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Oleh Mazur
Lope de Vega's Salvajes, Indios and Barbaras
I. Introduction
In his work on the eterno selvaggio, Giuseppe Cocdiiara explains that «i termini
selvaggio, barbaro, primitivo hanno un valore empirico, convenzionale, variable nel
tempo e die 1'uno vale l'altro. L'interessante e die, vogliamo intenderli, noi convertiamo
tali termini in una realtä filologica die e, a sua volta, una dimensione storico-geografica» l. This statement is somewhat indicative of what befell Lope de Vega's wild
men, and to some extent his indios and barbaros.
It is a proven fact that in its concept of barbarism, sixteenth- and seventeenth century Spain followed the Greco-Roman tradition, considering as barbarous any trait
which happened to differ from its own. Before and after the discovery of the New
World, the Spaniard applied this criterion to the strange populations he saw. Later,
Lope de Vega did not proceed otherwise, and one of the results was the similarity not
only between the indio and the barbaro, but also between those two and his salvaje.
This attitude is particularly reflected in one of his comedias, El premio de la hermosura.
The physical and spiritual traits of the caribe or Indian-like salvajes in this play put
them into the category of the indios as described by some of the dironiclers. In order
to explain Lope's attempt to introduce them into this novelesque comedia of mixed
pastoral, sentimental, and fantastic motifs, we can only assume that the dramatist
needed barbaros for certain parts of the plays — those resembling Euripides' Iphigenia
in Tauris. Being somewhat consistent in assigning the term barbaro to more recent
semi-barbarous inhabitants of areas other than the New World, he decided upon the
term salvajes, disrupting among other things the geographical verisimilitude of the plot.
Thus El premio de la hermosura, with its peculiar wild men, seems to prove more than
any other, that such terms as barbaros, indios or salvajes could have an empirical and
conventional value.
We shall also see that the salvaje type proper in the Spanish sixteenth-century plays
may often be interpreted as a replica of the medieval dualism which divided the world
into two extremes: the wild and the tame. At this stage, there is no balance yet between
the bestial and the noble type. Traces of this arbitrary division subsist only in two
of Lope's comedias: the already mentioned El premio de la bermosura and El ganso
de oro.
In the seventeenth-century, however, the Spaniards' highly developed realistic attitude
towards the outer world enabled them to achieve a sort of fusion of both types. Some
of the results we shall find in the comedias de indios and de barbaros; nevertheless,
the best examples are provided by two of Lope de Vega's comedias de salvajes,
1
Giuseppe Cocdiiara, LyEterno Selvaggio: Presenza e influsso del mondo primitivo nella cultura
moderna, II Saggiatore (Milano, 1961), p. 14. Also see my article, «Various Folkloric Impacts
upon the Salvaje in the Spanish Comedia,» Hispanic Review, XXXVI (1968), 207—235.
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El nacimiento de Orson y Valentin, and El hijo de los leones, and particularly by
their protagonists, Urson and Leonido. Many of these indios, barbaros and salvajes
are neither bestial nor noble. Very often they present a mixture of these qualities,
of which the most perfect example is the salvage Leonido, protagonist of the comedia
El hijo de los leones, and one of the most humane wild men in Western literature.
In the present study it is our intention first to bring under scrutiny certain types of
salvajes, indios and barbaros2 from Lope de Vega's comedias9, and to document the
more important similarities in their traits; secondly, to devote some of our attention
to such passages in which the influence of the American Indian is felt; thirdly, to draw
a parallel between the most frequent of our three types, the Spanish wild man, and his
European counterpart.
In order to achieve our purpose, we shall dedicate the first part of our study
to certain physical similarities between our three types: habitat, clothes, and weapons.
The next two sections will encompass two important personality traits, fierceness and
love, and the attitude towards religion will be examined in the last part.
II. Three physical aspects
A. Habitat. Medieval writers were careful to indicate that the salvaje was reluctant
to take up his abode near civilized habitations, preferring remote and inaccessible parts
of wooded mountains. Here he usually dwelt in caves or under the deep shadow of
overhanging branches, exposing his hairy body to the cruelties of the elements.
In this first comedia de salvajes4, El nacimiento de Urson y Valentin, Lope de Vega
mentions how the she-bear carries the new-born infant, Urson, into a cave «que estaba /
Entre estas brenas que viste» (op. cit., 505 b). In a later play, El animal de Hungria,
Covarrubias regards salvajes either as «unos hombres todos cubiertos de vello de pies a cabeca,
con cabellos largos y barva larga,» whidi description coincides with the iconographic samples,
or considers them as «algunos hombres auerse criado en algunas partes remotas ... auiendo
aportado alii por fortuna y gastado su ropa» (Sebastian de Covarrubias y Horozco, Tesoro
de la lengua castellana [1611], ed M. de Riquer [Barcelona, 1943], s.v. Salvage, p. 924 b).
There is very little information about the American Indian: "Indio, natural de la India,"
and a brief remark that there are Eastern and Western Indies (ibid., s. v. India, p. 734 b).
According to the Greco-Roman tradition everybody was a barbaro who was a foreigner in
either of the two countries. Covarrubias also adds that this term had been applied «a todos
los que hablan con tosquedad y grosseria ... y a los que son inorantes sin letras, a los de
malas costumbres y mal morigerados, a los esquivos que no admiten la comunicacion de los
demas hombres de razon, que viven sin ella, llevados de sus apetitos, y finalmente los que son
despiadados y crueles» (ibid., s. v. Barbaro, p. 194 a).
1
Most of the references to Lope de Vega's comedias are taken from Ac. and Ac. N. For dates
see Griswold S. Morley y Courtney Bruerton, Cronologia de las comedias de Lope de Vega,
trans. Maria Rosa Cartes, Biblioteca Romdnica Hispanica (Madrid, 1968).
1
In these comedias the salvaje is the protagonist: in the comedias con salvajes, he plays a
minor role. I have occasionally used similar classifications for those plays in which the indios
and the barbaros appear.
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we find the exposed* Queen Teodosia living deep in the mountains (op. cit., 427b)..
Similar descriptions are found in El ganso de oro and El premio de la hermosura.,
Towards the end of his career as a playwright, Lope grew rather succint in his
description of the salvaje's abode: Leonido's habitat is introduced by a laconic captiom
«monte» (El hijo de los leones, 22 Ib).
Fortunately, this apparent lack of interest for nature does not yet appear in such
plays as El premio de la hermosura. In this comedia, not only the salvajes themselves
but the very environment reminds us of the New World as described by the chroniclers.
The forbidding, mountainous sea coast in the comedia is reminiscent — to cite only
two examples — of the Zapotecs' country in New Spain6, and of the island of
Hispaniola, province of Guacayarima7.
In many of these plays we observe a preference for the cave as a prototype of both,
salvaje's and indio's abode. This preference is still found in one of the comedias de
barbaros, Los Guanthes de Tenerife, in which the king of this nation acquaints us with
his palace — a giant cave (op. cit., 315 a). In Las Batuecas del Duque de Alba the
elaborate cave changes to a humble cabin (op. cit., 509 a), and the way Lope makes one
of the barbaros mention this fact leads us to the assumption that the playwright wanted
to draw some sort of dividing line between his salvaje's and the indio's domicile on the
one side, and that of a real barbaro on the other. This deduction can be supported
by further examples from Canary Islands whose inhabitants preferred cabins to the
giant cave of their sovereign (Los Guanckes de Tenerife, 314 b).
As far as we were able to establish, there is one topographical example — comparable
with the Spanish ones — in Europe. Bremo, the cannibal wild man of the English play
Mucedorus (1598), also lives in the woods which he describes with unsual warmth 8 .
A sharp contrast is provided by the dryness of the description in the Italian play of
Bartolomeo Rossi, Fiammella (1584), in which the whole natural background is presented
in a single word — il boscog. Similar examples from the commedia dell*arte bring out
more clearly Lope's preference for a setting reminiscent of the New World, the Canary
Islands or even Spain over the worn-out pastoral scenery.
B. Clothes and adornments. Most of the wild men in the comedias de salvajes wear
fells10, and Lope does not vary in his succinct description of their dress. Accordingly,
5
After being calumniated before her husband by her own sister, she is left to die in the
mountains. Like most of the exposed salvajes cases in the Spanish comedias, Queen Teodosia
eventually dresses in skins of wild animals, and finds shelter in a cave.
β
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias, ed. Juan Pe"rez de
Tudela Bueso, BAE, CXVIII (Madrid, 1959), bk. XXIII, di. xxxix, p. 184 b.
7
Ibid., bk. Ill, ch. xii, p. 83 b.
8
A Most pleasant Comedie of Mucedorus, ed. J. S. Farmer, in The Tudor Facsimile Texts
(London, 1910), sig. C
9
Vito Pandolfi, La Commedia dell'arte (Firenze, 1957), II, 97.
10
As early as the fourteenth century, we see our salvajes naked, yet very seldom without a
weapon and a shield. In the Peninsular mythological-folkloric legends, Basa Andere — related
to the wild woman — appears in snow-white garments (J. F. Cerquand. «L£gendes et r^cits
populaires du pays basque,» Bulletin des Sciences de Pau, IV [1876—1877], 257). In Spanish
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the 5A/ftf;e-protagonist Leonido roams the mountains «muy espetado, / y cubierto de
pellejos / De bueyes y de venados» (El hijo de los leones, 222 c). It is worth mentioning
that Lope's followers continue this trend. Even Calderon's references to his $alvajeys
attire do not change much, although they become even more concise.
We shall soon see that there are salvajes who wear similar clothes to those of the
indios from the New World. Lope de Vega is quite explicit about this fact in his
introduction to El premio de la hermosura: « . . . Gosforrostro, vestido un sayo largo de
tabi bianco bordado todo de florones verdes y encarnados, los cabellos sueltos y con
baston de general y guirnaldas en la cabeza, y con el dos capitanes, Solmarino y
Bramarante, vestidos sayos de raso verde y oro, cabellos sueltos y mazas ...» (op. tit.,
485). All these wild men seem to be wearing their holiday array. This fact is
substantiated by Father Bernabe Cobo's observations of some Indians from the New
World who prefer more colorful cloaks during their festivities11. Similar, although less
colorful garments are mentioned by Fray Bartolomi de las Casas12 and Garcilaso de la
Vega, El Inca18. When it comes to adornments, the Indians used them whenever the
occasion called for it. In the comedia de indios El Arauco domado, the warriors wear
feathers in battle (op. cit., 622 a), and the caribes in El Nuevo Mundo descubierto for
Cristobal Colon, while half-naked, have their bodies painted (op. cit.y 379 a). Far more
elaborate are the descriptions in the histories of the discovery of the New World. We
find Indians on Santa Maria who wear flowers on their heards14, others in Mexico who
prefer feathers15, and those from Yucatan who paint their faces18. The similarities
encountered so far prove beyond doubt that Lope de Vega, while retaining only certain
details, must have based his descriptions on those found in the chronicles.
Lope's barbaros appear to have inherited their costumes from such salvajes as Urson
and Leonido, and their adornments partially from the indios. All the inhabitants of
the Batuecas valley are dressed in fells (Las Batuecas del Duque de Alba> 505 a), and the
same garb is being worn by king and commoner in Los Guanches de Tenerife. As for
prose the wild man's attire had more variety, although the fells of wild animals were predominant. On physical and spiritual aspects of the European wild men see: Wilhelm Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte (vol. I: Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme) (Berlin, 1875); Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 3rd ed. (Göttingen, 1854), I;
Waldemar Liungman, Traditionswanderungen Euphrat—Rhein, pt. 2, in FF Communications,
no. 119. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Helsinki, 1938); F. von der Leyen and A. Spamer, Die
altdeutschen Wandteppiche im Regensburger Rathaus (Regensburg, 1910); and others.
11
P. Bernab£ Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, ed. P. Francisco Mateos, BAE, XCII (Madrid,
1956), bk. XI, eh. vi, p. 20 b.
12
Brevisima relacion de la destruccion de las Indias, ed. Juan P£rez de Tudela Bueso, BAE,
CX (Madrid, 1958), V, 136 a.
18
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Historia de la Florida, in Obras completas, ed. Carmelo Saenz
de Santa Maria, BAE, CXXXII (Madrid, 1960), bk. I, eh. iv, p. 256 a.
14
P. KernM Cobo, bk. XI, eh. vi, p. 20 b.
15
Jos£ de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias [Sevilla, 1590], ed. P. Francisco
Mateos, BAE, LXXIII (Madrid, 1954), bk. VI, eh. xxvi, p. 205 a.
18
Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Hispania Victrix: Primera y segunda parte de la historia general
de las Indias, BAE, XXII (Madrid, 1946), I, 186 b.
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adornments, the Guandies wear neckleces made of white shell in Los Guanaes de
Tenerife (op. tit., 31 la), and like the Indians don feathers in San Diego de Alcala
(op tit., 49 a).
In other European plays there are few records of the wild men's attire. For instance,
the Italian selvaggio's dress is not mentioned in the «Specimen scenari»17. In England,
we see them for the most covered with leaves, moss and ivy, a faithful copy of the
early iconography and very much in the spirit of folkloric beliefs throughout Europe.
On the stage, as early as 1510, during a tournament in Westminster, we find them
dressed with green silk18.
C. Weapons. There are two major types of weapons mentioned in our comedias de
salvajes, de indios and de barbaros: the mace and the bow. Anything between a huge
treetrunk and a cov^ntional cane can be used as a substitute for the mace. Early
iconography puts both types of weapons in our salvaje's hand: on a fifteenth-century
tapestry a wild man threatens a maiden with a mace19, and at about the same period
a painting in the Alcazar of Segovia displays a salvaje shooting an arrow20. The same
weapons appear in two sixteenth-century Spanish plays con salvajes. We owe the first
display of a mace-like weapon to Romero de Cepeda's Comedia Salvage, in which
wild men use sticks21. The word tirar, used in a special sense by a salvaje in Farsa
llamada Paliana, is the only indication of the existence of bow and arrows in the hands
of this wild man22.
This ambivalence in the salvaje's choice of weapons changes with the advent of Lope's
comedias de salvajes. Urson turns the young tree, given to him by an anonymous French
author, into a nudoso leno (Lope de Vega, El nacimiento de Urson y Valentin, 521 a),
while Leonido with his robre tostado reminds us of Heracles as represented by the
Greeks and Romans (El hijo de los leones, 222 b, c).
Both weapons reappear side by side in the comedias de barbaros. The bow and
arrows serve three purposes in Los Guanckes de Tenerife: besides being purely ornamental, they are used for hunting and warfare. The same conclusion can be drawn
from two other comedias de barbaros, Las Batuecas del Duque de Alba and San Diego
de Alcala. And at the same time, the same barbaros may display either a mace, a young
tree, or a stick on any occasion.
At this point, it may be worthwhile drawing a comparison between our previous
examples and at least one chronicle from the Indies. According to Garcilaso de la Vega,
El Inca, the Indians from Florida carry many weapons, but definitely prefer the bow
17
18
19
20
21
22
K. M. Lea, Italian Popular Comedy (Oxford, 1934), II, 610—669.
Robert Hillis Goldsmith, "The Wild Man on the English Stage," MLN, LIII (1958), 482.
Jos£ Maria de Azcarate, «El tema iconografico del salvaje,» Archivo espanol del arte (1948),
83.
Ibid., 89.
Joaquin Romero de Cepeda, Comedia Salvage, in Origenes del teatro espanol, ed. Leandro
Fernandez de Moratin (Paris, 1838), I, 298 b.
Juan de Timoneda, Farsa llamada Paliana, in Obras, ed. Eduardo Julia Martinez, La sociedad
de bibliofilos espanoles (Madrid, 1948), III, 137.
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and arrows as more decorative and dashing23. This preference appears in the speeches
of the caribes themselves in two of Lope de Vega's comedias, namely in El Arauco
domado and in El Brasil restituido. Nevertheless, in Lope's first comedia de indios,
El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristobal Colon, we encounter an Indian descending
a mountain with a mace in his hand (op. cit.3 359 a), and only much later do we find
both weapons — the mace and the bow — mentioned in the same phrase (El Arauco
domado, 606 b). It is interesting to note that Calderon follows Lope's custom of
providing his Indians with bow and arrows — roughly three-quarters of a century after
the first appearance of Indians on the Spanish stage (La aurora en Copacabana,
449a) 24 . This fact might be one of the proofs that the descriptions of the American
Indians found their way into the Spanish comedia only gradually. At the beginning
they may have encountered a certain opposition from the persisting medieval type of
wild man, woh displayed a marked preference for the mace and managed to survive
in the sixteenth century. Later, the salvaje, indio and barbaro settled down to lead a
quiet life of co-existence. Eventually, the Indian from the comedia was less predisposed
to brandish his mace on all occasions, and his example was partially followed by the
barbaro, who in so many other ways resembled him. The salvaje alone remained loyal
to the traditional iconographic weapon, the mace-like one.
There are no traces of any weapons used by satyrs — related to our wild men —
in French pastoral plays. In Germany we find a character in a Weihnachtsspiel who
carries an uprooted little tree in his hand25. In the intermezzi of the Tragedy of Jacopo
da Legname, a wild man uses his stick to beat a bear26, and in Li tre satiri, the satyrs
beat other characters in the play with cudgels27. The Italian pattern seems to have
prospered in England. There, the wild men were seen for more than a century brandishing their clubs at different pageants and shows; however, they never played a
significant role as characters. Our first evidence of a wild man's practical weapon is
Bremo's sturdie sticke of which he speaks with a feeling akin to reverence28.
III. Fierceness — a basic psychosocial trait
While endowing his three types with psychological traits — as often as not a gradual
becoming, a shift from fierceness to tameness — Lope de Vega had to show their
relationship to society at large. Closely reflecting the psychological structure of his
characters and their change step by step, the sociological one often results in the
improvement of their status. (Both coordinates — psychological and sociological — are
in close mutual interrelation.) There are three patterns of relationship between our
!3
14
0
16
17
ffl
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Historia de la Florida, bk. I, di. iv, p. 256 a, b.
Ed. Juan Jorge Keil, II (Leipzig, 1830).
Robert Stumpfl, Kulturspiele der Germanen als Ursprung des mittelalterlichen Dramas (Berlin,
1936), p. 362.
Goldsmith, 486. Also see Ferdinande Neri, Tragedia del Cinquecento (Firenze, 1904), p. 13.
Lea, II, 665—666.
Mucedoms, sig. Cv.
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three types and the civilized society: individual to individual, society to individual
and society to society. The third pattern is reserved for the indios and barbaros. This
means that the Spanish salvaje, and to some extent the indio and the barbaro, find
themselves under many environmental influences which operate upon them individually
and collectively, until they are ready to assume their rightful place in civilized society
or live in a mutually acceptable relationship with each other. We shall approach this
question by dividing our characters into two categories: the fierce unchanging type and
the type gradually changing from fierceness to tameness.
A. The fierce unchanging type. Towards the end of the sixteenth-century, Romero»
de Cepeda's Comedia Salvage for the first time offers fierce wild men in conflict with
the civilized world; they attack other characters in the play without the slightest
provocation. A few years later, Lope de Vega's Bardinelo provides another, more
colorful example of a salvaje in conflict with civilized society; he is stealing food and
abducting maidens at his master's bidding (El ganso de or ο, 161 a). His personality does
not show any trace of development; the dramatic requirements of the play impose upon
this mythological-folkloric dusio-like busgoso a permanent role of figuron29.
Perhaps the best link between the salvaje, indio and barbaro is provided by a
collective type of wild men in Lope's El premio de la bermosura. In his speech to two
of his captains, King Gosforostro wishes that each of his subjects «a caza por los montes
ande, / Ο que pesque en la margen de ese rio» (op. cit., 463 a). This rather idyllic
vision is swept aside by the following additional statement: «Solo quiero que coman
extranjeros» (ibid.). It is true that the noblemen-salvajes, Bramarante and Solmarino,
do not always share their king's unchanging fierce attitude; however, neither character
is clearly defined. Their king, on the contrary, in spite of Liriodoro's bravery, sacrifices
him on Diana's altar (ibid., 477). His awakened love for Tisbe does not work the magic
(as we might expect) of changing him into a civilized being (ibid., 480 a). Unlike other
salvajes, Gosforostro remains as fierce as Lope de Vega's worst caribe from the
New World.
Despite his vast readings, Lope could not have mastered all the histories and chronicles
on the conquest. It is possible, however, to detect a convergence between his three types
and historical accounts. The writings of two historians, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo
and Francisco Lopez de Gomara, show us many Indians comparable with the fiercest
Spanish salvaje. The former relates how particularly unfriendly were the Indians from
Cuba80, near the Sanct Joan and Peru rivers31, and in the New Kingdom of Toledo82.
The latter describes the caribes and the poisoned arrows they used against the Spaniards
29
80
81
82
See the diapter entitled «Mitologia iberica» by Constantino Cabal in Folklore y costumbres
de Espana, ed. F. Carreras y Candi (Barcelona, 1931), I, 243—246. Also my article, "Various
Folkloric Impacts ..." Hispanic Review, XXXVI, 229—233. There are two subtypes of the
woodland being called fantasma on the Peninsula: the joculatores and the dusios. "The
former, comparable to the Asturian diano burlon, spend their life in continuous harmless
diversion, while the latter [the dusios] are not reluctant to harm mortal men."
Fernandez de Oviedo, bk. XVII, ch. xxiv, p. 159 a.
Ibid., bk. XLV, ch. iii, p. 29 b.
Ibid., bk. XLVII, ch. iii, p. 133 b.
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in his chapter «El Darien»88. This fierceness and unwillingness to co-operate with the
Spaniards is further mentioned by Pedro de Cieza de Leon84, and Jose de Acosta who
sees in the Indian «un natural que parece mezclado de hombre y fiera, y sus costumbres
son tales, que mas que hombres parecen monstruos de hombre»35. The historians Father
Bernabe Cobo and Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, complete the list of Indian fierce
traits comparable with those of some of the sahajes and barbaros.
In El Arauco domado we have a rather amusing allusion to the canniballistic practices generously attributed to almost all the Indians from the New World. Tucapel,
an Araucanian warrior, gives the order to have his prisoner-grac/oso Rebolledo roasted:
«Asale entero, que quiero / Com£rmele todo entero / De rabia de don Felipe» (op. cit.,
615 b). Fernandez de Oviedo corroborates this scene by his description of juries Indians
who lived near the Straits of Magellan, and it was known that they ate human flesh86.
However, the same historian describes the Indians from Guatemala as «grandes pescadores e buenos monteros»87. Echos of TucapePs culinary practices can be found as
stock phrases in many Lopesque comedias which do not deal directly with the Indians.
A much more serious allusion to cannibalism and fierceness in general, is made by
Mach a do, a Spaniard who had lived among the Indians of Brazil:
Porque aquestos indios son
De aquella cruel nacion
De quien hay cosas tan nuevas.
A los indios del Brasil
Llamaron antropofagos,
Que entre estos montes y lagos
Vivieron vida gentil,
Y ensenados a comer
Carne humana, ... (El Brasil restituido, 93 a).
How fierce the barbaros can be, we can find out from Flos Sanctorum which helped
Lope de Vega to visualize the inhabitants from the Canary Islands, and to give them
some litarary embodiment in San Diego de Alcala. Faced with the disembarking
Spaniards Tanildo, one of the Guanche notables, fiercely admonishes his countrymen:
Trocad, barbaros valientes,
Los instrumentos en mazas,
En amenazas las voces,
Y los bailes en hazanas (op. cit., 5la).
B
Lopez de Gomara, I, 189 a.
La cronica del Peru, ed. Enrique de Vedia, BAE, XXVI (Madrid, 1947).
25
De procuranda indorum salute ο predication del Evangelio en las Indias [Salamanca, 1588],
ed. P. Francisco Mateos, BAE, LXXIII (Madrid, 1954), bk. II, ch. xii, p. 450 a.
ίβ
Fernandez de Oviedo, bk. XLVII, ch. iii, p. 134 a.
* Ibid., bk. XVI, ch. iv, p. 362 b.
u
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For the most pan, other European unchanging types fall short of matching our
Peninsular models in fierceness. The Italian commedia delVarte has some fierce types
to offer, but they have a smack of pastiche about them. In Bartolomeo Rossi's La
Fiammella (1584), Salvatico captures two clowns and is ready to devour them38.
Other more or less similar types and patterns are found in Pellagrilli (1544) in which
an uomo salvatico encounters a maiden89, in L'Arbore incantato™, in Li ritratti*1, and
others. Most of the satyrs — whom we regard as closely connected with the wild
men — come on the stage in the French pastoral dramas, only to disturb the prevailing
harmony. This is true at least of the four following plays: Corine, La folie de Silene,
Amarillis and Le triomphe d'amour42. The worst case of fierceness in the English drama
is Bremo. Like Spenser's satyr he is ready to ravish Amadine, who is lost in the woods,
and to slay her lover, prince Mucedorus43. Shakespeare's Caliban cannot adjust himself
to the mores of civilized people; nevertheless, instead of using brute force, he prefers
treachery44.
B. The type gradually changing from fierceness to lameness. Tameness on the part of
the salvajes was embodied for the first time in Juan de Timoneda's Farsa llamada
Paliana. But it was Lope de Vega who created a type of salvaje, who, for the first time,
can be called a character not only because the salvaje rises to become the protagonist
in the play but also because his personality shows development. He is a person at the
beginning of the comedia, sharing many of the social traits which are universal in human
societies, even observing some of the moral norms. He acquires the remaining moral
norms and the other psychosocial values in his dynamic climb towards integration.
The movement itself is still simple, from fierceness to tameness; however, at times we
are witnessing an internal struggle in the best tradition of the Spanish baroque heroes.
We have three cases of this type of character in Lope de Vega's comedias, Urson,
Leonido and Rosaura. Urson is the embodiment of fierceness itself at the beginning,
as he pursues the villanos, earning as he does such unsavory epithets as monstruo and
demonio. Partly because of his tutor Luciano's teachings, this salvaje begins to
distinguish between right and wrong. Another change occurs from fierceness to tameness,
while he marvels at the endeavors of villanos to kill him. Considering himself human,
he is appalled at their lust for a fellow being's blood, a trait not observed even in
animals, who rarely kill their own species (El nacimiento de Urson y Valentin, 521 a).
The crucial moment of his change of personality occurs when he meets Valentin, his
brother. Saved from Uberto by Valentin, Urson learns the human feeling of gratitude,
and is ready to die rather than harm his saviour (ibid.,· 521 b). Thus Lope de Vega
s« Lea, I, 206.
See Curzio Mazzi, La congrega dei Roffi di Siena nel secolo XVI (Firenze, 1882), II, 115.
4
° Lea, I, 203.
41
Ibid., II, 562.
42
See vols. IV and VII in Claude et Fran£ois Parfaict's Histoire du theatre frangais depuis
son origine jusqu'ä present avec la vie des plus celebres poetes dramatiques ... (Paris,
1745_49).
43
Mucedorus, sig. C.
44
See William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii.
89
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presents the first salvaje who gradually acquires a whole system of psydiosocial values,
which provide him with a gate-way into the world he was denied by fate at his very
birth. His spiritual father, Luciano, whose difficult task was to bring up this impetuous
youth in the mountains, was the first providential instrument to lead Urson away from
his savage state to civilization. Society as a whole, represented by the irate villagers,
is a more radical toal of conversion. It is the individual-to-individual relation which
shifts the balance favorably. After his encounter with the maiden from the village
(ibid., 506 b), Urson finds himself ready for the co-operative stage. But unlike most
of the other comedias, it is the call of the blood that tilts the balance. The strong
feeling of gratitude towards his brother, whom he had never seen before, works upon
the youth like a revelation. His eventual return to the court, his reinstatement into his
rightful state of a hereditary prince, and his subsequent marriage to a princess of royal
blood, occur at a pace only Lope could set.
In El animal de Hungria and El bijo de los leones it is love that finally decides
the conversion. For this reason alone, Leonido is a more complicated case than Urson.
According to the gracioso Faquin's story, his exploits are perhaps more appalling than
Urson's (El hijo de los leones, 219 a):
De la sierra
Ha bajado [this wild man] aquestos dias,
Turbando las caserias
Υ destruyendo la tierra.
Luciano, his tutor, admonishes him constantly to act like a human being. In spite of
environmental obstacles upon his psychological growth, Leonido begins to heed the
hermit's warnings. Like Urson, he naturally hates the villagers who are ready to kill
him, but the final impact which changes him into a full-fledged human being is twofold:
his admiration for his father, Prince Lisardo, and his love for Laura-Fenisa, in whom
he does not suspect his own mother (ibid., 221 a, et passim). His change is even more
remarkable than Urson's when he does not hesitate to speak up in a noble cause;
he accuses Prince Lisardo of lack of constancy in his love for Laura-Fenisa, although
the youth is himself in love with his mother whom he does not yet recognize. He has
enough strength of character to dare death as long as the cause is a just one. The
advance of our salvaje's personality moves continuously upward through three different
levels: that of a salvaje and of a man, and toward that of a superhuman being.
Paralleling the movement, his fierceness gradually subsides into tameness as he
eventually achieves a high degree of sublimity.
In El animal de Hungria, Rosaura's fierceness is only partially tamed by her love
for Felipe. Her jealousy kindles her old savage fury every time another woman unwittingly arouses her misgivings (El animal de Hungria, 442 b—443 a, b). At the end
it is Felipe's love that elevates Rosaura spiritually, and the maiden, shedding her
fierceness, joins the youth on the level of their common humanity.
The biased descriptions of Fray Bartolome de las Casas are among the few histories
of the discoveries which describe pacific Indians from the New World45. Lope de Vega
45
Brevisima relation, V, 135 b—137 b.
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does not idealize his caribes to that extent: they remain fierce and only after their
conversion to Christianity can we observe a psychological rebirth. Nevertheless, this
very conversion raises a wall between Dulcanquellin and Gosforostro. The former is
hardly any different from those caribes described by Fernandez de Oviedo. When
challenged to a duel by Tapirazu, who comes to rescue his wife Tacuana, Dulcanquellin
is ready to proclaim his fierce ways (El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristobal Colony
359b):
.
. ,
Pero guarda en mis brazos
Te he de consumir de modo
Que deshecho el cuerpo todo
Lleve el aire los pedazos.
His readiness to honor the landing Spaniards with a feast worthy of a cannibal may
sound humorous but hardly less fierce (ibid., 367 b):
Mata, Aute [he tells his lieutenant], cuatro criados
De los mis gordos que hallares,
Υ entre silvestres manjares
Los pon en la mesa asados.
The same factor, new religious experience, also changes the barbaros' fierceness into
tameness by destroying their belief in idols (considered as demons by the Spaniards).
The change parallels the conversion of Indians in the New World, but there is one more
factor — love. (Religion is the main factor in collective cases; love in individual ones.)
Giroto, a barbaro in Las Batuecas del Duque de Alba, is very close to Bremo as he
boasts in the best wild man's tradition to Meleno, another barbaro (op. at., 507):
^Sabes que el m s fuerte enebro
Deshago, desgancho y quiebro?
^Que arranco un fresno de cuajo,
Υ que un castano desgajo,
Si con el mis fuerzas puebro?
The same Mileno, hardly less fierce than Giroto, tells Brianda vestida de varon: «Callad,
por mia fe, / Que vos despachurra^ / Si uno vos endono ansi» (ibid., 515 b). This
display of savagery does not stop him from trembling at the sight of Brianda's
beauty — once he discovers his mistake (ibid., 515 b). A parallel encounter, with a
much more pronounced element of love, takes place in the Canary Islands between the
Spaniard Castillo and the Guanche princess Dacil (Los Guancbes de Tenerife, 312 a, b).
At the end, all barbaros are converted to Christianity, losing their previous fierceness.
It is obvious that the change of the indios and the barbaros, both in the individual
and in the collective cases, is hardly as elaborate as in the previous three cases of that
of our salvajes. The reason is sociological; although they are savage types, they live
in a primitive society with mores of their own.
The European counterparts of our savage types are only comparable with the two
salvajes in Farsa llamada Paliana — they are tame and their personality does not show
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any psychological development. In Hans Sachs' „Klag der Wilden Holzleut über die
Ungetrewe Welt", the wild men are not fierce but simply people who prefer to live
in the woods46. Another example of tameness is Selvaggio in // mago: this Italian wild
man prefers a dish of macaroni to the love of Filli, the Magician's daughter47. He
proves to be able to live in harmony with civilized people, and his salvajismo exists
in name only. The satyrs in Li tre satin show compassion for Fausto when he is in love
with Filli48. Similar to a well-disposed wild man from the Alps, is the satyr in Nicolas
Ch^tien's Les amantes, who helps Eurialle with a certain healing herb49. Sometimes
they have something in common with Calderon's wild men whose fierceness is not
genuine, and therefore, can only produce laugther. For instance, in Alexandre Hardy's
Corine ou Le silence, one of the satyrs wants to reason with Areas, and soon entreats
Pan's help when the irate shepherd begins to beat him up50.
IV. Love
Since the wild man was the embodiment of man's secret desires and instincts, it was
to be expected that this symbolic figure would find its expression in the strongest
human sentiment — love. From what we already know from our study of the wild
man's fierceness, and to some extent from that of the fierceness of the indio and barbaro,
we might expect them to approach woman with raw lust rather than courtly worship.
While this is true for certain Spanish salvajes, indios and barbaros, it is equally evident
that some can adapt to the latter. Their courtly veneration may not coincide with all
the rules, may not follow each of the four steps51, and at times even seems to vanish;
nevertheless, it would be an error to deny them this attitude. Some of our complex
types can assume the role of a humble vassal at a point at which they often begin to lose
their original traits. In order to eliminate lengthy explanations, we have decided to
divide this section according to the different aspects of love, adhering at the same time,
as closely as possible, to the chronological order of the plays.
A. Amor ferino52. The European wild man is mostly regarded as a lecherous creature,
incapable of self-control. Many exotic tales, mythological and folkloric legends, and
48
Hans Sachs Werke, ed. H. von Keller and E. Goetze (Tübingen, 1870—1908), III, 561—564.
Lea, II, 813—815.
48
Ibid., pp. 663—669.
» Parfaict, IV, 180.
50
Ibid., pp. 195—197.
51
The four steps according to Old Provencal were: fenhedor (worship from a distance), precador (the lover timidly entreats his duena with a suplica), entendedor (his lady is glad of
his suplica), and drut (the stage of physical contact). See Otis H. Green, Spain and the
Western Tradition. The Castilian Mind in Literature from El Cid to Calderon (MadisonMilwaukee, 1963), I, 72—122.
52
One of the three levels recognized by the theoreticians of the Renaissance. "Here — in
Amor ferino — reigned, 'with all their tyrannical force the lower passions and the physical
appetites.'" (Green, Spain and the Western Tradition, I, 76; passage taken from Amode'e
Pages, Auzias March et ses predeceseurs [Paris, 1912], p. 96).
47
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artistics and literary embodiments emphasize this particular attitude. It might be worthwhile mentioning from the beginning that while in other theatrical embodiments amor
ferino plays the main and only role, the Spanish drama can show but few examples
of pure raw lust. Once our type changes his other behavioristic traits, he must adapt
to them his sexual drives as well.
The first case of low brutal passion appears in the Spenseriantype salvaje in Romero
de Cepeda's Comedia Salvage. Another case, somewhat less credible, is offered by
Lope de Vega in El ganso de oro. Bardinelo, the salvaje in Felicio's service, abducts
shepherdesses and carries them to his master's cave. On one of these occasions he tells
Lisena fiercely: «Callad, dama, / que habeis de ser cena y cama / y Belisa la merienda»
(op. cit.y 160 a, b). This wild man provides the only case of genuine raw lust in the
Lopesque era — Calderon offers the others. All the cases of a rudimenary amor ferino
in the comedia have one factor in common: there is no consummation of love, in spite
of situations that are apparently hopeless for the pursued maidens.
As we have already stated before, other European plays abound with similar
episodes. In the commedia dell'arte there is Scala's UArbore incantato in which a wild
man assaults Clori who, like Daphne, has to change into a tree in order to escape his
lust58, and The Madness of Filandro where a satyr discloses his passion for Lidia,
entreating her to enter with him a grotto in which he wants to satisfy his desire for her54.
The satyrs in the French plays parallel the Italian. One satyr competes with a Captain
and some shepherds for the favors of Clorinde in Nicolas Chretien's Les amantes55.
A similar situation is presented by the anonymous play La folie de Silene5*, three satyrs
in Rotrou's Amarillis are planning to rape two shepherdesses57, and two satyrs in
Alexandre Hardy's Le triomphe d'amour, abduct Clyde who is in love with Cephee,
a shepherd58. Bremo shows more raw lust than the cases enumerated previously. He
promises his victim adornments, elaborate food and soft bed but in return he plainly
informs her that "in the night ile be thy bedfellow, / And louingly embrace thee in
mine arms"50. Caliban is another prototype of raw lust60.
B. Courtly love and veneration. The salvaje in the Coloquio*1 offers the first courtly
love episode before the advent of the comedia: however, there is no better example
of this love than in El hijo de los leones. For one thing, Lope offers a good example of
humble veneration, connected with the principle of unfulfilled sexual desire62. It is the
58
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Lea, I, 203.
Ibid., II, 643—647.
Parfaict, IV, 176—183.
Ibid., pp. 374—375.
Ibid., VII, 330—332.
Ibid., IV, 370—372.
Mucedortis, sig. E2.
The Tempest, Act II, Scene ii.
In Ensayo de una biblioteca espanola de libros raros y curiosos, ed. Bartolome Jose Gallardo
(Madrid, 1863), I.
See C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, Oxford University Press (New York, 1958), p. 2,
et passim.
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"to have not, and to have ... [the] ever-recurring paradoxe amoureux ... that creates
the conception of what we might call el amor tristeza"*8, at its best. The lover,
Leonido, feels fettered by his lady and, at the same time, tamed by her very
presence64. We also witness here the power of turbacion of which medieval writers
became aware after the fourteenth-century65. Leonido is deeply moved as he beholds
Fenisa for the first time. He utters in the best "have not" tradition (op. cit., 227 c):
«Si es desdicha y no locura / Amar tan alta hermosura / Con imposible cuidado», and
adds (ibid., 230c): «Yo te ame, Laura; que yo / Era monstruo porque fuese / Monstruo
de amor.». An example of beauty in woman which can be contemplated in three
different ways66 appears in the second act (scene ix), when Leonido sees Fenisa, and
is struck by her appearance: «Y era Dios quien supo hacer, / Mujer, tu divina cara, /
... Que solo merece amores» (El hijo de los leones, 226 a). Leonido only revels in the
sensuous beauty of Laura-Fenisa with the eyes of the body.
Courtly love, basing itself on woman-worship, needs a knight and a dama, a refined
lover and his equally refined midons. In the following example, the partakers of the
romantic passion are not civilized people but two Indians; nevertheless, the spirit of
this short interchange of feelings is akin to that of courtly love. Tucapel speaks of the
wounds inflicted by love, much more serious than those he has received in battle against
the Spaniards (El Arauco domado, 614 b):
Aunque de tantas heridas,
Gualeva, curaste el pecho,
Donde es justo que residas,
Mayor la del alma has hedio,
For quien te ofrezco mil vidas
Sadly enough, Gualeva's bei accueil is mixed with the impending doom which the
Araucanian people will not be able to avert.
A somewhat different episode is the idylle amoureuse, enacted amidst the violent
beauty of the Canary Islands by the Spanish nobleman Castillo and the barbaraprincess Dacil. The Princess offers the Spaniard a ribbon (Los Guandves de Tenerife,
312a, b):
48
Otis H. Green, "Courtly Love in the Spanish Cancioneros," PMLA, LXI (1949), 269.
The latter feeling is well described by the twelfth-century's Alsatian poet, Ulridi von Gutenberg: „Ich waz wilde, s wie viel idi dodi gesanc / ir sdioeniu äugen daz waren die ruote /
di mite si midi von erste betwanc" (K. Ladiman and M. Haupt, Des Minnesangs Frühling,
4th ed. [Leipzig, 1923], p. 89). Such examples are quite numerous in many Western European
literatures, and the variations of this subject are equally great. See Ridiard Bernheimer, Wild
Men in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1952).
® See Otis H. Green, Courtly Love in Quevedo, University of Colorado Studies, Series in
Language and Literature (Boulder, Colorado, 1952), p. 41.
(e
With the eyes of the body; with the eyes of a philosopher, who apprises scientifically the
admired object; and with the eyes of a spiritual man, who strives to find an analogy (Green,
Spain and the Western Tradition, I, 82; based on Edgar de Bruyne's Estudios de estetica
medieval, trans. Fr. A. Suarez [Madrid, 1958], II, 290).
14
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Υ toma aqueste cordon
En serial de que me pesa
De no ir contigo presa,
Quedando en mayor prision.
The episode is a cantiga de amigo-like exchange of gifts which immediately sends us
more than three centuries back to the Razon de amor. Castillo's words, «Mas estas
plumas te doy, / Porque si yo tuyo soy, / No tengo mas que volar» (ibid.}, might not
show enough of the necessary courtly elegance; however, the entire background is a
rather far cry from the usual setting of a comedia palaciega. The phrase tuyo soy
shows as much willingness on the part of the young Spaniard to serve the Princess as do
many longer and more eloquent entreaties for the bei accueil.
C. Amor ferino and courtly love. Urson presents a strange mixture of both types
of love, although there is a gradual change from amor ferino to a sentiment quite akin
to courtly love. His physical appetite is evident as he muses about the unknown
pleasures of sexual love: «Y tal vez que he de gustar / De algiin deleite y placer; /
y Valentin, 506 b). His enthusiasm rises upon seeing a villana: «jOh, bellisimo animal! /
|Oh, semejanza de Dios!» (ibid.). In spite of it, his eyes are raised to the Creator
only for an instant. The contemplator is anything but platonic67. He relapses into his
passionate musing (ibid., 507a):
El leon suelo yo ver
Con la leona abrazarse,
Y ansi debe de juntarse
El hombre con la mujer.
After many encounters with civilized human beings, Urson's spiritual nobility prevails,
and at the end he is fully adapted to his station in life — that of a ruler. He marries
a princess, and his early crudity towards woman changes into a licit amor mixtus within
the bounds of matrimony.
D. Deteriorating courtly love. A movement different from Urson's appears to be
Giroto's, the barbaro who is declaring his love to Taurina (Las Batuecas del Duque
de Alba, 505 a, b). In a much better precador's role, he beseeches the barbara: «Aduelete
de mi amor, / Cruel y hermosa Taurina» (ibid., 505 a). Once he knows himself definitely
disdained, the young barbaro breaks the rules of courtly love by wanting the maiden
to pay heed to his sufferings (ibid., 506). At the end he defies all the rules of the
courtly lover by the following outburst: «jMal ancho te despachurre! / jMala fiera que
te coma!» (ibid., 506a, b)68. Given a chance, this impetuous youth would not hesitate
to abduct the maiden in the best caribe tradition.
87
68
Green, Spain and the Western Tradition, I, 76. We have in mind non-sensual or "Platonic"
love. See also: Green, Courtly Love in Quevedo, pp. 12—13.
A similar situation we find at the end of the third act of Torres Naharro's Comedia Ymenea
(1516). Doresta, Phebea's servant, prefers the older suitor, Boreas. Turpedio, in the service
of Phebea's brother, is rejected by Doresta. This act, besides driving him to a raging fury,
also makes him abuse Doresta (Joseph E. Gillet and Otis H. Green [ed.], Torres Nabarro
and the Drama of the Renaissance [Propalladia and Other Works of Torres Naharro, IV]
[Philadelphia, 1961], p. 518). See also Green's Spain and the Western Tradition, I, 119—122.
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E. «False» amor ferino. Owing to popular ignorance, superstition and fear, the rustics
isee in the exposed sahajes (i.e. those who were forced to live in mountains), brutal and
lecherous rapists. The following cases cannot fail to amuse us with their somewhat
Iheavy humor; the bestias who were supposed to rape the villanas prove to be — girls.
In El animal de Hungria we have Bartolo's description of Rosaura: «... es como vos,
mo como ellas, / pues sabe correr y hablar, / y aun sabe forzar doncellas» (op. cit., 428).
'This humorous incident has been repeated by one of Lope de Vega's followers, "Luis
"Velez de Guevara. Mojon, his gracioso, states that Alfreda, a salvaje-maiden raped his
jsister (Amor es naturaleza, 6a)69. In spite of the laughter such sallies must have
provoked, the audience must have also thought of all the satyrlike creatures which they
Ibelieved were roaming through the Peninsula70.
F. «False» courtly love. Just as we have witnessed two cases of unjust accusation
of ferino-like love, we also find one case of an attempted courtly love approach which
soon proves to be nothing but amor ferino under a rather thin disguise. After ordering
Leuridemo killed, King Gosforostro is ready to marry Tisbe. His address seems quite
within the code of courtly love when he calls her: «Mujer divina, extranjera / Hermosa,
a quien hizo el cielo / Con tan peregrino rostro, . . . » (El premio de la bermosura, 480 a).
The second part of his address, which he probably recited in one breath with the
first — «Si perdiste esposo y reino, / Esposo y reino tendras» (ibid.). — proves him
co be nothing better or even worse than Giroto or a New World cacique who forces his
enemies' wives to live with him.
Pedro Cieza de Leon tells of the following Indian customs: « . . . los senores o
caciques destos valles de Nore buscaban de las tierras de sus enemigos todas las mujeres
que podian, las cuales traidas a sus casas, usaban con ellas como con las suyas
propias»71. In El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristobal Co/on, Dulcanquellin, a
cacique, has robbed Tacuana from another Indian Tapirazu, and speaks to her in
a certain courtly fashion we have already found in El premio de la hermosura (op. cit.,
357 a, b):
,
Mas ^que menor alegna
Mereciera mi Ventura,
Y tu divina hermosura,
Hermosa Tacuana mia?
Didiosa mi antigua pena
Y cuanto pasi por ti.
Furthermore, he vows to fulfill all her wishes and contradicts himself with the following
statement: «Servirte quiero, pudiendo / Gozarte; ...» (ibid., 358b). How different
Tacuana's wishes are, we find out from her complaint about Dulcanquellin. Seeing no
harm in mixing with Spanish discoverers, she discusses her fate with Terrazas, and
insists on being protected from this cacique's attentions:
69
70
71
In a Collection of sueltas of Hugo Albert Rennert at the University of Pennsylvania
(Sevilla, n. d.), III.
See Folklore y costumbres de Espana, I, 241—250.
Cieza, La cronica del Peru, p. 365 a.
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Que me libreis del tirano
Cacique, barbaro y torpe,
Que aqui me tiene cautiva
Entre sus brazos disformes (ibid., 371 a).
V. Religious attitude
The wild man's roots are imbedded in the primitive stage of mankind72, and the first
written proof of his existence is to be found in the Bible78. So far, from the theological
point of view, there have been no difficulties. The Pagan era was not disturbed when
it granted certain animals superiority over some human beings; nor was it troubled by
disturbing thoughts with regards to the wild man's status. Most of those problems
appeared with the advent of Christianity.
In the Middle Ages, everything divine and diabolical had to be fitted into the
Christian hierarchy ob beings. The wild man had to find his niche in this order, but the
Middle Ages were not very successful in assigning him a proper and permanent place.
The main disparity of opinion revolved around the uncertainty of his being a man or
an animal, and the contradictory results were necessarily embodied in art and literature 74 . Also the Church Fathers were not willing to tolerate him, although the Church
eventually accepted his existence grudgingly, adapting him to her needs. Gradually, the
fear of the wild man changes to laughter, and eventually to indifference. Sooner than
in other European countries, the Spaniard learns to regard him with admiration, and
creates his noble savage.
With the discovery of the New World we are faced with the savage Indian who
belongs to a certain tribe with a life sometimes similar to that of a primitive man.
He enters the Spanish drama — in the company of the salvaje and the barbaro — with
Lope de Vega as his most prominent promoter. The dramatist never tires of glorifying
Nature in all its various aspects, and often includes our three types — without
becoming a libertine. After all, the civilized world was not always good, since it was
artificial, and primitivism was not always bad, since it was natural. The salvaje and the
two types related to him are not degenerates but rather children of Nature.
A similar spirit we find among later historians who contrived to explain the Indian's
status theologically75. Jose de Acosta is one of the erudites who is very reluctant to
72
Wilhelm Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, trans. E. L. Sdiaub (London, 1928), p. 11.
73
For Nabudiadnezzar see Daniel 4:33, and for the hairy wild men Isaiah 13:21.
Cf. the story of "Eisenhans" in which the wild man is called dat dier (Jacob Grimm,
Kinder- und Hausmärchen [Berlin, 1812—1815], p. 50), and die ruhe Else who insists that
she is a gehttre (woman) (Wolfdie'trich, ed. Adolf Holtzman [Heidelberg, 1865], p. 79).
Green holds that "in Spain the interpretation of man's nature in the light of revelation is
of prime importance, . .. [and that] notes of triumphant optimism will be based primarily
on the Biblical assurance that man bears God's image and possesses the God-given power of
reason and free will." See ch. iv "The Nature and Destiny of Man" (Spain and the Western
Tradition, II, 106).
74
75
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-deny the Indians God's Grace, taking as his witness St. Augustine and S.Paul. He
•explains it through the concept of the lux naturalis, proving that even in the remotest
parts of the world, the nations shall receive the light of the Holy Scripture, made
available to them by the Divine Providence76.
We can divide our plays into two different categories, according to the particular
-attitude encountered in them. First, a negative class of salvajes, indios and barbaros
without the power or will to recognize Divinity; second, and opposed to the first,
a positive category of those types who are not opposed to change, and are willing to be
converted to Christianity either on an individual or on a collective basis.
A. Types opposed to recognition of Divinity. There are cases of salvajes equipped
with some human qualities like language and some reasoning power, who do not bear
God's image77. The Spanish dramatic embodiment can account only for one such case:
the two bestial wild men in Romero de Cepeda's Comedia Salvage.
In their power to conceive of the Divinity, the Spanish salvajes and the types related
to them, are quite different from the wild men represented by medieval literature, and
by most sixteenth and seventeenth-century West-European dramatists. Lope de Vega
and his followers preferred a changing dynamic type78, ready to embrace Christianity
or to strengthen his previously acquired beliefs. The vast majority of the historians'
accounts describe the conversion of the Indians in moving tones. Nevertheless, in El
premio de la hermosura, Lope denies to his caribe-like salvajes the possibility of
rehabilitating themselves by embracing the Christian faith. Unlike the Indians in the
account of Fray Bartolome de las Casas, these salvajes, and particularly their king
Gosforostro, continue in their barbarous life. They sacrifice to Diana, and their
complacency is best reflected by the king's speech itself (op. cit.y 465 b):
Luego el hombre
Se sacrifique a Diana,
Como en estas soledades
Ya por costumbres tenemos
Todos los anos.
Primarely he is devoid of one of the Christian virtues — compassion. Seeing the dead
body of Liriodoro, there is no emotion in the salvaje-\dn%. Unlike their ruler, his
lieutenants, Bramarante and Solmarino, are at least impressed by the youth's valor
(ibid., 477 z). In spite of this exception, these salvajes are quite similar to those Indians
in Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca's relation. Another case is that of Fray Luis Cancer
de Belbastro who came to preach to the indios in Florida. Having previously been badly
treated by the Spaniards, the Indians kill the Friar and his companions. Those Spaniards
who escaped, claimed that «gente tan barbara e inhumana no quiere oir sermones»79.
76
77
78
79
De procuranda indorum salute, bk. I, ch. v, p. 406 a.
Green, Spain and the Western Tradition, II, 106.
Term reserved primarily for class structure, and the movements within it.
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Historia de la Florida, bk. I, ch. iv, pp. 254 b—255 a.
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The European theater offers a few such savage types in the commedia dell'arte, and
in the English plays there is Bremo and Caliban. Although this type took root on other
soils, he did not fare well in Spain remaining an isolated phenomenon. It was hard
for a Spaniard to see a being die, even if remotely reminding him of man, without the
hope of salvation.
B. Types willing to be converted to Christianity. The first Christian salvaje in the
Spanish theater appears in the Coloqmo as early as 1530, but he is a caballero and a
hermit at the same time. Nor do the two salvajes in Timoneda's Farsa llamada Paliana,
who find the abandoned and exposed Infantico in the woods, show much difference
from civilized beings.
To a certain extent our three types possess the gift of knowing the necessity of God»
even if the knowledge of the true God has been temporarily denied them, and in order
to remedy their weakness, they are often ready to seek Him. Some philosophers thought
that the Indians were inferior creatures and had to be coerced, whereas others
others supported the doctrine of equality. We do not claim that in our comedias we
shall find a comprehensive reflection of this controversy; however, there are glimpses
of it.
Urson's final conversion, which eventually strengthened his free will and made him
shed his brutish impulses, comes more from a real experience than from the teachings
received from Luciano. The "natural light"80 comes to him in the form of gratefulness
for his delivery from Uberto's wrath by his brother Valentin (El nacimiento de Urson
y Valentin, 521 b). His previous knowledge of Christian doctrine is mostly shown by
his rather idle musing about Natura naturans81, and its most perfect creation, according
to Urson, a beautiful woman (ibid., 506 b).
For some strange reason, Queen Teodosia does not tell Rosaura a more favorable —
from the Christian point of view — story about the circumstances of the maiden's
birth, but reverts to the American Indian's mythology, and makes her believe that the
sun is her father (El animal de Hungria, 435 b). Although there is little doubt of the
Queen's religiosity — she takes Heaven for witness in her distress — the same is not
so clear in the case of Rosaura (op. cit.} 423 b). We could attribute this laxity to
poetic license. Lope de Vega needed Queen Teodosia and Rosaura in the mountains,
and at the same time wanted Felipe to meet an untamable maiden (ibid., 440). Her
full conversion is indirectly implied, and probably occurs after her social reinstatement.
Like Urson, Leonido is aware of having a soul, a knowledge partially due to his
spiritual father, Fileno, and also to the "natural light". Unlike previous salvajes,
80
81
According to Juan de Pineda's interpretation of St. Paul, even those beings who have never
received any laws to live by, possess a natural law which is sufficient for the salvation of
their souls (Green, Spain and the Western Tradition, II, 155).
According to St. Augustine — De Trinitate, 14,9 — it is: "ea Natura quae creavit omnes
caeteras instituitque naturas" (See Edmond Goblot, Le vocabulaire philosopkique [Paris,
1901], p. 358. Natura naturans is not to be confused with Natura naturata, which is created
but has no power to create (Green, Spain and the Western Tradition, II, 92). For debates
on this subject see Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y Espana, trans. Antonio Alatorre (M£xicoBuenos Aires, 1966), pp. 485—486.
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Leonido knows about eternal life and God Himself: «Y era Dios quien supo hacer, /
Mujer, tu divina cara» (El hijo de los leones, 226 a). In the palace, he learns that his
soul is capable of a greater moral strength of character than is that of the Prince,
his father (ibid., 232 c). Once more the woman, God's most perfect handiwork, is used
by Providence in the conversion of this young wild man of royal blood.
The doctrine of "natural light", used by Lope in individual cases to explain the
conversion or the strenghtening of belief of his salvajes, was also used by him in
collective cases of various indios and barbaros. In so doing, he was only echoing some
of the historians' accounts of the conversion of the Indians. Lopez de Gomara in his
chapter «Como los de Potonchän quebraron sus idolos y adoraron la cruz», states that
«con gran devocion y concurso de indios, y con muchas lagrimas de espanoles, se puso
una cruz en el templo mayor de Potonchan, y de rodillas la besaron y adoraron los
nuestros primero, y tras ellos los indios»82. Another revealing example about "natural
light" is given by Garcilaso el Inca in his Comentarios reales de los Incas: «... permitio
Dios Nuestro Senor que de ellos mismos [the Indians] saliese un lucero del alba, que
en aquellas oscurisimas tinieblas les diese alguna noticia de la ley natural, y de la
urbanidad y respetos que los hombres debian tenerse unos a otros .. ,»83.
There remains the second problem: how did the indios in Lope's comedias become
converted to Christianity? In El Nuevo M undo descubierto for Cristobal Colon,
Dulcanquellin is fiercely defiant in his following utterance: «Fuera del sol, ^hay alguno /
Que me haya desafiado?» (op. cit, 359 b). Tacuana swears by the Indian divinity, Ongol:
«Por nuestro divino Ongol, / Dios en que nos habla el sol, / De no apartarme de ti»
(ibid., 358 b). This Indian woman is also the first to pay heed to Tapirazu who senses
a miraculous power in the sign of the cross. It remains a matter of time for the Indian
cacique to go back on his words, and to declare convincingly: «Sin duda que es
verdadera / La cristiana religion; / Quien dijere que no, muera» (ibid., 378 b). His
conversion is a signal for all his subjects to embrace the new religion. A for Caupolidm,
this warrior becomes a Christian under much more tragic circumstances — dying in
great pain (El Arauco domado, 636 a).
It must be supposed that such conversions of the Indians may have provided Lope
de Vega with a model applicable to all peoples to whom the preaching of God's Grace
had been heretofore denied. In those of his plays we are dealing with, love is the
strongest ally of Christianity. Brianda (one of the fugitives from the palace of the
Duke of Alba who find temporary refuge in the strange valley of Batuecas) encounters
a willing audience in Giroto, particularly, when the barbaro watches this maiden's
delicate hands joining two branches in the sign of the Cross (Las Batuecas del Duque
de Alba, 523 a). Such individual meetings smooth the path towards a collective con7ersion, and it comes as no surprise when the Duke of Alba eventually performs the
ceremony of baptism in the spirit of perfect harmony between his men and the Batuecos
{ibid., 539 a). As in the previous comedia, the individual approach plays the same
8
Lopez de Gomara, II, 311 a.
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, Comentarios reales de los Incas, in Obras completas, ed.
P. Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, BAE, CXXXIV (Madrid, 1960), bk. I, ch. xv, p. 25 a, b.
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important role in Los Guanches de Tenerife. The beautiful canarias fall in love with the
young Spanish soldiers, and are the first to adore Christ. The following lines addressed
to captain Trujillo by Palmira, a barbara, illustrate the plausibility of an eventual
collective conversion of all the Guanches (op. cit., 318a):
Pero £como dejaran [the Guanches]
Por ese tu Cristo al sol?
Cuanto a mi, yo te prometo
Que le quiera desde aqui.
A parallel encounter, between Castillo and the barbara-pr'mcess Däcil, ends with the
same result. Equally important in this play, is the occurence of miracles. The first,,
performed by the Holy Virgin in a cave, attracts the strongest defenders of the old
faith. A similar reaction is evident during the appearance of Archangel Michael who
tells the Guanches about the birth of Our Savior. Bencamo, their king, readily becomes
their spokesman, and embraces Christianity with all of his people (ibid., 339 a). In
contrast to those two comedias, there is only an indirect allusion to San Diego's
endeavors in that part of the world (San Diego de Alcala, 54 b).
As for other European plays, they do not offer any attempt at a theological treatment
of the wild man. This may seem rather surprising at first sight, if one considers that
such types as the Italian selvaggi for instance, are tame and socially co-operative, but
the comparison contributes to underscore the religious concern of Spanish playwrights.
Conclusion
Let us now recapitulate our observations concerning each of the aspects we studied.
Starting with the physical ones, it is easy to note the resemblance between the salvaje's
and the indio's methods of self-preservation against bad weather, and the similarity
of their topographical environment. As for the barbaro — as crude as his habitat is —
he may show a more sophisticated taste, in some ways comparable to that of the
civilized dweller. At times it was difficult to discern a difference in attire between
the salvaje and the barbaro — both wear fells. It is the indio whom we see clad in
cloth, setting himself apart from the other two types. The weapons of the salvaje
in Lope's comedias could be designated generally as maces, although they varied from
a real mace to an uprooted tree. The same armament is displayed by the barbaros
residing in Spain. As to bow and arrows, they are reserved exclusively for barbaros and
indios. Both latter types are not above using maces as well. This leads us to the
conclusion that Juan de Timoneda may have presented the first and last salvaje with
bow and arrows. In contrast to Spain, other countries rather prefer the old iconographic
tradition.
As for the basic psychosocial trait, fierceness, we find all three of our types in both
categories: they either are unwilling to change or else show a more or less gradual shift
from fierceness to tameness, depending on their particular character. The best delineated
cases are the exposed salvajes. All others remain sketchy and comparable to those found
in Italian, English and French plays.
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Love does not perfectly follow all the courtly rules; nevertheless, in such form as it
does appear, it occurs more often than its counterpart, the amor ferino. True, some of
the courtly love themes are little more than suggestions, and often of quite a simplicistic nature. At any rate, it should not be forgotten that we are dealing with salvajes,
indios and barbaros, and that it is indeed remarkable that we found traces of any
form at all. Not a few of our characters — some of them protagnonists — have shown
an evolutionary trend, away from physical drive of indulgence towards a higher level
of feeling. The wild man in the European theater could not rise above the amor ferino,
or else did not manifest any signs of a sexual drive whatsoever.
There are few cases of our three types either following their inclination and not
using their free will or else being unconvincingly religious to the point of mere superficiality. Most of our types adhere to the following pattern. First, the barbaros9
conversion is comparable to the prevailing attitudes in Spain towards the Indians of the
New World. Lope uses the doctrine of "natural light" in individual cases with love
for a woman as its principal ally, and proceeds from there to the collective conversions.
Second, we have dynamic cases of salvajes who are found at the beginning of the play
partially dethroned from their seat of human dignity. As in many civilized characters,
their reasoning power is dormant and pragmatic, and their free will somewhat perverted. At the end of the play, after a psychological rebirth, and having regained their
ascribed status (i.e. a status acquired at birth, without regard for individual ability),
these wild men too are fully integrated into Christianity. No definite examples of either
of these two attitudes could be found in other European plays.
It is interesting to note that the impact of the American Indian upon the salvaje and
the barbaro is mostly evident in the physical aspects of our study. On the other hand,
the psychological and religious structures and attitudes seem to reflect the Gehalt and
the Gestalt of the Spanish Golden Age drama, as they were initiated by Lope de Vega84.
84
See Arnold G. Reidienberger, "The Uniqueness of the Spanish Comedia" Hispanic Review,
XXVII (1959), 303—316.
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