THE PÍCARO IN THE SPANISH DRAMA OF THE

I

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

J. P. WICKERSHAM CRAWFORD,

Professor of Romanic Languages, University of Pennsylvania

N the study of the Spanish antecedents of Lazarillo de Tormes, whose adventures first appeared in print, so far as we know, in the year 1554, the comedies of the first half of the sixteenth century have been almost entirely overlooked. We are not concerned here with the pícaro as a member of a particular social class, whose status was occasionally defined by municipal regulations. The pícaro of literature might be a vagabond or thief, or for a time a respectable member of society.1 The name of pícaro was applied to Guzmán de Alfarache and his progeny because of their philosophy of life rather than by virtue of their trade or the lack of one. The picaro knew no other principle of conduct than the law of self-interest; over against the selfishness of others he constantly asserted his own right to food and drink; life was for him a relentless battle and his sharp wits were his only weapons; his confidence in his own resourcefulness raised him above the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, though he was keenly conscious of the social injustice of which he was often a victim. From the literary standpoint, he was an anti-hero; the antithesis of the matchless knight and sentimental lover.

Most of these characteristics are found in the person of Sempronio in the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. In the early

'In his essay Los picaros cervantinos, published in a volume entitled Cervantes y su obra, Madrid, 1916, Señor Bonilla y San Martín summarizes as follows the chief characteristics of the picaro as found in Spanish literature. He is a youth, poor and ragged; a homeless vagabond; he has no respect for the property of others; he is not convinced that other men are better than himself, and therefore readily assumes the role of censor of society; in spite of his pessimism he is a merry fellow; he is superstitious, addicted to wine, without a sense of honor, brave-hearted and cheerful in adversity. Señor Bonilla regards him as a stoic and cynic combined.

'The Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea first appeared in a version of twenty-one acts in 1502, following a version in sixteen acts entitled Comedia

part of the story he is an amusing rascal whose practical common sense serves to emphasize the exaggerated sentimentality of his master. When the grief-stricken Calisto refuses to allow Sempronio to stay with him in the first act, the latter hesitates for a moment. "Shall I leave him alone? or shall I go in to him? If I leave him alone, he will kill himself. If I go in, he will kill me. Let him stay alone, I care not. Better it be that he die, whose life is hateful to him, than that I die, when life is pleasant unto me." This is a fair measure of his loyalty. He shows no reluctance in joining hands with Celestina to extort as much money as possible from Calisto; he stoutly asserts his readiness to stand by his master to the death, but takes to his heels at the first sign of danger, and kills Celestina herself over the division of the spoils.

His companion Pármeno gradually adopts the philosophy of the pícaro as a result of his association with Sempronio and Celestina. The old hag undermines his loyalty to Calisto by provoking what we now call class hatred. "Do not rely upon the vain promises of masters who deprive servants of their substance with hollow and idle promises. As the horse-leech that sucks blood, they are ungrateful, commit injustice, grow forgetful of services and refuse reward. Woe be unto him that grows old in service!" 2 Pármeno still objects that he wishes no ill-gotten gains, but his scruples are finally overcome, and he joins wholeheartedly in the exploitation of his

master.

We can not here follow the careers of Sempronio's descendants in the long series of dialogued novels written in imitation of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, but must restrict ourselves to their appearance in the drama. The pícaro is found for the first time in a Spanish play in the Comedia Himenea of Torres Naharro, first published in a volume entitled Propaladia at Naples in 1517. Naharro made use of the twelfth, fourteenth and twentieth acts of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, but substituted a happy de Calisto y Melibea, first published in 1499. References are made to the edition of Čejador y Frauca, published at Madrid in 1913 with the title La Celestina.

'La Celestina, Act I, p. 37.

1 Ibid., pp. 101-102.

Propaladia de Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, Vol. II, Madrid, 1900.

'M. Romera-Navarro, "Estudio de la Comedia Himenea de Torres Naharro," Romanic Review, XII (1921). These correspond approximately to the twelfth, fourteenth and fifteenth acts of the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea.

ending for the tragic dénouement of the novel. Himeneo, like Calisto, is a sentimental, somewhat ingenuous lover; Febea and Melibea have the same charming simplicity of character that is capable of heroism when the occasion demands it, and Eliso and Boreas correspond in general to Pármeno and Sempronio. Like Pármeno, Eliso is devoted at first to his master's interests, opposes his extravagance and refuses an expensive gift as reward for his services. Like Sempronio, Boreas has no such qualms of conscience and calls his companion's scruples downright nonsense. "He is an arrant fool," says Boreas in this first lesson in roguery, "who can get two cloaks and is satisfied with one. You should remember that Himeneo can not give us as much as we have really earned." But Eliso objects that however mean Himeneo may be, a better master could hardly be found, adding that "all masters make loyal servants suffer and are liberal with those who need no generosity." Boreas replies that because they are such tyrants as to withhold a just reward for service, "We must take with both hands what they give us, and even ask for what they have left." These arguments convince Eliso that disinterested loyalty is foolish and he promises to follow the advice of Boreas. The latter adds with a touch of bitterness, "Let us be on our guard, for without doubt the hospital awaits us in our old age. Wherefore, it is your duty, my brother, to take an ell when they offer you an inch." 1

In the Comedia Serafina of Torres Naharro, the lackey, Lenicio, possesses an abundance of class spirit. When his master Floristán accuses him of being only mildly devoted to his interests, Lenicio replies with uncommon frankness: "You masters still think that your servants are slaves. Well, I never go to market without stopping at a brothel on the way home to leave what I have pilfered from you.' Floristán asks him helplessly enough whether he realizes the enormity of his sin, and Lenicio replies: "A servant is a fool who waits for his master to pay when he himself can collect his due." Floristán asks him to pilfer at least honorably, and Lenicio answers: "A servant who does not help himself when his master withholds more than is fair, deserves to lose all that he has."

The loyalty of Jusquino to Floribundo in Naharro's Comedia Calamita is likewise measured on a money basis. A money purge,

he tells Floribundo, will prove a remedy for all his troubles; he offers to be the doctor and only demands complete obedience from his patient. He is completely disillusioned. "You know," he says on one occasion to Libina, "in what dishonor and suffering men live in these times in a world so devoid of kindness that there is neither charity nor love nor courtesy in it. . . . As soon as a poor servant wears a threadbare cloak, they refuse to make him a cook, even though he deserve to be Pope. We have a chance now, if we take it, to escape the hospital in our old age." The opportunity that he speaks of is to get money from Floribundo by acting as go-between with Calamita. He swears eternal loyalty to him, but seeks to evade all responsibility when his master gets into trouble.

The lackeys in the plays of Torres Naharro already mentioned seem more thoughtful than their prototypes in the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, and the similarity of their attitude toward life with the arraignment of social injustice that we find so often expressed in Naharro's lyrical verses leads us to believe that they merely reflected the author's own disillusions experienced at Rome. At the same time, these pícaros hold an important place in the construction of the plays. The lackeys Jusquino, Boreas, Eliso, Lenicio and Faceto are true anti-heroes. Worldly-wise, unemotional and resourceful, they are employed to throw into sharp relief the sentimentality and sensibility of their masters, and their helplessness when confronted by realities. These lackeys occupy exactly the same position with respect to their masters as Lazarillo de Tormes, for example, to Amadis. The romances of chivalry and La cárcel de Amor have contributed to the sentimental education of the young gallants; the lackeys have attended only the school of experience and are accustomed to dealing with facts. They protest against extravagance in both language and conduct. "Good behavior consists in moderation," says Lenicio in the Comedia Serafina, "which is the hinge of all good. Without it, virtue is vice, and with it, vice is virtue." 2 The masters love madly, regardless of consequences; the lackeys are usually cynical with regard to women and love. "Growing old in a gentleman's service and love-marriages are flowers that the wind bears away," remarks Lenicio, and on another occasion he observes: "How many downright fools there are who give their souls for women, seeking eternal regrets without any 1Propaladia, II, 156-57. 'Propaladia, I, 155. 'Ibid., p. 151.

pleasure in return." They believe that money will buy any woman's love, but that one must proceed with caution because a woman becomes presumptuous when she realizes she has inspired affection in a man. They have only contempt for the self-abasement of the romantic lover. "It is no easy task to be loyal to a master who has lost his wits," 2 is Faceto's comment in the Comedia Aquilana, upon the intensity of his master's passion. He ridicules the idea that Aquilano is not worthy of Felicina's love and has no patience with his master's romantic notion that he must win the lady's hand without revealing the secret of his rank and fortune. This interplay of sentiment and common sense, or of poetry and prose, is one of the most delightful features of the plays of Torres Naharro.

Hardly a trace of the resourceful, witty and cynical rogue is found in the Comedia Tidea of Francisco de las Natas, the Comedia Tesorina and Comedia Vidriana of Jaime de Güete, the anonymous Farsa Rosiela and Agustín Ortiz's Comedia Radiana, all of which show the influence of Torres Naharro in the subject matter, versification and division into five acts. The subtle humor of Naharro, based upon the contrast between sentimentality and common sense, is replaced by crude horse-play. The lackeys are employed to carry on the intrigue, but they are lacking in individuality and do not possess sufficient intelligence to be rogues. Only in the Comedia Tesorina do we find any criticism of social conditions. Here Pinedo is dissatisfied with his lot and presents a bill of complaints against masters in general, and his own in particular. "What a wretched life is mine! Obliged to work night and day! We stay up until we hear two o'clock strike, and if we ever get three hours of rest, it only happens one day in ninety. And on trumped-up charges we are turned out without a real, until we land finally in a hospital.": This oft-repeated fear of a pauper's death was probably realized only too frequently.*

'Teatro español del siglo XVI, edited by Urban Cronan, Madrid, 1913, pp. 133-34.

Compare, for example, Cristóbal de Castillejo's Diálogo y discurso de la vida de Corte, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Vol. XXXII, p. 217.