[In the following essay, Marni considers the question of whether or not counterpassion (the principal that considers if a punishment fits a crime) was used in de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla.]

The spiritual damnation of Don Juan by Tirso de Molina posed no problem either to the famous Mercedario himself or to his contemporary fellow-Christians. For them it was a simple matter of dogma. Divine justice dooms unrepentant mortal sinners to everlasting punishment.¹ But does not Don Juan express repentance?

Deja que llame quien me confiese y absuelva,

he cries, only to be told

No hay lugar; ya acuerdas tarde,

and to feel, immediately thereafter, the pangs of hell:

¡Que me quemo! ¡Que me abraso! ¡Muerto soy!²

The modern reader is inclined to ask: “Did God deal fairly with Don Juan?” And there is further cause for modern uneasiness in this matter. It would even appear that the Lord, the all-mighty Judge, rejecting the standard rules of chivalry and fair play, had recourse to deceit in meting out His punishment. In the scene in which Don Juan has kept his promise to come to dinner with the statue, we read:

Don Juan. Ya he cenado; haz que levanten la mesa.

Don Gon. Dame esa mano; no temas, la mano dame.

Don Juan. ¿Eso dices? ¿Yo, temor? ¡Que me abraso! ¡No me abrases con tu fuego … no me aprietes! (pp. 288-289).

But Don Gonzalo does not let him go. Instead, the burlador dies and sinks into Hell.

The deceit we have mentioned, especially as contained in the no temas of Don Gonzalo, seems evident, and could be singled out as incompatible with the Christian concept of God. Such being the case, and without wishing to take upon himself the role of an advocatus Dei, one may suggest a possible solution of the problem by calling attention to the principle of counterpassion as employed by Dante in choosing the kind of punishment bestowed upon the denizens of the Inferno. Not that we wish to claim an influence on Tirso by the great Italian poet. It may be true, however, that if Fr. Gabriel Téllez was the gran teólogo³ that most of his commentators have seen in him, he must have come upon the idea of counterpassion either in his reading of St. Thomas' commentary on the Fifth Book of Aristotle's Ethics, or in his other theological studies.⁴ Counterpassion may be defined as the principle whereby justice demands that a sin receive retribution first and foremost in kind, “that the penalty should be of the same sort as the injury inflicted.”⁵ But in order to clarify and limit the meaning of the term to the needs of this paper, it may be sufficient to recall how Dante used it, bearing in mind at the same time that some of the best examples abandon the realm of the physical for the more elusive psychological and spiritual. An excellent specimen of the latter type presents itself to the poet immediately upon crossing the portals of Hell. A pandemonium assails his ears:

Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
          parole di dolore, accenti d’ira,
          voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
facevano un tumulto, il qual s’aggira
          sempre in quell’aura sanza tempo tinta,
          come la rena quando turbo spira.

It comes from people who in life had been either lukewarm or neutral, mingled together to form the numberless throng

                              … di coloro
che visser sanza infamia e sanza lodo.(6)

According to Dante, such men and women, far from being calm and collected on earth, are subconsciously in constant agitation and turmoil, pursued and driven on by an everpresent fear of being disturbed. Thus by choosing the way of inaction they have really cast themselves in such spiritual unrest that, when they reach their proper place in Hell, their true state is made manifest. For, as the poet continues:

E io, che riguardai, vidi una insegna
          che girando correva tanto ratta,
          che d’ogni posa mi parea indegna;
e dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
          di gente, ch’io non averei creduto
          che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta …
Questi sciaurati, che mai non fur vivi,
          erano ignudi, stimolati molto
          da mosconi e da vespe ch’eran ivi. (Inf., III, 52-66.)

Thus counterpassion is used both to disclose the real spiritual nature of these wretches and to prescribe their fitting punishment. A second example that we may recall concerns the punishment meted out to tyrants and conquerors. In life these criminals have reveled in bloodshed. Consequently, in death their just punishment consists of being confined perpetually in a river of boiling blood (Inf., XII, 100-139.) A third and last case, one in which the poet makes sure that his readers shall not let pass un-noticed the source of the type of punishment he chooses for the various sins, deals with the Provençal poet Bertran de Born. Tradition reports him as having aroused young Henry of England against his own father, Henry II. Dante meets Bertran in the ninth pouch of the Eighth Circle, where dwell the sowers of discord, that is, those who have severed what nature has united.

Io vidi certo, ed ancor par ch’io ’l veggia,
          un busto sanza capo andar sì come
          andavan li altri della trista greggia;
e ’l capo tronco tenea per le chiome,
          pèsol con mano a guisa di lanterna …
Quando diritto al piè del ponte fue,
          levò ’l braccio alto con tutta la testa,
          per appressarne le parole sue,
che fuoro: “Or vedi la pena molesta …
          E perchè tu di me novella porti,
          sappi ch’ i’ son Bertram dal Bornio,
quelli
          che diedi al Re giovane i ma’ conforti
Io feci il padre e ’l figlio in sè rebelli …
Perch’io parti’ così giunte persone,
          partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso!,
          dal suo principio ch’è in questo troncone
Così s’osserva in me lo contrapasso.” (Inf., XXVIII, 118-142.)

Summing up, in all three of the above passages it is to be noted that: 1. The quality of the punishment is given prominence over the quantity. 2. Taken allegorically, these episodes, as do most of the others portrayed in the Inferno, represent evil men, not so much as they are in Hell, but as they actually live on earth. 3. The validity of the justice involved, the counterpassion, is confirmed only because the sinners have commited their crimes of their own free will.⁷

If Tirso's paternity of El condenado por desconfiado were universally accepted, one could cite with more confidence some passages extremely applicable to our discussion, since they treat explicitly of the spiritual state of sinners both in life and death. Again an example from the Inferno by way of clarification. Appalled by the inhuman aspect of treachery, Dante wonders how a person guilty of such a sin can remain alive, that is, continue as a member of the human community. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t, as Dante is told upon reaching Tolomea, the second last place he visits in Hell. Here the explanation is given how it is that Branca Doria, who “as yet is not dead, but eats and drinks, and sleeps and puts on garments,” has actually been there for several years already:

          sappie che tosto che l’anima trade
come fec’io, il corpo suo l’è tolto
          da un demonio, che poscia il governa
          mentre che ’l tempo suo tutto sia volto.
Ella ruina in sì fatta cisterna. (Inf., XXXIII, 129-133.)

Similarly in the Condenado, Tirso on three different occasions refers to Enrico as a body whose soul has left it, and is already suffering the torments of Hell:

Paulo. A éste han
llamado Enrico
Pedrisco. Será otro.
¿Querías tú que fuese este mal hombre,
que en vida está ya ardiendo en los infiernos?

And ten verses below:

Pedrisco. Mire y calle,
que somos pobres, y este desalmado
no nos eche en la mar.

Finally, six pages later:

Pedrisco. Pues aqueste ya
está ardiendo
en los infiernos.(8)

In other words, as far as Pedrisco is concerned, and unbeknown to him (but perhaps not so to Tirso de Molina!), Enrico represents a perfect example of Aristotelian-Thomistic counterpassion. The equation that like begets like, or better still, that like is like is clearly portrayed. Fiendish Enrico behaves like a devil because it is the devil who is in control of his body while his soul “ya está ardiendo en los infiernos.”

Transferring this to the case of Don Juan, it follows that if it may be proved that Fr. Gabriel Téllez looked upon him as a desalmado, as one already in Hell, then no deceit could have been involved in the oft-quoted “dame esa mano.” Don Gonzalo's request and his action in dragging him down with the sinking tomb would exist in the play merely as a symbol, and solely for the benefit of the un-indoctrinated spectator.

The Burlador contains much more internal evidence of counterpassion, whether intentional or subconscious, than the Condenado. Indeed, the play opens with a clear-cut example of its use even in lay justice. It concerns the way the King of Naples reacts towards Duchess Isabela upon discovering her moral transgression. With utter indifference to her presence, he orders Don Pedro to take her in custody. This slight hurts her pride, so she addresses the King saying:

Gran señor, volvedme el rostro.

To which the King significantly replies:

Ofensa a mi espalda hecha
es justicia y es razón
castigalla a espaldas vueltas. (p. 173.)

That is to say, both justice and reason find it equitable that the transgression be punished in kind. Isabela has of her own free will decided to ignore the obligation and courtesy she owes to her king. Consequently, counterpassion dictates that she receive disregard and discourtesy from him in his administration of justice.⁹ The two following examples are, most likely, more indicative of Tirso's pattern of thinking or imagination than of intentional counterpassion, but still they hold to the theme that like begets like. One appears at the end of the first Jornada, where Tisbea, by this time a much wiser woman, exclaims:

Yo soy la que hacía siempre
de los hombres burla tanta;
que siempre las que hacen burla,
vienen a quedar burladas. (p. 210.)

The other is found in the comment of Catalinón upon being told by Don Juan that he intends to deceive Doña Ana:

                    No lo apruebo.
Tú pretendes que escapemos
          una vez, señor, burlados;
que el que vive de burlar
burlado habrá de escapar
pagando tantos pecados
          de una vez. (p. 227.)

Of similar import is the striking parallel in phraseology between the utter indifference with which the burlador is willing to visit the world with fire and brimstone provided he (or his friends in evil) gain his evil purposes, and the retributory mode of his death. Upon being informed by the Marqués de la Mota that Doña Ana, who loves the marqués, has been destined by the king for another man's hand, Don Juan gives his friend the following advice:

Quien tan satisfecho vive
          de su amor, ¿desdichas teme?
Sacalda, solicitalda,
escribilda y engañalda,
y el mundo se abrase y queme. (p. 224)

Little suspecting, however, that much sooner than he had anticipated, he was going to need practically the same identical words for himself, as the stony hand of the Comendador refused to let his go:

Don Juan. ¡Que me quemo! ¡Que me abraso! (p. 289.)

Counterpassion plays, likewise, an important, if not decisive, role in the search for a solution to two major problems arising in the death scene of the Burlador. The first has been already mentioned—the presumed deceit involved in Don Gonzalo's “Dame esa mano, no temas.” The second has to do with the denying of a confessor in extremis to Don Juan.

In asking for Don Juan's hand, even if with a deceitful intention, the Comendador was acting fully in accordance with the principle of counterpassion, since he was dealing with a man who had made deception the norm of his moral life. Indeed, on at least three occasions Don Juan had given his hand in false faith.

dame, duquesa, la mano (p. 166),

he said to Isabela when the latter called for help upon discovering her betrayal. And to the hesitating Aminta his false words were:

                    dame esa mano(10)
y esta voluntad confirma con ella;

and again a few verses below:

Juro a esta mano, señora …
de cumplirte la palabra. (p. 259.)

As for the deceitful intention attributed to Don Gonzalo when he asked Don Juan not to be afraid to give him his hand, an intention justified by the often quoted “no temas,” it may be properly claimed that the two words were spoken for quite a different reason. There seems to be justification that they were uttered with a taunting feeling of scorn, since Don Gonzalo felt convinced that the burlador was a coward at heart. In fact, he told him so at least on two occasions. Once as he lay dying:

Seguiráte mi furor;
que es traidor, y el que es traidor
es traidor porque es cobarde. (p. 238.)

And once again at the church when Don Juan came to keep his supper date:

Don Gon. El muerto soy,
no te espantes.
No entendí que me cumplieras
la palabra, según haces
de todos burla.
Don Juan. ¿Me tienes
en opinión de cobarde?
Don Gon. Sí, que
aquella noche huíste
de mí cuando me mataste. (p. 286.)

The second problem, the denying of a confessor to Don Juan, even though he asked for one, involves more significant theological issues. Consequently, it may find in the principle of counterpassion a more solid theological explanation, at least as far as the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of Justice envisaged it. Basically, it is one entailing the efficacy of sufficient grace. In other words, just to what point may a sinner persist in his evil doing, confident that Divine Mercy will not remain deaf to his death-bed repentance, a repentance perhaps arising more through fear than real contrition? In the case of Buonconte da Montefeltro, whom Dante meets in the Ante-Purgatory, among those who through violent death have postponed repentance until extremely late, the Italian poet opines that it is never too late to repent. Or, as the devil put it when he came to take away the soul of the well-known sinner, Buonconte:

                              O tu del ciel, perchè mi privi?
Tu te ne porti di costui l’etterno
per una lacrimetta che ’l mi toglie. (Purg., V, 105-107.)

On the other hand, not all those who have treated the problem seem to have been so lenient as Dante. For instance, St. Augustine has been quoted by Martín de Azpilcueta as doubting the real (but not the presumptive) salvation of those who seek confession after delaying until death is upon them. Of greater significance to the present discussion, however, is Azpilcueta's own opinion, since he was both a Spaniard and practically a contemporary of Tirso de Molina. In his Manual de confesores y penitentes we find the following passage so decisively applicable to the case of the burlador:

… se engañan muchos pẽsando, q qualquier dolor, y herir de pechos, y qualquier Miserere mei, basta para el perdõ de los pecados mortales, y es contriciõ: pues para ello es menester arrepentimiẽto tã generoso y qualificado como està dicho. Ni repugna a esto q los q muerẽ estãdo en pecado mortal sin confesiõ, se presumẽ morir arrepentidos, y cõtritos, si muestrã algunas señales dello, como si piden cõfessiõ, o jurã obedecer a los mandados de la yglesia: o si no pueden hablar, leuãtan las manos al cielo, o hierẽ los pechos, como lo dize Host. Porq esto es verdad, para effecto de presumir, q murierõ cõtritos, y de no denegarles la absoluciõ de la descomuniõ, ni la sepultura. Pero no, pa. effecto de morir delãte de Dios verdaderamẽte cõtritos, si dẽtro de sus almas no tuvierõ arrepẽtimiẽto en la manera susodicha qualificado.¹¹

Don Juan had waited too long before asking for a confessor. He did not even ask for one immediately upon feeling the hellish fire pervade his whole being. Instead he attempted to defend himself and punish the statue of the rash Comendador as he had done in life by murdering the real one. He cries out:

Con la daga he de matarte.

And only when he realizes that he is striking a vain apparition:

Mas ¡ay! que me canso en vano
de tirar golpes al aire,

does he beg:

                              Deja que llame
quien me confiese y absuelva. (p. 289.)

Don Gonzalo, however, is not a mere man. He has already told Don Juan:

No alumbres, que en gracia estoy. (p. 277.)

He is in contact with the Infinite and is not obliged, as St. Augustine is, to presume. He knows that Don Juan's request for confession does not come from an aborrecimiento del pecado, and so is perfectly justified in refusing him a confessor.

Taken from the point of view of counterpassion, the refusal is quite as valid, if not more so, since it approaches the problem less with respect to Divine Mercy, than as a basic case of Divine Justice, if we bear in mind the definition of counterpassion as the principle whereby the penalty should be of the same sort as the injury inflicted. It is just that Don Juan be refused the opportunity to confess, since on repeated occasions he has sneered at the idea of taking time to do so. Even his own father's warning that some day it might be too late proved completely useless:

Don Diego. Mira que, aunque
al parecer
Dios te consiente y aguarda,
su castigo no se tarda,
y que castigo ha de haber
para los que profanáis
su nombre, que es jüez fuerte
Dios en la muerte.
Don Juan. ¿En la
muerte?
¿Tan largo me lo fiáis?(12)
De aquí allá hay gran jornada.

Don Diego. Breve te ha de parecer. (p. 231.)

And it proved to be breve, indeed!

Thus, by the exercise of his Free Will in evil actions, and by this obstinate persistence in them, the burlador has so plunged himself in sin that as one reads the play, the impression is gained that Tirso looked upon him, too, as a desalmado, as he had done with Enrico in the Condenado. The association of Don Juan's name, or person, with that of the devil appears early in the play. Don Pedro first suggests the relationship as he informs Octavio of what has taken place in the King's palace soon after the deception of Doña Isabela:

pero pienso que el Demonio
en él tomó forma humana. (p. 178.)

In the same act, Don Juan himself utters a verse, as he begins the siege of Tisbea, that in its figurative meaning may be frought with tragic irony, as he says to her:

Don Juan. Muerto soy.

Tisbea. ¿Cómo, si andáis?

Don Juan. Ando en pena, como veis. (p. 195.)

Next, it is Batricio who, on seeing Don Juan appear as the uninvited guest at his wedding feast, feels like uttering “retro, Satanas” as he complains:

                              Imagino
que el demonio le envió. (p. 244.)

Finally, his servant, Catalinón, who we may be justified in believing was as close to his master as any other living person, and on whose judgment we should rely with complete confidence, calls Don Juan by his right name when, in apostrophising the luckless betrothed of Aminta, he says:

¡Desdichado tú que has dado
en manos de Lucifer! (p. 246.)(13)

Such then, is the real person Fray Gabriel Téllez has portrayed—a devil incarnate, who, living up to his nature, is first and foremost a deceiver, and who gloats over his evil nature. One may conclude that, by the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of Justice as counterpassion, the words:

                              Dame esa mano;
no temas, la mano dame,

imply no deceit.

Notes

1. See below, quotation from Azpilcueta, for a justification of this statement.

2. Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla, ed. Américo Castro, Clásicos Castellanos (Madrid, 1932), p. 289. All future references to the Burlador will be to this edition.

3. The theological erudition of Tirso is commonly recognized among his critics. While in Santo Domingo, Tirso “leyó tres cursos de teología,” as Castro states (ed. cit., p. viii).

4. For a succinct discussion of counterpassion, see Alan H. Gilbert, Dante's Conception of Divine Justice (Durham, N. C., 1925).

5. Gilbert, op. cit., p. 76.

6. Inferno, III, 25-36, ed. Giuseppe Vandelli, Società Dantesca Italiana (Milano, Hoepli, 1929). All future references to the Divina Commedia will be to this edition.

7. This point must be borne in mind presently when we shall examine the various examples of counterpassion, and the death scene, in the Burlador.

8. Tirso de Molina, La prudencia en la mujer, El condenado por desconfiado (Buenos Aires, Espasa-Calpe, 1943), pp. 124 and 130. The word desalmado, underscored by this writer, can have only a spiritual meaning since Enrico is still alive.

9. The inseparable inter-relation between free will, justice, and counterpassion must not be lost sight of from now on.

10. Note that these are the exact words that Don Gonzalo addresses to the burlador in the death scene (p. 276).

11. Martín de Azpilcueta, Manual de confesores y penitentes (Barcelona, 1567), p. 7. The writer is indebted for this quotation and suggestion for its use and application to Professor Otis H. Green.

12. This has been Don Juan's standard answer to anyone who has seen fit to warn him of the inevitable retribution. Undoubtedly it has been a kind of leitmotif with which Tirso has stressed his central idea that finally time will not be available for Don Juan's repentance.

13. Arturo Farinelli has already seen in Don Juan the Devil himself. He states in his “Don Giovanni, note critiche”: “Non patteggia col demonio perchè è demonio egli stesso.” Gior. Stor. d. Lett. Ital., XXVII, 2.