . . y tengo muchos
dineros que llevar conmigo: mira tú si puedes hacer cómo nos vamos, y serás allá
mi marido si quisieres, y si no quisieres, no se ma dará nada; que Lela Marién
me dará con quien me case” (489). For Zoraida, marriage is essential to her
pursuing a Christian lifestyle. Eventually Zoraida does arrange the Christians'
escape and returns with them to Spain. Here, she exchanges not only her wealth
but also her social and religious status for marriage to a Christian so she can
better understand the teachings of the Holy Virgin. Instead of selling personal
property to gain material wealth, as Lamia, Laida, and Flora do through
prostitution and as Luscinda's greedy father does through marriage, Zoraida
relinquishes her material wealth in exchange for marrying a Christian. Zoraida's
efforts are similar to the popular prostitute-saint stories of Mary Magdalene
and Saint Mary the Harlot, who enact their own salvation only with the support
of male guidance.14
In
discussing links between the social value placed on chastity, the practice of
prostitution, and the legalized poverty of women, Jordan suggests that
12 For more
on the image of Moors in Golden Age Spain, see Domínguez Ortiz and Vincent. For
Cervantes's construction of Moorish identity in Don Quijote I, see
Garcés.
13
Cervantes fully inscribes the selling and ransoming of captive soldiers. In
the Orientalist fiction, El Abencerraje, the captive rejects the Moorish
woman's suggestion to buy his freedom; however, in Don Quijote the
captive fully embraces her offer.
14 Perry explains that people knew the tales of famous
prostitute-saints through stories and paintings (50-52).
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16 | CAROLYN A. NADEAU | Cervantes |
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the ideology of partriarchy sustains and is sustained by the related institutions of marriage and prostitution, that it is manifest in the comparable lives women lead in the family and in the brothel . . . A woman gets rich because she sells the only property over which she has any control, and this action puts her outside the bounds of civilized (patriarchal) society. Within that society and (presumably) enjoying the benefits of civility; she is and must remain without economic power.(300-1)
This is the choice Zoraida makes. She exchanges her economic status as sole
inheritor of her father's wealth to enter into Christian society. In Cervantes's
time, wives had rank but could not command the wealth they possessed. They were
protected by patriarchy because they represented a vital, albeit submissive,
part of it. Prostitutes had virtually no rank although they controlled the money
they earned. Ruth Kelso asserts the importance of chastity: “let a woman have
chastity, she has all. Let her lack chastity and she has nothing” (24). However,
this chastity, in order for women to be accepted into society, must go a step
further; it must be controlled by man. Marcela, for example, freely chooses a
chaste lifestyle, yet she is still an outcast because she opts for life beyond
the reaches of the patriarchy. She refuses to submit to any control. Zoraida, on
the other hand, is equally chaste, and earns her respected position after the
Christian soldier agrees to marry her precisely because her newly found
salvation is enclosed within patriarchal
norms.
I conclude my discussion of Cervantes'
debt to Guevara's text by examining women's verbal discourse and ability to give
counsel.15
In the Renaissance, the prostitute was openly associated with public speaking.
Peter Stallybrass reminds us that the “signs of the ‘harlot’ are her linguistic
‘fullness’ and her frequenting of public space” (127). Cervantes invests in
Marcela the prostitutes' ability to express their thoughts freely; he endows the
shepherdess with “linguistic ‘fullness’”.16
On a societal level, both the prostitutes and the
15 Powerful
female discourse is, of course, not limited to prostitutes. Ovid's
Heroides, for example, gives powerful linguistic skills to women,
especially with regard to love.
16 I do not wish to refute the arguments for
Cervantes's manipulation of pastoral and mythological sources for writing
Marcela. However, traces of the hetairae, particularly their association with
public speaking, cannot be overlooked. Regarding mythological sources for
Marcela, El Saffar reads her as a representation of the goddess Artemis whose
dual nature she foregrounds: “the defeat or submission of the goddess always
entails a breakup of the original triplicity [p. 17]
of her nature, dividing the maiden from the mother, the mother from the crone,
and the ‘good’ qualities from the ‘bad’” (Quixotic Desire 163); Berndt
Kelley discusses Marcela as an Astraea figure; Herrero names her a “Diana-like
goddess” (296); Elvira Macht de Vera also compares her to Diana: “se aproxima
más a Artemisa, casta hermana de Apolo, diosa lunar y celeste” (8); Pierre
Ullman argues that Marcela is a secularized virgin (310); Michael McGaha claims
that the Apollo-Daphne myth “provided the primary inspiration” (35) although
other mythological women —Hippolytus, Eurydice and Hecate— also figure in her
construction. For Marcela as a mythological archetype see Dunn (4) and Iventosch
(71). For images of women in literature as ‘angel’ and ‘monster,’ see Sandra
Gilbert and Susan Gubar (3-44) and specifically in Don Quijote see
Jehenson who argues that critics have interpreted Marcela as either Madonna or
shrew (16).
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17.2 (1997) | Recovering the Hetairae | 17 |
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shepherdess avoid discipline and enclosure. They make their own rules and hence, remain ostracized from patriarchal society.17 Marcela, like the prostitutes, has her independence but, unless she is willing to surrender that freedom, cannot become part of society. Katherine Rogers notes that the repeated attack on the prostitute was a common sign of fear of women in the Renaissance (132). Similarly, the shepherds' attack on Marcela —“endiablada moza” (161), “esta rapaza” (164), “fiero basilisco” (185)— is coupled with fear of her scorn: “Su afabilidad y hermosura atrae los corazones de los que la tratan a servirla y a amarla; pero su desdén y desengaño los conduce a términos de desesperarse, y así, no saben qué decirle, sino llamarla a voces cruel y desagradecida” (166). Their only protection against her rejection are insults and slander. Marcela's speech calls into question the institutionalized double standard and lack of freedom for women: “mas no alcanzo que, por razón de ser amado, esté obligado por hermoso a amar a quien le ama” (186). Emilia Navarro points out that Marcela's speech “thrusts itself in direct opposition to the prescriptive social discourses of feminine conduct” (32). Her speech outlines the limitations of love in the established system. For Marcela, all women should be free to choose their own love. She opts for solitude: “Yo nací libre, y para poder vivir libre escogí la soledad de los campos” (186). Although she fails to convince her audience of her freedom of choice, she nonetheless confronts the issue, leaving it open for discussion. Cervantes, in his presentation of Marcela, effectively challenges the gender arrangement imposed by marriage and thus steps towards a new viability.
17
Marcela's choices are reminiscent of those Catalina de Mesa makes. She is an
unmarried woman who did not enter the convent and thus slipped through the “webs
of discipline and enclosure; she could also escape male control unless she
married or took religious vows” (Perry 67-68).
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18 | CAROLYN A. NADEAU | Cervantes |
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Lamia's and Laida's oratorical skills stem from
the spiritual tradition of the hetairae. Guevara recounts that King Demetrius
turns to Lamia for answers about men and women in relationships. Likewise, men
and women both ask Laida for advice on many issues. The prostitutes' ability to
give sound counsel surfaces in the characterization and discourse of Dorotea,
who offers advice to Luscinda, Fernando, and Clara about how to approach their
love dilemma. In her work on Cervantes's last novel, Diana de Armas Wilson
analyzes the significance of the Feliciana de la Voz episode and the importance
of the voice in female characterization that challenges the institution of
patriarchy. She convincingly argues that by granting the voice of an angel to a
fallen woman, Cervantes dismantles the dichotomy of virgin-prostitute. I have
pointed to this shattering of the accepted binary found in all of the women thus
far discussed; however, nowhere is this destabilization more apparent than in
the figure of Dorotea.
As in the case of
Marcela, who like the prostitutes has the ability to articulate freely yet
remains on the edges of social acceptance, Dorotea is invested with a sharp mind
and tongue. At the inn she offers her services to Luscinda: “¿Qué mal sentís,
señora mía? Mirad si es alguno de quien las mujeres suelen tener uso y
experiencia de curarle; que de mi parte os ofrezco una buena voluntad de
serviros” (448). Although Luscinda chooses silence —in keeping with the
traditional role for women— soon after Dorotea appeals to Fernando, in the
presence of the others at the inn, to reclaim her marital status as his wife.
Her speech persuades everyone and restores harmony to the fractured couples
Cardenio and Luscinda and Fernando and Dorotea. Her words then are the deciding
factor in the resolution and restoration of
harmony.
Dorotea's public speaking calms the
distressed lovers and restores social order. Marcela, who presents the
limitations of women in their right to choose whom they love but fails to
convince her audience, opens the way for Dorotea's more socially moderate
speech. Both soliloquies share similar rhetorical devices and oratory
strategies. Both fight for women's rights, but where Marcela asks to be left out
of the marriage institution, Dorotea desperately fights to reenter it. Marcela's
ideas are not accepted; however, Dorotea's are fully sanctioned.18
Like Lamia and Laida and like Marcela she expresses her
18 In my
article on Marcela and Dorotea's speeches, I point to these speeches as the
poles of failed and successful restoration of harmony and social justice and
discuss the rhetorical strategies employed in their discourses.
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17.2 (1997) | Recovering the Hetairae | 19 |
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opinion on matters of love. However, while Marcela can only question the lack
of women's rights, Dorotea actively imposes a
change.
I now briefly return to the beginning
of the article and to my claim that Cervantes, by imitating Guevara, offers an
alternative to the accepted writing practices he criticizes in the prologue. In
his imitation of Plutarch, Guevara confronts the ancient text by rewriting
Lamia's narrative context, altering her space, and privileging her with a strong
verbal discourse. However, Lamia, Laida, and Flora are enclosed within a sexual
boundary that denigrates their spirituality. His text unravels their spiritual
qualities and reaffirms the low status they hold in the sixteenth century. While
he pushes the prostitutes toward the stigmatized status society imposes on their
profession, he also affirms that, as their story is told, the women's value will
increase. He concludes his letter, leaving his reader with an ambivalent
judgment of the prostitutes.
Cervantes's subtle
manipulation of Guevara's letter generates more authorial freedom. By altering
the context from the space of the classical hetairae to Counter-Reformation
Spain, Cervantes further distances himself from his model and accepts the
responsibility of his own authority. His most intriguing imitation of Guevara's
epistle is the multi-layered restructuring of the duality that defines women. He
borrowed characteristics of the spiritual / sexual being and redistributed them
to women who seek to live between the extremes of prostitute and saint. Luscinda
and Zoraida expose the parallel relationship between prostitution and marriage;
both operate by exchanging economic wealth for sexual services. Finally,
Cervantes reunites the divided sexual and spiritual qualities in Dorotea. As a
“manly” woman —one who cross-dresses and lives the life of a man— she
transgresses established gender boundaries. In describing society's responses to
historical “manly” women —those who cross-dress and live the life of men— Perry
explains that one woman, Feliciana Enríquez de Guzmán, was “applauded for her
manly intellect because she abandoned her male disguise, resumed her female
identity,and married the man she loved” (132). Likewise, as Dorotea restores her
marriage to Fernando, she participates in her own oppression by reconfirming
patriarchal authority. Like the hetairae of ancient Greece, Dorotea is
intelligent and articulate, at the very least an intellectual equal to the men
around her. She manages the financial affairs of her household, controls her own
destiny by granting herself the freedom to leave the enclosed space of her
family farm, and initiates her reconciliation with Fernando by actively pursuing
him. Finally, at the inn, she carries with her the approval
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20 | CAROLYN A. NADEAU | Cervantes |
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of all who have listened. Apart from demanding money for sexual services —and
her marriage into a higher social class recalls this type of exchange— Dorotea
embodies all of the hetairae's characteristics. Echoes of their exalted position
and freedom reverberate within her.
In
recovering classical elements of the hetairae, Cervantes portrays several
possibilities for women. In Don Quijote I, there are no clearly divided
poles of “good” and “bad” women. All carry with them varying degrees of
sexuality and spiritualness. Maritornes, the prostitute figure in the novel,
shares only distant ties with the hetairae. Those who choose marriage recuperate
the fullness of the hetairae in a more balanced way. As a male commodity,
Luscinda illustrates the shift of the site of exchange from prostitution to
marriage. Zoraida, like the hetairae, negotiates her own sexuality, using
marriage as the accepted social institution. She recuperates their spiritualness
that in Guevara'a text is lost and in Cervantes's text is transformed into a
Christian virtue. Likewise, Dorotea's beauty and intelligence, her stained honor
and virtue, in short, her sexual and spiritual qualities are accepted as one. In
this way, Cervantes corrects Guevara's reading of “las famosas rameras.” The
site of exchange, while remaining sexual, shifts from the marginal zone of the
prostitute to the enclosed conventional household. In Don Quijote,
Luscinda, Zoraida, and especially Dorotea embrace the patriarchal institution of
marriage. They are not only protected by it but, in actively pursuing their own
marriages, simultaneously protect it.
ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY |
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Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
URL: http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/articf97/nadeau.htm |