SOURCE: Martin, Eleanor Jean. “A Consideration of the Role of Honor in Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly XXVII, No. 3 (1980): 273-80.

[In the following essay, Martin argues that critics have been incorrect to depict Don Juan as the only villain in El burlador de Sevilla; society and its notion of honor, she insists, are also partly to blame for the social disorder caused by Don Juan's actions.]

The mention of El burlador de Sevilla immediately brings to mind the plight of four women, deceived and dishonored by the villainous, unscrupulous, immoral Don Juan. The protagonist's mockery of women's honor is contained in the famous words:

Sevilla a voces me llama
el Burlador, y el mayor
Gusto que en m í puede haber
es burlar una mujer
y dejalla sin honor.(1)

That Don Juan dishonors not only women, but also friends and relatives is well known. The nobles Octavio and the Marqués de la Mota, plus the peasant Batricio, suffer disgrace when Don Juan deceives their women. Don Juan discredits and kills Don Gonzalo, father of the duped Doña Ana, and also humiliates his reputable family, some of whom are pillars of the court: his uncle is ambassador to the king of Naples; his father is a privado of the king of Spain. Critics have labeled Don Juan a sinful man, a satanic rebel against heaven and earth, one who leads an adventurous, daring, legendary, sacrilegious life, whose rebellion can only be exterminated by God's wrath.² His “caballerosidad” is called into question³ and he is reputed to be an “hombre ruin” in a nobleman's guise. His ungentlemanly actions distort an entire social order and produce unwarranted grief for its members, from the nobility right down to the peasant class. This interpretation assumes that Tirso de Molina's critical thrust is aimed principally against Don Juan, whose lack of respect for social norms, institutions, laws of morality, produces chaos.

Bruce Wardropper, however, maintains that Don Juan is not the sole target for Tirso's criticism.⁴ For him, Tirso also upbraids the errors of other characters, which, in effect, permit Don Juan to carry out his feats. One such faux pas is favoritism: Don Juan's uncle, for example, swayed as he is by family loyalty and indulgence of Don Juan's “youthful” adventures, allows his nephew to escape from Naples, after the “burla” of the duchess Isabela. Don Juan's father, according to Wardropper, keeps remitting to God the punishment that it is his duty to mete. The Marqués de la Mota's penchant for deceit (Don Juan's actions are actually softened by the presence of another burlador in the work, although the latter never matches Don Juan's deeds) is also advantageous for Don Juan. In Act II, the Marqués and Don Juan arrange a “perro muerto”: Don Juan is to fool a woman named Beatriz into thinking that she is admitting the Marqués into her home. Don Juan, though, in the guise of the Marqués, enters instead the home of the latter's fiancée, Doña Ana. Continuing with an account of the sins of the community, Wardropper also points to the naivete of peasant women (Aminta and Tisbea) who believe that a caballero will truly marry them. This view, of course, holds that Don Juan is only one “villain” in the social upheaval, the responsibility for which must be diffused throughout an entire society.

In the above two approaches to the drama, it appears that Tirso rebukes characters—whether Don Juan and/or the total community—for either rebellion against the social order, or deviation from responsibility. El burlador, however, should be viewed from another angle: Tirso criticizes not so much the characters, as the institution of honor as reputation. He manifests how this code controls the lives of the characters, protecting Don Juan against disgrace, at the same time that it allows Don Juan to discredit other personages.

Despite his “satanic” actions, Don Juan is an “honorable” man throughout the play.⁵ His noble lineage—acknowledged even by those whom he injures (consider Isabela's recognition of his nobility: “… que el mundo / conoce su nobleza” (ODC, II, 671) guarantees him honor. Don Juan's bloodline is clear of taint: “Su sangre clara / es tan honrada …” (ODC, II, 680). His actions as a caballero are manifest when he offers his services to Octavio: “¡Quién pensara, / Duque, que en Sevilla os viera / para que en ella os sirviera, / como yo lo deseaba!” (ODC, 653). Conscious of having transgressed the honor of the duchess Isabela, he confesses his crime to his uncle, and is prepared to suffer punishment: “Mi sangre es, señor, la vuestra; / sacadla, y pague la culpa. / A esos pies estoy rendido, / y ésta es mi espada, señor” (ODC, II, 636).

The burlador's deception, however, of family, friends, and women, would seem to diminish his “caballerosidad.” We know, for example, that Octavio is more recipient of Don Juan's burlas than generosity; also in the presence of his uncle, Don Juan does not really wish to die (consider his firm belief that death will not touch him [ODC, II, 658]), but, with his humility, only wants to soften his uncle's rage. And that he is successful is evidenced by his uncle's response: “Alzate y muestra valor, / que esa humildad me ha vencido” (ODC, II, 636). Don Juan also deceives women—noble and peasant alike—never fulfilling the promise of marriage which gained him access to their bedrooms.

These incidents of deception, however, bring into relief the main fault of the honor code in the play. It permits deception. The most esteemed man can deceive (this includes Don Juan and the Marqués de la Mota) and still maintain his elevated position in society. Pitt Rivers tells us:

A man commits his honour only through his sincere intentions. Giving his word of honour, he asserts sincerity and stakes his honour upon the issue, be it a promise regarding the future or an assurance regarding past events. If his true will was not behind the promise or the assertion, then he is not dishonored if he fails to fulfil the promise or turns out to have lied. If he intended to deceive, he is not dishonoured by the revelation that he did so, since he “did not mean it,” he “had his fingers crossed,” that is to say, he meant the opposite of what he said. … This fact demonstrates the essential truth that it is lack of steadfastness in intentions which is dishonouring, not misrepresentation of them.⁶

Allowing dupery, the honor code advances the tragedy. Don Juan's perfectly acceptable broken promises do not dishonor him, for he never intended to fulfil them. Yet the female accepts the promise of marriage (which is a union proper) as sincere. When Don Juan's sanctioned insincerity is revealed, the female falls into social disgrace. As familial “depósito de honor,” she subsequently dishonors her intended and/or her father.

The web is tightened by the fact that the characters are incapable of rebellion against the code of honor. The dramatic tension stems not from insurgence or failure to carry out one's duty, but from the characters' faithful adherence to the honor code. Male and female members of society—peasant and noble—accept their disgrace. Isabela's complaints: “¡Ay, perdido honor!” (ODC, II, 635) echo those of Tisbea: “¡Ay choza, vil instrumento / de mi deshonra y mi infamia!” (ODC, II, 650). Similarly, the noble Don Gonzalo's laments: “Muerto honor; dijo, / ¡ay de mi! / y es su lengua tan liviana / que aquí sirve de campana” (ODC, II, 661) reverberate those of the peasant Batricio: “La mujer en opinión, / siempre más pierde que gana, / que son como la campana, / que se estima por el son. / Y así es cosa averiguada / que opinión viene a perder / cuando cualquiera mujer / suena a campana quebrada” (ODC, II, 667). Octavio, like Batricio, believes in the fragility of women: “la mujer más constante / es, en efecto, mujer” (ODC, II, 640) and laments his plight: “¡Ley tan terrible / de honor, …” (ODC, II, 640). But the complaint does not catapult him into a rebellion against the social code which has disturbed his life. All the characters play their societal roles correctly. Contrary to the Baroque impasse in Calderonian drama, where the stalemate is reached when the characters rebel against the social structure,⁷ in El burlador the complication occurs when all the maxims of the honor system are followed faithfully.

Within this impasse, Tirso points to something peculiar in the drama: both peasant and noble follow the honor code. In Spanish Golden Age drama, we generally witness a difference between the noble and “villano” concept of integrity. The noble bases his honor on lineage. He therefore rejects the notion of honor in a plebeyan. Recall the Regidor's complaint to the iniquitous Comendador of Fuenteovejuna: “que no es justo / que nos quitéis el honor.” To which the noble responds incredulously, “¿Vosotros honor tenéis?⁸ That he reacted even rightfully is confirmed by the doctrinal work of fray Antonio de Guevara (16th century) which stated that a villano had no honor:

La culpa de un rústico en él se acaba, mas la del hidalgo redunda en su generación toda, porque amancilla la fama de los pasados, desentierra las vidas de los muertos, pone escrúpulo en los que agora viven y corrumpe la sangre de los que están por venir.⁹

The “honored” noble was supposed to be a virtuous man. Diego Núñez Alba in his Diálogos de la vida del soldado (1551) has one of his characters explain the necessity of moral rectitude in the nobility:

Esta es la razón de que vayan las armas pintadas en escudos, para que, viéndolas los descendientes, les venga a la memoria la manera con que sus antepasados las ganaron y sepan que son obligados a no degenerar de la virtud de aquellos cuyos hechos las armas representan.¹⁰

But that virtue was forgotten is obvious if only we take a look at literature: Fuenteovejuna, Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña, El alcalde de Zalamea all witness the noble's abuse of his social inferiors. In view of this disrespect, the peasant came to reject honor based solely on lineage. For him, honor was the prerogative of the virtuous man—be he villano or noble. This, of course, was to label as dishonorable the depraved, arrogant noble, as does Jacinta who tells the Comendador in Fuenteovejuna: “… tengo un padre honrado, / que si en alto nacimiento / no te iguala, en las costumbres / te vence.”¹¹ In line with this comes rejection of many practices of the honor code. Pedro Crespo pardons, rather than kills, his offended daughter; he also makes public his dishonor, thereby breaking the code of silence over offenses.

The peasant asserts his virtue, honor, and pride in his social status. Pedro Crespo wishes nothing more in life than to be precisely what he is: “Villanos fueron / mis abuelos y mis padres; / sean villanos mis hijos.”¹² Casilda of Peribáñez also manifests pride in her social station when she prefers her rustic husband to the noble Comendador: “mas quiero yo a Peribáñez / con su capa la pardilla / que al comendador de Ocaña / con la suya guarnecida.”¹³

In El burlador, in contrast, there is no tension, no alienation between noble and peasant worlds. Don Juan does not overtly abuse the countryman. The latter, as a result, has no reason to mistrust him, or suspect his virtue: Gaseno welcomes Don Juan to his daughter Aminta's marriage feast: “Venga tan gran caballero / a ser hoy en Dos Hermanas / honra destas viejas canas” (ODC, II, 665). When Don Juan sits in the groom's place, Batricio's friends dismiss this as inconsequential, assuring the groom, “… no tenéis de qué temer; / callad, que debe de ser / uso allá de la corte” (ODC, II, 666). Don Juan's gallantry and charm cause Tisbea to cast aside her fears “¡Plega a Dios que no mintáis!” [ODC, II, 645] and Aminta to ward off her skepticism (“La desvergüenza en España se ha hecho caballería” [ODC, II, 668]).

El burlador presents the noble's feigned acceptance of the peasant in his world. Don Juan does not speak openly of the woman in terms of “carne” to be enjoyed, but in terms of marriage and love which equates all. He accepts the notion of honor in a villano. In a scene which makes us feel that Batricio is as much a caballero as Don Juan, the latter informs the groom of his dishonor, due to Aminta's supposed unfaithfulness. The rustic has no need to assert his true social status; Don Juan makes him believe he can live in the noble's world. Aminta begins to call herself “Doña.” She, like the noble, claims honor through ancestry. Gaseno tells us that “Doña Aminta es muy honrada / cuando se casen los dos, / que cristiana vieja es / hasta los güesos y tiene / de la hacienda el interés … / más bien que un Conde un Marqués” (ODC, II, 681). The peasant Batricio becomes a carbon copy of the noble Octavio: when Batricio suffers Aminta's “infidelity,” he, like the noble, follows the requisite course of action: celos de honor, alienation from the woman, laments over the female's frailty. The critique here is twofold: the peasant not only deceives himself; he also upholds a false sense of honor which is criticized repeatedly in Spanish Golden Age literature, the código de honor which produces tragedy for the nobles Don Gutierre and Don Juan Roca of El médico de su honra and El pintor de su deshonra, and which in El burlador produces near-tragedy for the noble and the peasant. Bad enough that the noble adheres to this code. Worse yet, for Tirso, seems to be the villano's endorsement of this honor in El burlador.¹⁴

That Tirso did not favor the honor code is explained by C. A. Jones: It seems fairly obvious that Tirso de Molina, although he used the honor theme along with other features of the Lopean comedia to whose principles he adhered, was neither deeply interested in nor sympathetic towards the idea of honour as reputation and the means which were sometimes used to defend it. Generally speaking, the fact that the honour theme was so exciting did not seem to be sufficient for Tirso. His preoccupation with the moral aspect of the subject of honor, as of other subjects, seems more considerable than that of Lope, at least on the evidence of his plays.¹⁵

Having thus established honor as a villain, Tirso next surprises us with what seems to be a volte-face of attitude. Honor is the primary cause of social upheaval; yet it is also responsible for the “happy” denouement. Following the honor code leads the characters into a labyrinth at the same time that it provides the exit from the maze. Don Juan must die so that the stalemate (he is “wed” to more than one female) can be eliminated. The women, then “widowed,” can “remarry”—this time the man of their choice (Tisbea excepted). It is Don Gonzalo's vengeance from beyond the tomb, a reprisal which springs from the honor code, which causes Don Juan's death. The dying Don Gonzalo plans his return from the grave, a return based on his anger: “Seguiráte mi furor” (ODC, II, 677). It is also Don Juan's strict sense of honor which kills him.¹⁶ For the first time in the play, Don Juan sincerely gives his word, a promise to dine with the defunct Don Gonzalo. Telling Catalinón, “¿No ves que di mi palabra?” (ODC, II, 682), he keeps his appointment. Whereas in the case of the other characters, faithfulness to the honor code complicates their lives, in the case of Don Juan, such fidelity kills him. Yet his death restores “order” to the lives of all who remain.

The word “order,” however, is curious, and an examination of it may prove that Tirso has not substantially changed his attitude about honor. Wardropper has already pointed to a corruptness and ignorance in this “order” (the society). And we must bear in mind that within society the honor code lives on; no one has rebelled against it—not even the villano. The institution has provided disorder, and then order. What is to prevent it from producing commotion once again? The commonly accepted “happy” ending for these characters is therefore questionable.

Recall the marriage between Don Gutierre and Doña Leonor in the finale of El médico de su honra—a marriage which should have taken place at the outset of the drama. Don Gutierre had given his promise to marry Doña Leonor, and then refused to keep it because he was suspicious of her honor. Batricio finds himself in a similar, and at the same time, worse, position: the vow of marriage has to be broken for “conclusive”¹⁷ proof of the woman's dishonor. Octavio and Isabela never professed a vow of marriage, having had instead a passionate affair structure. But this too must be broken, due to obvious proof of Isabela's “infidelity” to Octavio.¹⁸ Don Gutierre weds the woman in the denouement, who perhaps has disgraced him. Exigent as he is in matters of honor, he may have to kill her as he did his first wife for reasons of honor. Octavio and Batricio, also exacting in matters of honor, have a stronger case: they may have to do the same because of definite proof of dishonor. The king, then, has provided an order, which can turn into chaos. By sanctioning the marriage, he has possibly paved the way for a bloody tragedy—a disaster in which even the peasant takes part. Only the Marqués may be exempt from vengeance, for Doña Ana is reported to have seen through Don Juan's deceit. The dying Don Juan tells Don Gonzalo, “A tu hija no ofendí / que vió mis engaños antes” (ODC, II, 684). And Catalinón makes a point of repeating this before the king in the denouement, “… diciendo antes que acabes, / a doña Ana no debía / honor, que lo oyeron antes / del engaño” (ODC, II, 686). This exoneration of Doña Ana puts into even sharper relief the “guilt” of Isabela and Aminta.

It can therefore be seen that Tirso criticizes in El burlador Don Juan's actions and those of a corrupt society. Incapable of castigating Don Juan, the society turns over this responsibility to the divine. The supernatural scenes, the fires of hell, however, are not the only “unreal” aspects of the work. Even more unreal, more hellish for Tirso, is the honor code and the mass worship of this Dieu de la guerre.

Notes

1. Tirso de Molina, Obras dramáticas completas, ed. Blanca de los Ríos (Madrid: Aguilar, 1952), II, 656; here after ODC.

2. Ibid., pp. 557-58. Commentary by Blanca de los Ríos. Also, A. Farinelli, Don Giovanni (Milan, 1946), p. 72.

3. See A. A. Parker, The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age (London: Diamante, 1957), p. 13.

4. See Bruce Wardropper, “El burlador de Sevilla: A Tragedy of Errors,” Philological Quarterly, 36 (1957), pp. 61-67.

5. Ibid., p. 62. Wardropper maintains that “Don Juan is a man of honor except in his dealings with women.” Also see Julian Pitt-Rivers, “Honor and Social Status,” in Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. G. Peristiany (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), pp. 32-33. “… Don Juan is a man of honour.” “He is an affronter of other men, a humiliator and deceiver by design of both men and women, a scoffer at the moral and social orders and, in his sexual relations, a ‘scalp-hunter,’ but not a voluptuary and not, be it noted, an adulterer; his four female victims are presumed virgins; he is not a man to grant precedence to another even in this.”

6. See Pitt-Rivers, op. cit., p. 32.

7. See Max Oppenheimer, Jr., “The Baroque Impasse in the Calderonian Drama,” PMLA, 65 (1950), pp. 1146-65.

8. Lope de Vega, Obras escogidas 3rd ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1958), I (Teatro), 837; hereafter OE.

9. See E. M. Wilson y D. Moir, Historia de la literatura española, III (Siglo de Oro: Teatro) (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1971), p. 113. The absence of honor in a villano has a legal basis which dates back to Alfonso el Sabio's Siete Partidas. Here the king is recommended to “love and honor” his nobles, wise men, bourgeois, merchants. He is only instructed to “love and shelter” those of the lower social class: “E amar e amparar deben otrosí a los menestrales e a los labradores, porque de sus menesteres e de sus labranzas se ayudan e se gobiernan los Reyes, e todos los otros de sus señoríos, e ninguno non puede sin ellos vivir.”

10. See Alfonso García Valdecasas, El hidalgo y el honor, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1958), p. 9.

11. Lope de Vega, OE II, 840. The noble himself at times joined in these sentiments. See Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, La verdad sospechosa (Santiago: Zig-Zag, 1958), II, 91, where Don Beltrán tells his virtueless son Don García, “¿Quién dio principio a las casas / nobles? Los ilustres hechos / de sus primeros autores. / Sin mirar sus nacimientos, / hazañas—de hombres humildes / honraron sus herederos. / Luego, en obrar mal o bien / está el ser malo o ser bueno.”

12. Calderón de la Barca, Obras completas, 4th ed. (Madrid: Aquilar, 1959), I, 858; hereafter OC.

13. Lope de Vaga, OE, II, 771.

14. Don Juan criticizes the peasant's sense of honor with the words: “el honor se fue al aldea” and “Con el honor le vencí” ODC, III, 667). The critique of the código de honor is perhaps greater that than expressed in El médico de su honra. Only the noble in El médico adheres to the honor code, evidenced by the servant Coquín's rejection of the norm. When Don Gutierre is released from prison for one evening, it is perfectly natural for him to return, for he gave his word to do so. Not so for Coquín, who considers the return perfectly ridiculous: “y así el honor de esa ley / no se entiende en el criado, / y hoy estoy determinado / a dejarte y no volver” (Calderón, OC, II, 641). Coquín's decision, for Calderón, is “natural.” Yet in El burlador, the peasant rejects the “natural” world and chooses the unnatural.

15. C. A. Jones, “Honor in Spanish Golden-Age Drama,” BHS, 35 (1958), p. 207. See also, E. Gijón, “Concepto del honor y la mujer en Tirso de Molina,” Tirso de Molina, Ed. Fr. Manuel Penedo (Madrid: Revista Estudios, 1949), pp. 479-655.

16. See Wardropper, op. cit., p. 63.

17. Batricio's “conclusive” proof is solely the word of the deceptive Don Juan.

18. Octavio's proof is conclusive, based on the testimony of Isabela, the king, etc.