SOURCE: McCaw, R. John. “Turning a Blind Eye: Sexual Competition, Self-Contradiction, and the Importance of Pastoral in Góngora's Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea.” Hispanofila 127 (September 1999): 27-35.

[In the following essay, McCaw examines pastoral and sexual themes in Polifemo y Galatea.]

In twentieth-century criticism on Luis de Góngora's poetry, the place of the Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea in the tradition of pastoral literature has been investigated and established.¹ Like many who associate Góngora's poem with pastoral, C. Colin Smith has called attention to the pastoral significance of particular topics that characterize the Fábula's poetic landscape:

Here Góngora coincides with all those who had written on the Beatus ille theme, but in the Polifemo and particularly in the Soledades he treats the theme far more profoundly than most of his predecessors, courtly people out from town for a week-end romp, or mere picnickers in the pastoral scene. Góngora shows us man living in the closest possible contact with Nature, having no need of all those apparent benefits which he subsequently procured for himself. All that he needs for his material sustenance is ready to hand, in abundance. …

(221)

Each of the poem's central pastoral ideas—the simplicity of Man, the abundance of Nature, and the attendant coexistence of mediocritas and copia—is grounded in the form and function of the landscape. The poem's characterization of the landscape's principal denizen, the cyclops Polyphemus, faithfully presents him as ideal, pastoral Man living in simple harmony with an abundant Nature. In addition, the poem casts Polyphemus into an archetypal pastoral role, as defined by his relationship to humans: a love-lorn shepherd whose pastoral identity relies on conformity to the codes of amor cortés.² In the mold of the shepherds of Virgil, Theocritus, and Montemayor, Polyphemus undergoes a representative range of typically pastoral experiences, including the love lament, idealization of his beloved, self-identification as a pastoral figure, and unrequited love. But regardless of Polyphemus's pastoral courtship of Galathea, and regardless of the staging of this courtship within a poetic landscape redolent of pastoral imagery, a distinctly antipastoral subtext unfolds within the Fábula, and this subtext tends to subvert the pastoral values that supposedly characterize Polyphemus. In spite of how much the Fábula functions as an embodiment of pastoral themes and icons, it is equally a disembodiment of pastoral values and ideals. Each of the subjects in the poem—Polyphemus, Galathea, and Acis—plays a specific role in undermining key existential, philosophical, and moral aspects associated with pastoral: beatus ille and mediocritas. As a result, the generic identity of pastoral romance is problematized, and, more specifically, Polyphemus's identity within the pastoral tradition is questioned and reduced.

As the poem's two male figures vie for the attention of the only female, the identity of pastoral contends with criticism, and the integrity of pastoral eventually unravels. Polyphemus and Acis unknowingly compete against each other for Galathea's love, but both approach their quest for Galathea differently. The sexual competition between Polyphemus and Acis is not rooted primarily in physical, interpersonal struggle, but rather in the intellectual realms of courtship strategy and personal values. Polyphemus, cast in the classical archetype of the amorous shepherd, employs the song as his main courtship device, and invokes the object of his admiration:

‘¡Oh bella Galatea, más süave
que los claveles que tronchó la aurora;
blanca más que las plumas de aquel ave
que dulce muere y en las aguas mora;
igual en pompa al pájaro que, grave,
su manto azul de tantos ojos dora
cuantas el celestial zafiro estrellas!
¡Oh tú, que en dos incluyes las más bellas!’

(361-368)

Polyphemus, the classic enamorado, proceeds to characterize his present relationship to Galathea, the amada, by using language and imagery associated with the Petrarchan tradition of courtly love:

‘Sorda hija del mar, cuyas orejas
a mis gemidos son rocas al viento:
o dormida te hurten a mis quejas
purpúreos troncos de corales ciento,
o al disonante número de almejas
—marino, si agradable no, instrumento—
coros tejiendo estés, escucha un día
mi voz, por dulce, cuando no por mía.’

(377-384)

Polyphemus's song not only idealizes Galathea, but it aspires to woo her while she is physically absent yet, presumably, within earshot. Galathea thus becomes a courtier's abstraction, a feminine idealization typical of the pastoral love lament, and a detached symbol of womanly beauty and purity—all in spite of the reality that, at the time, she is cavorting with Acis.³

In his lament, the cyclops idealizes himself as well. Polyphemus praises the abundance and industriousness of his farm: “‘Pastor soy, mas tan rico de ganados. …’” (385-400) Polyphemus also touts his noble heritage: “‘Del Júpiter soy hijo, de las ondas, / aunque pastor …’” (401-402) Later in the song, he even celebrates the majesty of his physical appearance: “‘Miréme, y lucir vi un sol en mi frente, / cuando el cielo un ojo se veía. …’” (421-422) And, as he concludes his song, Polyphemus illustrates his benevolence and heroism: “‘En tablas dividida, rica nave / besó la playa miserablemente …’” (433-434) Polyphemus's idealization of himself, however, is articulated within the pastoral rhetoric of mediocritas: “‘… que iguales / en número a mis bienes son mis males.’” (391-392) Polyphemus's main selling point in his song—his socio-economic status and his inherent nobility—distinguishes him as a creator and producer of the comforts of life, such as food and a stable home.

Acis, however, as Polyphemus's sexual competitor, conducts a more direct courtship of Galathea. Whereas Polyphemus's song is characterized by detached idealization, the mute interaction between Acis and Galathea is an interpersonal, physically charged mating ritual. These two instruments of courtship—Polyphemus's vocalized detachment and Acis's silent interaction—compete with each other, and, in effect, both men enter into sexual competition. But Acis's more proactive involvement in the mating process leads him to success in his quest for Galathea's affection, and it becomes clear that the success of his quest lies primarily in his role as Homo economicus. Acis carries out his plans within the physical proximity of Galathea, and his first step is silently to place symbolically erotic offerings of food next to the sleeping nymph:

El celestial humor recién cuajado
que la almendra guardó entre verde y seca,
en blanca mimbre se lo puso al lado,
y un copo, en verdes juncos, de manteca;
en breve corcho, pero bien labrado,
un rubio hijo de una encina hueca,
dulcísimo panal, a cuya cera
su néctar vinculó la primavera.

(201-208)

Even though Polyphemus portrays himself in his song as a shepherd who efficiently controls his natural resources and tames his natural world, Acis uses the pastoral landscape against Polyphemus, and this strategy ultimately frustrates the cyclops' courtship of the nymph. If part of Polyphemus's courtship strategy is to announce the virtues of his socio-economic status as producer and provider, and to let this fact speak for itself, Acis, “rico de cuanto el huerto ofrece pobre” (199), puts the nature around him to artful use for immediate purposes. Specifically, Acis arranges food offerings around Galathea's body, and thus shows his economic savvy as a consumer capable of using the resources around him to his lasting advantage. Later, when Galathea wakes up and sees herself surrounded by nature's bounty, Acis's courtship of her continues as she takes notice of him—and leans over him—while he pretends to sleep: “El bulto vio, y, haciéndolo dormido, / … / como la ninfa bella, compitiendo / con el garzón dormido en cortesía. …” (257-266) Eventually, Acis pretends to awaken (“El sueño de sus miembros sacudido”) and, better than finding himself surrounded by aphrodisiacal food, he finds Galathea—the object of his sexual desire—at his feet: “y al marfil luego de sus pies rendido, / el coturno besar dorado intenta.” (299-300) With Acis and Galathea now fully aware of each other's presence, and with their mutual attraction now brought out into the open, Acis has demonstrated his skills as a marketer of himself as an object of desire. Polyphemus, at this point unaware of the youths' erotic ritual, sings his genteel song of love for Galathea just as the “tálamo de Acis ya y de Galatea” (336) witnesses the youths' consummation of their physical urges.⁴

The difference in strategical effectiveness between Polyphemus's courtship techniques and Acis's procedure is grounded in non-economic factors, too. To begin with, Polyphemus's timing is off; he sings his song of love much too late in the game, well after the sexual tension between Acis and Galathea is posited and resolved. Moreover, there is no indication that Galathea actually hears Polyphemus's song, as he believes her to be in a remote place—the sea—and not on the island. But most importantly, to underscore the detachment so characteristic of Polyphemus's conduct, the sexual triumph of Acis—regardless of issues of time and place—celebrates erotic passion and punishes contemplative love. As raw, sexual energy and physical desirability displace the idealized virtues of patience, restraint, humility, and moderation, the impulse of carnal desire renders the classic pastoral paradigm impotent. Góngora effectively decenters amor cortés, and shows that the surface values of erotic attraction—physical desirability—really do prevail. Not only does Polyphemus's song come too late to compete with Acis's overtures, and not only does Polyphemus not position himself as effectively as Acis, but also Polyphemus's song is functionally weak as a courtship device. Part of this weakness is inherent in the amor cortés model; the poetic traditions of the Renaissance show us that erotic triumphs are rare in courtly love.⁵ And part of the weakness in Polyphemus's strategy lies also with the fact that, moral virtues aside, the power of physical beauty is immediate and immense.

The courtship competition between Polyphemus and Acis is not the only way in which the traditional models of pastoral behavior are subverted. Polyphemus himself, in fact, undermines the value system underlying amor cortés that he promotes in his song to Galathea. When Galathea's sexual liaison with Acis is discovered, Polyphemus eliminates the competition:

Con vïolencia desgajó infinita,
la mayor punta de la excelsa roca,
que al joven, sobre quien la precipita,
urna es mucha, pirámide no poca.

(489-492)

Previously unmoved by Polyphemus's courtship, Galathea further distances herself from the cyclops by heading back to the sea: “Con lágrimas la ninfa solicita / las deidades del mar …” (493-94) Polyphemus, the archetypal Wild Man moved by amor frustrado, reacts to his defeat in turn by killing Acis and frustrating the love between Acis and Galathea. As a result, “[t]he pastoral harmonies of the Renaissance are invaded by the forgotten and egocentric lusts of a monster who destroys an idyllic vision of love.” (Dudley 115) With Acis so brutally out of the picture, Galathea is forced either to flee or to confront Polyphemus, and evidently she chooses to be solitary rather than to be punished or loved by the cyclops. In this way, Polyphemus's vengeance becomes complete, as Polyphemus eliminates Acis's physical beauty, as he deprives Galathea the opportunity to maintain her romance with Acis, and as he prevents both lovers from developing the intimacy already established through physical contact. But Polyphemus accomplishes this end by contradicting himself. Instead of practicing the moral virtues of beatus ille and mediocritas, Polyphemus lets loose his wrath:

Viendo el fiero jayán, con paso mudo
correr al mar la fugitiva nieve
(que a tanta vista el líbico desnudo
registra el campo de su adarga breve)
y al garzón viendo, cuantas mover pudo
celoso trueno, antiguas hayas mueve:
tal, antes que la opaca nube rompa,
previene rayo fulminante trompa.

(481-488)

This scene of extreme rage, and the accompanying scene of extreme physical brutality, shows that, in spite of his Petrarchan veneer of romantic civility, pastoral gentility, and emotional equanimity, Polyphemus does not accept defeat gracefully, as the expectations of amor cortés would have it. For Polyphemus, it only takes one instant of spontaneous cruelty to unravel his carefully self-constructed identity as a product of pastoral ideals, and thus to sabotage his self-image as a desirable lover. In this way, the poem's only violent action—Polyphemus's histrionic murder of Acis—invalidates the main point of the only speech act—Polyphemus's lament—in the poem. The contradiction between Polyphemus's words and deeds, then, signify the triumph of instinct over intellect, and, generally, the deflation of the integrity of pastoral ideals.

Polyphemus's use of raw strength to punish Acis and Galathea for their sexual liaison fails to prevent the ultimate triumph of the lovers in the realm of metaphysics, metaphor, and metamorphosis. Previous passages in the poem suggest that Acis and Galathea have already consummated their passion by the time Polyphemus discovers them together (“De los nudos, con esto, más süaves, / los dulces dos amantes desatados …” [473-474]), and Polyphemus's murder of Acis ensures that the young lovers' passion will never again be consummated in the same way. But Polyphemus's retribution, intended to immobilize the youths' romance, only serves to eternalize the romance. The triumph of the youths' love, indeed, is ensured first by Galathea's flight to the sea, then by her call for divine aid, and lastly by the superreal metamorphosis of Acis's blood into water:

Con lágrimas la ninfa solicita
las deidades del mar, que Acis invoca:
concurren todas, y el peñasco duro
la sangre que exprimió, cristal fue puro.

(493-496)

If the physical contact that Acis and Galathea enjoy on dry land is characterized by the erotic joining of flesh, the physical contact that they now enjoy is distinguished by their mutual contact with water. Acis, as water, joins Galathea's family, and both lovers thus symbolically become part of a divine and natural cycle of fertility and reproduction: “a Doris llega, que, con llanto pío, / yerno lo saludó, lo aclamó río.” (503-504) Thanks to Galathea's request for the gods' intercession, the intent of Polyphemus's wrath winds up contrasting sharply from the result; Polyphemus's deviation from courtly self-restraint has, from his vantage point, only intensified and perpetuated the cause of his frustration. Whereas Acis and Galathea find themselves established in a world characterized by family bonds and sexual union, Polyphemus's outburst of antipastoral violence definitively leaves him without hope for Galathea's affection. Polyphemus remains utterly alone and sexually useless. Pastoral, in the end, is rendered ideologically and strategically impotent.

The story of Polyphemus shows that the celebrated values of pastoral romance, such as detached patience and humility, may be counterproductive and even self-defeating in real situations. Not only does Polyphemus's affiliation with pastoral values not work to his social and sexual advantage, but Polyphemus's subversion of his own pastoral identity makes a bad situation even worse. Polyphemus not only suffers the expected fallout of amor no correspondido, but also becomes a victim of external circumstances as well as of personal weaknesses beyond the limits of traditional, self-contained pastoral. With respect to the social relationships explored and suggested in Góngora's Fábula, Polyphemus's violent revenge turns Acis into an archetypal scapegoat or pharmakos as defined by Northrop Frye:

[T]he figure of a typical or random victim begins to crystallize in domestic tragedy as it deepens in ironic tone. … The pharmakos is neither innocent nor guilty. He is innocent in the sense that what happens to him is far greater than he has done provokes. … He is guilty in the sense that he is a member of a guilty society, or living in a world where such injustices are an inescapable part of existence.

(41)

On the symbolic and metamorphic level of sexual relationships, however, it is Polyphemus, and not Acis, who is sacrificed and denied the procreative opportunity to contribute to his family's genealogy. As he turns a blind eye to the shortcomings of pastoral idealism and to the limits of pastoral self-identification, and as his rival Acis and his beloved Galathea enjoy a mythic function as natural agents of fertility and reproduction, Polyphemus faces little more than social loss, sexual irrelevance, and, in the end, self-annihilation.

Notes

1. Several studies have explored the Fábula's relationship to the pastoral tradition with some depth. In particular, see Robert Jammes, Études sur l'oeuvre poétique de Don Luis de Góngora y Argote (Bordeaux: Institut d'Études Ibériques et Ibéroaméricaines de l'Université de Bordeaux, 1967) 533-54; Alexander A. Parker, Polyphemus and Galatea: A Study in the Interpretation of a Baroque Poem (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1977) 57-60; and Smith (221 and 235-6).

2. The codes of amor cortés here refer to the restrictions and expectations of the suitor, as outlined in influential guidebooks such as Andreas Capellanus's De arte honeste amandi. For a comprehensive survey of the many configurations of courtly love in Spanish literature, with some discussion of Góngora, see Parker.

3. The entire text of Polyphemus's lament (stanzas 46 through 58) is structurally enclosed by stanzas (41 and 60) referring to Galathea's sexual liaison with Acis. Technically, Polyphemus's idealized love for Galathea tries to build up to a musical and narrative climax in the lament, but this process is first merely cut short (“Su horrenda voz, no su dolor interno, / cabras aquí le interrumpieron. …” [465-6]) and then decidedly defeated as Galathea and Acis are discovered in post-coital bliss: “De los nudos, con esto, más süaves, / los dulces dos amantes desatados. …” (473-4) This timing of events, while allowing Acis and Galathea to enjoy each other physically, does not allow Polyphemus even to experience a parallel, fantasized enjoyment of Galathea in his own song.

4. Smith makes some very suggestive comments that may help to understand the nature of the sexual competition between Polyphemus and Acis:

   The human and semi-human beings emerge from the sea, a rich source of life and perhaps the origin of all life, as biologists suggest. Once the cast is assembled, whatever its origins, the situation is Darwinian enough. Polyphemus kills the wilds beast, for clothing; the wolf kills the sheep, for food; and Polyphemus kills Acis, his competitor in love. Being prays on being, and the strongest survives.

   (230-1)

   I would add that, in this Darwinian world, the principle of natural selection works to bring Acis and Galathea together, and this ultimately moves Polyphemus—the weaker competitor in the sexual realm—to use his brute strength and attempt to become the only being capable of pursuing Galathea. But Galathea, as arguably the intellectually strongest of the three characters, thinks quickly, requests divine intervention, and sees Acis transformed into an eternal substance (water) that she (a water nymph) can consort with. In this way, Acis survives and Polyphemus falters due to Galathea's intercession.

5. Parker contends that romantic and sexual unfulfillment—amor no correspondido—is a necessary characteristic of pastoral:

   [L]ove is a doom against which it is useless for the lover to struggle. Suffering is inseparable from love and an ennobling aspect of it. Fulfilment is therefore not desirable, since it would put an end to the exquisite, ennobling suffering of suspense.

   (109)

   This trait suggests that the courtly love paradigm in pastoral literature is inherently self-destructive and unproductive, especially, as in the case of Polyphemus, when pastoral love operates in a social environment not limited exclusively to pastoral norms (such as Acis's world of mating and reproduction), and thus subject to competition. For more on the typical courtier's tendency toward self-extinction, see Denis de Rougemont's Love in the Western World (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983) 42-6.

Works Cited

Dudley, Edward. “The Wild Man Goes Baroque.” The Wild Man Within: An Image in Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism. Eds. Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972. 115-139.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990.

Góngora y Argote, Luis de. Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea. Ed. A. A. Parker. Madrid: Cátedra, 1987.

Parker, Alexander A. The Philosophy of Love in Spanish Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1985.

Smith, C. Colin. “An Approach to Góngora's Polifemo.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 42 (1965): 217-38.