The Comédia do Viúvo
[In the following excerpt, Garay studies the structure of the Comédia do Viúvo, maintaining that the play functioned as a means of conveying ideology rather than as merely entertainment.]
Gil Vicente's Comédia do Viúvo has received the most varied aesthetic opinions from Vicentine scholars. Most of these opinions censure the dramatic piece, but none, to my knowledge, has dealt in any significant depth with the structure of the Comédia itself. This, of course, would be the first logical step in assessing its aesthetic value, both historically (as a genre) and as an artistic example of the Portuguese dramatist's genius.
Among those that believe in the artistic merit of the Comédia do Viúvo stands Thomas Hart who notes that “… a la mayor parte de los lectores, la Comedia del viudo les parece dos acciones distintas, muy torpemente ligadas entre sí. Tal interpretación, sin embargo, no me parece muy acertada” (xxxvii).
This critic begins his explication of the Comédia's significance with a very brief outline of the plot and, in so doing, renders an interesting interpretation of its meaning, marred only by the paucity of details that the scope of his study demanded. In his observations we note that, once again, the secularizing tendency of Gil Vicente's humanist comédia will focus its attention on the monarch as the sovereign prince whose command is a reflection of Divine governance; that is, as “vicarius Dei supra terram” (xl).
This repeats the thematic concern—already observed in the Comédia de Rubena—with the harmonious ordering of conflicting secular phenomena as a reflection of God's plan for man. In the Comédia, this idea is given structural reality through the dramatic technique of incorporating the audience into its denouement: Prince D. João (later D. João III), who must be present in the audience (fictionally, that is) in modern renditions of that play, decided ex cathedra the fate of the fictional characters (Melicia and Paula). This blending of both realities, the fictional and the circumstantial, leads us to believe that play performing was more than just entertainment at this time, it was also a serious ideological tool of the monarchy.
The earliest detailed account of the Comédia do Viúvo's artistic excellence belongs to the unpublished study of Andrews who very clearly points out that [the Comédia] … responds to an involved and intricate exposition of the theme of matrimony” (Artistry 138). Complementing the opinion of Hart, Andrews adds that:
Upon the cloth of this simple theme, Gil Vicente has woven an intricate and complicated tapestry whose main dialectical design of love gains depth and perspective with the interplay of light and shadows, of life and death. The entire Comédia is a veritable tour de force of coalescing synthesis.
(138)
I have already noted the special interest of comedy with the subject of marriage, not only as a social necessity reflecting the moral ordering of divine justice, but also as a symbol of political stability through national strength. Andrews is careful to point out that the structure of the work—the basic interplay of “antipodal pairs” that underlies its composition—is deliberately intended to communicate a coherent vision of reality through the use of contrastive symbols: “Gil Vicente's main interest in the interaction and opposition of contrasts lies in their reconciliation and unification” (140). The idea of “reconciliation” of opposite entities reflects Gil Vicente's notions of comedic form as related to his preoccupation with “pacíficas concordanças,” a constant and essential premise for understanding his work.
One of the more recent interpretations of the Comédia is that of Edward A. Riggio who, in opposition to T. P. Waldron's aesthetic evaluation (“[a] primitive specimen of the genre”), and in agreement with the judgement of Andrews, has observed that “Such skillfully placed and carefully timed, modes of contrasts seem to indicate that Vicente has created in the Comédia do Viúvo a play of greater artistry than has been generally appreciated” (103).1
Although the critical perspective toward this Vicentine play would appear to be gaining more and more grounds for analytical evaluation, there are still those who would think that the Comédia is aesthetically obtuse. Stephen Reckert, for example, has reserved one brief comment about the Comédia in which he compares it with the Tragicomédia de Don Duardos, “… para la que la Comedia del Viudo puede considerarse un delicioso borrador en miniatura” (38).
Although the category of “delicioso borrador” does not do sufficient justice to the dramatic piece, which merits much more historical and aesthetic consideration than that given by Reckert, it must still be considered a valuable opinion as compared to the more stern views of Humberto López Morales:
Las comedias adolecen de una desproporción, ya notada por Dámaso Alonso en su estudio de Don Duardos, y de la cual la Comedia del viudo es, sin duda, el ejemplo más representativo. No se trata sólo de un conglomerado de escenas de arbitraria duración, sino de la mezola inarmónica [!] e inhábil de dos argumentos diferentes. El resultado es tan pobre, que, a pesar de su buena voluntad, Thomas Hart no logra convencer a nadie de que la comedia sea algo más que unas pesadas consideraciones morales sobre el comportamiento de la mujer en el matrimonio, seguidas de una intriga con príncipe disfrazado de rústico.
(209)
It is unfortunate that the opinions of the censuring critic were not more extensively explained, for they might have proven the austerity of his critical perspective. The same may be said concerning a more recent study of Paul Teyssier (1982), whose first contribution to Vicentine studies—a linguistic analysis of Gil Vicentine's works—is still the most completely critical evaluation of its kind. His opinion about the Comédia do Viúvo, however, like that of López Morales, is too severe in its conclusive remarks concerning the play and its importance; and, once again, the critical stance is not detailed enough to sustain his critical stance: “Tal é a peça, um tanto incoerente e, para falar com clareza, medíocre” (91).
These objections echo those of António J. Saraiva for whom the Comédia was an “irregular” dramatic piece which paradoxically was an example of a genre—the “comédia romanesca”—“… por onde o drama entrou no teatro” (129). In his investigation, Saraiva questioned the coherence of the Comédia's structural pattern: “Mas qual a relação das duas partes? Qual o papel do viúvo? Parece que o viúvo desempenha duas funções diferentes, uma na qualidade de viúvo, outra na de pai de duas filhas, e que é esta a única ligação entre os dois episódios” (130-31). We know, however, that the opinions of the Portuguese critic were admittedly conditioned by a false historical perspective which he later rectified; namely, the application of modern dramaturgical conventions to the work of a Peninsular humanist playwright. To what extent his influential remarks about the Comédia influenced subsequent opinions, is a matter of serious concern.
These disapprovals of the Comédia, however, are totally misleading (as Saraiva later admitted), and, furthermore, they fail to objectify the reasons for the rebuttal. They contribute little to an understanding of the work's intrinsic design—actantial plot movement—as well as to the immanent and complex configuration of symbolic associations (“thought and language”). In addition to this, these censuring views overlook the privileged position of the Comédia within the corpus of Vicentine dramaturgy, for the Comédia is a prime example not only of the comédia genre, but also of a transitional piece between that particular genre (comédia) and the more novelesque tragicomedies that were developed from this very important dramatic form.
Furthermore, if in this Comédia we accept the biographical account of many “Vicentistas,” we may discern in its structure a deeply felt reflection of, and personal commitment to, those notions of the harmonious assimilation of discord that Gil Vicente had discussed in his letter to the king, D. João III, in 1531. That biographical theory, expounded especially by Brito Rebelo, Queirós Veloso and Braamcamp Freire, identifies the author with the “viúvo” of the dramatic piece. The biographical account does not, in any way, prove or disprove that the structural design of the Comédia is reflective of that personal perspective, yet it does cast some interesting and revealing light onto the author's artistic projection as related to his pervasive concern and personal involvement with these notions (Oscar de Pratt 179-84). Although the idea is interesting, the facts seem to disprove the identification of the fictional “viúvo” with Gil Vicente. Pratt convincingly traces the biographical theory and finally rejects it:
Eu não quero negar a possibilidade da viuvez e segundo casamento de Gil Vicente, se isso importa às conclusões da genealogia vicentina. O que pretendo é apenas pôr em evidência o nulo valor documental do chamado epitáfio de Branca Becerra, reputando também extremamente fantasiosa a suposição de que a Comédia do Viúvo expresse sentimentos subjectivos e descreve situações da vida íntima do poeta, sem estabelecer, entre os supostos factos da vida do autor e a idealização dramática, nenhuma conexão ou concordância.”
(184)
Whatever theory is accepted, biographical or not, the Comédia do Viúvo will be studied here as an expression of the author's aesthetic and social concerns conditioned, as they must always be, by literary convention and philosophical world view; none of which necessarily needs authorial identification with the fictional account (cf. Juan Ruiz, El Arcipreste de Hita). Like the procedure that was chosen in the discussion of the Comédia de Rubena, the analysis that follows is an attempt to re-define more critically those views which delve into the structure of the dramatic piece so as to uncover its semiological system of communication. As in the Rubena, the only historical interest that concerns this study will be that which will help define the concept of genre (comedia) as it applies to the investigation of the work's structural design. The logic of its design, of its structural system, will necessarily reflect the ideological context, the semantic world it mirrors.
The action that Gil Vicente imitated in this Comédia is best defined if we turn to the Comédia de Rubena. There too, we will recall, the main action represented a thematic concern with honor (honra), a concept extremely important to the Peninsular codes of ethical standards and, consequently, to the development of the comedia form. Unlike the Comédia de Rubena, however, we are closer in the Comédia do Viúvo to a causally related plot design. Whether this is a natural, evolutionary, consequence of Gil Vicente's dramaturgical skills or not, is a matter that is debated by critics who would have the Comédia represented in 1514 (cf. Copilação) as opposed to those who assign it to a later date (e.g., Révah and Teyssier). Pratt suggests that it was written earlier but “retouched” at a later date:
A Comédia do Viúvo, representada a D. Manuel em 1514, foi retocada depois de 1521, isto é, depois da aclamação de D. João III. Prova-o claramente uma das rubricas finais, a qual só poderia ter sido redigida depois deste facto: “Tirou dom Rosvel o chapeyrão & ficou vestido como quem era, & forão se as moças a el Rey dom João III, sendo principe, que no seram estava, & lhe perguntarao. …
(179)
This would explain the insertion of the biographical materials that reflect an earlier date of composition.
In the Comédia do Viúvo we observe a tighter concept of dramaturgical design which, nonetheless, remains far from the Aristotelian notions of organic unity; at least as it was interpreted by Renaissance (neo-classic) playwrights and theorists. Still, the unity is much more coherent than previous Vicentine attempts not only in terms of unity of time but also of place. The spatial dislocation and superimposition of different planes of reality which was observed in the Rubena is now reduced to a minimum in this Comédia: a remark about D. Rosvel's whereabouts as related to his parents by witches. It is also important to observe the conspicuous lack of introductory explanation, of prologic or interlogic material by a character that does not participate in the stage action. In this sense, and from a modern perspective of dramaturgical skills, Vicente's artistry excels that of Naharro who invariably used such a procedure to introduce his dramatic action. Only in the end does this concept of unity become distorted by the deus ex machina finale in which D. Rosvel, as himself, interrupts the stage fiction to ask the prince (who later became King D. João III), present in the audience, to decide which of the two girls (Paula or Melicia) should wed first. It is also important to note that this ending, more than just an ingenious technical device, allies the theme of the play's action with the court reality (i.e., D. João), which is very significant to the thematic constant (the king as vicarius Dei supra terram) already noted in the Comédia de Rubena.
This kingly vision of authority, where the supreme secular leader brings Christian ethics to an unruly world, is the ideological foundation not only for the Vicentine comédia but also for that which later became the prime example of the Spanish Golden Age of drama: “En el espíritu, o más bien en la concepción de la vida, el teatro español de entonces [The Golden Age] se centra en tres ideas, o quizá sea mejor decir sentimientos, inmutables: honor, monarquía y fe católica” (Angel and Amelia Del Río). This concept of comedia distinguishes also that type of comic drama that we have been observing in the Vicentine comédia forms. Del Río observes the following notions of the comedia that reflect the Vicentine design:
El honor se presenta en el teatro—dejando aparte las exageraciones en que frecuentemente caen muchas comedias—como el patrimonio esencial de la vida, síntesis de la dignidad humana, de la propia estimación, y sujeto a una ley inflexible según la cual toda ofensa a la honra de la mujer requiere reparación inmediata o venganza sangrienta. La idea monárquica, combinada con un sentimiento democrático de carácter muy especial, se traduce en la lealtad al rey, símbolo y ejecutor de la justicia, ante quien todos—el noble y el villano—son iguales. El fondo católico se ve claro en la multitud de asuntos religiosos que el teatro trata, siempre dentro de los límites de la ortodoxia.
(355)
Although relatively little attention has been given to these two plays (i.e., Rubena and Viúvo), especially as they relate to their specific ideological context and as precursors of the Golden Age comedia, it seems most appropriate to consider the importance of these motifs of faith, honor, and the monarch in these two Vicentine dramatic works. Margaret Wilson observes that “The three great motifs of Golden Age drama are undoubtedly religion, love and honour” (42). Love, of course, is the traditional harmonizing principle (rarely divorced in the Iberian Peninsula from theological orthodoxy) that orients the basic motif of honor. Wilson is quick to point out that the all encompassing concept of honor, which according to her was first used by Torres Naharro (43), was a code which:
… regulated all social relationships: those between king and subject, between superior and inferior, between friend and friend, and between members of the same family. … Its basis is the paramount importance of the right ordering of social relationships.
(43)
These same concepts are dramatized, however “primitive” the dramatic skills of the author, in the two Vicentine plays in question.
In the Comédia do Viúvo there is an expressed intention to place in the hands of the future prince of Oxford, D. Rosvel, the elevation of moral virtues when he explains to his brother, Gilberto, that he should marry the younger Melicia:
Amparemos e honremos
huérfanas tan preciosas,
que en las cosas virtuosas
los estremos.
Villas y tierras tenemos;
hagamos esta hazaña
que quede exemplo en España,
y no tardemos.
Toma ésta por muger
y a mí darás la vida
y ternás muger nacida
a tu plazer.
Quien casa por solo haver,
casamiento es temporal.
(156-57)
The central unifying motif of marriage, as we noted in Rubena, serves here, once again, to sanction, before God and his secular social representative (the Prince, D. Rosvel), the union of two distinct social castes. Unlike the farces (e.g., Inês Pereira), where marriage is satirically depicted, here the holy sacrament performed by the (deus ex machina) “clérigo” is a serious statement about God and society, one which must be contrasted with the opposing views of the “compadre” at the beginning of the play.
The thematic blending of upper and lower or middle class individuals in the final wedding vows points to a very significant aspect of the Vicentine comédia. It reflects a preoccupation with two economic levels that Gil Vicente, as he insinuated in his letter (1531), wanted to harmonize. Whereas in the Spanish Golden Age comedia the “democratizing” characteristics of the plays uncover a need to exalt the Old Christian (“cristiano viejo”), the “labriego,” in the face of a corrupted, perhaps impure aristocracy, these comédias delight in harmonizing two levels that, at the time, needed mutual support: the aristocracy and the new nobility or the merchant (perhaps “converso”) class that promoted the type of dynamic, economic activity that was needed in the early Renaissance. It is known that Gil Vicente promoted economic support for the king (D. Manuel) in the Exhortação da Guerra: “Foi na ocasião da partida de D. Jaime de Bragança (1513) para a conquista dessa praça africana, que Gil Vicente escreveu a Exhortação da Guerra” (Michaelis 379). And Pratt observes that:
há alusão clara [in the Exhortação da Guerra] às pretensões diplomáticas de D. Manuel na corte pontifícia. Entre estas o rei solicitava a concessão das terças e dízimas dos rendimentos do clero para as despesas a fazer com a guerra de Fez e Marrocos.
(176)
We also know that this attempt was utterly frustrated. Could the Comédia be an instrument for this type of much needed incorporation of economic support? On another level of analysis, could it be a call for Peninsular unity (i.e., Spain and Portugal)? This may be one of the many reasons for the linguistic “harmony” (bilingualism) of some of the plays and also of their setting: in Spain, Burgos, for the Viúvo and partially in Spain for Rubena. These interesting questions will appear again when we consider the dianoia of the Comédia and its ideological ramifications. For now, further comment will be reserved until the structure of the play is examined and its semantic properties appraised.
The action that Gil Vicente imitates in this comédia is, very succinctly stated: to preserve honor. We must here, once again refer to the all-encompassing notions of honor that have already been observed above, especially that of Margaret Wilson who makes of the Peninsular social code of honor one that “regulated all social relationships: [including] those between members of the same family …” (43).
In the context of the play's dramatic design Wilson's observations allow us to incorporate into the stated action above the addition of the word “family,” for it is this type of relationship which is here clearly expressed. This allows us to consider adding the following statement to the play's action: to preserve family honor. We know that the harmonizing perspective of Gil Vicente, as noted in the Rubena, is one of total, cosmic unison and, that like Rubena, this type of total coherence (i.e., secular and metaphysical unity) is accomplished through only one acceptable channel: the holy bonds of matrimony. It is thus that the “clérigo” interprets the ceremonial marriage which concludes the dramatic piece.
Este sancto sacramiento,
magníficos desposados,
es precioso ayuntamiento.
Dios mismo fue el instrumento
de los primeros casados:
por su boca son sagrados.
Serán dos en carne una,
benditos del sol y luna,
en un amor conservados.
(159)
Matrimony, then, is the structural vehicle by which Gil Vicente (and his contemporaries) resolved the many levels of antagonistic elements—binary oppositions—presented in the sequential dramatic ordering of the plot. To be sure, not all of these binary pairs are necessarily contrastive; at times they seem, instead, to complement each other depending on the contextual relationship of the linguistic sign. An inventory of these different types of binarisms or “antipodal pairs” will be uncovered and outlined in the investigation concerning the Comédia's plot design. We must remember, however, that in defining these oppositions—“the internal arrangement of the terms in an associative or paradigmatic field” (Barthes 73)—a significant distinction must be made, for as Barthes notes: “to deal with the opposition can only mean to observe the relations of similarity or difference which may exist between the terms of the oppositions, that is, quite precisely, to classify them” (74). As Andrews has observed, the point where dualities coalesce is the Comédia's “veritable tour de force” (138).
This being the case, we may add one further comment which more clearly reflects the action which the Comédia do Viúvo imitates: “to preserve family honor (through marriage).” Of course, the action is not defined as such from its very beginning; and it is for this very reason that I have place “through marriage” within parenthesis, for matrimony is only the instrument of the comic resolution and not of the complete mimesis in syntagmatic movement. At the play's beginning we simply have the classic medieval comedic situation of bringing felicity to a potentially tragic moment. If we apply the same structural model that proved operative in analyzing the Comédia de Rubena to the action defined above, we would observe the schema as shown. […]
We must remember, however, that Greimas' model was particularly well suited to the Comédia de Rubena because of its essentially narrative aspect. Nevertheless, Figure 5 proves that the same actantial interaction—the opposition of forces—may also apply to dramatic discourse. The applicability of the model here reflects Greimas' debt not only to Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale, but most importantly to Etienne Souriau's Les 200.000 situations dramatiques.
In this Comédia, Gil Vicente proves his skill of dramatic technique, for he does not introduce by means of an enacted prologue the story of the plot as found in the Rubena, a procedure utilized in other plays as well. This, of course, places the action to be imitated in a totally dramatic plane. There is, however, a problem here for the instructions deal with narrative material that is not necessarily manifested on the dramatic level. Such information (e.g., the fact that the widower is a merchant living in Burgos), while available to a reader, could very well be omitted in the play as performed. As in the case of Rubena Gil Vicente appears to have ignored the complete dramatization of the narrative information he was working with. Still, one must assume that the narrative information given in the instructions designed primarily for a reader, if not apocryphal, are indicative of the semiological presence on stage of that information; that is, one can only assume that the widower is visually depicted before an audience in keeping with the characterization assigned (e.g., the correct attire for a merchant of Burgos). This is not to say that Gil Vicente's other plays are not “dramatic,” but rather that in this particular Play of the Widower the concept of drama, especially as we know it in contemporary terms, is better delineated. Susanne Langer has aptly explained this notion of dramatic skill:
An act, whether instinctive or deliberate, is normally oriented toward the future. Drama, though it implies past actions (the “situation”), moves not toward the present, as narrative does, but toward something beyond; it deals essentially with commitments and consequences. Persons, too, in drama are purely agents—whether consciously or blindly, makers of the future. This future, which is made before our eyes, gives importance to the very beginnings of dramatic acts, i.e., to the motives from which the acts arise, and the situations in which they develop; the making of it is the principle that unifies and organizes the continuum of stage action. It has been said repeatedly that the theater creates a perpetual present moment [cf. R. E. Jones, The Dramatic Imagination, 40]; but it is only a present filled with its own future that is really dramatic. A sheer immediacy, an imperishable direct experience without the ominous forward movement of consequential action, would not be so. As literature creates a virtual past, drama creates a virtual future. The literary mode is the mode of memory; the dramatic is the mode of Destiny.
(307)
It is precisely this mode of fictional representation, i.e., drama, that is arrested when the dramatist allows the “Destiny” to be foretold in the literary mode (i.e., “Memory”). This is not the case in the Comédia do Viúvo.
The initial statement of the Comédia, the “virtual future” to be dramatically structured, is essentially a tragic moment which needs reparation. Like that of the Rubena, the beginning symbolically produces an instinctual desire to reverse the dramatic situation. This idea is conveyed by lyrical effusion, Gil Vicente's preferred mode of fictional course. That is, we are aware from the very beginning that the widower is in need of recovering his past happiness when he resorts to such phrases as “desastrada vida,” “amara y dolorida.” It is almost immediately, however, that the motif of marriage is brought into play, thus lending support to the actantial mimesis that was stated above:
Esta desastrada vida
¿qué perdiera yo en perdella
quando al mundo fue venida?
Pues amara y dolorida
es toda mi parte de ella,
que perdí muger tan bella
como estrella.
Y pues triste me dexó
muriera mezquino yo
y no ella.
(127)
It is at this point of potential suicide that we are cast into the very core of a truly dramatic situation. How Gil Vicente structurally defines that situation actantially (i.e., mythos) and thematically (i.e., dianoia) will be the subject of the following analysis.
It is soon after the initial lament that the action to be imitated is translated in terms of the protection that the widower's two daughters, Paula and Melicia, must have after their mother's death. The widower's tragic situation is philosophically delineated in terms of his own loss until a “fraile” enters and gives counsel to the entire family:
Vuestras hijas consolad
con gracia muy amorosa.
Vos, hermanas, descansad:
a Dios os encomendad
y a la Virgen gloriosa.
Inclinaos a toda cosa
virtuosa:
ternéis vida descansada,
que sin esto es la passada
peligrosa.
(132)
The friar turns the widower's lament of death into a joyous event by equating the two contrasting terms (death = life):
Y los que mueren honrados
como acá vuestra muger,
contritos y confessados,
¿qué haze luto menester?
Lo que, hermano, havéis de hazer
ha de ser
a aquel dador de las vidas
dalde gracias infinitas
con plazer.
(131-32)
This initial unity of opposites (death = life) is, of course, conditioned by an orthodox church view; here described as the philosophy of memento mori so popular in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance (e.g., La danza de la muerte). It is not coincidental that the first mention of the two “huérfanas,” Paula and Melicia, is in the form of an exaltation of virtue, for the widower's initial lament was a panegyric extolling the virtues of his lost wife. This constant reminder throughout the play of the importance of virtue, i.e., honor, is the main link (the “movement of spirit”) between the initial expository lament and the intrigue that ensues. All obstacles to this dramatic action (the preservation of family honor) must be overcome if the play is to end happily.
Meanwhile, let us return to the widower's lament which gives momentum to the action defined above. There is a tripartite movement to this beginning exposition which is further subdivided into two repeated segments: (1) the lament (2) the extolling of his dead wife's virtues (3) return to the lament. In the two segments of the lament the widower, like the friar, also equates life and death; but this time the metaphor is completely secularized and conveyed by natural phenomena:
En el punto que partiste
no deviera quedar yo,
porque la vida que es triste,
más muere quien la resiste
que el muerto que la dexó.
A aquel Dios que la llevó
pido yo
muerte luego por vitoria,
pues la vida de mi gloria
ya passó.
(129)
In this last section of the three part movement stated above one can observe several instances of binary elements that complement each other: “partiste” = “no deviera quedar yo,” a return to the initial situation, and a further development of the idea of the second movement (the extolling of his wife's virtues) which the widower equates in the following manner: “muerte” = “vitoria.” The “tristeza” that somehow pervades this lament, however, is later conditioned by the friar's addition of the healing powers of divine love (i.e., caritas). We may observe that the friar also uses “vitoria” in his speech: “Los que mueren por la ley / mueren con dulce vitoria”; but this time it is equated with divine justice (i.e., “ley”), thus rendering the following binary concepts:
- Widower = “vitoria” › negation of life's vital instinct.
- Friar = “vitoria” › affirmation of life's “sweet” reward: “ley” = natural law governed by God's divine providence.
The widower's tragic loss is, therefore, an illusion when considered in light of the “harmonizing perspective” that the friar's speech brings to the initial situation:
Tomad un consejo, hermano,
de este amigo singular:
pensad cómo lo humano,
unos tarde, otros templano,
nacimos para acabar;
y todo nuestro tardar,
a buen juzgar,
por más trabajo se cuenta,
pues no se escusa tormenta
'n este mar.
(130)
With these lines, which bring to mind Jorge Manrique's philosophy of the waning Middle Ages (“nuestras vidas son los ríos que van a dar a la mar, que es el morir”), the priest explains to the widower the falsity of his former lament, for the widower selfishly pined over his loss of help, “amparo,” and protection, “abrigo,” forgetting his wife's just reward in heaven for the same virtues that he claimed for her. The priest continues this line of reasoning, the deception of those who place all faith on human existence, when he tells the widower to caste off the visible “paños negrosos” in favor of the intimate feelings of sorrow: “Tristeza, fuerça es tenella, / y lo al son desvaríos.” The widower recognizes the revered words of this “amigo singular” and exclaims that he understand: “Padre, quedo consolado.”
It is important to note, however, the emphasis that the friar placed on the quality of human existence, for this element is essential to a just reward for the dead as well as to consolation for the living. The thematic interaction of the two parts, the widower's soliloquy—the lament—and the priest's advice, leads to a focal point which gives momentum to the issue of human existence in the form of yet another “antipodal” section: the compadre's satirical comments on marriage versus the widower's memory of his honorable wife. This quality of human existence is, of course, virtue (i.e., honor, not only as an innate condition of human dignity but also as a visible source of correct social integration) which becomes the motivating motif of the rest of the dramatic piece.
We will recall that, like Manrique, the priest noted the importance of man's existential condition in leading him to the state of glory (“gloria”): “sólo con memento mei, / son sus ánimas en gloria.” This concept of the right ordering of secular existence in relation to the hereafter, in this case of socially acceptable norms of integration and interaction (family or otherwise), is, then, the prime source that shapes the plot structure of the Comédia do Viúvo. In imitating the stated action (to preserve family honor), Gil Vicente juxtaposes and contrasts dramatic segments of the plot that convey this idea of rewarding virtuous behavior through the contrastive use of these “antipodal” situations. The fact that the thematic material preferred in this revolutionary age—a secular perspective that was not divorced from theological concepts of virtue—does not respond to modern about man's existential dilemma, may account for the incoherence of plot design that some readers of this play have noted. Insofar as it imitates the action that was stated above, however, the Comédia obeys the system of structural coherence that can be considered “organic,” for, as Aristotle stated, this concept depends on the unity of ideological magnitude:
As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length can be easily embraced by the memory. … And to define the matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is comprised within such limits that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.
(66)
The fact that, ideologically, the Comédia may appear strange to a modern reader not versed in the theological world of the early Renaissance does not mean that the plot design is incoherent, but rather that it responds to another type of thematic stimulus. We have been noting that the play, semiologically (i.e., in terms of a structured system of verbal signs and symbolic process of communication), reflects that thematic material. The “beauty” of the plot design, however, ultimately depends on the aesthetic and thematic preferences of the audience for which it was conceived. Beckerman notes that the dramatist's choice of thematic material depends on this audience response:
As we receive the texts, they embody a distinctive formulation of experience. … Communicating it to be audience is relatively simple when a dramatist's conception of humanity is part of an audience's background. But when time has dissolved that background, it is necessary for the performer to build a bridge between the text and audience. Contemporary conception of evil, for instance, is radically different from the late medieval conception so prevalent in Elizabethan drama. … Only by deeply understanding the particular aspects of humanity realized by the text can the performer provide the links.
(Dynamics 220-21)
These principles of aesthetic appreciation are here being considered because they are deemed necessary in defining the integrity of the Comédia under study. But, as we have been observing, only a structural investigation of its fictional components can uncover the real beauty of design. Aesthetic evaluation, therefore, should ideally depend on the perception of a work's structure as it relates to the ideological context of the author's world view. Whether or not that particular design is aesthetically pleasing to a given audience or critical perspective is a matter that depends on many variables (personal, cultural, historical, political, etc.), and should enter into the field of literary inquiry only tangentially, as a final appraisal of the semantic whole.
The sense of loss that the widower expresses and the priest tries to alleviate within a spiritual dimension, then, is the dramatic inspiration for the rest of the play. The obstacles that are placed before the preservation of a harmonious family relationship, now disrupted by death, constitutes the remaining segments of dramatic movement. We have already noted the widower's recognition of the priest's wise comments about life and death and how his recognition constitutes, at least for the moment, a feeling of consolation which could be considered the comic ending.
But how are the two daughters involved dramatically (i.e., actantially) by this personal expression of tragic loss? What motivates the dramatic action in terms of ideological expression? How, in fact, is the dramatic movement transferred to the widower's daughters who, after all, carry the dramatic rhythm to its felicitous conclusion? In answering these questions we must remember that the dramatic motivation for the action appears to be a direct expression of the Peninsular idea of “honra” at this time. As in the Rubena, the Comédia do Viúdo represents a “generational” concept of honor which may seem strange to the modern reader. In this respect, Hayes has observed that in Lope de Vega:
The clan spirit was dominant. Any smudge on the honor of the member of the family stained all, even cousins. Men might “restore” honor in one of four ways: (1) an apology by one of the contending parties, which required guts; (2) a duel; (3) a marriage; (4) taking the life of the one on the distaff side who was under a cloud.
(93)
In the Comédia do Viúvo the loss of a virtuous wife does not imply the loss of honor, but rather, the loss of a role model for the two daughters to follow. Paula and Melicia's happiness in the future worries the widower whose personal (i.e., family) honor rests on the two daughters' righteous behavior. The death of the widower's wife opens up the possibility of dishonor in the daughters since she is no longer around to set the correct example or lead them in making virtuous decisions.
We have already observed that the priest addressed the widower's daughters, commending them, in place of the absent mother, to a virtuous life: “Inclináos a toda cosa / virtuosa” The father of Paula and Melicia, however, had already been asked by the priest to console his daughters (“Vuestras hijas consolad”) which he does almost immediately thus transferring the preceding action to the subsequent representation involving his daughters:
Ora, oídme, hijas mías:
la muerte, por mi ventura,
me llevó mis alegrías
porque no fuessen mis días
más de quanto es la tristura.
Lo que más desassegura
mi holgura,
temer daño que se os siga,
esto haze mi fatiga
más escura.
(132)
Thus the widower, as primary agent of the dramatic action, by commenting on the only obstacle to this present consoled state (“holgura”), transmits the dramatic (i.e., actantial) responsibility to the two dramatic agents—the daughters—who, like Cismena, will sustain and elaborate on the initial dramatic situation. We may observe in the comments of the widower a fearful anticipation of his daughter's precarious future which only honorable behavior can prevent:
Porque esta vida engañosa
en la tierna mocedad
es tan peligrosa cosa
que harto bien temerosa
está mi seguridad.
Acuérdeseos de la honestidad
y claridad
de vuestra madre defunta,
y en tanta bondad junta
contemplad.
(132-33)
The end of this scene, then, completes and transfers the meaning of the dramatic action. Furthermore, it creates an intense and foreboding direction for the dramatic movement. In Beckerman's words, “the action is a working out of the pressures aroused by the precipitating events” (Dynamics 82). He adds:
Projects [which in Beckerman's terminology approximates our term “dramatic action”] tend to be directed toward adjusting to the precipitating context or venting the repressed thoughts, feelings, or experiences released by the precipitating circumstances.
(85)
These events have been thoroughly and skillfully handled and defined by the dramatist at this point of the comic action. Not once but twice does the widower express his fear for his daughters' future; and the representation of this concern (“precipitating context”) as they relate to his (thus the title of the play: Comédia do Viúvo) sadness or happiness is the comic mimesis of the play.
Immediately after the definition of his fear, the friend (i.e., the “compadre”) drops by and presents the first obstacle to the widower's desire. In this scene, contrary to the former scene with the priest, an opposition to the stability of family life (i.e., marriage) is manifested in the dramatic activity of the ill-intended friend. His scornful views about marriage are in direct contrast to those of the widower and those of the priest. Gil Vicente delights in presenting contrastive situations that impel the dramatic movement and give it shape.
Paula and Melicia's reaction to the friend's comments are important for they become more and more involved in dialogue (for the first time), as agents of the dramatic action. At the end of this scene they are left alone to digest, as it were, the previous words of the friend. In that segment they come to the same recognition that their father had reached with the good counsel of the priest. Here again the situation is paradoxically exposed by a juxtaposing of elements:
(MELICIA)
Gran secreto es el morir.
(PAULA)
Mas es mucho declarado:
mayor secreto es bivir
y ser cierto de partir
y no estar aparejado.
Cada uno está engañado
y confiado
que tiene luenga la vía.
(138)
The older and wiser Paula, who will be rewarded first at the end of the Comédia, notes that there is greater philosophical depth (“secreto”) in the enigmatic process of existence than in the mystery of death, for only right and virtuous choices, as the priest observed earlier, orients the individual toward spiritual rewards. Paula's words prove to be prophetic in the ensuing complication of the Comédia's plot because in that section of the play one can observe a dramatic presentation of the existential ordeals that are placed in the lives of these individuals. There (i.e., in the following act) we may note also the genuine meaning of Paula's statement (“mayor secreto es bivir”) when D. Rosvel presents the opportunity for the widower's two daughters to make decisions that will safeguard their honor. Here, as we also noted in the Rubena, Gil Vicente has presented the concept of honor as a personal reward for reasoned behavior, not solely as an inherited status related to economic gain. This idea is given expressed support from D. Rosvel who, acting as a member of a privileged class, convinces his brother (D. Gilberto) to protect and honor (“Amparemos e honremos”) the younger Melicia, for her virtuous integrity, not her social status: “Quien casa por sólo haver, / casamiento es temporal.”
In the second act of the Comédia, which some critics have seen as unrelated to the first, Gil Vicente represents the complication and final resolution of the precipitating circumstances presented in the beginning segments. These generative segments of the first part of the play are here given dynamic impetus through the introduction of a character who will dramatically interact with the widower and his family in such a way as to test the integrity of the two dramatic agents and provide the means for a comic resolution. This comic resolution, as we shall observe, not only rewards the widower and his two daughters with personal satisfaction and social ascendency, but also provides, through the deus ex machina appearance of D. Gilberto, an interesting plot device that is structurally significant in Gil Vicente's concept of Comédia. Although D. Gilberto's fortuitous entry may appear contrived to the modern reader, an unskilled dramatic ploy intended to tie up all loose ends at the end of an equally loose performance text, there is a theological motivation that justifies this agent's entrance into scene as an instrument of final harmonization: the concept of divine providence which, in the adventitious comic mythos, shapes into a coherent design all of the elements that may appear, at first, irreconcilable. We will have occasion to observe, however, that this technique of comic resolution does not diminish the skill of the causally related segments of the first part, but rather that it is embedded within the structural pattern that defines the ideological focus of the Vicentine comédia.
The first scene of the second act begins, then, with the abrupt entrance of the disguised D. Rosvel who, acting as the peasant Juan de las Broças, immediately introduces a farcical sketch in which marriage is again satirized through the story of his family background. In contrast to Paula and Melicia's virtuous mother, Juan de las Broça's mother is not only alive but living sinfully with a monk. When asked about his life under those conditions, Juan recalls that he got tired of working for the monk and that, although engaged to be married, he abandoned them all after his fiancée fled. In these escapades of Juan, we can observe Gil Vicente's dramatic intent of juxtaposing diverse opinions that converge on the topic of matrimony. As in the case with the widower's friend, the Portuguese dramatist is attempting, through this process of contrastive parallelism, to call attention to the notions about marriage that are often taken for granted.
The widower's entrance allows D. Rosvel to further elaborate upon his fictional past. His picaresque escapades make the widower sympathize with him and he offers him work for a year. The pervasive motif of work is thus neatly woven into the fabric of the plot. It soon becomes apparent that D. Rosvel's disguise is more than just a trickery to gain dishonest access to the two girls. His willingness to “put in an honest day's work” is directly related to the increasing fondness that the widower and his family feel for the young man. With the elaboration of these unique qualities, the impetuous youth of the comic mythos becomes here a conscientious representative of his estate through the actual “working out” of his many ordeals, having by the end of the play proven his true worth and personal integrity without the support of any pre-established authority (i.e., the nobility to which he belongs).
The intrinsic need that the family has of this man is manifested in the widower's comparison, “Havémoslo menester / como el pan que nos mantiene,” which is later re-inforced by the comparison of D. Rosvel's worth to gold. This same concern about Rosvel's opportune entry in the unfortunate household of the widower and his two daughters is repeated after Juan has performed his tasks well and is later sent out to continue his labor:
(VIUDO)
Muy buena dicha nos vino.
(PAULA)
Viénenos como hecho al torno.
(MELIC)
Bien lo haze.
(143)
This leads to a sententious commentary on the relationship of servant and master, a bit of dramatic irony since the remarks are displaced comments about a lover and his mistress, a courtly love motif.
(VIUDO)
Sabed que el buen servidor,
que lo pesen a oro fino
es merecido.
(PAULA)
A según fuere el señor,
ansí abrirá el camino
a ser servido.
…
(VIUDO)
El que es buen servidor,
siempre ha buen galardón
se atura.
(PAULA)
Mas antes lo ha peor;
pues no usa de razón
la ventura.
(143)
Interestingly enough, the work episodes of Don Rosvel dramatize the courtly-love metaphor that equates the medieval lady (i.e., the “señor” of the cantigas de amor) to the sinuous task required of the lover in seeking her favor. Gil Vicente was working so confidently within his underlying belief or value system that he does not take the trouble to spell out the courtly-love literary conventions within which he is writing. Everything is so obvious to him that he speaks in a kind of literary shorthand, never doubting the reader's ability to see the implications of the hints he tosses his way.
Paula's statement that fortune does not follow the laws of reason seem to contradict her father's remark that all good service sooner or later attains its just reward. This cautious attitude echoes her earlier warning to Melicia that “mayor secreto es bivir,” for no one knows when fortune may strike: “Cada uno está engañado / y confiado / que tiene luenga la vida” (138). Rosvel, then, is the dramatic instrument by which Paula's pessimism will be upturned through the mechanism of divine reason, which is structurally represented in the play through the deus ex machina finale that allows for the felicitous double wedding ceremonies, thus proving the priest's conclusion that all human effort is dependent upon divine justice (“los secretos gloriosos”) and not, as Paula fears, upon the chancy wheel of fortune.
It is not coincidence, for example, that D. Rosvel possesses the dignity of a self-made man. This is actantially depicted through the motif of arduous labor which not only proves him meritorious in the eyes of all, but also provides a metaphor well suited to the development of the plot. The metaphorical representation of D. Rosvel as a laborer (i.e., a shepherd) stresses his dramatic function through the social metamorphosis so often depicted by his contemporaries, the power of love motif: “el amor es tan podroso / que me truxo a la defensa / con cayado” (145).
More that just a static concept, a theatrical artifice to bring together two traditionally distinct social states, the metaphor is here represented dynamically and given realistic significance through dramatic depiction. The many tasks that D. Rosvel performs well, almost to exhaustion, is artistically interwoven with the worries that the widower announced when he voiced his earlier anxieties about his two daughters. There is no fear, however, for it becomes quite certain very early in the play's complication of the main action that, although D. Rosvel's obsession with the two girls is somewhat unconventional, his intentions are well within the virtuous parameters the widower envisioned. That is, his dramatic function as protector of the widower's property and livestock is a prophetic reflection of the actantial mission: To preserve the honor of the family.
The motif of the “buen servidor,” a quality which, as we noted earlier, the family learned to admire in Juan, is observed throughout. In scene six, for example, after Juan happily returns from his daily tasks, this idea is developed extensively. The symbol of destruction (i.e., the rapacious “gavilán”), which in the Comédia de Rubena appears with a more clearly defined pernicious attribute (i.e., the deflowering—“caçar”—of the virgin “garça”) is here more subtly introduced when D. Rosvel states “Asperá diré primero: / anduve trás un gavilán / y allá quedó” [144]). This level of intertextual reading (the coherence of elements within a sign system), however, is conditioned in the Comédia do Viúvo by a different contextual reality, for, unlike the impetuous Felicio (cf. Halcón = gavilán) of the Rubena, D. Rosvel proves himself champion of the girls' cause by eliminating this figurative obstruction to the disciplined ordering of his daily chores. As a symbolic extension of this reality, D. Rosvel also does away with the obstacle to Paula and Melicia's integrity.
The motif is further developed when Rosvel reassures the widower that the livestock remained intact, none was lost. It is important, however, that Rosvel attribute his extraordinary talent for protecting or guarding the animals to God:
(VIUDO)
¿Queda todo en el corral?
(ROSVEL)
¿Quién, el ganado?
Bueno está, bendito Dios:
no se me perdió ni tal,
Él sea loado.
(144)
The emphasis on God's will underscores the ideology that considers everything subordinated to God's divine governance, a philosophy which Paula must learn through the existential overcoming of her personal dilemma (i.e., the pessimistic attitude that sees fortune as the “primum mobile” of existence).
When the two girls are left alone with D. Rosvel and he finally uncovers his true identity, the motif of the protective shepherd is complete. It is here, amidst the conventional rhetoric of fire, that Rosvel confesses his desire for the two girls: “Soy quien arde en bivas llamas, / pastor muy bien empleado / en tal poder” (145). But, once again, in contrast to the all-consuming passion of Cismena's suitors in the Comédia de Rubena, D. Rosvel's amorous intent is checked by virtuous behavior and channeled into a protective (Platonic) notion of love:
Pido a vuestra gran beldad
que no os turbéis, señoras,
por aquesto,
que en guardar vuessa beldad
yo seré a todas horas
mucho presto.
(145)
The idea of “guarding” the girl's virtue (“beldad”) without hope of physical remedy is repeated when D. Rosvel expresses his subjugation to the power of love:
Mándame ser alquilado:
ansí lo tengo por gloria
y lo quiero
sin ser de vos remediado,
ni querer nunca vitoria,
ni la espero.
(145)
That Rosvel's intentions are sincere (i.e., not a product of the “loco amor” that eliminated Cismena's flirtatious suitors from her careful choice) is revealed more concretely at the end of the play when, through the principle of poetic justice, harmony is achieved through the union of the two lovers. Yet Paula perceives D. Rosvel's expression of love as an absurdity that can only lead to dishonorable contact between their two unequal social groups:
La merced que nos haréis,
que somos huérfanas, señor,
y sin madre,
que os vais y nos dexéis;
no matéis al pecador
de mi padre
Abatéis en vuesso estado,
siendo noble en señoría
per derecho,
y queréis ser deshonrado
por tan pequeña contía
sin provecho.
(146)
This hopeless attitude reflected in Paula's speech (“sin provecho”), therefore, emphasizes the absurd societal law that must be overcome if final harmony is to be achieved. The metamorphosis of nobleman to shepherd is the dramatic metaphorical technique that will dialectically (i.e., semiologically) bring about the upturn of this social dimension.
We may recall that the comic mythos, according to Frye, is based on this movement from an irrational law to the overturning of that law in a new social ordering that is reflected in comedy. Actantially, after Paula and Melicia decide not to marry in their own state, thus opposing their father's wish and the very law that Paula defended above, the main obstacle to social renewal in the Viúvo is represented through the numerical impossibility of matrimonial bond: The two girls can not marry D. Rosvel, for it would only solve a societal problem (i.e., the lack of social interaction between distinct groups) at the expense of moral and spiritual decay. We have already had occasion to notice, however, that D. Rosvel does not intend on breaking any social taboos. When the two girls voice their concern at this absurd desire, Rosvel is quick to quiet their worries: “No tengáis de mí sospecha / porque esso más pena ordena / a mi dolor.”
His desire, therefore, is tempered by moral responsibility from the very beginning. The integrity that we have observed in his trustworthy nature, as protector of the family well-being, remains impeccable throughout his performance. It is here that the motif of honest labor gains its functional significance within the ideological focus of the Portuguese dramatist. The paradoxical change which D. Rosvel willingly undergoes for love's sake (“Que no quiero ser yo, no; / ya me troqué” and “don Rosvel no quiero ser / ni por sueño, / que otro soy desque os vi”) is significant of that ideological dimension. More than just a juxtaposing of social levels, here the power of love motif orients the interaction of these two classes in such a way as to bring about a new social ordering, one which not only uses the conventional rhetoric of this social conflict, but also sets in representational motion the dialectical resolution of that conflict.
The widower's entrance at peak moments of dramatic activity serves to heighten the tension aroused by these precipitating circumstances. Such is the case in scene eight when, soon after the encounter with D. Rosvel, the girls are warned by their father that idleness can lead to dangerous consequences. The widower's exit from this scene leaves Paula and Melicia alone, discussing their unfortunate situation. Paula's rhetoric reproduces that of Rubena when, in the midst of her passion, she too saw no way out of her lamentable predicament. But, whereas Rubena had already transgressed her moral and spiritual responsibility, Paula's decision will determine her spiritual and temporal rewards:
¿Qué consejo tomaremos?
Nosotras, si nos callamos,
consentimos;
estamos en dos estremos,
porque a él también erramos
si dezimos,
Son dos estremos sin medio.
(149)
We may observe here the typical Vicentine binary principle which, as we noted earlier, in the sequential ordering of the complication, re-duplicates the contrastive elements of the plot in variables of the number two. In this case, Paula notes the difficult position that she must confront: “Son dos estremos sin medio.” At first, it might appear that the younger Melicia, playing with medio as middle and medio as means, finds the answer to their dilemma—“El medio es si nos dexasse”—but this would not be the type of comic resolution that finds harmony in conflictive entities. Paula identifies the apparent impasse of the problem when, in response to Melicia's facile solution, she replies that it would not change the situation: “¿Tú no ves que esso no lleva remedio? / Si comigo lo acabasse / ¡cierto es!” (149). The arduous work motif is once again brought into dramatic interplay when the girls metaphorically discuss D. Rosvel's just recompense for his labor:
(PAULA)
Y pues, ¿quién le pagará
la grande soldada suya
norabuena?
(MELIC)
Hermana, él se enhadará:
culpa no es mía ni tuya
de su pena.
(149)
Paula's concern and Melicia's less than tolerant attitude with D. Rosvel's love pleas seem to orient the structure of the play to the moment of resolution when the prince will decide the fate of the two girls. Paula, of course, will receive D. Rosvel in marriage.
The following scene (scene ten) brings D. Rosvel and the two girls together again. This segment serves not only to provide dialectical confrontation of two opposing dramatic constituents (i.e., the juxtaposition of contrastive signs) but also to further advance the shepherd motif, a variation of the more comprehensive work motif that provides the axis for the development of the comic mythos. The development of the courtly-love motif is noted when Paula asks D. Rosvel why he toils in vain—“¿Porque en vano trabajais?” The disguised prince notes that the service (i.e., “lavor”) he performs for them is a desired goal (“paraíso”) and that it provides the only viable means for the disclosure of his true love:
Pero este mi sudor
amata las bivas llamas
que amor quiso,
y el afán de mi lavor
por vos, muy hermosas damas,
es paraíso.
(150)
The technique of binary subdivision to increase dramatic tension is once again employed in D. Rosvel's answer to Paula's important question: “¿Por qual de nos lo havéis vós?” It is at this point that Rosvel expresses the perplexity of his sentiments, the resolution of which must come from a morally responsible judgement:
Dos amores se ajuntaron
contra mí;
los males de dos en dos
mi cuerpo y alma cercaron
quando os vi.
De dos en dos los dolores,
dos saetas en mí siento
y me hirieron.
¡Ay!, que juntos dos amores
en uno solo pensamiento
no se vieron.
Sofrir doble padecer,
padecer doble passión
qual me veis,
no sé cómo puede ser,
que mi fuerça y coraçón
vos la tenéis:
la una de vos bastara
para que mi poder fuera
consomido;
la vida y alma gastara,
no que mi querer podiera,
ser perdido
(151).
It is important, meanwhile, to emphasize D. Rosvel's statement in which he demonstrates an ethically directed opinion: “la una de vos bastara / para que mi poder fuera / consomido.” The dramatic tension mounts to its peak when, in the next scene, the widower returns with the news that he has arranged a marriage for both daughters. Words and expressions such as “valles sombríos” and “tristoños” reveal Rosvel's reaction. The “ganado” which in scene ten symbolically approached an apocalyptic vision—“y el ganado que apaciento, / como a ángeles del cielo / los adoro”—here is reversed into the realm of the demonic:
Quiero llevar el ganado
a unos valles sombríos
y tristoños,
donde se harte el cuitado
de oír los gritos míos
muy medoños.
(152)
The infernal vision produced by Rosvel's loss of hope is complemented by the widower's command that he should clean the stables, thus compounding D. Rosvel's plight with symbols of wastage and deterioration. The dramatist focuses on the motif of high versus low social status: the discrepancy between nobility and those that must handle manure. These same symbols, especially with reference to fertilization, ironically contain an ideological premise: the germ for the comic mythos of seasonal renewal.
Paula and Melicia recognize that Rosvel's love is constant, however, (“Pues no es de los fengidos”) and avow that they shall not marry until D. Rosvel is once again made happy. This “contract,” as it were, is faithfully kept by both of them until the end of the play when, unknowingly, they alone will provide the means for the happy turn of events. The dramatic irony of this situation is complemented by the widower's departure from scene eleven when he leaves to pray that God may make his daughters happy through marriage: “Yo me voy ora a rezar / que Dios haga a tu contento / aquel marido.” The demonstrative adjective “aquel” is dubious enough to allow for the necessary accommodation of the final stage reality: unknowingly the widower is blessing the union of Paula and D. Rosvel, for it is they who will be paired off at the end. D. Rosvel's return, in scene twelve, allows him to continue his lament and to invoke death as a solution; but not even death will help him in his sorrow—“tú te hazes sorda a mí”—and he tenaciously decides, instead, to continue his service as shepherd:
que no dexaré el ganado
aunque lo mandasse Dios,
pues vuestro es.
Yo lo tomo por guarida;
en pastor quiero servir
y tener fe,
y ésta será mi vida
muy agena de este nombre,
yo no sé.
(154)
The metaphorical relationship between the sheep and the two girls is here related when D. Rosvel states that he will not tire of guarding them: “No dexaré el ganado / … / pues vuestro es,” thus completing or rounding out the pastoral motif (i.e., the work motif) that was dramatized from the beginning of the second act. The design uncovered by the thematic relationship of this motif to the play's dramatic movement and final ideological unveiling allows us to confirm that D. Rosvel is, in fact, the most worthy of all possible suitors for Paula's hand. When Paula explains that his worries are unfounded because she and her sister will not marry, the sad rhythm of the play is reversed and the felicitous discovery produces an immediate response from the eager D. Rosvel:
¡Oh, preciosa mercé!
¿Quándo serviré yo esso,
diesas mías?
Pues tan firme es mi querer,
que de más en más se enciende,
no por tema,
dexaros no puedo hazer,
y mirándoos más se enciende
el que me quema.
Con dambas no puede ser
casar yo, como sabéis:
echad suertes,
que quiero satisfazer
la merced que me hazéis
de mil muertes.
(154)
It is at this point of the plot arrangement that the unraveling of the previous complication is initiated in the play's overall configuration. The thorny moral issue that is represented by the numerical impasse—the love triangle—is not so easily solved, however, and D. Rosvel's appeal to the two girls to cast lots is shocking, not only to Paula and Melicia, but also to the contemporary (and modern) audience. But as the only possible pragmatic solution it serves as proof of his truthfulness: he loves both girls equally. Casting lots, however unrealistic and ridiculous this may seem to us, is, nonetheless, a dramatic device that depends on a metaphysical authority for the resolution of a dilemma.
Notice how this reliance on a transcendental solution is on the same footing (or at least an equal footing) with the appeal to Prince João for a decision (since his decree would also represent an expression of transcendental judgement). Notice also how it is in harmony with the appearance of Don Gilberto whose appearance has signs of being miraculously motivated. Still, it is important to observe that, in his suggestion, D. Rosvel is acting within the moral limitations that are to him the only viable means of (comic) resolution: matrimony. The appeal to chance to orient him toward matrimony is followed by Rosvel's rejection of the pastoral disguise in favor of his true identity as he utters: “No quiero más ser pastor.”
It would appear, then, that the sacrament of marriage, the spiritual and temporal union of man and woman, is the only acceptable means of social leveling and spiritual reward. Once the determination to integrate diverse social levels is made, the pastoral disguise can be rejected as the illusion it is. At this point, the absurd, static laws of social immobility and the chanciness of fortune are overthrown in favor of a final society in which temporal and spiritual qualities are renewed. The rejuvenated spirit that calls for festive ceremonies underscores this comic epiphany which is triggered in the Viúvo by the symbolic divesting of the comic hero. Northrop Frye explains the social revelation which finalizes the comic mythos:
Thus the movement from pistis to gnosis, from a society controlled by habit, ritual bondage, arbitrary law and the older characters to a society controlled by youth and pragmatic freedom is fundamentally, as the Greek words suggest, a movement from illusion to reality. Illusion is whatever is fixed or definable, and reality is best understood as its negation: whatever reality is, it is not that. Hence the importance of the theme of creating and dispelling illusion in comedy: the illusions caused by disguise, obsession, hypocrisy, or unknown parentage.
(169-70)
This new social reality finds royal support in scene fourteen where the stage illusion is broken in the Comédia and the fictional world blends with that of the real, as a member of the audience (i.e., the Prince D. João III, later to become King D. João III) is asked to determine which of the two girls will marry first. At this point in the story, the audience is not yet aware of the fortunate deus ex machina entrance that D. Gilberto, D. Rosvel's brother, will soon make. The performance text, that which constitutes the theatrical reality per se, reaches here a conclusive comic resolution represented by the young Prince's wise choice as the prettily pretended vicarius Dei supra terram.2 Even Melicia prophetically acknowledges the benevolence of the Princes's judicious pick when, not being chosen first for marriage, she observes “En Paula cayó la suerte; / Dios se acordará de mí.” These words are especially profound in view of the ideological focus of the work. We have already observed the importance of God's divine providence in the play's structure; how chance (i.e., “suerte”) is, sooner or later, subjected to a divine will that structurally and ideologically demands the deus ex machina technique.
In this light, Melicia's presaging words can be interpreted as the causal-ideological motivation for D. Gilberto's fortunate entrance. This conditions the notion of the deus ex machina concept greatly, for instead of the gratuitous break in dramatic logic, the causal-chronological ordering of the incidents, we note here a more literal interpretation of the phrase, one which becomes part of the work's immanent system of interlocking dramatic segmentation. Previously, we have noted how divine governance also conditioned D. Rosvel's concept of good works (cf. “ganado” motif). This notion will ultimately be manifested dramatically in the fertility ritual of matrimony that is contingent on God's assent (i.e., grace) for its final confirmation. The final scene of the play clarifies the importance of this theme of matrimony within the ideological perspectives dramatized in the Comédia:
Este sancto sacramento,
magníficos desposados,
es precioso ayuntamiento.
Dios mismo fue el instrumento
de los primeros casados:
por su boca son sagrados.
Serán dos en carne una,
benditos del sol y luna,
en un amor conservados.
(159)
Furthermore, we can not ascribe the actions of the dramatic agent totally to chance when, in scene fifteen, D. Gilberto miraculously meets with his long lost brother. The very first words point to the ideological focus observed above:
¡El Señor sea loado
y toda la corte del cielo,
pues mi hermano y mi consuelo
tengo hallado!
(155)
The theological orientation of these words reflects the play's dramatic impulse which can not be divorced from its global, structural design. This we note in the duality of connotative possibilities found in the use of the word corte above (i.e., God's realm = corte, where the temporal idea of “corte” is the metaphorical vehicle of comparison) which makes it quite clear that Prince D. João's judgment reflects God's divine ordering, thus giving further evidence that the prince's decision to marry off Paula first was not only wise or divinely inspired, but also a structural “necessity” reflecting the ideological orientation of the unfolding (causal) chain of dramatic events.
As for the late comer D. Gilberto, he too will share in his brother's good fortune through marriage. This idea is expressed by him when he refers to D. Rosvel as “mi consuelo.” Actantially, the expression (“mi consuelo”) simply refers, of course, to the emotive response to the encounter with his long lost brother, but on another level (i.e., a structural level of ironic design) it presents D. Rosvel as a dramatic instrument of his felicity. Thus, unknowingly, even D. Gilberto is destined to fulfill the integrative mission of the play's action: to protect the family's honor. We will recall here that the widower too was in need of “consolación” after his wife's death:
(FRAILE)
La gloria y consolación
d'aquel que es padre eternal
sea en vuestro coraçón
porque tenéis gran razón
de llorardes vuestro mal.
(130)
The Vicentine idea of harmonization carries with it the intention of restoring happiness to a potentially tragic situation. The word “consolación” is directly related to this notion, for it implies that retribution must be sought if comic resolution is desired. It is difficult, as we have mentioned, to see this medieval and early Renaissance concept of retribution because modern, existential philosophies of man are no longer colored by the theological tint that was prevalent at this early age of intellectual development. The motivating forces of modern man respond to an entirely different set of ethical patterns that reflect his scientific (i.e., secular) vision. The total separation of theology from temporal affairs was not a possibility seriously contemplated by the early Christian humanist. In this respect, the total secularization of society, one must not forget that the great mechanical discovery of the fifteenth century (i.e., the printing press) was, at first, used mainly for the sale of church indulgences!3
The comic rhythm of the play is, once more, edged close to its denouement when, after the brotherly embraces, D. Rosvel convinces his brother to undertake the reputable task (i.e., “hazaña”) of marrying the younger daughter, Melicia, as he had done with Paula. But the happy momentum leading to resolution is arrested again when the widower enters unaware of the honorable intentions of these two noblemen:
Señores, ¿qué cosa es ésta?
¿Qué hazéis en mi posada,
dolorida y quebrantada,
descompuesta?
(157)
The widower's unexpected surprise at seeing the two men hand in hand with his two daughters awaken in him the fears and anxieties that he had voiced much earlier, in scene two of the first act, when he confessed his misgivings about his two daughters' future safety after their mother's demise. We will remember that his worry at that time was clearly translated in terms of honor: “Acuérdeseos la honestidad / y claridad / de vuestra madre defunta” (133). These remarks are, dramatically considered, ironic to an extreme because the same men he is accusing of dishonorable conduct in scene sixteen of the second act will present the means by which all the family, including the widower [!], will be brought together in joyous unison. It is ironic, furthermore, that the two gentlemen should present their matrimonial actions in terms of glorious feats (cf. “hazaña”) while the widower, on the other hand, perceives their apparent offense as a sign of their lack on manly valor: “Pues, ¿qué batallas vencistes? / ¿Qué gentes desbaratastes?” (157).
The idea of custody or preservation of the family honor is best exemplified by the repeated use of the word “huérfanas” when referring to the widower's two daughters. This, of course, refers to their state of total vulnerability after their mother's death, a notion which carries with it the very pertinent idea that the loss of the girls' mother was, by the same token, the loss of an ideal pattern of behavior that they could emulate. This concept is further emphasized by the widower who, shocked by the evident manifestations of family disrepute, wonders why the two young men should not have protected (instead) the solitary orphans, especially coming from so privileged a class as theirs:
¡Qué cosa tan deshonesta
para señores reales!
Guardar las huérfanas tales,
¿qué os cuesta?
(157)
This thematic focus becomes clear when Paula, noting (at last) the true and divine nature of their felicitous outcome, quiets her father's anxiety by observing that “Dios nos quiso amparar / y nos casó.” The idea of divine ordination expressed in the repetition of the word “amparar,” although in a different contextual reality, is also reflected in the intentions of the two young men who, acting as the dramatic agents or spokesmen of the privileged sector of society, had echoed these ideological notions of the monarch's responsibility, of the right secular ordering of man's world in accordance to a divine plan.
We may observe this idea in the section, noted previously, when the older Rosvel exhorts his brother to shelter the defenseless orphans: “Amparemos y honremos / huérfanas tan preciosas”. A paradigmatic reading of the reiterated “huérfana” motif (i.e., the coinciding of the transitive verb, “amparar,” on two distinct levels, the temporal and the spiritual) underscores a basic premise of humanist comedy in general and of the Comédia do Viúvo in particular: The ideological swing toward royal absolutism, the notion of the sovereign King (in this case the future King) as “Vicarius Dei supra terram.” This political dimension, in turn, finds its source of inspiration in Catholic moral theology, basically Thomist, that underscores the comedia's societal (i.e., medieval) ideal:
The state … is willed by God and has its God-given function. It was required because of the social nature of man. The state is not, for Aquinas, as it was for Augustine, a product of man's sinfulness. On the contrary, Aquinas says that even “in the state of innocence man would have lived in society.” But even then, “a common life could not exist, unless there were someone in control, to attend to the common good.” The state's function is to secure the common good by keeping the peace, organizing the activities of the citizens into harmonious pursuits, providing for the resources to sustain life, and preventing, as far as possible, obstacles to the good life. … Each government is faced with the task of fashioning specific statutes to regulate the behavior of its citizens under the particular circumstances of its own time and place. Lawmaking, however, must not be an arbitrary act but must be done under influence of the natural law, which is man's participation in God's eternal law. Positive laws must consist of particular rules derived from the general principles of natural law. Any positive human law that violates the natural law loses its character as law, is a “perversion of law,” and loses its binding force in the consciences of men. The lawmaker has his authority to legislate from God, the source of all authority, and to God he is responsible. If the sovereign decrees an unjust law by violating God's divine law, such a law, says Aquinas, “must nowise be observed.”
(Stumpf 204-5)4
In the Comédia do Viúvo as well as the Rubena, we have observed a familiar pattern of dramatic design by Gil Vicente. It is hoped that the preceding examination concerning the concept and structure of the Vicentine comedy has demonstrated how that part of Gil Vicente's dramatic corpus, the comédia genre, is unique as an important contribution to the historical significance of later comic developments in the theater of the Iberian Peninsula.
We have noted that this type of comic drama responds to a cyclical stimulus in which we can observe an archetypal movement toward societal renovation, a concept that Northrop Frye has termed the mythos of spring. This all important thrust, as is the case in Gil Vicente, is imitated in a dramatic action that brings about an ideal society, one which Gil Vicente's audience—the aristocratic court audience—could consider desirable.
We may recall that the mythos of spring commemorates the joy of instinctual impulse. This manifestation is at the very foundation of comic activity. The vital impulse towards euphoric exertion, however, is manifested in many ways and for many reasons. Its viability is projected, like any human myth, in terms of a desired ideal. In the cases we have examined, that ideal is channeled into a longing for secular reform that is not divorced from a theocentric paragon. These affinities between the instinctual level of the mythos of spring and socio-spiritual needs are succinctly explained by Knutson, who notes that these archetypal activities can be further elucidated by Freudian principles:
In real life, the pleasure principle motivating the id is gradually subdued and controlled by the reality principle resident in the ego. The impulse to immediate gratification tends to be asocial while the sense of practical limits endeavours in part to put the ego in tune with social realities. Curiously enough, however, we witness in comedy a kind of moral reversal. The superego, usually a voice of guilt, anxiety, even terror, is embodied in a ludicrous “barbon” whose authority is so diminished that he can be “berné” without a second thought. By the same token, the unruly is shown in a favourable light. We cannot but like the impulsive young hero of comedy as side with him in his struggle. The fundamental legitimacy of his impulse is confirmed by his victory at the end of the play, and by the unfavourable light in which his opponent is shown. Mauron explains that apparent contradiction by another notion of traditional psychology: wish-fulfilment or what the Frenchman call “une fantasie de triomphe.” To quote one of the fundamental tenets of his comic theory: “la grande loi du genre comique, c'est que le principe de plaisir l'emporte.”
(12)
This justifies an interest in tracing, archetypically, the development of a specific national form of comic drama in the previous manifestations of that mythic projection, that is, those activities which shaped the developing comic impulse through autochthonous forms of comic expression: the cantigas and other forms noted earlier. Frye notes that in the Tractatus Coislinianus, the dianoia of comedy is divided between pistis (opinion) and gnosis (proof). Both of these parts of the comic ideal reflect the dualism that Knutson described above, and they “correspond roughly to the usurping and the desirable societies respectively” (166).
In the comedies of Gil Vicente, the ascending movement that corresponds to this archetypal impulse (i.e., the mythos of spring) reflects an evolutionary notion of opinion to proof in two major modes of representation which are both projections of prevalent social ideals, conditioned by specific historical circumstances. These two major modes of comic expression are contained within the mythos of spring but point, as indicated earlier, to a dimension of wish-fulfillment very close to another archetype: the mythos of Summer or that of romance. Within these two extremes of ironic presentation and the dreamy world of romance, Gil Vicente set forth his secular notions of societal reform in which he clearly defined the usurpers and the triumphant elements of a social renaissance.
This entire secular cycle actually begins with the farce and ends with the two “tragicomedies” (Don Duardos and the Amadís), but it is in the two comedies examined here that the Portuguese dramatist enclosed his most poignant message of reform and supplied the most coherent formula for comic structure in the drama of the Iberian Peninsula. From the slap-stick domesticity of the farces to the fanciful world of magic and chivalric ideals, Gil Vicente never tired of castigating the moral and spiritual errors of his society. But whereas in his farces he focused the low mimetic world of peasantry and in his tragicomedies that of the superior beings of fictional narratives, it was in the two comedies that we have seen that he poured his most important message of harmonization, one in which both worlds, the ironic and the romantic, come together to form, in realistic terms, the very texture and design of his poetic expression.
Structurally, we have noted the binary pattern of this dimension, the comic and the romantic, which interact to present a final epiphany of spiritual triumph through social communion; we will recall that matrimony in these plays is a ceremonial synthesis of societal reform in which many levels of harmonization are effected. Spiritually, it presents God's special favor of the social miscegenation which is not seriously considered in the farces and statically presented in the tragicomedies. Socially, it represents an incorporation of new bloodlines (e.g., the merchant and the middle class in general) to that of the old aristocracy. This “democratic” inclination in the comedies of Gil Vicente, a sentiment included in his letter of 1531, will culminate in the social patterns of comic expression that were practiced by the Golden Age dramatists. These later playwrights also envisioned a new society in which the King was in unison with his people and they, as representatives of a lower station, with each other (cf. Fuenteovejuna, El Alcalde de Zalamea, Peribáñez, etc.).
These aspirations seem to reflect the ideological-spiritual-ethnic struggles of the Peninsular “edad conflictiva,” the dawn of the modern era in the development of the comédia form. In this respect, it is interesting to note that Gil Vicente has dramatized in both comédias the Renaissance concept of the personal dignity of man in the face of inherited social status, a notion which would be especially pertinent to the social reality of the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
As Américo Castro has observed, in the early Peninsular theater “… sale a luz la inquietud de quienes, salvados por la Natividad de Cristo y por el bautismo, se sentían socialmente en condición de inferioridad” (64). In fact, the duplicity of the period in question, when public opinion became the standard of honor, was compounded by the historical reality of the Iberian Peninsula, that is, by the struggle of three distinct social castes: Jews and Moslems against Christians. It is not surprising, then, to observe the relatively unimportant status given to the “learned” and often affected class in the theater of Gil Vicente (cf. Dario Ledo's “Ora anday gastando a vida / na escola”), nor of the wealthy (e.g., Crasto Liberal). Castro poignantly focuses the issues dramatized by these early dramatists when he observes that “La inquietud, el bullir en los negocios, el ejercitar la curiosidad mental, podían dar motivo a no ser tenido por hombre de limpia ascendencia” (174). Gil Vicente's concept of comédia preludes an era that will mirror the patterns and ideological focus of the past while depicting the social chaos of a decaying society.
Notes
-
Riggio was here referring, more specifically, to the skillful balance of a symbolic motif: the first friar that appears in the plot counseled the widower to substitute his black garments for red ones; later, D. Rosvel invents a story about his past which involves his mother's illicit relationship with a friar who gave her a red sash as a gift.
-
If the 1514 date is valid, D. João was twelve years old. Breaking this fictional on-stage reality to appeal to the young boy's judgement is an obvious bit of flattery, but, at the same time, being “cute,” it creates a new fiction, one that pretends that the child is a worthy and a valid decision-maker. This pretense is based on the principle pointed out earlier: the King as God's vicar. The boy not yet consecrated as King by coronation is prettily invited to believe in his God-guided effectiveness. One can be sure, of course, since this is make-believe, or a play within a play, that the boy had been coached on the decision he was to make: the rest of the play depends on it!
-
Rice explains that: “These first printed books have a further, and curious, characteristic: their pages so closely resemble those of manuscript books as to be virtually indistinguishable to the unpracticed eye. Clearly the printers' technical, aesthetic, and commercial aim was to reproduce exactly the handwritten manuscript. … Their difficulty in freeing themselves from traditional conceptions is explained by the fact that although typography was the greatest invention of the Renaissance, its earliest development was shaped almost exclusively by clerical tastes and needs. Its geographical origins were far from Italy, the literary and artistic center of European culture in the fifteenth century. Printing first became a significant business enterprise in a provincial ecclesiastical capital with a population of about three thousand and meager intellectual distinction. Monasteries and cathedral chapters contracted for the Latin Bibles, missals, psalters, and antiphonaries which were the printers' more important productions. The ecclesiastical authorities dominated job printing; for example, a common order was for indulgence forms” (5-6).
-
For St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) “natural law” corresponds to the “human laws that are fashioned for the direction of the community's behavior … these activities of preserving life, propagating the species, forming an ordered society under human laws, and pursuing the quest for truth … pertain to man at this natural level” (201). Human or “positive” laws are derived from natural laws, and are all subordinated to divine reason or eternal law. Aquinas parts company with Aristotle when he notes that divine law, in reflecting the eternal law, orients man toward the supernatural through “revelation and is found in the Scriptures” (203).
Works Cited
Andrews, J. Richard. “The Artistry in the Plays of Gil Vicente.” Diss. Princeton U, 1953.
Beckerman, Bernard. The Dynamics of Drama: Theory and Method of Analysis. New York: Knopf, 1970.
Braamcamp Freire, Anselmo. Vida e Obras de Gil Vicente: Trovador, Mestre da Balança. Lisbon: Revista Occidente, 1944.
Castro, Américo. De la edad conflictiva. Madrid: Taurus, 1961.
Chase, Gilbert. The Music of Spain. 2nd ed. New York: Dover Publications, 1959.
Del Río, Angel and Amelia A. Antología general de la literatura española. 2 vols. New York: Holt, 1960.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. New York: Atheneum, 1966.
Hayes, Francis C. Lope de Vega. New York: Twayne, 1967.
López Morales, Humberto. Tradición y creación en los orígenes del teatro castellano. Madrid: Alcalá, 1968.
Michaëlis de Vasconcelos, Carolina. Notas Vicentinas. Lisbon: Revista de Occidente, 1949.
Pratt, Oscar de. Gil Vicente: Notas e comentários. Lisbon: Livraria Clássica, 1970.
Reckert, Stephen. Gil Vicente: Espíritu y Letra. Madrid: Gredos, 1977.
Révah, I. S. “La Comédia dans l'œuvre de Gil Vicente.” Etudes Portugaises 4 (1975): 15-36.
———. “Manifestations Théâtrales Pré-Vicentines: Les ‘momos’ de 1500.” Bulletin d'Histoire du Théâtre Portugais 3 (1952): 91-105.
Riggio, Edward A. “The Place of the Comic in the Theater of Gil Vicente.” Diss. U. of Pittsburgh, 1969.
Saraiva, António José. “Gil Vicente e Bertolt Brecht.” Vértice Sept. 1960: 465-475.
———. Gil Vicente e o Fim do Teatro Medieval. 3rd ed. Lisbon: Publicações Europa-América, 1979.
Stumpf, Samuel Enoch. Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy. New York: McGraw, 1966.
Teyssier, Paul. Gil Vicente: O autor e a obra. Trans. Alvaro Salema. Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa, 1982.
Vicente, Gil. Comédia de Rubena. Ed. Giuseppe Tavani. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1965.
———. “Comédia del viudo.” Gil Vicente: Obras dramáticas castellanas. Ed. Thomas Hart. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1968.
———. Copilaçam de todalas obras de Gil Vicente. Lisbon, 1562.
Wilson, Margaret. Spanish Drama of the Golden Age. Oxford: Pergamon, 1969.
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‘Vos outros tambem cantai por vosso uso acostumado’: Representation of the Popular in Gil Vicente
The Basic Characteristics of the Menippean Satire and Their Application to Vicentine Comedy
