A. Diego de San Pedro: Political and Religious Ambivalence.
1. San Pedro’s La passión trobada and his ‘devota monja’.
From the first printed dedicatory verses of his long and popular Passion poem,
La passión trobada [PT. ID2892], Diego de San Pedro exhibits the ambivalence
that will characterize his approach to the topic of the Passion of Christ. This
likely converso descendent, not only a servant of the powerful Girón family, but
also what might pass for a professional writer in that era, was steeped in a
courtly ethos where comparisons between the fateful Passion of Christ and the
amatory passion of the courtly lover were made automatically without much
agonizing about their possible impiety, or at least not while the poet was still in
the full flush of youth. Thus when the PT was printed as a separate chapbook in
1494-95 or earlier[1] , we are confronted by what, in a less religious but more
politically correct age, seems in this context to be an extremely impious
dedicatory poem. The dedicatee is a young nun who has requested a Passion
poem from the poet, who in turn protests not only his inadequacy to the task (a
humility topos frequently used by San Pedro), but who falls instinctively into
courtly parody of the Passion, declaiming his undying love for the nun who is
told that the Passion of Christ recalls his own passion for her:
porque, por mal me hazer
en pago de mi servicio,
por burlar de mi saber,
me mandastes entender
en lo ageno de mi oficio.
El que está ya en religión
arrearse de justar,
burlar d’él es gran razón;
pues trobar yo la Pasión
no menos es de burlar,
[1]The earliest surviving manuscript version, without dedication, is ca. 1480 in the Cancionero de Oñate
Castañeda, Dutton sigle HH1. The known first printing without dedication was in a missing religious
cancionero, Zaragoza 1492, reprinted in the extant version of 1495 (Dutton 95VC) and surviving in a
manuscript copy of the early printing, Dutton’s ML1 (Dutton 1990).
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que mi proprio oficio es
llorar mi mala ventura;
llorar que nunca creéis
que sois la que me hazéis
mas triste que la tristura;
llorar que nunca me vi
sin cuidado y pensamiento;
llorar que amé y serví;
llorar que nunca sentí
lo que a vuestra causa siento. (OC 3:102, ID4370 I 2892}
In case she has missed the point, the poet repeats the sentiment more succinctly;
how can he compose the Passion when he couldn’t defend himself from the
passion which she has caused him?:
Ved, ¿cómo podrá saber
trobar la Pasión de Dios
quien nunca tuvo poder
de saber se defender
de aquella que le dais vos?
Pero sea comoquiera
vuestro mandado complido,
sea, que ser no deviera,
porque de estraña manera
havré de quedar corrido. (OC3: 103)
Some of these stanzas echo parts of the PT and Las siete angustias de Nuestra
Señora (SA, ID2895), proof if it is necessary that these stanzas are by the poet
and not added by a later hand:
Mas agora, ¿qué haré?
que sin mí vivo y estó;
¿cuál remedio me dare?
¿qué razones hallaré
comigo no estando yo? (OC 3:104)
4
This is echoed in PT st. 212 (OC 3: 202) and SA 23 (OC 1:158):
¿Adonde iré, qué haré,
hijo, bien de los mortales?
¿A quién me querellaré?
¿Con quién me consolaré?
¿A quién quexaré mis males?
Other stylistic quirks typical of San Pedro’s complex style of word play also
convince us that the poet is indeed San Pedro himself:
que queriendo como os quiero
a la clara está perdida;
y esperando, que no espero,
ser querido, desespero
de la vida de mi vida. (OC 3: 106)
The poet compares himself to the condemned man who postpones his death by
uttering as many last words as he can contrive; however the poet has stalled
enough, and will fulfil the request of the nun by beginning his poem, while
hoping that he can remedy his own passion by recounting the Passion of Christ,
and forget his love for her with God’s help:
Pues no es pequeña razón
que deva yo desear
tener tanta devotión,
que llorando la Passión
pueda la mía olvidar.
Tal la tenga, plega a Dios,
que me pueda remediar,
porque gozemos los dos:
yo de olvidaros a vos,
y vos de bien contemplar. (OC 3:106).
The presence of a ‘new’ poem which seems to be convincingly by Diego de San
Pedro, and which features in the ‘pliego suelto’ versions of the poem, but neither
in the original and longer manuscript version nor in the already shortened
cancionero version of the poem, suggests at least two possibilities to me. It
suggests that the poet himself abridged the longer manuscript version of the
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poem for publication, and that the first format was not the Zaragoza cancionero
format, but the chapbook format, as this would explain both the abridgment (for
an octavo format fitting a fixed number of foldings), and the new dedication
suitable for a work that is standing alone. The Zaragoza versions, also abridged,
would thus have been later than the publication as an individual work,
presumably not just before 1494-95, the date of the surviving chapbook princeps,
but before 1492, the date of the missing Zaragoza cancionero. (The other
manuscript version in the Lázaro Galdiano library seems to be manuscript copy
of the Zaragoza printing, and is not relevant to the discussion).
Thus Diego de San Pedro establishes himself in our imagination as a poet
who, when young, thought nothing of mixing pious and impious religious
imagery, even adding an amatory preface to a nun when he first took his long
religious poem, perhaps his first surviving work, to the print shop in the early
1490s, along with his two sentimental romances which had been so very popular
when they circulated in manuscripts through the Castilian court.
The most striking characteristic of the poet San Pedro is his chameleonlike adaptation to new circumstances, whether poetic or political. When his
political fortunes changed with the fall from fortune of the Girón dynasty, he
quickly realigned himself with the new queen, but without abandoning his
sponsors at Peñafiel. In his first sentimental romance, written most probably in
the early 1480s but not sent for printing until 1490, he dedicates the work to the
ladies of the Queen (particularly doña Marina Manuel, as he specifies in the
prologue to Cárcel de Amor) and is careful to include a laudatory poem to Isabel
with an implied but not too explicit comparison to the Virgin (Antón de Montoro
had already got in trouble with Queen Isabel for penning a poetic comparison
which she considered impious). Tractado de amores de Arnalte y Lucenda (AL)
also contains a reworking of a part of his earliest poem (PT), in Las siete
angustias de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María (SA). This was a more subtle way of
making the comparison than Montoro’s faux pas. But San Pedro seems to have
quick on his feet generally, perfectly happy to pen playful courtly poetry, a rude
verse or two if necessary, a long and a shorter religious poem (the latter
recycling some of the material of the former), a sentimental romance for the
ladies of the court and then another, better one for a kinsman of his patron, don
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Juan Téllez-Girón. As we have already seen, the young poet was equally careless
of his religious sentiment, mixing courtly love verse with Passion poem. As we
shall see, this mixture of the sacred and the sexual is characteristic of his love
lyric in particular.
7
2. Parody of the Mass in the Cancionero.
It is not the case that the advent of printing brought down a barrier on the
amorous impieties of Castilian cancionero poetry of the fifteenth century. In fact
most of San Pedro’s surviving courtly poems are first found in the Cancionero
general de Hernando de Castillo, published in Valencia in 1511. Diego de San
Pedro has three short amatory poems set during the Mass, one during the mass
of the Passion, in which he compares religious and sexual feelings in a fairly
explicit way:
Otra suya el Día de Ramos a la misma señora
Cuando, señora, entre nos,
hoy la Passión se dezía,
bien podés creerme vos,
que lembrando la de Dios
nasció el dolor de la mía.
Huir de dolencias tales
no sé quién me lo escusó,
porque bien sabía yo
que s’apegavan los males. (OC 3: 249; ID6185)
In case this casual impiety was not enough, the poet compounds the felony by
penning two more similar poems, a sure indication that one had found favour in
the court so others could follow:
Del mismo el Dia de Pascua de Flores
Nuestro Dios en este día
las tristes almas libró,
mas la mía, porqu’es mía,
en el fuego do solía
se quedó.
Y por crescer mis querellas
mandó la que obedescí
que se quedassen en mí
8
Las penas de todas ellas. (OC 3:250, ID6186).
This poem seems to go one better as far as impiety; while the first, on Palm
Sunday, compares the pain of sexual desire to the pain of Christ’s Passion, the
second, on Easter Sunday, claims that although Christ freed the souls of the dead
in the Harrowing of Hell, his own soul remains in Hell where he is suffering for
the pains of all those who were released from suffering. This sort of poem is
unlikely to have delighted Queen Isabel if she had heard it, and it might help to
explain why almost no courtly amorous verse was published while she was still
alive (Encina’s Cancionero being the only exception, with its healthy quotient of
religious poetry) (Severin 2004).
The final poem in the sequence of three is mild by comparison; it is set on
White Sunday (Easter 8)and makes oblique reference to the gospels which
recount the appearances of the resurrected Christ to his disciples:
Otra suya el Domingo de Casimodo
Una maravilla vi
sobre cuantas nos mostraron;
grande ha sido para mí
en ver que nos adoraron
pues estávades ahí.
mucho ciego, pocos ojos
vi en aquesta devoción;
más se vence por antojos
la vista que por razón. (OC 3: 250-50, ID6187)
This is of course the topos of the misa de amor: the lady enters the church and is
the centre of all attention and devotion.
These are not the only cases of casual impiety in San Pedro’s work; in
‘Señora en quien he mirado’ , he says that God has put all the perfection of the
other beauties in the lady, and completes the poem:
Y pues saber me negó
9
quien a vos os satisfizo,
a la mi fe digo yo
qu’os alabe Quien os hizo. (OC 3:251, ID4168)
This is suitably ambivalent; he might be saying that God must praise you because
I am not up to the task, or as in the case of several of his poems, he could even be
having a little joke at the expense of the lady. Let God praise you as I am
incapable of knowing how to satisfy you (or who satisfies you?).
Another poem, ‘Pues no sufre lo que siento’, also finishes with amorous
impieties and an explicit comparison of the passion of the poet to the Passion of
Christ:
Havedme ya compassión;
no muera con falta d’ella,
por amor de la Passión
de Quien quiso padescella
como yo, sin merescella. (OC 3:252, ID6188).
Apparently the poet was occasionally rebuked for his lack of piety, as he
writes one poem ‘porque su amiga le dixo que no se maldixesse, que se iría al
infierno’:
No temo, dama real,
el perdurable tormento,
porque la fuerça del mal
endurece el sofrimiento.
De donde puedo dezir
que los dolores de acá
aparescen al sentir
para que pueda sofrir
todos cuantos hay allá. (OC 3:263, ID6824).
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In other words, the poet claims to have become inured to the pains of Hell
because he has suffered such torments of unrequited lust in this life. This is our
best indication that San Pedro may indeed have had something to repent when
he wrote Desprecio de la Fortuna. He clearly had become case-hardened by
writing poetry of notorious impiety, even in an age which encouraged this type
of expression. He takes a rebuke for swearing as an occasion to show off his
poetic ability to make extravagant comparisons of the pains of his sexual
longings to the pains of the damned. In all of his poetry there is a strong feeling
of gamesmanship bordering on misogyny, as he occasionally writes a rebuke or
an obscene poem to a recalcitrant lady. He takes the foreplay of courtly love no
more seriously than he takes his religion; wearing them lightly would be an
understatement. And his political allegiances would seem to be no more
seriously considered. He is as unlikely a candidate as one could have found for
the author of the most popular religious poem of its day (PT), a poem that was
still being reprinted in pliegos sueltos in the nineteenth century, and which
formed the core of the first surviving Passion play of the early Renaissance,
Alonso del Campo’s Auto de la Passión.
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3. Sermón.
Keith Whinnom (OC II, 1973) has already done a fine analysis of Sermón,
placing it firmly in the rhetorical tradition of the sermon, but he was disturbed
by its ironic tone and he placed its composition between that of Arnalte (the
imperfect lover) and Cárcel (the perfect lover). However it can offer us a key to
open the door to reading courtly impieties in verse and prose. To summarize the
contents:
The sermon begins with a prayer to the god Love that he give tongue to
the preacher’s sorrow and that Faith (a lover’s constancy) be his saintly
mediator, offering his sighs for gracia, (grace, inspiration) to speak and be
understood. The sermonic text is written in the Book of the Dead at the seventh
chapter of Desire, and is affirmed by the Evangelist Affection: Bear your sorrows
with patience. The three parts of the sermon are 1. How ladies should be served
2. Consolations for sorrowful hearts 3. Advice to the ladies on how to remedy
their lovers (with double-entendre on the verb servir).
In the first part, the preacher declares that buildings should be built on a
firm foundation; therefore desire should be built on a foundation of secrecy. It is
better to die than to reveal the identity of the beloved. Advice on how the lover is
to behave with discretion is given. He must not chase after Desire, and seek
messengers, send letters, wear embroidered mottoes, to give away his lady’s
identity. He must suffer in silence, and not show the signs of love or challenge his
competitors to duels, nor should a sad visage reveal his suffering. In courtly
games he must never reveal the lady’s identity with mottoes of embroideries or
helmet decorations or the lady’s colours. He must be virtuous, liberal, temperate,
and well-bred in order to achieve his blessed hope. He is to keep his secret and
not speak of it to anyone, and to keep his own counsel.
The second part of the sermon is advice on how to endure suffering;
lovers who suffer illness, passion, tears, anguish and jealousy should console
themselves with he qualities of the beloved. The suffering is worth it if it causes
pity in the beloved, and if not, have confidence, faith and constancy. The lady
reminds us of the desire, passion, torment and suffering she causes, like the
wounds of battle which bring glory and fame with their suffering. If the lady says
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suffer, suffer, if die, then die, if condemn yourself, then go to hell in body and
soul. What she wants is the greatest good; everything is a lover’s guerdon for
you. And if you should die, what better death than one under the banner of your
lord? In death, there is life. You test your fortitude with your suffering. Receiving
death voluntarily shows resistance, and sustaining life with suffering shows
obedience.
This impious advice to die of love is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but San
Pedro will in fact write of one protagonist who survives to suffer (Arnalte) and
one who dies of love (Leriano). The subtext here is the Passion of Christ. The
advice that your glory will survive after you is unsound.
The final part of the Sermon is addressed to the ladies and is if possible
even more malicious than the first two parts. The ladies are advised on how to
remedy those who serve them. The preacher wishes to free their works from
fault and their souls from pain. For the health of their souls they should remedy
those whom they harm, for they are committing four of the deadly sins. First
pride, because they behave like God and thus offend. They are avaricious,
because they hoard the liberty, will, memory and heart of the ones who serve
them, and they will not return these until their servant dies. They are also guilty
of the sin of wrath because they tire of being importuned by those who serve
them. Finally they are slothful because they refuse to answer the beloved with
even one word. Lions and snakes kill; what do they suppose that people will say
about someone whose guerdon is death? They should love and redeem and
console. What have they done to their servants who are turned into witless
buffoons? Can they refuse them remedy? If the ladies argue that to remedy their
lovers’ ills would bring their soul to sin, the preacher says that the lovers only
want their pity and favourable countenance; the ladies will be praised for their
pity, not blamed for their sins.
The preacher having given this unsound advice to his parishioners and
accused them of deadly sins because of their chastity, he turns to one of the most
incongruous examples imaginable, that of Pyramus and Thisbe. The lovers meet
illicitly and against the will of their families. Thisbe flees a lion but leaves her
scarf behind. Pyramus finds her bloody scarf and thinking that she is dead, kills
himself. Thisbe too commits suicide upon finding her lover’s body. The preacher
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exhorts the ladies to imitate Thisbe not in her suicide but in her pity, for death
from desire is worse than death by suicide. If they ignore this advice, may
patience sustain those who suffer. And as it is noontime and all are now hungry
and want to leave to eat, let us be led to glory (another sexual euphemism).
The ludic quality of this sermon is unmistakable with its combination of
amorous impieties and unsound advice. But it is a valuable clue to how we
should read not just the works of Diego de San Pedro, but the prose and poetry of
courtly love in general. Courtly love is a religion but it is also a game in which the
tenets of Christianity are reversed into a world-upside-down. Ladies exhorted to
be chaste are encouraged in this alternate universe to be lascivious; men are to
suffer and commit suicide for love unrequited if they cannot seduce the lady in
question. Within this religion of love, it is unsurprising that extreme impieties
can be uttered with no fear of retribution. The comparison of the passion of the
lover and the pains of unrequited lust to the real Passion and wounding and
death of Christ is simply carrying this religious metaphor to its obvious
conclusion.
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4. La passión trobada, Siete Angustias, and Arnalte y Lucenda:
Ingratiation with Isabel’s new regime?
Elsewhere I have studied in depth the imagery and traditions of the
Passion as reinvented by San Pedro for the PT, and I will not repeat that exercise
here. However for the purposes of this study it might be useful to carry out some
close analysis of the poet’s style in this the first of his poems, and to look in
particular at the section of lamentations of the Virgin that he chooses to rework
as SA, as well as the discarded ending in the original Oñate manuscript version.
Also instructive is an analysis of the verses that he eliminates from the original
longer poem before he shortens it for printing purposes. There are a number of
unanswered questions that should be addressed (but not necessarily answered}:
1. Why did the poet not just shorten the ending for press rather
than rewriting it totally?
2. Why is the earliest version of the poem in the Cancionero de
Oñate attributed to Pedro de San Pedro?
3. Why does the section that became SA resemble San Pedro’s
normal style of writing more than the rest of the poem?
4. Why did a poet who was most comfortable writing courtly
impieties undertake PT in the first place?
5. Is there a proselytising intent in writing PT?
6. Is the poet trying to ingratiate himself with the new isabelline
regime in writing PT, or does that only occur when he imbeds the SA in
Arnalte?
First, why did the poet decide to rewrite thirty stanzas instead of just
reusing what he had already written? I will translated and paraphrase footnote
218 to the Whinnom/Severin edition of PT (OC III:199). From stanza 206 the
shorter printed sequence of events is as follows:
1. Planctus of the Virgin (4th Angustia). Sts 206-08.
2. The Virgin mistreated by the Jews. Sts 209-11.
3. Planctus. Sts 211-13.
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4. Mulier. Sts 214-16.
5. Inscription. St 217.
6. The Jews mock Christ. Sts 218-20.
7. The two thieves. Sts 221-22.
8. Hodie mecum. St 223a.
9. Eli, Eli. St 223b.
10. Sitio. St 224.
11. The vinegar. St 225.
12. Pater, in manus tuas. St 226a.
13. Consummatum est. St 226b.
14. Death. St 227.
15. Stanza to the Virgin. St 228.
16. The wound in the side. St. 229.
17. Earthquake and temple veil rent. St. 230-31.
18. Jews frightened. St 231.
19. The three Mary’s. St 232.
20. Joseph of Arimathia and Nicodemus. St 233.
21. Descent from the Cross. St 234.
22. Sepulchre. St 235.
23. Final stanza. St 236.
The sequence in the manuscript version is:
1. Sts 206A-212A).
2. (Sts 213A-214A).
4. (Sts 215A-216A).
10. (St 217A).
11. (St 218A).
13. (219A).
Pater dimitte illis (stanza 179* of the printed version).
6. (Sts 220A-221A).
7. (Sts 222A-223A).
8. (St 224A).
12. (St 225A).
16
14. (St 225A).
17. (Sts 225A-226A).
The Virgin faints (St 227A).
Lamentations of St John and Mary Magdalene (St 228A).
Words of the centurion (St 229A).
All return to the city except Virgin, St. John, Magdalene (St 230A).
The Jews want to break Christ’s legs (St 231A).
As He is dead they do not (St 232A).
16. (St 233A).
The Virgin faints again (Sts 234A).
20. ( 235A).
21. (St 236A).
Lamentations of the Virgin, confession of the Apostles (St 237A-264A).
Even if the theory that the poem was abridged for printing is correct, the poet
simply needed to cut the manuscript version at stanza 235A and add a final
stanza in order to cover all of Christ’s death and burial that is recounted in the
manuscript. It seems that he may have rewritten the ending in order to be more
through and to include all of the Passion material in the four Gospels. (3, 5, 9, 15,
18-19). Another possibility is that the poet for some reason had only an
incomplete version of the poem available to him and was obliged to rewrite the
ending, but omitted the long aftermath with the Virgin and the Disciples, all of
which is Apocryphal and difficult to document even in extant medieval versions
of the Passion.
This brings us to question number two, is Pedro de San Pedro a mistake
of attribution in the ca. 1480 Oñate manuscript, before Diego de San Pedro
became well-known for the printings of the 1490s (someone misreading a Dº as
a Pº), or was he a relative of Diego de San Pedro whose poem was appropriated
by the poet and who later added extensive lamentations in order to create a
free-standing poem, the SA? Joseph Gwara has speculated in an unpublished
paper delivered at a recent Kalamazoo medieval conference that Diego de San
Pedro might have expropriated not only the PT but also the Arnalte from a
relative. This solution is perhaps too baroque, unless we speculate that there
was an earlier version of the PT without the planctus passages, which certainly
17
bear the hallmarks of Diego de San Pedro’s poetic style, much more so than the
rest of the PT. The manuscript theft solution could, however, be invoked to
explain question number three, why does the section that became SA resemble
San Pedro’s normal style of writing more than the rest of the poem? It also
might explain why the poet might have had to supply a missing ending, as it is
easier to imagine him having an incomplete manuscript of someone else’s poem
than an incomplete manuscript of his own poem. However the loss of a
manuscript is not an impossibility; one thinks of James Mabbe’s translation of
Celestina, which was done twice over, once in 1600 and once thirty years later
for the printed version.
This brings us to the last three inter-related questions, what was the
intention of the writer in tackling material so far removed from his normal
interests and approach. The PT seems to be totally serious and doctrinal, unlike
his impious courtly poetry. It is obvious that the material which really interested
him were the lamentations of the Virgin, more in keeping with his usual poetic
style, and considered worthy of a separate development in the SA and inclusion
in the Arnalte. It would seem that this is a clue to the reason for writing and
rewriting this material. Arnalte is an obvious attempt to ingratiate himself with
the queen and to realign himself away from his disgraced patrons the Girones. Of
course doctrinal poetry intended to proselytize and inform the converted Jews of
the story of the Passion would also be on the agenda of Isabel, so his early poem
was ripe for recycling not only in the popular and printed (in 1491) sentimental
romance, but also in the printed chapbook PT. The parallel poems in Arnalte, the
panegyric to Isabel and the SA, make an implied comparison between the Queen
and the Virgin without making the mistake of actually comparing the Queen to
the Virgin. Whatever the original intention when the young poet wrote PT, he
saw the advantage of printing it for wider circulation and including an enhanced
portion of it in his innovative new fiction for the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting.
The really interesting part of the PT is the ending, in the manuscript
version, which was lost for printing purposes. The final thirty stanzas show a
development of the theme of the repentant apostles who had abandoned Christ,
which I have been unable to trace in other similar (often dramatic) versions of
the Passion in European literature. Perhaps this was dropped because it was felt
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to be too unorthodox and to removed from the Biblical accounts of the Passion
(unlike the lamentations of the Virgin, an established tradition which allowed for
poetic development). If proselytizing was a prime intention, then it would not be
useful to develop fictionalised endings for the Gospel versions. All of the
apocryphal material in the Passion story up to his death are well-established and
allowable within official Church doctrine. The manuscript ending of the Oñate
version is not.
An analysis of the SA stanzas recycled from the PT show that they are all
from the third and fourth lamentations of the Virgin, and that no part of the
manuscript ending of PT features in the SA poem, but that one stanza from the
shorter printed ending of PT does feature, proof positive if it is needed that the
‘new’ printed ending is by the hand of our poet. I set out below the SA and the PT
stanzas from the OC edition of the poems, so that a comparison of the few
changes can be made.
PT
SA
182b
13
sacando con ravia esquiva
Sacando con rabia esquiba
sus cabellos a manojos,
sus cabellos a manojos,
diziendo: Madre captiva,
diziendo: Madre catiba,
anda si quieres ver viva
anda si quieres ver viva
a la lumbre de tus ojos.
a la lumbre de tus ojos;
183
y deves te priessa dar,
y débeste priesa dar
la mayor que tú podrás,
la mayor que tú podrás
que si imos de vagar,
que si imos de vagar
según yo lo vi tratar,
segund lo vimos tratar,
nunca vivo lo verás.
nunca vivo lo verás
Haz tus pies apressurados;
14
Haz tus pies apresurados
corre, pues tanto lo amavas,
corre, pues tanto lo amavas
porque no halles quebrados
porque no halles quebrados
aquellos ojos sagrados
aquellos ojos sagrados
19
en que tú te remiravas.
en que tú te remiravas
186b
16
la cual iva descubierta,
Fuiste con dolor cubierta
la cual su cara resgava,
por el rastro que fallavas;
la cual iva biva muerta
fuiste viva casi muerta
de frío sudor cubierta
de frío sudor cubierta
del cansacio que levava.
del cansancio que lebabas;
188b
Y con ansia que levava
y con ansias que pasabas
de sus cabellos asía
de tus cabellos asías,
a menudo desmayava.
y a menudo desmayabas,
y a las gentes que topava
y a las dueñas que topabas
lo que se sigue dezía:
destas manera dezias;
189
17
Amigas, las que paristes,
Amigas, las que paristes,
ved mi cuita desigual;
ved mi cuita desigual
las que maridos perdistes,
las que amastes y quesistes,
las que maridos perdistes,
llas que amastes y quesistes,
llorad comigo mi mal.
llorad comigo mi mal;
Mirad si mi mal es fuerte,
mirad qué mal es tan fuerte
mirad qué dicha es la mia;
mirad qué cativa suerte,
mirad mi captiva suerte,
mirad qué dicha es la mía,
que le están dando la muerte
que le están dando la muerte
a un hijo que yo tenía.
a un fijo que yo tenía.
190
18
el cual mi consuelo era,
El cual mi consuelo hera,
el cual era mi salud,
el cual era mi salud
20
el cual sin dolor pariera,
el cual sin dolor pariera,
El amigas, bien pudiera
el cual, amigas, pudiera
dar virtud a la virtud.
dar virtud a la virtud;
En Él tenía marido,
en él tenía marido,
hijo y hermano y esposo;
fijo y hermano y esposo;
de todos era querido;
de todos era querido;
nunca hombre fue nascido
nunca hombre fue nascido
ni hallado tan hermoso.
ni fallado tan hermoso.
(OC, III: 189-193)
200
22
¡O fación en quien solién
¡O imagen a quien solién
los ángeles adorar!
los ángeles adorar!
¡O mi muerte, agora ven!
¡O mi muerte, agora ven!
¡O mi salud y mi bien!
¡O mi salud y mi bien
¿quién te pudo tal parar?
quién vos pudo tal parar?
¡O cuánto bien me viniera,
¡O que tan bien me viniera,
o qué tan bien yo librara
o que tan bien yo librara,
que, antes que assí te viera,
que deste mundo saliera
d’este mundo yo saliera
antes que yo tal vos viera,
porque tal no te mirara!
porque nunca así os mirara!
204
21
Vos nunca a nadi enojastes,
Vos nunca a nadie enojastes,
hijo mío, mi Señor;
fijo, coluna del templo,
siempre la virtud amastes;
siempre los buenos amastes,
siempre, hijo, predicastes
siempre, hijo, predicastes
doctrinas de grand valor.
Dotrinas de grand exemplo;
Siempre, hijo, fue hallada
siempre, hijo, fue hallada
en vuestra boca verdad;
en vuestra boca verdad;
pues ¿por qué es assí tractada
pues ¿por qué es assí tratada
vuestra carne delicada
vuestra carne delicada
con tan cruda crueldad?
con tan grande crueldad?
21
(OC, III: 197-98)
212
23b
¿Adonde iré, qué haré,
Vida muerta viviré,
hijo, bien de los mortales?
con ansias muy desiguales.
¿A quién me querellaré?
Fijo mío ¿que haré?
¿Con quién me consolaré?
¿con quién me consolaré?
¿A quién quexaré mis males?
¿a quién quexaré mis males?
(OC, III: 202)
(OC, I: 154-158)
No stanzas from the manuscript ending are used in SA, perhaps because
there are no lamentations of the Virgin in direct speech in this section. In fact the
new ending of PT is not only shorter but also more dramatic and more usable for
dramatization because of the quantity of direct speech. As can be seen above
there are few changes in the sections of PT that have been recycled in SA. There
is the odd recast stanza, perhaps because of a change of direct address to a
familiar tú. The most altered stanza is the last one, 212/23b. The style of the SA
version again suggests the courtly verse that San Pedro is accustomed to using:
‘Vida muerta vivire/con ansias muy desiguales’.
The most curious characteristic of the discarded ending is the
reappearance of the disgraced apostles, who are berated by the Virgin and who
then confess their sins. I have been unable to locate this episode elsewhere,
although I would welcome any notice of its appearance in drama or poem or
prose works. I quote the relevant stanzas below, and wonder whether their
apocryphal nature led to their suppression:
258A
Los diciplos se venían
cada uno de do andava
con el miedo que tenían,
escondidos se metían
donde la Virgen estava.
La Señora les dezía:
22
¿Dó dexáis Vuestro Señor?
Ninguno le respondía
con la vergüença que havía.
mas lloravan con dolor.
259A
Pedro dixo vergonçoso,
puestos los ojos en tierra,
llorando muy amargoso,
que se non dava reposso
como faze aquel que yerra;
y las barvas se mesando
llamávase pecador,
y consigo en tierra dando
ante todos confesando:
Yo negué a mi Señor.
260A
Andrés el buen pescador
dixo con grande gemido:
Yo con sobra de temor
desanparé mi Señor
y le fui desconocido.
Las rodillas en el suelo
sus cabellos se mesava;
fazía muy grande duelo,
altas las manos al cielo
perdón a Dios demandava.
261A
Jacobo el Zebedeo
con vergüença muy turbado
y los fijos del Alffeo,
23
con ellos vinié Tadeo,
publicando su pecado.
Todos dizién: Cuando vimos
los judios con tremor,
con el miedo que sentimos
todos, Señora, füimos
y dexamos al Señor.
262A
Luego entró Bartolomé,
toda la barva mesada,
diziendo: Yo so el qu’erré,
pues que la fé quebranté
qu’al Señor tenía dada.
Con recelo de morir
y gran miedo que tenía,
la verdad quiero dezir,
vi a los otros füir,
y foí en su conpañía.
263A
Llorando dixo Tomás,
el gesto disfigurado,
con gran tisteza demás:
D’hoy para siempre jamás
lloraré mi gran pecado.
Vi a mi Señor prender
y a los judíos levar;
deviera le socorrer;
fuime, mezquino, esconder,
y dexélo maltratar.
(OC, III: 235-37)
24
Although the role-call of the disciples is incomplete, the anger of the
Virgin and their repentance provides a curiously downbeat coda for the poem.
The poet decides to recast this ending in the printed versions to provide a more
rigorously biblical denouement, although unlike Comedador Román, he doesn’t
continue with verses on the Resurrection.
This brings us back to the final questions about the intention of the author
in writing this poem. If we regard it as a poem of two or even three stages-manuscript version, printed version, excerpted stanzas re-elaborated as SA—
then I think that we can attribute various intentions at various stages. As an early
work, possibly predating even his courtly poetry, there could have been a
genuine proselytising factor, in that himself the descendant of conversos, Diego
de San Pedro may have wished to communicate the Passion story to fellow
converts in simple and graphic language, easily committed to memory or
dramatised. As a more worldly-wise and cynical courtier, one who played with
the theme of the Passion for his impious poetry, he could have decided to recycle
some of his material for SA and insert it in the Arnalte as an oblique compliment
to Queen Isabel, with whom he needed to ingratiate himself. Finally, when it
came to printing all of his work, both PT and the two sentimental romances, it
seems likely that the poet himself reworked PT to be closer to the biblical story
of the Passion in a period when orthodoxy was coming under scrutiny. By now
Diego de San Pedro was the closest thing that the Spanish court had to a
professional writer, admitting himself in his Cárcel prologue that he was writing
material on demand for the courtiers who had admired his previous novella for
the ladies of the Queen. As he progressed in his new vocation, the lieutenant of
the huge Girón castle at Peñafiel became more sure of his literary powers: the
Sermón is an indication of how far he thought he could go with his amorous
impieties and guying of religious observance.
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5. Desprecio de la Fortuna: Repentance?
1490s Spain became increasingly unsafe for conversos whose religious
orthodoxy could be challenged. At some point in his middle to old age Diego de
San Pedro wrote a long poem repenting the work of his youth and apologizing
for his incitement to others to sin. The earliest surviving printing of this work is
in 1506, although we do not have concrete evidence that the poet was still alive
at that time. Of course we can regard this as a commonplace testament poem
repenting of one’s youth, but the evidence seems to point to a serious intent on
the part of the poet, who bothers to list a number of his works that he condemns
for their lack of suitable material. The prologue to this work he dedicates to the
Count of Urueña, for whom he has worked for the past 29 years, and who like he
is suffering poverty. His pen has been silent for some time, but he writes at the
instigation of other nobles at the court, and he quotes himself in the Cárcel
prologue, ‘conviene que el razonamiento del que dize sea conforme a la
condición del que oye’ (OC, III:273).
Although the poem owes most of its content to a conventional reading of
Boethius De consolatione philosophiae and Cartagena’s translation of the pseudoSeneca De providentia (and the glosses found in the printed Spanish translations
of these works), and is a largely uncontroversial attack on wealth and fortune,
praising the virtues of poverty, of more interest in this context are the
refutations by the poet of his own poetry and prose:
1. Mi seso lleno de canas,
de mi consejo engañado,
hasta aquí con obras vanas
y en escrituras livianas
siempre anduvo desterrado.
Y pues carga ya la edad
donde conosco mi yerrro,
afuera la liviandad,
pues que ya mi vanidad
ha complido su destierro.
26
2. Aquella Cárcel de Amor
que assí me plugo ordenar,
¡qué propia para amador,
qéue dulce para sabor,
qué salsa para pecar!
Y como la obra tal
no tuvo en leerse calma,
he sentido por mi mal
cuán enemiga mortal
fue la lengua par el alma.
3. Y los yerros que ponía
en un Sermón que escreví,
como fue el amor la guía
la cegueda que teníea
me hizo que no los vi.
Y aquellas cartas de amores
escriptas de dos en dos,
¿qué seran, dezí, señores,
sino mis acusadores
para delante de Dios?
4. Y aquella copla y canción
que tú, mi seso, ordenavas
con tanta pena y passión
por salvar el coraçón
con la fe que allí le davas;
y aquellos romances hechos
(por mostrar el mal allí)
para llorar mis despechos,
que serán sino pertrechos
con que tiren contra mí?
27
5. Mas Tú, Señor eternal,
me sey consuelo y abrigo
con tu perdón general,
que sin gracia divinal
no sabré lo que me digo.
Y pues Tú, mi Dios Sagrado,
de bondades eres fuente,
plégate, Señor, de grado
absolverme en lo passado
y ayudarme en lo presente.
(OC, III: 275-77, ID6007)
This is most interesting because it seems to list all of his non-religious
work; Cárcel, Arnalte (‘cartas de amores . . de dos en dos’), Sermón, canciones
and coplas, and even romances (although obviously not all of these poems may
have reached us). According to the poet, Cárcel seems to have been particularly
popular and to have caused a particularly bad reaction: ‘Y como la obra tal/no
tuvo en leerse calma’. In his old age, the poet takes responsibility for causing
lascivious behaviour in the court, and begs God to forgive him and help him in his
decline. Curiously he doesn’t cite his most popular work, PT, in his defence. Yet
future generations of popular Spanish readers would remember him for this (in
Spanish chapbook printing into the nineteenth century), and not for his
sentimental romance that was popular at court. (In fact, Arnalte eventually was
so widely circulated in Europe in translations that it became the model for
Cervantes’s Cardenio episode of Don Quijote and for a missing, now recently
reconstructed, Shakespearean play).
Curiously San Pedro was an innovator, not only in his invention of the
Spanish short courtly novel, but also in his Passion poem. The Castilian drama
was in its infancy, and this poem became the kernel for one of the first long
Passion plays of late medieval Spain, Alonso del Campo’s Auto de la Passión. As it
was more dramatic than competitors like Roman’s Coplas de la Pasión con la
Resurección, and both longer and earlier than Encina‘s and Fernández’s short
Passion plays, it has become a landmark of early theatre as well.
28