[In the following essay, Cruz-Saenz attempts to ascertain the relationship between Santillana's coplas on Don Alvaro De Luna and the Doctrinal de Privados.]

In 1900, as Francisco de Uhagón was comparing the privately-owned Cancionero de Oñate-Castañeda with other cancionero manuscripts, he noticed a poem not included by Amador de los Ríos when he published this same cancionero in 1852. This poem, entitled “Otras coplas del dicho ssenor Marques sobrel mesmo casso,” follows the Marqués' “Doctrinal de privados,” in the codex. The manuscript of the Cancionero de Oñate-Castañeda disappeared soon after Uhagón's publication of the unedited portions in the Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos of 1900.¹ The Cancionero has now turned up in the Harvard University Houghton Library.

The Coplas and the Doctrinal de privados both treat the death of the powerful Don Álvaro de Luna. My investigations of the contents of some ninety cancioneros² show that the Doctrinal appears in fifteen collections, whereas the Coplas, as Uhagón pointed out in 1900, only appear in the 1480 Oñate-Castañeda. On the following pages I will examine these two poems and attempt to ascertain their relationship.

The Coplas begin:

De tu resplandor o Luna
te ha privado la fortuna.

Like the Doctrinal, the Coplas are believed to have been written in 1453, the year of Luna's death. Both poems are written in octosyllabic llanos, in strophes of eight verses per copla, with the identical rhyming pattern ABABCDDC. The Coplas contain fifty strophes and the Doctrinal has fifty-three. The Coplas are separated into six distinct parts, the first consisting of eight strophes. This portion represents an introduction to Don Álvaro's powerful life as Condestable and briefly contrasts his humble beginnings with the granting of his every whim by the reigning monarch:

O Luna quen toda España,
los tus rrayos tracendían
O Luna en quanto grado
tus principios son sabidos
y tu pobre y baxo estado
pues mira quan elevada
te subió la magestad
con constancia prolongada.

The tangible assets afforded him by Juan II are then enumerated:

Diote castillos y villas
muchas tierras y cibdades
grandes gentes y quadrillas
onores y dinidades
y tesoros ynffinitos
y el universo mando

Santillana then portrays the arrogant, boastful ingrate that he saw Luna to be in the second portion of the poem. He airs Luna's worst characteristics in nine coplas, discussing his insistent stubbornness and his vainglorious reputation which were feared by his enemies and applauded by his friends. Then Santillana describes the “more than imperial” power which Luna exerted, at whim, to imprison anyone. Of course, the reference here is to Luna's imprisonment, in 1451, of several nobles, among whom was the Marqués' cousin, the Conde de Alba. Santillana next points out that, with Luna's immense power, his boundless avarice led him to alienate the very throne he served and even compelled him to beg for more wealth than he already had. Santillana relates how Luna made the King come to abhor the Queen and the royal family so that the Condestable could assure his own aggrandizement and insure that his sons would become counts. Luna even denied the free will that God grants to all mankind. Santillana then relates how Luna exiled friends and relatives from the court and how, because of his insatiable desire for wealth, he usurped their property. Luna was incapable of pardoning his peers and would instead humiliate and debase them. Santillana finally accuses the Condestable of destroying loyalty and restricting his countrymen. Although he represents a “rock of security” for the kings of Spain, the price they must pay for this service is seen as outrageous.

Part three of the Coplas contains seven strophes, and represents Santillana's grand lamentation of Luna's actions. Condemning the Condestable, he compares him to Lucifer. This outburst of emotion is then brought to a climax:

O Luna eclibssada
y llena d'oscuridad
tenebrosa y fuscada
conplida de çeguedad
toda negra ya pareces
de claresa careçiente
galardon equiualente
rrecibes segund mereces.

Santillana is, of course, implying here that a death as violent as beheading is only too well-deserved.

The ten coplas composing part four, entitled “Inbocaçión a Dios,” contain praise of God's patience, piety, and penitence for all sinners. Santillana entreats the Almighty to help Juan II reign effectively over Castile and restore peace and mutual respect to his people.

The fifth part, consisting of nine coplas, is directed to the Queen. Santillana praises her.³ She is a liberator, an example of discretion, and a woman of great constancy. He entreats her to be strong and to exert her influence on the “weak lion” Juan II, so that he may free the nobles imprisoned by Luna and restore peace and harmony among the rebels.

The final six strophes are directed to Prince Henry, Juan II's eldest son, who succeeded him in 1454. Santillana calls him vigorous and virtuous, excellent and illustrious, clement and reverent, and appeals to him to continue to assist his father. As successor to the throne, the Marqués again asks him for the release of the political prisoners and the reinstatement of those nobles whom Luna exiled.

The Doctrinal de privados, said to be written about three months later than the Coplas, is divided into three parts: an introduction of thirty-nine coplas, a “Confession” of twelve, and a Cabo of one. The Marqués begins the poem as if he were Álvaro de Luna:

Vi thesoros ayuntados
por grand daño de su dueño:
Asy como sombra o sueño
son nuestros días contados.
E si fueron prorrogados
por sus lágrimas a algunos,
destos non vemos ningunos
por nuestros negros pecados.

What follows is an account of Luna's elaborate, individualized self-condemnation, which is then universalized by Santillana as doctrine for all good Christians. Such lessons as fear of God, obeying reason, use of good judgment, almighty power of God, and elimination of prejudice, are advised by Luna. In the “Confession” which follows, Luna admits to God that he has broken the Ten Commandments and committed the Seven Capital Sins. He admits that he never gave alms nor helped the poor, nor redeemed captives, nor visited the sick, nor buried the dead. In conclusion, Luna entreats God's absolution in exchange for his contrition. He appeals to God for the salvation of his soul at death and for forgiveness of Juan II. The Cabo of the Doctrinal is a plea to all Christians to pray for his soul.

Of the two poems, Uhagón noted in 1900:⁴ “Como se ve, [Las Coplas son] una repetición del ‘Doctrinal’ si cabe más fuerte, más dura y más sañuda que el mismo ‘Doctrinal.’” Lapesa⁵ suggests the possibility that these two poems are not the product of the same poet. His evidence lies in certain “deficiencias métricas y en pretendidas ‘rachas de vulgaridad.’” These deficiencies may, however, be due to the mistakes of copyists. With only one extant text at hand, such a point is difficult to prove. Lapesa himself does not find any great inconsistency in the vulgarities used in the Coplas. Structurally the Coplas are identical to the Doctrinal and their length is very similar: 398 and 424 verses respectively.

An essential feature of any comparison of these two poems pertains to the difference in the treatment of Santillana's subject, Don Álvaro, as the months passed following his beheading. The Coplas, written very soon after Luna's death, are undoubtedly a product of intense emotion. Santillana is overwhelmed by hatred and scorn for Luna and he is outraged by his acts of murder and imprisonment. The Marqués poetically strips Luna of his powerful position and exposes him as a social climber who pushed his way into the favor of a weak king and destroyed everything that could possibly inhibit the augmentation of his wealth and power. Santillana, like a prosecutor in a courtroom, condemns Luna, listing his crimes in nine succinct points and concluding with a grand finale of accusations. Equally important to Santillana, as the condemner of Luna, is his appeal to God for the return of Juan II's sovereignty and his plea to the Queen and Prince for the release of the imprisoned nobles. Santillana, an illustrious man of both arms and letters, has chosen his pen to create an effect upon his countrymen and foster a return to political justice.

In the Doctrinal, however, there is a change of intent. This poem must have been written after the release of the imprisoned nobles. The Queen and Prince are not mentioned and the strength of Juan II is no longer a prayer to be fulfilled. Santillana's personal emotion now serves as an indirect impetus for the evolution of the poem. With the passage of time, what was once a personal affront now assumes a different perspective. Hatred and scorn for Luna have been attenuated and the Condestable's fate is now viewed as tragedy. Luna, once the object of Santillana's odium, now becomes an exemplum illustrating a universal theme. In the Doctrinal, Don Álvaro recognizes and repents of his sins, advising Christians against what he has done. Santillana now even suggests that Luna might have been sincere in his actions and motivated by honorable intentions to serve king and country. The passage of time has not only mellowed Santillana, but also perhaps has enabled him to judge Don Álvaro more objectively. The Coplas, then, represent the emotional seed from which the artistic, ironical, and universal Doctrinal grew. It is fortunate and extremely interesting for us that this work is preserved. The Coplas confirm the historical evidence that is known to us. They give us a splendid emotional insight into Santillana's personal feelings and into those intense political sentiments that electrified the times in which he lived.⁶

Notes

1. F. de Uhagón, “Un cancionero del siglo xv con varias poesías inéditas,” RABM, 6 (1900), 321-38.

2. J. Steunou and L. Knapp, Bibliografia de los cancioneros castellanos del siglo xv y repertorio de sus géneros poéticos, i (Paris, 1975). Steunou and Knapp list the Cancionero de Oñate-Castañeda as of unknown location.

3. On the day of her wedding, which Don Álvaro arranged (she was Juan II's second wife), Santillana wrote and recited a poem which lauded her beauty.

4. Uhagón, p. 390.

5. R. Lapesa, La obra literaria del Marqués de Santillana (Madrid, 1957), p. 227.

6. A preliminary version of this article was read at the Medieval Spanish Section of the 1978 NEMLA Conference at SUNY Albany. I wish to thank Dr. S. G. Armistead for offering helpful suggestions and Dr. G. M. Rivera-LaScala for generously supplying a microfilm of the Cancionero de Oñate-Castañeda.