[In the following essay, Hathaway finds in the final two plays of Tirso's Santa Juana trilogy early versions of the Don Juan character that would become fully developed in the playwright's most famous work, El burlador de Sevilla.]

In her edition of Tirso's Obras dramáticas completas, Doña Blanca de los Rios included within her introduction to the three Santa Juana plays a monograph on the genesis of Don Juan. The placement was well chosen: in the second and third of the plays we encounter what she called bocetos of Don Juan, sketches which illustrate “la generación del gran mito en la dramaturgia de su hacedor.”¹ Her use of the term is appropriate in the sense that they are preliminary cartoons for the portrait of Don Juan Tenorio, hence my term “proto-Tenorios.” These characters are not protagonists but secondary figures which provide moral and spiritual contrasts to emphasize the virtues of the saint; as has been pointed out, “the worldly characters [in the trilogy] commit the sins avoided by the saint; then the tensions and conflicts raised through these sins are resolved through the intervention of the saint. … The sins committed in the subplots prove to be those that Santa Juana avoids through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience[:] … the error of overconcern for wealth …, the sins of the flesh, and … the conflicts aroused by disobedience to vows.”²

Doña Blanca described subsets of Don Juan which pertain to slightly differing concepts of the character: besides the definitive Don Juan caballeril, there are the feudalesco and his military half-brother, the castrense (744a); these can be illustrated respectively by two of Lope de Vega's better-known characters, Don Tello de Neira in El mejor alcalde, el rey and the Comendador Fernán Gómez in Fuenteovejuna.

Another figure is that of Tirso's castrense, Don Jorge, a knight of the Order of Santiago. If the “sins of the flesh” are the topic of Santa Juana, II, Don Jorge is represented from the outset as a man given over to womanizing; in the third scene of the play, his uncle, the emperor Carlos V, advises him:

Quedaos, Don Jorge, a tomar
de los lugares os doy
la posesión y a gozar
el nuevo y alegre estado,
que estáis recién desposado.
Mas sírvaos el casamiento
de más sosiego y asiento
que hasta ahora habéis mostrado,
que habéis sido muy travieso;
y pues ya tenéis edad,
si con ella viene el seso,
pasen con la mocedad
las locuras.

(829a)

This characterization is underscored when, after the emperor leaves, Don Jorge remarks arrogantly, “En vano a la voluntad / desbocada el freno aplica / por que no corra veloz” (829a-b).

During a feast of welcome given him by the residents of Cubas, part of his new seigneury, Jorge spies the fetching Mari Pascuala and promptly demonstrates the principal donjuanesque trait: “Va a su antojo, conducido por la idea base de su vida, que es la exaltación de lo carnal.”³ If we accept the testimony of the labradora, there is also a touch of the diabolical about him: “El diabro / en esos ojos tenéis / que me reconcome el alma / desde el punto que os miré” (837a). Don Jorge has the girl carried off; her novio questions his action and in the response we encounter a familiar attitude:

CRESPO.
¿Y mi honra?
D. Jorge.
                    ¿Qué más honra
que amarla el Comendador?
CRESPO.
¿Eso es justicia?
D. Jorge.
                                        Villanos:
no me enojéis, que yo soy
señor de Cubas, y ansi
todo es mío.

(841b)

The townspeople later take Mari Pascuala back, but not before Don Jorge has deflowered her. He threatens to burn the town and boasts that she will not be his sole liaison, “que con todos me veréis emparentar. … / Sois muy toscos y groseros, / y pretendo ennobleceros” (842b, 843b).

Mari Pascuala visits Santa Juana in her convent and begs asylum, but, upon petition by the nuns who fear the presence of a secular woman in their midst, the saint must make her leave. When Mari needs Don Jorge in the town she feels his attraction: “¿Estas las cenizas son / frías? Mas dejó una brasa / escondida la afición, / y quemaráse la casa, / porque sopla la ocasión” (851b-852a). Jorge enjoys her favors again and then discards her. Alone and distraught, she bemoans having credited his words:

¿Aquesto es ser caballero?
¿En esta nobleza estriba
el valor que España ensalza
y estimaron mi desdichas?
Si así los hombres son que España cría,
¡mal haya la mujer que en hombres fía!

(853b)

In her plight she appears to be foreshadowing the question posed by Tenorio's victims, and we can reply to her with Pedro Salinas' words about Don Juan: Jorge is “un caballero español, no muy caballero aunque muy español; un libertino poco delicado, si algo; un sensual apresurado y fugitivo.”⁴ Mari also appeals to the heavens:

Justicia os pide mi agravio
de un traidor que famas quita,
de un hombre, en fin, que en ser hombre
será la mudanza misma.
Mas, pues deudas de honor tan presto olvidan,
¡mal hayala mujer que en hombres fía!

(853b)

She contemplates suicide—even has a rope in hand—but Santa Juana intervenes to save her. She becomes a nun, but the new vocation does not prevent Don Jorge from sending fruit—the text recalls Eve's tempting of Adam—and a note which puts in motion his plan to meet with her, as Lillo describes it: “… loco, hace juramento / que ha de entrar en el convento / y otra vez la ha de gozar” (859b). Doubts, however, do assail Jorge: seeing how severe the punishment is for breaking into the king's house, what must it be to break into God's? He will continue, however: “Déjame gozar / a Pascuala, y venga luego / los que en el eterno fuego / se abrasan” (861a). Santa Juana intervenes with a warning: “Ten cuenta que mañana has de dar cuenta / a Dios, severo Juez, y que mañana te espera” (861b). Her timely words are effective: “like all mortals, Don Juan [or here, Don Jorge] is moved by the emotion of fear, despite his denials that he is not afraid,”⁵ and fear for the health of the soul is convincing in each play in the trilogy. Don Jorge recognizes his errors and apostrophically begs the saint's aid: “no permitáis que para siempre pene, / ni permitáis que mi alma se condene” (862a). As the play ends, Christ the Husband gives the stigmata to his bride Juana; he also informs her that Don Jorge has died and is suffering the pains of Purgatory to cleanse his soul. The emperor, God's viceroy, returns to state our world's acceptance of the divine punishment and to approve the townspeople's plea that he now be their lord; thus do God and king successfully counter the anarchy which is Don Juan's disruptive force by virtue of his “negation of ‘caballerosidad’.”⁶

Because of the saint's words Don Jorge does not commit the unpardonable sin which characterizes Don Juan, that of putting off confession and contrition; for this reason he is not the complete Tenorio, “un calavera que, arrastrado por el goce del momento, mira lejana [there's the difference] la hora de comparecer ante el juicio inapelable; un mozo sensual, fogoso y aturdido, a quien la razón egoísta del placer no deja tiempo para pensar en lo immediato de la expiación tremenda.”⁷ Jorge's ego hears and heeds Santa Juana's saving advice.

The proto-Tenorio in Santa Juana, III, Don Luis, first is shown to us arguing his priority over the Genoese Don César for the right to court Doña Inés; what we subsequently learn is that Don Luis seeks seduction while César has matrimony in mind. Luis' spiritual tutelage has been left to Santa Juana; his father Don Diego cannot bring himself to curb his waywardness: “Mil travesuras consiento / a Don Luis, y aunque siento / que lo hago mal, el amor / de las manos de el rigor / quita el castigo violento” (870a). The saint's advice recalls the warning given to Don Jorge: “Dice que no te consienta / tanta libertad, que impida / con tus locuras mi afrenta, / y tema el dar de tu vida / a Dios rigurosa cuenta” (870b-871a). The son not only scoffs at the advice but berates his father.

We learn that Don Luis has had his way with Aldonza, a labradora who believed his promises of marriage and has come to Madrid to disrupt his advances to Doña Inés; she does succeed in changing the lady's affections.

In the second act, Don Diego receives another message from the saint prompting him to plead with his son to abjure his ways and recognize his Catholic duty; he speaks to his son: “como pasados tus descuidos cuenta / y vive de manera que tu vida / no la dejen los vicios mal perdida” (885b). Luis scoffs once more at Don Diego and also at the saint's nosiness. Certainly her message goes unheeded by father and son: Luis knows that Inés and César are to be wed and he wants César imprisoned to clear his way for seduction; the father agrees to suborn justice: “Vence, aunque no fuera justo, / el amor a la conciencia” (887a). Luis explains his plan to Lillo, his servant now that Don Jorge, as we witness in scene five, is burning inside a bronze bull in Purgatory. Don Diego finds out what Luis is doing inside Inés' house but his reaction is not what we might expect:

No sé si entraré; no es justo
darle pesadumbre en eso;
pues su contrario está preso,
huélguese, siga su gusto.
¡Ay, amor, qué mal cumplís
las leyes de vuestro honor!
Mas soy padre, tengo amor,
y no más que a Don Luis.
Huélguese, que aunque no es justo
habelle en esto ayudado,
más quiero verme culpado
que velle a él con disgusto.

(892a)

Unbridled liberties pervert love on many levels in this night scene: love of woman becomes lust by imposition of voluntad; love of father for son is an excuse for inaction, a rationale for amorality; the love of self inherent in the quedirán is forgotten for convenience's sake; caritas is forgotten in service to eros. In his comment to Don Diego, Lillo calls our attention to the truth: “de amor desvanecido / llevas tu hijo al infierno” (892b).

After talking his way out of prison César comes to Inés' house just after Don Luis has gone; when he talks with her at the window she does not accept his explanation that it was not he who just departed her bed. Believing him a lying ingrate she swears her vengeance; César deduces what really happened and swears vengeance on Don Luis. If this is the law of the jungle, in the scene which immediately follows Santa Juana ponders the spiritual implications of death and judgment.

Quien quiere tener caudal
cuando el alma se despida
en el día de la vida
ha de ganar el jornal
que en la noche de la muerte,
como el jornalero, cobra;
que no ha de alzar de la obra
hasta la noche el que es fuerte.

(894a)

She begs the Child Jesus' care for Jorge and then His assistance for Luis, but gets this response which states the theme of the play: “Hijo que desobedece / a su padre, Juana mía, / y en sus pecados porfía / obstinado, no merece / mi perdón” (895b). But Juana importunes and He does agree to pardon Jorge and bring Luis back to His fold.

In act three we learn that Luis has wasted his patrimony; angered by his father's sermonizing, Luis berates him, knocks him down, and kicks him; one cannot imagine for Tirso's audience a more shocking on-stage demonstration of filial disobedience and disrespect. The beleaguered Don Diego does confess his failings to the saint and begs that she punish him as an unfit father. Santa Juana is so inclined and expounds on the theme of obedience:

Cuando los límites pasa
un hijo y la ley de Dios,
sacad esa sangre vos
y echalda, señor de casa,
que, si no es por este medio
y no os permitís sangrar,
mal os podremos curar
agora que no hay remedio.

(903b)

The parallel between houses and fathers, secular and divine thus is made clear.

Shortly thereafter Lillo leaves Don Luis's service, fearing that he may be caught up in Luis' punishment: “no quiero que venga / sobre ti un rayo de Dios, / y estando yo cerca tenga / en que entender con los dos” (904b). His fear has made him change from willing companion to hopeful survivor. The audience now is prepared for the worst, the terrible punishment surely to be visited on this sinner. When an Alma dressed as a gallant enters and calls “¡Hombre!,” it is not inconceivable that Tirso meant for the audience to sense vicariously God's awesome call to judgment. The Alma explains that Don Luis has but the shadow of a man, not his true substance, “el ser desnudo / sin el bien que los demás” (905b); he identifies himself: “Soy Don Juan, el que en la corte / en tierna edad y con vos, / hice de mi gusto el norte” (906a), for which sin he now burns in Purgatory: “Allí estoy por atrevido, / por libre, por descortés / a mi padre” (906a). He is, then, a Don Luis who has been judged and found wanting; only through the good offices of Santa Juana has he been freed to come to warn Don Luis of what lies before him should he not repent. To prove the fires which await he touches Luis' hand: “¡Ay, que me abraso y me quemo, / no sólo la mano y palma, / sino el alma! Morir temo” (906b). Don Juan replies, “¡Hombre: que os avisa un alma! / Mudad el vicioso extremo” (906a). Don Luis' fear-born contrition is immediate and complete:

Dios mío: este fuego labra
nueva vida; desde luego
pondré la mano en un fuego
que he de cumplir mi palabra.
Vuestro tesoro se abra
de gracia, a quien llevó aquellos
pecados por los cabellos,
que yo no puedo, mi Dios,
ir con ellos yendo a Vos,
ni sin Vos librarme dellos.

(906b)

All the characters gather as the death of Santa Juana draws near. Don Luis is able to apologize to his father in her presence and to beg her forgiveness and prayers; when she acquiesces the fire's pain leaves his hand. Then the Child Jesus comes to carry Juana to her rest: “Sube a gozar, prenda santa, / los premios de tus trabajos” (908a).

There is no need to list the differences between these proto-Tenorios and Don Juan or to specify the textual parallels to the Burlador.⁸ If, however, one bears in mind that this trilogy exists to depict those same trabajos of Santa Juana which earn her sainthood, then one can accept the little development in the character of Don Luis, and the even less development in that of Don Jorge. They exist to provide thematic contrast. The rapid denouement of the third play is more illustrative of this process. Don Luis must reach the nadir of uncontrolled behavior or of amoral anarchy, so that the audience considers only the fires of hell as his deserved eternal resting place; the effective intervention of the saint is made more powerful by the swift and, yes, “miraculous” turnaround she effects. This is a saint's play, to be sure, and, as Doña Blanca de los Ríos did point out, Tirso worried for the spiritual destiny of his created characters and “en esta espiritual inquietud están concebidos todos estos dramas hagiográfico-donjuanescos” (745a); thus salvation is artistically granted.

Although Santa Juana is the central character in our trilogy she does tend to disappear from view, as the repetition above of the words “intervene” and “interrupt” suggests; it is correct to state that “the subplots take on such an additional importance that the biography of the saint almost appears neglected.”⁹ It is significant that the name for the soul in torment is Don Juan; that there should be a Don Juan and a Don Luis in both Tan largo me lo fiáis and the later Burlador led Gerald Wade to pose the question, “Is it not probable, then, that both don Juan and don Luis of the third Santa Juana are in character and name the same persons as in Tan largo me lo fiáis and [the] Burlador?”¹⁰

This all leads to our hypothesis. What have been called the proto-Tenorios are theatrically more colorful characters than the monochromatic saint, and perhaps for this reason these secondary figures seem to have loomed larger in Tirso's mind as the trilogy progressed.¹¹ No matter whether or not he was the author of Tan largo or the Burlador; he was a budding dramatist and could recognize the dynamism which we all see in Don Juan. The biography of a saintly nun lay before the Mercedarian to dramatize; to give a dramatically effective lesson, however, tension was needed, something to challenge the saint and her faith. A donjuanesque counterfoil would be perfect, a mixture of “raw sexuality, animal magnetism, supernatural or diabolic attraction”¹² and thus a telling polar contrast to a virtuous nun. If she became a lesser figure in the dramatic scale of the play, though of course not in its thematic base, this could be attributed to the greater vitality, even the prominence-by-duplication of the donjuanesque challengers. All of this leads, then, to the suggestion that within the dramatic art of his Santa Juana trilogy, Tirso de Molina himself was, in a sense, seduced by Don Juan.

Notes

1. Obras dramáticas completas, I (Madrid: Aguilar, 1946), 760b. All subsequent citations from this volume, text or criticism, will be identified parenthetically by page and column within the body of the text.

   There is a very brief study of the donjuanesque characters in the trilogy in the last three pages of Paul M. Lloyd, “Contribución al estudio del tema de Don Juan en las comedias de Tirso de Molina,” Homenaje a William Fichter. Estudios sobre el teatro antiguo hispánico y otros ensayos, eds. A. David Kossoff and José Amor y Vázquez (Madrid: Castalia, 1971), pp. 447-451; the present study attempts to address the topic with closer textual inspection.

2. Nancy K. Mayberry, “On the Structure of Tirso's Santa Juana Trilogy,” South Atlantic Bulletin, 41 (1976), 14.

3. Mercedes Sáenz-Alonso, Don Juan y el donjuanismo (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1969), pp. 32-33.

4. “El nacimiento de Don Juan,” Ensayos de literatura hispánica (Del “Cantar de Mio Cid” a García Lorca), ed. Juan Marichal (Madrid: Aguilar, 1961), pp. 152-153.

5. Everett W. Hesse, “Fear and Courage as Psycho-literary Motifs in the Comedia,” The Comedia and Points of View (Potomac MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1984), p. 161.

6. “Because Don Juan is the negation of ‘caballerosidad’ in every respect, he disrupts all social ties, and society itself will fall apart and disappear if his anarchism is allowed to prevail” (A. A. Parker, “The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age,” Diamante, 6 [1957], 13).

7. Victor Said Armesto, La leyenda de Don Juan. Orígenes poéticos de “El burlador de Sevilla” y “Convidado de piedra” (Buenos Aires-México: Espasa-Calpe, 1946; Colección Austral, 562), p. 171.

8. Blanca de los Ríos provides this service on pp. 752a-759b.

9. Mayberry, p. 17.

10. In “The Composition of El burlador de Sevilla,” the first portion of the “Introduction” to his edition of the Burlador (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), pp. 4-5.

11. Compare Lloyd: “Podemos ver … cómo la concepción de un libertino cautivó la imaginación de Tirso en esta trilogía. … En La Santa Juana vemos crecer en la mente del dramaturgo la idea de una comedia dedicada sólo al libertino” (art. cit., p. 451).

12. Armand E. Singer, “Don Juan's Women in El burlador de Sevilla,” Bulletin of the Comediantes, 27:1 (1975), 68.