[In the following essay, Halstead analyzes Tirso's philosophical arguments in El amor médico regarding the connection between vision and love.]

Somewhat more than a century and a quarter past, Dugald Stewart, philosopher and critic second only to Sir William Hamilton, wrote:

In considering the phenomena of perception, it is natural to suppose that the attention of philosophers would be directed, in the first instance, to the sense of seeing. The variety of information and of enjoyment we received by it; the rapidity with which this information and enjoyment are conveyed to us; and above all, the intercourse it enables us to maintain with the more distant part of the universe, cannot fail to give it, even in the apprehension of the most careless observer, a preeminence over all our other perceptive faculties. Hence it is, that various theories, which have been formed to explain the operations of our senses, have a more immediate reference to that of seeing; and that the greater part of the metaphysical language, concerning perception in general, appears evidently, from its etymology, to have been suggested by the phenomena of vision.¹

The wealth of material upon which Professor Stewart draws, in his consideration “Of the theories which have been formed by Philosophers, to explain the manner in which the Mind perceives external Objects” (op. cit., cap. I), amply testifies to the truth of this theory, which, once suggested, appears per se sufficiently obvious to merit our judicial notice. Mr. Stewart is not a principal figure—though he is an important one—in the present study. His interesting study of sense perception has, in particular, furnished much enlightening information along lines to be extended infra, and has been of especial value in its account of the history of optics.

Tirso de Molina—pseudonym of Fray Gabriel Téllez, religioso calzado of the Order of Merced—scarcely needs introduction to the readers of a scholarly journal. His Burlador de Sevilla not only has given rise to an entirely novel literary tradition,² but has also furnished the world with the second Spanish representative among that trinity of great personages of which Don Quijote and Faust are co-assigns. It would not appear unnatural that the genius which conceived Don Juan Tenorio—eternal symbol of amorous incontinence, vestigial atavism of Man's prehistoric polygamy—should speculate upon the nature of Human Love, not as the toy engine motivating vain phantasms of Doña Sol and shades of Doña Ana, and retinue, but as an organic attribute of Matter, knowledgeable as to cause and effect, and obedient to known or discoverable laws.

Examination of Tirso's theatre³ will reveal that love and love's kindred, viz.: marriage, parental authority in the marriage-by-arrangement, prerequisites for happy love, necessity for spiritual correspondencia, and above all, the influence of the stars upon Human Love, not infrequently commanded the dramatist's attention.⁴ This preoccupation with love themes is by no means restricted, as one might suspect, to the cloak-and-sword play. Indeed, it is to Tirso's La eleción por la virtud (ca. 1622), published in the Third Part of his Comedias … in the abortive Tortosa edition,⁵ that we are indebted for a most curious passage on contemporary concepts of love. These Tirso found convenient to put in the mouth of a lowly lacayo,⁶ who debates with his master Césaro, in mock Socratic dialogue, a most ridiculous proposition:

DECIO.
¿Sólo un mes de ausencia puede
hacerte que a Laura olvides?
CéSARO.
¿Al viento firmeza pides?
DECIO.
¿Viento, amor?
CéSARO.
                                                            Sí, y aun le excede.
DECIO.
Varias difiniciones
he visto suyas, señor.
Unos le llaman furor,
y a sus efectos, pasiones;
otros dicen que es locura
o accidente que maltrata;
otros calidad innata
que al hombre inclinar procura
que ame de cierta edad
a quién tiene inclinación,
quien locura y liviandad.
El médico dice que es
cierto humor o destemplanza
de la sangre; semejanza(7)
el filósofo; interés,
la dama; y el desvarío
del astrólogo adivina
que es fuerza de astros que inclina
a amar el albedrío.(8)
Fuego le llamaron ciento,
pues que abrasa al que enamora,
y agua le llama el que ignora …(9)

Presently, buffoon and gallant warm to their respective offices as Decio, feigning the co-operative Fool, obliges Césaro with the right answers. The latter, proposing, refuting, and syllogizing, lures him, skeptical, towards the Q.E.D.:

[CéSARO.]
                                                            … quien ama
y al yugo de amor suspira,
¿no es porque primero mira?
DECIO.
Es verdad. De lo exterior
comienza amor su conquista:
¿qué infieres?
CéSARO.
                                                            Verás tu error.
En fin, que cualquier amor
tiene principio en la vista.(10)
y el objeto que se ve
es lo amado.
DECIO.
                                                            Vé al efeto.
CéSARO.
Sí haré. Si la dama es el objeto,
para que en la vista esté
de quien la ha de amar, no envía
sujeto suficiente(11) copia,
sujeto sí, que ella propria
mal en los ojos cabría.(12)
Fuera de que es circunstancia,
como muestra la experiencia,
que entre el objeto y potencia
haya debida distancia.(13)
DECIO.
Vengamos al fundamento.
CéSARO.
Las especies que a los ojos
representan los despojos
de la dama ¿no son viento?—
Sí, que para verte a ti,
desde el lugar donde estás,
especies al viento das [,]
las cuales llegan a mí
y me enseñan tu retrato.
DECIO.
Todo [lo] cancedo.
CéSARO.
                                                                                Pues,
claro está que lo que ves
es el viento, mentecato.
Luego si ama el pensamiento
la hermosura que miré,
y ésta sólo viento fué,
el amor no es más que viento.(14)

Although this sustained pun of association appear merely an innocuous sophism laid before a theatre-going public not conspicuous for overmuch buen gusto in its dramatic preferences,¹⁵ Césaro's choice of the wind as an equivalent to love, because the image travels to the eye through an æry medium, bears a striking resemblance to the general theory of sense perception formulated by the ancient Atomists, that “Perception consists in the changes produced in the soul by the effluences which proceed from things and find their way into us through the sense organs,”¹⁶ and even more specifically, to Democritus's teaching that

Seeing … is brought about when the likenesses of the objects which are emitted from these objects give a shape to the air which lies before them and the air comes into contact with the effluences from our eyes.¹⁷

Nor may we dismiss lightly, besides, the office performed by the atmosphere on behalf of the senses of hearing and olfaction which, with the sense of vision, have in common the capacity to experience objects not in actual physical contact with the sense organ; and it is not illogical that the atmosphere was often assigned the rôle of medium for the sight as well as for hearing and for the sense of smell.¹⁸ The mediumship of the atmosphere was not, however, universally acknowledged even among the earlier Atomists.¹⁹

For a proper appreciation of Tirso's treatment of human love and its dependency upon the sense of visual perception, it might be first recalled that metaphysicians of both Past and Present have tended to divide into two great Schools; one of these, the so-called School of Epicurus,

… seems to have taught that vision is caused by a succession of thin films which are emitted from the surface of an object and which enter our eyes, giving us a continuous impression of that object. In contrast with these conceptions of light as a substance, Aristotle held that it is a quality of the medium between the eye and the object. The conflict between these two types of explanation has continued down to the present day.²⁰

An analysis of Tirso's position with respect to these two Schools being neither relevant to the present study, nor properly within its scope,²¹ we may in turn with advantage to a play containing discussion of human love in vein rather more serious and in considerably greater detail.

El amor médico (1625 o poco antes)²² may be happily grouped with the great body of cloak-and-sword intrigues originated by Lope de Vega, but adopted enthusiastically by his colleagues. It first appeared in print in the Fourth Part of Tirso's Comedias … (Madrid, 1635); the action takes place either contemporaneously, or in the very recent past.

The versified discourse on love infra is delivered while but two personages occupy the stage. This was also the case in La elección por la virtud. But in the present instance, a monologue substitutes for the rapid dialogue of Decio and his master, introduced by the leading query of Don Rodrigo, galán, whose case-history recital cues Jerónima, masquerading as a physician, into her psychological and physiological analysis of the Optics of Love:

DON Rodrigo.
Amé en fin tan brevemente
que juzgo por imposible
que sea amor el que me quema;
porque si el amor consiste
en reiterar asistencias,
comunicar apacibles
simpatías, y primero
es forzoso que se incline
una alma, y que poco a poco
venga el fuego a introducirse
por previas disposiciones
que las contrarias resisten;
¿cómo podré yo, dotor,
en un instante rendirme
a unos ojos, que tan presto
me hicieron su combustible?(23)
DOñA Jerónima.
Filósofo habláis. Sabed
que amor, que en la vista asiste,
es tal vez fascinación.
Y ésta, tarde o nunca admite,
si halla el sugeto bien dispuesto,
dilaciones; porque el lince
en un instante penetra
impedimentos visibles.(24)
Llegan, mediante la luz,(25)
especies que se dirigen
por los rayos visüales
al objeto,(26) y dél reciben
la calidad contagiosa
que la retroceder admiten
los ojos con los retratos
que traen para que los mire[n.](27)
Luego el sentido común(28)
manda que se depositen
(digámoslo ansí) en su sala
donde materiales viven.
Toda esta acción es corpórea:
llega luego el alma,(29) y pide
al entendimiento agente(30)
que las inmaterialice,
y vuelva espiritüales;
y como no se las guise
a su modo(31) y proporcione,
ni las digiere, ni admite.(32)
Formada la intelección,
la voluntad, que es quien rige
todo el hombre, como reina,
o la reprueba o elige.(33)
Destas dos operaciones,
la primera se divide
de esotra, por ser corpórea:
la que en los ojos asiste,
en un instante retrata
lo que la mandan que mire,(34)
volviendo con las especies
que de lo que vió se siguen.
Si el objeto que miró
era hermoso, apetecible,
y conformidad de estrellas(35)
causan a que se le incline
el natural apetito(36)
que está en la concupicible;
al momento lo desea,
si estorbos no se lo impiden.
La voluntad, que del alma
es potencia noble y libre,
viendo espiritualizada
la imagen con que la sirven,
produce luego el amor,
sin que los astros la obliguen,(37)
con la apariencia del bien,
que es el objeto que sigue;
y a éste tal, cuando a ella llega
haciendo que la apadrine
el apetito animal
con cartas de favor, rinde
privilegios voluntarios,
si no es constante y firme,
el albedrío se oponga [opone];
que el sabio siempre resiste.(38)
Como el alma y sus potencias
tinen acciones sutiles
por ser espiritüales,
sin que tiempo necesiten,
obran instantáneamente;
y así el amor que las sigue,
puede, según más o menos
es su objeto apetecible,
amar aprisa o despacio;(39)
y quien esto contradice,
no sabe filosofar,
ni por sabio ha de admitirse.
De modo, que si al instante
que vos vuestra dama vistes,
la amastes, es porque en ella
vinieron a un tiempo a unirse
influencias de los cielos,
simpatías apacibles,
fascinación amorosa,
y proporciones felices.(40)

The precise origins of this intricate concept of human love, with its curious psycho-physiological inferences and its foundation in the Atomistic Philosophy,⁴¹ is not at present in judicature. But its significance as a versified dramatic device insinuated not undeftly in a popular comedia calls for comment, if not for interpretation. For whether or no one accepts the judgments of Américo Castro versus the thesis of inconsciencia genial in the production of a masterpiece such as the Quijote,⁴² it would appear quite inescapable that El amor médico was, in so far as the love passages are concerned, premeditated and anticipated with deliberate intent and with conscious objectivity verging upon didacticism. The nature of the topic itself almost precludes fortuitous inclusion, while the very form in which Tirso's concepts are clothed, in turn, credits the theory that Jerónima's soliloquy was compounded of the classic ingredients, perspiration and inspiration, in joint proportion of, say, ninety and ten, respectively.

From the standpoint of metaphysical philosophy, the passages in question would appear to be the handiwork of a fairly talented aficionado whose amateur standing is, however, amply attested by non-professional lapses and hiatuses which would have worked to the disconfiture, if not the ruination, of any professional metaphysical philosopher who would be so indiscreet as to acknowledge his authorship. In evidence we might consider the poet's tendency to crisscross along the lines laid down by the various Schools. This inconsistency and its manifestations become apparent upon relatively little study of the history of optics, and would have brought down upon a metaphysicist an avalanche of the sort of criticism of which only a philosopher is capable when demolishing one of his own colleagues.⁴³ Be this as it may, it is highly probable that in their present poetic form the concepts of love described herein are the work of Tirso alone, though it is conjecturable whether they are offered us as scientific truth recast in poetry; as a mingling of genuine metaphysical theory with fantastic nonsense; or, conceivably, with some special significance now lost in the mists of time.⁴⁴

We are, in any event, enabled to judge that if Tirso has made effective use of his talent to amuse, his real genius lies in the exercise of his calling rather than in any ability to retain philosophic formulae in all their fine detail and minutiæ. For although he has been seen to employ the technical terminology of Philosophy in accordance with the accepted usage of philosophers themselves, his subject matter has not been presented with out flaw or defect. And although the totality of effect achieved is impressive, specific items of the recitals, upon close scrutiny, will be found to be based upon superficial knowledge alone. The net effect proclaims the verses to be the work of one who has read with an eye to vocabulary and a mind not insensible to the dramatic possibilities of all that comes before it.

This is as it should be. One scarcely should expect a dramatist or clerk to rework into verse without error so intricate a description as that of the relation of human vision and human love.⁴⁵ For doubtless Tirso knew rather less of his metaphysical philosophy than he thought; though he must have known considerably more than might be expected of a Spanish monk or Spanish dramatist of the 1620's—or, for that matter, any decade before or since.

However Tirso may have acquired his rather extraordinary—if sometimes chaotic—philosophical lore, the manifestations of this knowledge contain, apparently, not one iota of information to suggest their origin, nor a single intimation as to whether Tirso included his poetical fantasy in El amor médico with an object in mind, or whether it is yet another of the digressions not uncommon to his theatre.⁴⁶

The discovery that this early seventeenth-century dramatic genius worked sometimes far afield, away from familiar cloister and writing-desk, gratifies in one respect if it disappoints in another. For if in this romanesque treatment of love at first sight, where poetic fancy embroiders upon philosophic fact, an unusual concept of romantic love is revealed, the dramatist Fray Gabriel Téllez remains as enigmatic as of old, personally taciturn and shrouded in mystery.

Notes

1. Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, new ed. (Boston, etc.: Jas. Munroe & Co., 1843), pp. 43-44. An “Advertisement,” signed by the author, is dated 1813.

2. So novel, indeed, that via the ministrations of Zorrilla, Byron, Mérimée, et al., Tirso's drama of mortal sin and procrastination has no longer aught to link it with the Don Juan concept of the Present. The Ciné-Wizards and the stuntmen of Hollywood have transformed that tragic seducer “… voilé de grâce et d'élégance. …” (Hugo, Préface à “Cromwell”) into a fatuous, rope-climbing exhibitionist whose name evokes in the public mind confused ideas of harems, synthetic swordplay, and trivial episodes on the level of the bedroom farce.

3. I have contrived to look into all of the eighty-odd comedias in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, v, ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, 3^a ed. (Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1885); and Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, iv and ix, ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori (Madrid: Bailly-Bailiere ē hijos, 1906 & 1907, resp.).

4. See my “Attitude of Tirso de Molina Toward Astrology,” Hispanic Review, IX (1941), 435, Note 44.

5. Cotarelo y Mori clarifies, in some detail, the appearance of this Tercera Parte prior to the Madrid printing of the Second (vide N.B.A.E., IV, lv-lviii). Hartzenbush (in B.A.E., V, xli) has substantially the same explanation in briefer form.

6. Decio's mean estate does not of necessity disqualify him or reflect upon his competency as a witness, even were the medium of expression here of much import. From the lips of Sancho Panza issued many a profound truth.

7. On Tirso's part, a nice feeling for the nuances of philosophical terminology seems indicated by his choice of semejanza, denoting spiritual equality, rather than igualdad, which would have implied an equality of caste and worldly goods.

8. Not a mere poetical conceit, but a popular misconception of the times. See my “Attitude of Lope de Vega toward Astrology and Astronomy,” Hispanic Review, VII (1939), 208 and Notes 26-27. Alarcón furnishes examples (Halstead, “Attitude of Tirso …,” loc. cit., 428, Note 30). But outside of the constricted little circles of the Madrileñan and Valencian literary worlds, such conceits are rather less common; without the national literature, they are very rare indeed. However, Edmund Spenser affords example of love as “… a celestiall harmonie / of likely harts composed of starres concent …” (See Hymne to Beautie, in “The British Poets,” xi-xiii [bd. in 1 vol.], [Chiswick: Pr. by Carpenter for Wittingham … et al. … & Carpenter, 1822], 196].) While among the prose writers of the period, Robert Burton, in his curious analysis of morbid psychology under title The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) considers astral love as a more or less pathological state. (Vide the Third Partition, passim, but esp. Section 2: Member 2, Subsection 1; and Member 5, Sub-section 1. In the Dell & Jordan-Smith edition [N. Y.: Farrar & Rinehart, 1927], see p. 659 and p. 810. resp.)

9. La eleción por la virtud, N.B.A.E., IV, 346. Cotarelo y Mori entertains a rather good opinion of this innocuous dramatization of incidents in the early life of Sixtus Quintus, witch-hunting Pontiff of the Roman See from 1585-90. Cotarelo characterizes the play's escanas escolares as “… dignas de estudio, por lo que puedan afectar a la biografía de Tirso …” and continues: “[son] muy lindos los caracteres femeninos encarnados en las dos hermanas del protagonista, mezcla indefinible y picante del candor y malicia, humor cáustico y corazón apasionado.” (Ibid., lviii.)

   Cf. the passage attributed by Sir William Hamilton (Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, ed. Mansel & Veitch [Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1859] I, 52) to the Elizabethan satirist and metaphysical philosopher, Sir John Davies, under title On the Immortality of the Soul; this is a bitter denunciation of theological speculation on the nature of the soul. The “Chertsey Worthies” edition of Davies (see Note 28 infra) is not indexed, and I have not succeeded in identifying this particular title in the fine-print minutiæ of tabular matter in the Contents.

10. Burton (op. cit., Partition III, Section 2; Member 2, Sub-sec. 2) not only bears this out, but cites authority: Lilius Giraldus, Italian scholar of the century just past, otherwise known as Giglio Gregorio Geraldi; he also cites Ficinus, or the Humanist, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99).

11. Cotarelo's note that he has inserted this word for bastante, found in Ortega's earlier edition, constitutes the only comment this editor has made on the matter touched upon below, in Note 12.

12. Even if it be assumed that objeto were intended for the first occurrence here of sujeto, the sense still leaves something to be desired. The following paraphrase suggests itself: “Should a lady be the object beheld, and if the observer is to become enamored of her, her likeness must be transmitted to him. [Therefore, an image of herself, in perspective and to scale, must be fashioned. For she, in her very person, scarce would fit within the narrow compass of his eyes.”]

13. For debida distancia, we are to understand merely that subject and object must be sufficiently close to permit a fair-sized image to enter the subject's eye. This image, as shall be shown infra, is to be pretty thoroughly worked over by agencies of the subject's intellect.

    The entire visual process herein inferred is nicely summarized by Dr. Thomas Reid (1710-95), the metaphysical philosopher, as follows: “It was the doctrine of Aristotle … that as our senses cannot receive external material objects themselves, they receive their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal, without any of the matter of it. These images or forms, impressed upon the senses, are called sensible species; and are the objects only of the sensitive part of the mind; but by various, internal powers, they are retained, refined, and spiritualized, so as to become objects of memory and imagination; and last, of pure intellection …” (quoted by Stewart, op. cit., pp. 44-45). That Hamilton has amassed an impressive amount of evidence that the “… whole doctrine of species … received no countenance from the authority of Aristotle” (op. cit., I, 292; et passim, cap. xxi), in no way reflects upon the succinctness and clarity of Reid's exposition of the doctrine itself.

14. Ibid. Decio reacts instantly with the animadversion: “Then nothing will be so amorous as a full-blown balloon, because it's all wind … Now I know that wind, love, lover, and bladder, are the same thing.” The gracioso, ever a favorite with the cash customers, has the last word.

15. Paradox of the times and mores appears the disparity between the æsthetic and intellectual measure of Spanish national culture. A Decio from the Pit could, doubtless, recite the Seven Myths of Jupiter in prose or verse; Roman or Romance, with variants, parallels, and sententious observations of Authority. Yet he signed his name with a cross, counted on his fingers, and knew not whether Spain was bounded on the North by France, Muscovy, or Grand Canary.

16. Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, 13th ed., rev. by W. Nestle, transl. L. R. Palmer (N. Y.: Harcourt-Brace, 1931), p. 68.

17. Ibid. (The italics are mine.)

18. The recognition of more than a single class of sense perception is possibly more ancient than is suggested by the earliest reference I have happened upon, i.e.: that “Theophrastus [b.c.?-287?] … seems to have acknowledged a special group of senses that operated by ‘contact’ …” (George Malcolm Stratton, Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology before Aristotle [London, etc.: Allen & Unwin, 1917], p. 25.) Theophrastus held that “… the air is the common feature of hearing and of smell …,” though his theory of vision seems neither positive nor orthodox. (Ibid., p. 27 ff.)

19. Thus Theophrastus berates Democritus and contends that “… this imprint upon the air is an absurdity” (De Sensibus, #51), and proceeds to demolish, to his own satisfaction at least, the entire mechanistic structure of impressions, images, forms, and effluences so essential to the Atomist Philosophy. (See Stratton, op. cit., p. 111; an annotated text of De Sensibus occupies pp. 67-117.)

20. Abraham Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1935), p. 244. (The italics are mine.)

21. Dr. Reid, according to Hamilton (op. cit., I, 291, quoting the Collected Works), threw up his hands, to write: “The whole doctrine … concerning the transmission of sensible species from objects of sense to the mind, if it be at all intelligible, is so far above my comprehension that I should perhaps do it injustice by entering into it more minutely.” It redounds to Sir William's credit that he declined to push in extremis the advantage afforded by this ironical confession.

22. Cotarelo characterizes this drama as “… comedia indiscutible de TÉLLEZ.” (N.B.A.E., IX, lxi. The caps are Cotarelo's.) He also considers that it “… alude a las aventuras escolares y amorosas de D.^a Feliciana de Guzmán, a quien Tirso casi nombra al principio.” (Ibid.,)

23. Jerónima is herself the object of Rodrigo's desires, and hers the eyes that set him aflame. The deception practiced by the dama is heightened by her disguise, which is not, as was so often the case, the conventional cape and broad-rimmed hat of nighthawk gallant, but attire de médico, con cuello abierto pequeño, sotanilla larga, capa de gorgorán con capilla, y guantes. The cowl was doubtless drawn. Doña Jerónima, whose preoccupation with medical science had been touched upon earlier in the comedia, dons the costume most proper to her own unfulfilled desires as well as to the exigencies of the intrigue. The apparel affected is that habitually worn by the physician of the Middle Ages and to date (1625), as attested, in part, by Paracelsus, who reproaches his colleagues for “… being dressed in velvets and silks, having golden rings on their fingers and their hands in white gloves.” (Franz Hartmann, Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast … [London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, et al., 188?], p. 179. Reference is to De Separatione Rerum.)

24. As stands, non sequitur. But we are vis-à-vis with a conceptistic shift of sense from the literal to the connotative. For the lynx is love. Compare, for example: “Al val de Fuente Ovejuna / la niña en cabellos baja; / … ‘¿Para qué te escondes, niña gallarda? / Mis linces deseos paredes pasan’.” (Lope de Vega, Obras …, x [Madrid: … Sucesores de Rivadeneyra …, 1899], 549. [The italics are mine].)

25. We have seen that, according to Aristotle, vision depended not so much upon the transmission of species as a physical reality, as upon the suitability of some medium, like the æther of outer space. Here, Tirso has emulated the Schoolmen, envisaging light itself as such a carrier. Plotinus argued tellingly against the necessity of assuming an agent at all, and especially questioned the suitability of light itself. (Amelio-Poryphryian Books, IV, v; or, vide Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, ed., Complete Works … [London: Bell, cop. 1917], p. 514 ff., & esp. p. 521.)

26. In contra-distinction to the matter of Note 25 supra, the Platonic theory of vision called for what might be styled a matrix rather than a single medium. “In … Plato three elements appear to have been necessary to vision. First a visual stream of light or divine fire emitted by the eye itself. These visual rays entered into union with the light of the sun, and the two together, meeting with a third emanation from the object seen, completed the act …” (Thomas Preston, Theory of Light, 2d ed. [London: Macmillan, 1895], p. 3. Source is evidently the Timæus, cited in the Introduction, with reference to “Jowett, II, 538-539, Dialogues.”)

27. The singular form mire—not followed by punctuation—appears in Hartzenbusch's 3d ed. and also in the 4th [Madrid: Hernando y Cía, 1603], although the plural, and a full stop, seems indicated. The fact that both 3d and 4th eds. show a malformed and vertically elongated -e, which becomes indistinct toward the right-axis margin, suggests that the final -n has failed to leave an impression. To be sure, its lack will not affect the i-e assonance commencing with dirigen supra; but since the chain of assonantal rhymes from dirigen to viven, below, in alternate lines, shows the plural verb-form in items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6, probably the plural was also intended for item 4—a supposition strengthened by the faulty registration of the aforesaid -e, and the fact that a period should be found after the mire[n] or after the term sentido común in the next verso. The sentence-stop following mire[n] will relate this verb as secondary predicate to the antecedent ojos, which seems a more proper and logical construction than is obtained by permitting the sentence to continue un-checked to sentido común, which latter, as Note 28 demonstrates, embodies the functions of all of the senses without exercising the specific offices of any of them. Furthermore, we have better cause to alter Hartzenbusch's punctuation—or rather, to punctuate Hartzenbusch—in the faulty line than in the one following, which left a normal impression. And there are yet other arguments which may become apparent as soon as one encounters the new sentence Manda … [cap.], which does not progress any too smoothly to its conclusion.

28. “This phrase, common sense, meant once something very different from that plain wisdom, the common heritage of men, which we now call by this name, having been bequeathed to us by a very complex theory of the senses, and of a sense which was the common bond of them all, and which passed its verdicts on the reports which they severally made to it.” (Richard Chenevix Trench, Select Glossary of English Words … [N. Y.: Blakeman & Mason, 1859], p. 40.) An innovation of the Peripatetic Physicists, it implies that “… we perceive not through an individual sense but only through the ‘common sensory,’ in which the images produced in the sense organs are united. Through this common sensory we are enabled to compare and distinguish the perceptions of the various senses, to relate the images which they communicate to objects and to become conscious of our perceptions as our own.” (Zeller, op. cit., pp. 185-186.) That a similar concept existed even before Aristotle is implied in Theophrastus's rejection of “… the motion that it [perception in general] took place in the body as a whole …” (Stratton, op. cit., p. 24.) Sir John Davies affords an enlightening example of the usage: “The Commonsence (whose locall scituation sic / The Fore-head holdeth) that hath that name assign'd: / Because it first takes common information / Of all the outward Sences in their kinde / … And then transmitteth it successiuely / To each more inward Sences faculty.” (Mirum in Modum, in Complete Works, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, “Chertsey Worthies' Library,” [Edinburgh: p. 7, stanza 28 [by count].) Thomas Hobbes, referring to the transfer of species from common sense to fancy, thence to memory and to judgment in turn, finds the process “… like handling [handing] of things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood.” (Of Man, Pt. I, Ch. 2.) And Hamilton defines the expression as “… the expression used in the Aristotelic philosophy to denote the Central or Common Sensory, in which the different external senses met, and were united.” (Op. cit., I, 512.)

29. Tirso has neglected to explain how the soul was apprised of the presence of these corporeal species. Fifty or sixty years later, the Cartesian notions of sense perception were becoming widely disseminated, and with them the precept that “Without being present to the images of the things perceived, the soul could not possibly perceive them.” (Stewart, op. cit., p. 56.)

30. Use of this particular expression is of interest. For “Aristotle distinguished between the intellectus patiens and the intellectus agens [entendimiento agente]. The former, perishing with the body, by means of the senses, imagination, and memory, furnished the matter of knowledge; the latter, separable from the body and eternal, gave that knowledge form. Under the impressions of the senses the mind is passive; but while external things rapidly pass, imagination does not allow them altogether to escape, but knowledge of them is retained by the memory. But this knowledge, being the knowledge of singulars, cannot give universal notions, but merely generalized ones. The intellectus agens, however, actually evolves the idea which the intellectus patiens potentially possessed. His [Aristotle's] illustration is: as light makes colors existing potentially actually to be, and brings … whatever was discovered or collected by the intellectus patiens to a new life … [so do] the senses perceive the forms of things expressed in matter, [and so] the intellect comprehends the universal form, which, free from the changes of matter, is really prior to it and underlies the production of its cause …” (Charles P. Krauth & William Fleming, Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences, N. Y.: 1878, p. 794. Unfortunate punctuation of the latter part of the definition rendered it unintelligible, and I have endeavored to remedy matters by []'s and by repunctuation. [The italics are the authors'.].)

31. A mode is to its underlying substance as the form or shape of an object is to the object itself. According to Krauth-Fleming, it is “… a variable and determinate affection of a substance, a quality which it may have or not, without affecting its essence or existence,” and hence, “The manner in which a thing exists …” (Op. cit., pp. 268 & 321, resp.)

32. The soul is preoccupied lest the active intellect “boil down,” or cause to disintegrate the mode of the species in question. This would, of course, effectively destroy the image and scatter its components abroad. For the particular function of this intellect active was that of Guardian, or Inspector of all in-coming species. These were subjected to an exhaustive bio-chemical analysis which was as thorough-going as the crowded facilities of the laboratory would permit. After the examination, no image could be expected to remain; at least, not in the original mode of entry. And it was this process of methodical and analytical destruction which the soul, presumably on behalf of the Will, would suspend.

33. This is a statement of rather extraordinary implications. One may rightly question the Will's especial aptitude for the performance of duties so vitally linked with purely sensual stimuli and for which the active intellect alone was equipped. It is no great wonder that the Will, according to this thesis, has shown itself both inept and liable to the grossest of errors. Such a theme is such as would have appealed mightily to the Archpriest of Hita, and we may imagine the sort of treatment it would be given at his hands. Here might lie the most reasonable explanation of marital incompatibility; the mental-cruelty divorce; the bans of May and December; the mad-cap elopement, and the general vicissitudes not infrequently associated with the marital estate.

34. Syntactically troublesome, these lines are probably concerned with the transformation of the real species in the eye into the enlarged projection-images actually experienced.

35. The influence of the stars becomes operative only after the Will has indicated its favorable decision.

36. “Valesisus defines this love … to be an affection of the Powers, Appetite and Reason. The rational resides in the Brain, the other in the Liver … the heart is affected of both and carried a thousand ways by consent.” (Burton, op. cit., Partition I, Subsection 2; in loc. cit., p. 827.)

37. Vide supra, Note 35. Tirso has often touched upon the matter of the effect of astral influence upon Human Love. (See my “Attitude of Tirso …” loc. cit., 428 ff.) Burton first appeared to face the issue squarely, finding that for love, “Primary causes are the heavens …” (op. cit., Partition I, Section 2; Member 1, Sub-section 4; in loc. cit., p. 179), but proceeds, recanting, that “… they do incline but not compel; no necessity at all, they lead, not drive … !” (The italics are mine.)

38. Thus does Tirso follow the lead of the Church—both Catholic and Reform—in his treatment of the Free Will vs. Predestination controversy. Burton, formulating a consensus records: “… so gently incline, that a wise man will rule his stars; they rule us, but God rules them …” Burton also cites Cajetan's metaphor of the “… great book, whose letters are the stars …” and cites also the authority of Johannus de (also written ab) Indagine, sixteenth-century writer mentioned in the Index to the Dell & Jordan-Smith edition of Burton's op. cit. as having published a Brief Introductions … to Cheiromancie … in London in 1588. There is a card in the Folger Shakespeare Library, however, for an edition bearing date 1575, and printed by one Thomas Purfoote, in London.

39. To this rationalized conclusion, contrast: “These violent delights have violent ends, / And in their triumph die. The sweetest honey / Is loathsome in its own deliciousness / And in the taste confounds the appetite. / Wherefore, love moderately; long love doth so. / Too swift arrives too tardy as too slow.” (Romeo and Juliet, II, vi, 9-15.)

40. El amor médico, B.A.E., v, 394. I have retained the spelling as it occurred, but standardize written accent-marks and render letters at the beginning of each new verso, subject to the usual exceptions, in l.c. to conform with contemporary usage.

41. One might even say “… in Atomicity,” for Tirso deals as much with a pseudoscientific theory of optics as with a purely philosphical abstraction.

42. See El Pensamiento de Cervantes (Madrid: … Casa Ed. Hernando, 1925), p. 16.

43. The name of Theophrastus almost invariably suggests itself whenever one thinks both of criticism and metaphysics simultaneously. For sheer irascibility tempered with an uncompromising sense of intellectual integrity and contempt of iconoclasm, few surpass the author of Characters and De Sensibus. Theophrastus bitterly assailed such as Parmenides, Plato, Empedocles, Alcamæon, Anaxagoras, Clidemus, and Diogenes, to say nothing of his demolition of Democritus's atomistic view of sense perception—a task to which the Second Part of the De Sensibus is dedicated. (Stratton, op. cit., p. 67 ff.)

44. Not impossibly, the state of mind rendering such conceits comprehensible is now past and gone beyond any recall; save in a general way, that instantaneous insight into matters such as Astral Love, once the heritage of the lowliest occupant of the Pit, has drifted forever beyond the grasp of even our most enlightened scholars and philosophers.

45. I am inclined to recall an ancient saying, applicable to any feat out of the ordinary to the effect that one is not surprised so much that it has been accomplished fairly successfully, but that it has been done at all.

46. The latter suggestion will, I suspect, satisfy the majority of students. Tirso's occasional garrulousness on topics totally foreign to his subject—for example, the famous description and eulogy of the city of Lisbon, in the Burlador—is well established. Excepting the existence of some gato encerrado in Doña Jerónima's soliloquy, we are dealing with but one of those fleeting whims that wholly engrossed the poet for an hour or a day, to be as soon forgotten.