4—
Cervantes's Burlesque Sonnets Independent of Don Quixote

Pre-Burlesque Sonnets

Cervantine humor has been characterized here as the admission of a new dimension of authentic human experience into literature through the embracing of human folly. Spain's greatest observer of human nature was capable of pointing out our inevitable vices, but always with an indulgent eye. Rather than distancing himself to observe and comment upon our foibles from a critically superior distance, Cervantes followed the less thorny path of burlesque. By availing himself of gentle mockery and above all irony, Cervantes drew a humorous rather than a negatively satirical picture of his age.

Cervantes's earliest burlesque sonnets independent of other (prose) works date from the last decades of the sixteenth century. First among these is a poem composed to accompany a now extremely rare medical treatise. The sonnet (Appendix 32) can be considered the great humorist's first leanings toward the burlesque. The encomium accompanied Cervantes's friend Dr. Francisco Díaz's 1588 Tratado nuevamente impresso, de todas las enfermedades de los Riñones, Vexiga, y Carnosidades de la verga, y Vrina, dividido en tres libros .

Francisco Díaz was the same distinguished royal surgeon graduated in medicine from the University of Alcalá who had been praised by Cervantes in the "Canto de Calíope." There the beautiful nymph says of him:

De ti, el doctor Francisco Díaz, puedo
asegurar a estos mis pastores
que con seguro corazón y ledo,
pueden aventajarse en tus loores.

Y si en ellos yo agora corta quedo,
debiéndose a tu ingenio los mayores,
es porque el tiempo es breve, y no me atrevo
a poderte pagar lo que te debo.^[1]

[Doctor Francisco Díaz, I can assure
these shepherds of mine
that, with sure and merry heart,
they may excel in your praises.
And if I now fall short
of the great tributes your genius merits,
it is because time is brief, and I fear
I shall not be able to pay you your due.]

Apparently Cervantes took the opportunity to extend his praises in the later sonnet, but not in an entirely serious manner. On the surface the poem appears to be a rather standard encomium appropriate for the medical volumes it accompanies. However, upon closer examination it becomes apparent that the sonnet is actually on the threshold of the burlesque.

In it Cervantes gently pokes fun at both the book and Francisco Díaz's occupation. The first stanza slyly suggests that the doctor converts his many patients' kidney stones into gold.^[2] The idea is continued in the second stanza, where Cervantes speaks of the "ricas venas" of his science. In other words, Díaz's science, his medical practice, is a gold mine. In the first tercet Cervantes insists upon the piedra metaphor, saying that the stones the doctor removes are so numerous that a statue could be built with them.

Although the sonnet could perhaps be considered a satirical comment on the gold-digging medical profession, its tone belies any true satirical intent. There is no bitterness in the poem, only the suggestion of lighthearted leg-pulling of this famous physician and his profession. Because of their early date, these verses mark Cervantes's entrance into the burlesque sonnet tradition. The ambiguous mocking that appears here in a somewhat rudimentary form will be fully exploited in his subsequent burlesque sonnets.

The same subtle irony that characterizes the Francisco Díaz encomium can be appreciated in Cervantes's sonnet praising

Lope de Vega (Appendix 33). The poem appeared among the laudatory verses preceding the second edition (1602) of Lope's Dragontea . Although the sonnet accompanies an epic poem expressing Spain's joy at the death of Sir Francis Drake, Cervantes makes no allusion whatsoever to the historically significant event. Instead he concentrates on lauding Lope's skill as a poet. Playing on the name "Vega" and its meaning of a fertile lowland, the author explains how Lope has been blessed by the various gods. Apollo bathes this plain with Helicon's waters, Jupiter cultivates it, and the Muses make it their Parnassus. However, when we arrive to "honest" Venus, we find that she increases and nurtures the "santa multitud de los amores" within it.

Cervantes is obviously alluding mischievously to Lope's many love affairs. However, the tone and the discretion exercised in this sonnet differ markedly from the much more severe and far less veiled barbs that will characterize his later criticisms of Lope's art and life-style. Here the ambiguity he employs offers the suggestion of mocking irony, but it lacks the bitterness of his later sonetadas . Also absent from this sonnet is the literary criticism of Lope which is such a fundamental part of Cervantes's later works, especially Don Quixote . In this poem Cervantes concedes that Lope has been bathed by the waters of Helicon. This is spoken in a manner that differs tremendously from his treatment of Lope in the Viaje del Parnaso . In that 1614 satire Lope enters the ship of poets bound for Parnassus in a most irregular manner: he drops down out of a cloud to usurp a place aboard ship.

The difference between this preburlesque sonnet and Cervantes's later allusions to Lope is doubtless a result of the growing personal animosity that will characterize their relationship. Although this verse is included among the preliminaries to the Dragontea, it most likely dates from much earlier. Lope's epic poem was first published in 1598; Cervantes's sonnet could easily have been written then and not included for any number of reasons. It could also have been written prior to 1598, before the poets knew each other personally. An earlier date is especially convincing when we compare the sonnet to the scathing sonetadas written against Lope when he traveled to Seville in

1602. These were composed by the Academia de Ochoa, a group of young Sevillian poets to which Cervantes has been definitively linked.^[3]

Obviously Cervantes's and Lope's relationship had deteriorated a great deal between the date of composition of this sonnet and its publication, and especially between the time of its writing and that of the verses surrounding Part One of Don Quixote . This poem is characterized by highly ambiguous and cautious irony, even in the final tercet in which Cervantes points to Lope's prolificacy. It is doubtful that Cervantes ever truly felt that Lope's poetry was "[de] gusto y general provecho" (Horace's dulce et utile ). In his later works he will attack Lope with open sarcasm for his vulgarization of the poetic art, especially with regard to the comedia nueva . In this sonnet, however, he simply casts a fleeting shadow of doubt over the fruits of Lope's pen. The uselessness of so many angels, arms, saints, and shepherds is lightly called into question in such an ambiguous way that Cervantes cannot be accused of direct insult.

The sonnets to Francisco Díaz and Lope de Vega can best be designated preburlesque. They anticipate the burlesque sonnets that Cervantes will continue to compose, but differ from them in style and tone. Because they are written upon request, they contain the obligatory, hyperbolic praise that characterizes such verse. However, when we compare them with Cervantes's earlier sonnets, for example, those written on the deaths of Isabel de Valois (1568) and Herrera (1597?), we find our author gradually breaking the mold of this suffocating genre. He especially cannot take these encomiums seriously when they are written for such irresistibly amusing recipients. Therefore, slowly but surely, Cervantes introduces burlesque elements into the verses. The irony and double entendres present in embrionic form in these poems gradually increase to produce fully developed burlesque sonnets overflowing with humor and intellectual depth.

Ecclesiastical, Social, and Political Satire

In his fully mature burlesque sonnets, Cervantes breaks from the majority of his Italian and Spanish predecessors to develop

the new thread of humor seen gradually emerging in his two preburlesque sonnets. His remaining burlesque sonnets independent of Don Quixote provide models for the genre. With them Cervantes claims his rightful place as the first master of the tradition in Golden Age poetry.

These poems are skillful combinations of burlesque and satire. "A un ermitaño" (Appendix 34), "A un valentón metido a pordiosero" (Appendix 35), "A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz" (Appendix 36), and "Al túmulo de Felipe II en Sevilla" (Appendix 37) are satires in that they certainly censure common vices of the age. Nevertheless, they do so without the bitterness and causticity we commonly associate with much of later Golden Age satire.

Sonnets 34 and 35 (as well as Sonnet 37) have a certain picaresque tone that links them to the poesía germanesca that flourished in Spain at the end of the sixteenth century. Campuzano, the fencing master who later is metamorphosed into a hermit of questionable sincerity, and the soldier cum valentón are protagonists of poems that ironically point to the hypocrisy and obsession with appearances so prevalent in Spanish society at the time. Both practice dubious occupations. Far from being a noble, respected profession, that of fencing master was more closely associated with the underworld than with the court.^[4] Thus Campuzano makes use not only of a sword but also a dagger, an arm appropriate for braggarts and ruffians.^[5] And he uses his "art" to slice off noses rather than to serve the crown as a caballero .^[6] He is finally incapacitated by Montalvo "el de Sevilla" who halves our hero in a street fight. Montalvo is, of course, another Sevillian underworld tough.^[7] Campuzano then repents, trading in his sword and dagger for a hermit's staff, a rosary, and a bird snare. And alongside his dedicated sotaermitaño, he devotes his life to "ascetic" pursuits.

But Campuzano's reform is not to be taken seriously. His rosary is most likely of the cuenta gorda type, designed purely for show. The large-beaded rosary is emblematic for the hypocrisy of the ecclesiastic of little faith and dubious moral conduct.^[8] Rather than dedicating his remaining years to the ascetic life, Campuzano has moved into a love nest replete with eager partner. Cervantes makes this evident through the use of very thinly veiled erotic euphemisms.

The author first tells us that Campuzano has retired to an ermita, a secluded retreat where one enjoys the contemplative life alone. However, it should be kept in mind that ermita was also a euphemism at the time for the prostitute's shop.^[9] This underground meaning of hermitage is in accordance with the type of companion Campuzano chooses—his Madalena. Magdalena, of course, refers to the fallen woman repentant for her sins. However, this magdalen is hardly repentant as she dedicates herself to rejuvenating her latest lover.

The eroticism of the sonnet is reinforced by another possession Campuzano makes use of in his new life: a ballesta de matar pardales . This instrument is a snare used for capturing small birds. Nevertheless it has an additional, less honest meaning as a metaphor for the male genitals. Hence the popular, anonymous villancico that reads:

Andome en la villa,
fiestas principales,
con mi ballestilla
de matar pardales.
Unos de bailar
gustan aquel día,
yo de disparar
la ballesta mía;
otros la cuadrilla
buscan de zagales,
yo mi ballestilla
de matar pardales.
Echándoles cebos,
bajan a las puertas
pajaritos nuevos,
las alas abiertas;
y así por la villa
me ando días tales
con mi ballestilla
de matar pardales.^[10]

[I roam the village
on special holidays,
with my little snare
for shooting sparrows.
Some on those days

enjoy a dance,
I prefer to shoot
my little snare;
others the band
of shepherd lads seek,
but I my little snare
for shooting sparrows.
Lured by my bait,
new little birds
will come out of doors,
with wings spread wide;
and so through the village
I roam these days
with my little snare for shooting sparrows.]

Thus Campuzano becomes a Saint Hilary, an ascetic who, unlike his namesake—a sixth-century Tuscan abbot who lived in isolation beside the river Ronco where he dedicated his life to prayer and manual work—leads a life conspicuously free of self-denial and religiosity. Cervantes's final verse ("¡Ved cómo nacen bienes de los males!") is the final irony summarizing this ruffian's apocryphal conversion to the religious life.

The fact that Campuzano chooses to become a hermit, and his less than sacrosanct behavior, place this sonnet within the antiecclesiastical satirical tradition prevalent in Spain since the Middle Ages. At the same time, the false hermit is a profoundly Erasmian theme.^[11] Cervantes would treat hermits in an equally ironical way in the second part of his great novel. There Don Quixote comments that:

no son los que agora se usan como aquellos de los desiertos de Egipto, que se vestían de hojas de palma y comían raíces de la tierra. Y no se entienda que por decir bien de aquéllos no lo digo de aquéstos, sino que quiero decir que al rigor y estrecheza de entonces no Ilegan las penitencias de los de agora; pero no por esto dejan de ser todos buenos: a lo menos, yo por buenos los juzgo; y cuando todo corra turbio, menos mal hace el hipócrita que se finge bueno que el público pecador. (II: 24)

[Those we see nowadays are not like the hermits in the Egyptian deserts who wore palm leaves and lived on the roots of the earth.

But do not think that by praising them I am disparaging the others. What I mean is that the penances of present-day hermits do not equal the asceticism and austerity of former times. Yet it does not follow that they are not all worthy men, and such I believe them to be. At the worst, the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less harm than the shameless sinner.]

His final words take the sting out of the satire. The hypocrite is, after all, less evil than the public sinner.

The theme of hypocrisy, or more concretely of appearances, resurfaces in the sonnet "A un valentón metido a pordiosero" (Appendix 35). The poem is clearly within the poesía germanesca tradition, and yet it also is very different from the sonnets found in available texts. Cervantes's sonnet is better constructed, it reveals the true cowardly nature of the valentón in an ingenious way, and it contains the typically understated Cervantine wit that is conspicuously absent from the characteristically rather vulgar soneto germanesco . In addition, Cervantes's estrambote skillfully finishes off the poem on a humorous twist.

The sonnet forms a brief, highly visual, and carefully structured narrative, a quality present in all Cervantes's independent sonnets. It probably corresponds to scenes the author observed in daily life among the lower strata of Seville and Madrid. Here Cervantes equates the office of soldier to that of a roguish street tough who bullies passers by into giving him money. Because the ex-soldier has become a common atracador, it is easy to detect in the sonnet a criticism of the neglect to which such men were often subjected upon returning from battle.^[12] Cervantes himself suffered from such a lack of support after his return to Spain from captivity, when he was forced to fulfill somewhat menial governmental positions for which he was notoriously ill suited. Be that as it may, however, the inherent criticism is a shadow that soon passes over the poem. The real object of the sonnet's satire is, of course, the figure of the valentón .

This person is pure and superficial arrogance. His sword (although only marginally a sword as Cervantes refers to it as an espátula ), wide trousers, and bushy moustache all attest to his virility. His words threaten menacingly. But of course this vulgar braggart is revealed to be a despicable coward who is easily

frightened off by the first person to stand his ground. His cowardice is gradually exposed through a brilliant process of linguistic ridicule. First is the description: a "valentón de espátula y gregüesco." The extreme contrast between the comically vulgar augmentative suffix -ón, placed immediately alongside the learned diminutive -ula, creates an effect of carnivalesque disproportion.^[13] The tough carries not an espada but an espátula . The noble sword has suffered a linguistic deformation on two levels: espátula is not only a diminutive of the word espada, but is also an implement used by boticarios and painters in mixing their medicines or colors. In Cervantes's time pharmacists had a terrible reputation for adulterating medicines or preparing them badly. They were known as the doctors' righthand men in poisoning their patients. Quevedo includes a satirical allusion to them in his otherwise religious sonnet "Llegó a los pies de Cristo Magdalena:" "Y pues aqueste ejemplo veis presente, / ¡Albricias, boticarios desdichados, / Que hoy da la gloria Cristo por ungüente! [And since you see this example before you, / Congratulations, oh wretched pharmacists, / Today Christ offers perpetual glory for a salve!]."^[14] And in his burlesque ballad "En la pedregosa orilla," Góngora describes a portrait of the shepherdess Teresona: "que en un pedazo de anjeo, / no sin primor ni trabajo, / con una espátula vieja / se lo pintó un boticario [that a pharmacist painted for her / on a piece of burlap / not without skill or craft / with an old spatula]."^[15] This subtle reference by association to boticarios is, therefore, a highly negative nuance.

The espátula is also a cooking implement. This approaches a type of comicity involving popular, festive imagery exploited to great success by Rabelais: kitchen humor. The burlesque inversion of the foil into a mundane kitchen tool will be made use of by Quevedo in his Buscón . In that novel the crazy fencing master asks the innkeeper for a pair of asadores to demonstrate his skills to Pablos. The picaroon relates that: "los asadores estaban ocupados, y hubimos de tomar dos cucharones. . . . No llegaba hasta mí desde una legua, y andaba alrededor con el cucharón; y como yo me estaba quedo, parecían tretas contra olla que se sale [the spits were being used, so we had to grab two ladles. . . . He circled around me with the ladle, coming no

closer than a league's distance, and since I stood still it looked like a trick to catch an overflowing saucepan]."^[16] The same linguistic procedure is followed in both texts whereby the most prosaic of objects (a spatula and a ladle) are used to burlesque the fencing "art." The lexicon itself transports the texts to the most unpoetic, pedestrian, and consequently debasing imagery; therein lies their comicity.

Next, we find that the ruffian wears gregüescos . The word comes from the Greek, hence Góngora's scatological letrilla : "Aunque entiendo poco griego, / en mis gregüescos he hallado / ciertos versos de Museo / ni muy duros ni muy blandos [Although I understand little Greek / in my breeches I have found / certain verses of Musaeus / neither very soft nor very firm]."^[17] The vogue of these wide, baggy, short breeches was adopted from Germany, as was much Spanish male attire during the sixteenth century. A typical military garment, they were also de rigueur as courtly male apparel.^[18] This fashion soon became exaggeratedly stylized and bulky, differing somewhat from the slightly more discreet calzones .^[19]

Despite the legitimacy of these trousers as an accepted article of clothing, the word itself sounds definitely harsh and somewhat ridiculous to Spanish ears. Indeed, it is markedly unpoetic. Cervantes puts this fact to good advantage by establishing a burlesque rhyme scheme in -esco . In and of itself this -esco suffix (indicating an accessorial or possessive relationship) is ill-sounding and usually pejorative (pendantesco, rufianesco, grotesco ).

These phonetic connotations both contaminate and, in turn, are reinforced in their negativity by the word picaresco . The paronomasia "oficio de la pica" and "ejercicio picaresco," besides establishing internal rhyme, provides wordplay that acts to subtly undermine any officiality that might possibly be contained in the valentón 's old profession. Oficio de la pica is, in fact, a derogatory term for soldiering, which is equated here with the picaresque life. In terms of style, this first quatrain could not be more accomplished with its internal rhyme, paronomasia, and the contrast between "muerte" and "vidas."

The second quatrain continues the -esco rhyme with another ridiculous image: the "mostacho soldadesco." At the time the bushy mustache was a primary external symbol of male virility,

pride, and courage. It was also emblematic of the valentón .^[20] And to torcer el mostacho was a menacing gesture.^[21] Because of this culto al bigote, any reference to a man's mustache could be interpreted as ironically calling into doubt his masculinity. Therefore, in the poem the mention of the "mostacho soldadesco" subtly anticipates the valentón 's true cowardly nature soon to be revealed. At the same time and at the level of language, the Gallicism mostacho provides an additional element of mockery. The term connotes great size and hirsuteness, and as a consequence exaggerated male pretense and vanity. The suffix -acho also generally carries a pejorative nuance. These negative connotations would be absent from the more modest and discreet-sounding bigote .

The final component of the -esco rhyme system is "refresco." The word is harmless in itself. But it is precisely because of its absolute innocuousness that it is so comical. At the time refresco was a somewhat vague or general term indicating food or drink; what is at times called in contemporary Spanish a refrigerio . Therefore, instead of demanding money, or simply taking it as a true thief would, this menacing valentón who has all the outward symbols of aggressive manhood simply demands an insignificant offering, a sort of tip. He is really asking for what amounts to a trifle in order to buy himself a drink.^[22] The fact that he "begs" in essence for a drink further reveals his ruffianish nature seeing that drunkenness is symptomatic of the cowardly braggart who drowns his quarrels in wine.^[23]

The way in which the valentón-pordiosero asks for his "limosna" is perfectly in accordance with the Golden Age stereotype of Spaniards, especially Castilians. The infamous Spanish arrogance encompassed even beggars. As the pícara Justina says, "El pobre sobre todas las haciendas tiene juros, y aun el espafiol tiene votos, porque siempre el pobre español pide jurando y votando [Poor men hold all property rights for perpetuity, and Spaniards even have the vote, because poor Spaniards always beg with oaths and vows]."^[24] Another pícaro, this one male, shares Justina's opinion:

Por cuanto las naciones todas tienen su método de pedir . . . los castellanos con fieros, haciéndose malquistos, respondones y malsu-

fridos; a éstos mandamos que se reporten y no blasfemen y a los más que guarden la orden.^[25]

[All nations have their own way of begging . . . Castilians do it with threats, becoming impudent, impatient, and consequently despised; we tell these men to curb themselves and not blaspheme, and the rest to be orderly.]

This valentón fits the description perfectly. He is presumptuous and vain (thus he twists his mustache in a gesture of arrogant show), as well as a blasphemer with his vulgar apostrophe "por ocho santos." He is, in fact, a petty miles gloriosus now reduced to begging.

Beside the mundane and ridiculous lexicon already discussed (espítula, gregüesco, refresco ), the sonnet utilizes several terms extracted from germanesca: valentón, tiracantos, and bravonel .^[26] From the first word the poem is constructed using a lexicon and register appropriate to the underworld. A valentón is an arrogant coward who can be called by a variety of similar terms such as fanfarrón and bravonel . All three are distinctly derogatory because they imply a cowardly nature that the subject attempts to obscure through vain braggadocio. In effect, Covarrubias defines the fanfarrón as "El que está echando bravatas y se precia de valiente, hablando con arrogancia y jactancia, siendo un lebrón y gallina; porque los hombres valientes de ordinario son muy callados y corteses [The one who utters threats and boasts arrogantly of his valor when he is actually a coward and a chicken, because brave men are usually very quiet and courteous]." This definition fits the other three terms equally as well.

The term tiracantos, also common in this type of slang, is generally used as an insult against despicable and unimportant men.^[27] Thus the wealthy gentleman sees through the foolish and presumptuous beggar. As opposed to the latter's ridiculously ineffectual threat "por ocho santos," the caballero puts hand to sword to challenge the cowardly valentón . He insults the pordiosero to his face, leaving him to scuttle away in disgrace. The poem also utilizes to perfection vulgarisms such as voacedes (discussed in the following section of this chapter) and the oath por ocho santos . This curse is a diluted and meaningless expletive in the line of voto a tal . The numerical limitation of "ocho" is

ridiculous. Why eight, for example, and not eight hundred saints?

The comicity of this poem lies in Cervantes's adept use of language to draw a colorful portrait of a figure common to contemporary life—the fanfarrón . At the same time he chooses humor rather than negative satire. The poem is, indeed, a burla, a mockery of the superficial vanity and arrogance of this foolish and cowardly boaster. And by association Cervantes successfully deflates the menacing but empty posturing of the underworld hampones .

The picaresque world would be analyzed and novelized later by Mateo Alemán, Quevedo, and Cervantes himself. In this sonnet Cervantes places the valentón in the same humorous light that will illuminate the underworld of picaroons and ruffians that forms the background of many of his prose works. Cervantes treats this rogue with the same comic mockery that he will Monipodio's gang, Berganza, Ginés de Pasamonte, and Diego Carriazo. Rather than denounce and in so doing confirm the evils of this marginal segment of society in the severely embittered tone of a Guzmán de Alfarache or a Buscón, Cervantes subverts and thus blunts it through his adroit manipulation of burla . Because the poem's perfectly controlled structure gradually and humorously unmasks the valentón as a ridiculous and insignificant coward, we are left with a smile on our lips rather than the bitter taste in our mouths generally produced by the picaresque novel.

"A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz" (Appendix 36) is the most accomplished among a group of sonnets that satirize one of the darker moments in the history of Philip II's twilight reign.^[28] Only eight years after the shameful defeat of the Armada, the English admiral Lord Charles Howard Effingham again challenged Spain's navy. On July 1, 1596 Howard led the 150-vessel English fleet in an attack upon the port of Cádiz.^[29] The English entered the harbor, overwhelmed the smaller home fleet, and swiftly drove the Spanish back into the city. Fifteen thousand English soldiers under the command of the Count of Essex completely sacked Cádiz. They took everything of value, even the iron gratings decorating the houses, and held many hostages for ransom while sparing the lives of the

other residents. The invaders remained unchallenged in the city for over two weeks before leisurely setting sail once again for England.^[30]

And how was Spain's archenemy able to launch a second successful attack on Cádiz? The English fleet had been sighted off Lagos as early as June 25 and the coastal cities subsequently alerted. Immediate responsibility for the protection of the coast lay in the hands of Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia and Captain General of the Province and Coasts of Andalusia.^[31] The Duke was at home in Conil when news of the imminent attack arrived.^[32] He did gather troops and lead them to Puerto Real, but instead of coming to the defense of Cádiz, he hung back and observed the destruction of the city from a prudent distance. Abreu ironically rationalizes the captain's cowardice, saying:

El no entrar el Duque en Cádiz antes que el enemigo la entrara fué debajo de algunas justas consideraciones, porque siendo, como era, capitán general, no convenía poner su persona en estrecho donde no pudiese ordenar ni reparar otros mayores daños que pudieran suceder, además de que S.M. le había mandado en la ocasión pasada, cuando vino el Drak, que no pusiese su persona en peligro, pues importaba más su conservación que el daño que el enemigo podía hacer.^[33]

[After careful consideration the Duke did not enter Cádiz because, since he was Captain General, it was not advisable to put his person into a position where he could neither command nor remedy other greater damages that might occur. Besides, on the previous occasion when Drake attacked, His Majesty ordered him not to put his person in danger because his survival was more important than the damage the enemy might cause.]

The Duke finally entered Cádiz ten days later, when all danger was past, the dead had been removed and burned, and the streets cleaned.^[34]

Another incident took place in Seville that would also be amusing were it not for the tragic outcome of the sack of Cádiz. After the attack on the port, the threat loomed that the enemy would continue on to Seville. Therefore, when the news arrived there on July 1, the Conde de Priego, Chief Officer of Justice,

mobilized the city to come to the aid of Cádiz and to defend Seville.^[35] However, as the local historian Francisco de Arifio reported, in the entire city "no se halló arcabuz, ni mecha, ni pólvora, ni espadas, ni armas ningunas," until finally 400 harquebuses were found "llenos de moho, que no eran de provecho [there were no harquebuses, fuses, gunpowder, swords, or any other arms to be found until 400 rusty, useless harquebuses were finally discovered]."^[36]

In spite of everything Seville launched itself, at least apparently, into the defense efforts. Priego even released prisoners from the city jail to join the "troops"—a twenty-four-company militia from Seville and the surrounding towns. The captains of each company began to train their men, marching them up and down and holding war games in the surrounding countryside. Unfortunately, so zealous were the captains that they used up all the available gunpowder in these exercises.^[37] And in the meantime Cádiz was being sacked and burned. This miscreant Sevillian militia has been succinctly described as formed mainly of young, restless, and disorderly adventurers. Such soldiers must have scared off the city's inhabitants more than the enemy, who in the meantime was sacking Cádiz at will.^[38]

This, then, is the background of Cervantes's sonnet. The poem is full of ironic allusions to the events in Cádiz and Seville. He starts by establishing an initial correspondence between the militia and Sevillian Holy Week ceremonies. The cofradías are the companies of soldiers parading up and down displaying their plumed hats but never managing to actually enter into combat with the enemy. The plumes symbolize both their ridiculous ostentation and their impotence—the soldiers dressed the part but had no arms.^[39] The nature of these soldiers is revealed by the fact that the townspeople, not the enemy (who never even saw them), were frightened off. Instead of professional soldiers, they were the dregs of Seville. This must have deeply offended Cervantes, who had battled among true fighters, and under the command of an energetic leader, at Lepanto. These vulgar and unsavory tin soldiers, all bluff and bluster, were an insult to the memory of Don Juan de Austria and a more illustrious Spain.

Sure enough, the sonnet continues, the ostentation is for

nought and after two weeks the whole edificio falls apart at the seams. The word edificio is used here more in the sense of an extravagant stunt or operation than of an edifice.^[40] It is reminiscent of another word Cervantes will adopt in a satirical manner in his sonnet to Philip II's tomb: máquina . The idea is of a similar apparatus (in this case military) created with much fanfare and exhibition but which proves to be constructed on (hot) air and devoid of any true meaning. The would-be army was as impotent as their plumes flying upon the wind.

The first tercet is a patent allusion to one of the protagonists of the Sevillian fracas. The bellowing bull is a certain Marco Antonio Becerra, one of the more vociferous captains of the newly formed militia. The description befits the brutish man whose orders would echo through the streets of Seville, deafening the populace, as he lined up his men. Cervantes is censuring the same fanfarronería incarnated by the "valentón metido a pordiosero." It is a vice that must have especially infuriated our poet as he will return to it in yet another sonnet ("Al túmulo de Felipe II") and in many of his prose works. In this poem Becerra is depicted as another Andalusian valentón who has unfortunately been legitimized by a veneer of authority. The earth did, indeed, shake, with the menace of him and his fearsome warrors.^[41] However, when the great Duke finally enters Cádiz, once the Count of Essex is safely out of sight, the intimidation and swagger of the Sevillian militia is reduced to a whimper. With his composure intact ("mesura harta") Medina "triumphantly" enters the defeated, humiliated, and ruined city.

From the point of view of language and style, this poem is intriguing in the way in which it throws together the most disparate objects: Semana Santa, cofradías, compañías, vulgo, inglés, plumas, pigmeos, Golias, edificio, and becerro . When viewed together in series, the incongruity of these lexical elements becomes apparent. The list, and in a certain way the sonnet constructed around these elements, apparently do not make sense. Because of this the sonnet harks back somewhat to the fifteenth-century Italian nonsense poetry known as Burchiellesque verse. But as opposed to that earlier poetry, Cervantes's verse is neither grotesque nor meaningless. He also has more recent and familiar sources of inspiration in creating his neo-

nonsense verse: the fifteenth-century Spanish poesía sin sentido, which culminates in the disparates of Juan del Encina.^[42]

Closely related to the medieval French fatrasie and the Italian frottola, the disparate consists fundamentally of the chaotic stringing together of impossibilia .^[43] In this verse strange animals and absurd objects are juxtaposed, temporal and spatial relationships are violated, illogical comparisons and contrasts are made, vaguely scatological or erotic nuances are suggested. The disparate is, in fact, a form of linguistic madness designed to reflect the madness of a world in chaos.

No technique could better serve as a source of inspiration in Cervantes's presentation of the ludicrous, upside-down world of Cádiz. Most of the characteristic techniques of the disparate are present to a degree in Cervantes's sonnet. Line one begins with the type of temporal distortion exploited to great effect by Juan del Encina. This poet initiates his "disparates trobados" with the lines "Anoche de madrugada, / ya después de mediodía [Last night in the early morning hours/just after midday]."^[44] Cervantes's beginning ("Vimos en julio otra semana santa") employs a similar violation of "normal" time by displacing Holy Week into July.^[45] However, rather than doing so simply to subvert meaning in the poem, his manipulation of time serves to establish the sonnet's basic allegory: the efforts of Becerra and Medina are but ritualistic spectacle designed to dazzle the masses and mask their own inadequacies. At the same time Cervantes is calling attention to the vain display of luxury which was virtually synonymous with the Semana Santa festivities.

The allusions to Holy Week continue with the next items on the poet's chaotic list: cofradías and compañías . In Seville, of all places, the first term has quite special connotations. It maliciously conjures up images of the great Sevillian enthusiasm for Holy Week processions—perhaps the only thing that the city traditionally carried off to perfection. While the object of great pomp and show, the Holy Week brotherhoods and their processions were in reality little more than a naive and inoffensive form of popular entertainment. Although the word links the Holy Week image to the soldiers through the idea of exaggerated fanfare, it is more than a simple metaphor for the militias.

Cofradía has meaning on another lexical level: that of germanía . One acceptation is that of a brotherhood of thieves.^[46] Hence in Rinconete y Cortadillo Monipodio's gang is continually referred to as a cofradía .^[47] But within this linguistic world, the term has an even more specific meaning; it refers to certain brotherhoods of prisoners formed inside the city jails. Whenever a prisoner was to be hanged, the members would march in a procession to the infirmary or death row, carrying candles and chanting prayers.^[48]

Furthermore, when we read down we find that Becerra "púsolos (los soldados) en sarta." In other words, he lined them up military fashion—en fila . The semantic difference between sarta and fila is subtle but significant; it is the difference between stringing and lining up. Objects, not people, are usually strung (ensartados ): pearls or even garlic spring to mind. We approach culinary humor again and another incongruous element is evoked that considerably lowers the poem's linguistic register while heaping ridicule upon the wretched compañías .

Thus the lexical circle is complete. Cofradías is used on four linguistic levels: ecclesiastical terminology; military terminology; prosaic, perhaps even kitchen vocabulary; and underworld slang. The cofradías are first linked to Holy Week festivities on the surface level. Next they are linked to the military through their metaphoric relationship with compañías . In addition they are dehumanized through the subtle insinuations contained in the "poner en sarta" expression. And finally, they are related to the underworld on the level of slang, which, in turn, reverts back to the ecclesiastical term originally borrowed. The brotherhoods that march through the streets accompanying the sacred images during Holy Week are paralleled in a supreme act of blasphemy by the prisoners who accompany their colleague to the gallows. Through the use of the polysemous term cofradías, the two worlds are juxtaposed and inverted. In this way what originally appears as a slightly absurd series of nouns is revealed to be neither incongruous nor meaningless. The terms are, in fact, part of a solid and multilayered linguistic structure.

In only the first three verses of his sonnet, Cervantes has tapped several linguistic levels. Starting with line four, he delves into yet another lexical area. This provides an underground sys-

tem of connotation that, in turn, permits a somewhat different reading of the sonnet. On this level more sordid aspects of the Duke and the Sevillian militiamen's behavior are revealed, or at least hinted at.

If this embedded lexical level is not as immediately accessible to the reader, it is no less significant. In fact, words such as atestada, vulgo, plumas, volaron, and triunfando entró all have secondary erotic connotations that are not difficult to decipher. The words pluma, and especially volar, can be euphemisms for fornication.^[49]Pluma has historically been a euphemism for pene and still retains that meaning today.^[50] But more relative to our text is the fact that the word can also signify a prostitute, especially in Andalusia.^[51] In addition, feathers are associated with procuresses through the traditional public punishment they would receive for their crimes. The alcahueta would be emplumada : smeared with honey and then feathered. The word vulgo also has a secondary meaning of mancebía . In La Lozana andaluza, Sagüeso uses the term in this acceptation when he says to Lozana: "Mas ya me parece que la señora Celidonia os sobrepuja casi en el todo, porque en el vulgo no hay casa tan frecuentada como la suya [But it seems to me that Celidonia surpasses you in everything, because no brothel in the district is frequented as much as hers]."^[52]

An additional lexical item, becerro, has a euphemistic connotation different from that of a yearling bull. Its diminutive is, of course, becerrillo . At this point we begin to see how the word takes on a different, collateral meaning that is in keeping with the poem's underlying erotic-burlesque semantic system. Becerillo or becerril (marido becerril ) is an expression meaning "cuckold."^[53] Hence the following verses from a Quevedo ballad: "casadas que, en la partida / del marido becerril, / a los partos y a los medos / cubren con el faldellín [wives who in the absence / of their horned husbands / conceal Parthians and Medians / beneath their petticoats]."^[54] In Cervantes's poem this interpretation of becerro as cuckold is especially compelling when coupled with the verb bramar . Such a husband would, indeed, be likely to register his fury in quite a vociferous way.

The question remaining is who is the marido becerril ? It could refer to Becerra, or perhaps even to Sevillian husbands possibly

betrayed at the hands of the ruffians-cum-soldiers. But this is unimportant; what is significant is the fact that Cervantes is alluding to a more insidious side of this entire incident. He is accusing Medina and the grotesquely disparate militiamen (all of them, big and small: "pigmeos y Golías") of spending their time fornicating with prostitutes when they should have been fighting the English in Cádiz^[55] —volaron, in this particular sense, instead of"flying" to help Cádiz. Seen from this angle, Medina's "triumphal entrance" takes on less decent, and even more ironic shadings.

Therefore, what appears in this poem to be a puzzling and rather senseless disparatario, is actually a logical, subtly rendered sketch of the madness of a tragic historical episode. The sonnet contains obvious reflections of the poesía sin sentido tradition: seeming impossibilia are strung together (plumas-becerro ), absurd juxtapositions or contrasts are made (vulgo-inglés, pigmeos-Golias ), temporal relationships are violated (julio-semana santa ), and eroticism lurks just below the surface. However, Cervantes, as always, selects from the tradition only what serves his purposes. Once again he has transformed the broad comicity of absurd incongruity into the humor of madness. Far from nonsense rhyme, our author's poetry overflows with meaning on several semantic levels. Yet at the same time the sensation of chaotic madness is created. This, of course, is the ultimate "meaning" of the poem.

It seems evident that the culprit in the episode satirized in this sonnet is Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, but is he really ultimately to blame? This ineffectual man had never distinguished himself militarily and knew he was inevitably destined to fail at any such task. As mentioned earlier, the Duke was dismayed at the thought of leading the Armada. Thus in his letter to Philip II he argues that:

no es justo que la acepte [la empresa] quien no tiene ninguna experiencia de mar ni de guerra, porque no la he visto ni tratado. Demás de esto, entrar yo tan nuevo en el Armada sin tener noticia de ella ni de las personas que son en ella y del designio que se lleva, ni de los avisos que se tienen de Inglaterra, ni de sus puertos, ni de la correspondencia que el Marqués [don Alvaro de Bazán] a esto tenía los años que ha que de esto se trata, sería ir muy a ciegas aun-

que tuviese mucha experiencia. . . . Y así entiendo que Su Majestad, por lo que es su grandeza, me hará merced, como humildemente se lo suplico, de no encargarme cosa de que ciertamente no he de dar buena cuenta, porque no lo sé ni lo entiendo.^[56]

[it is not just that a person accept the post who has no experience of the sea or of war, because he has neither seen nor dealt with them. Besides this, for me to join the Armada without knowledge of it, its personnel or its purpose, nor of the information we have of England or its ports, nor the correspondence that the Marquis of Bazán had during the years of its operation, would be to proceed blindly even if I had a great deal of experience. . . . And so I hope that Your Great Majesty will do me the mercy, as I humbly beg, of not charging me with a task that I will surely not perform well because I am neither familiar with it nor do I understand it.]

After quoting from this letter Francisco Ayala asks himself, as should we, whether this is the letter of a fool. To the contrary, he concludes, it reveals discretion, modesty, and an uncommon knowledge on the Duke's part of his own limitations. It is, in fact, the king's inflexible attitude in insisting that Guzmán take command of the Armada that is at fault.^[57]

Without a doubt, responsibility for the failure of the Armada as a military enterprise must rest on the shoulders of Philip II. The same person is ultimately responsible for the disaster of Cádiz. In spite of the fact that Medina had already more than proved his inadequacies as a military leader, he was expected to respond effectively to the new English threat. And while this inept man was entrusted with the defense of the coast, bureaucratic blundering in Madrid compounded the situation.

Abreu reports that when notification of the imminent attack on Cádiz was received at court, the delegation from that city was "despach[ado] con desprecio" (scornfully dismissed) and their report rejected as "zumbería" (a joke) by Philip II's favorite, Cristóbal de Mora.^[58] Medina would subsequently receive few instructions from the king. Vranich has pointed out that at this time all the power of the Spanish empire was concentrated in the crown. An immense bureaucracy had been created that could not move without royal order. At the same time the king was advanced in age and incapacitated by illness, and yet he refused to delegate authority for the affairs of state. This caused

such a breakdown in leadership that "dentro del seno de España se sentía lasitud y agotamiento, y todo languidecía en incuria, abandono [the country languished wearily in indifference and neglect]."^[59] Given the lack of arms, support, and guidance from the higher authorities, Cádiz bore the brunt of a colossal military and bureaucratic failure. And if Alonso de Guzmán were responsible for the abandonment of Cádiz, Philip II would have been responsible, at least in part, for the downfall of imperial Spain.

Cervantes and the other poets who satirized Medina and the shameful events at Cádiz could not openly criticize Philip II. Therefore, they chose to concentrate their efforts on the immediate and most visible scapegoat. The Duke was, indeed, ineffective and a totally unsuitable military leader; nevertheless, he was far less guilty than the person who placed him in such an office. The criticism beneath the surface of Cervantes's sonnet is directed toward the king who had reduced Spain from a world empire to a nation economically and spiritually bankrupt. He will criticize this monarch and the Spain he had produced once again in his sonnet to Philip II's tomb.

"Por Honra Principal De Mis Escritos"

The quotation is from chapter 4 of the Viaje del Parnaso, where Cervantes proudly states: "Yo el soneto compuse que así empieza, / por honra principal de mis escritos: / Voto a Dios, que me espanta esta grandeza [I composed for the principal honor of my writings / that sonnet which begins: / I swear to God, I'm astonished by this grandeur ]" (vv. 37–39). He refers to the sonnet "Al túmulo de Felipe II en Sevilla" (Appendix 37). In the sixteen years that separate the two works, Cervantes has been able to acknowledge the success of this, his most celebrated poem. It is, in fact, the best known and best loved of all his poetic compositions and the only one generally anthologized. And if there is any doubt regarding Cervantes's accomplishments as a poet, it is quickly dispelled by these memorable verses.

The poem's history is both comical and tragic; in a certain way it epitomizes an entire epoch in Spain's history. Upon Philip

II's death on September 13, 1598, the Cabildo (Town Council) of Seville ordered the city to prepare the greatest demonstration of mourning and exequies ever made.^[60] Funeral rites were to be celebrated, for which purpose a gigantic simulacrum of a tomb was constructed that filled the entire nave of the cathedral. The construction lasted fifty-two days; all the particulars are reported by Francisco Gerónimo Collado in his 1611 Descripción del Túmulo y relación de las exequias que hizo la ciudad de Sevilla en la muerte del rey don Felipe Segundo .^[61] Collado describes how the city was ordered to build a tomb with the greatest pomp and grandeur possible.^[62] The most accomplished architects (Juan de Oviedo), sculptors (Juan Martínez Montañés), and artists (Francisco Pacheco) of the time were commissioned to participate in the construction and decoration of the tomb.

At the same time general mourning was declared and all acts of public rejoicing such as dances and musical spectacles were strictly prohibited in Seville and in seventy surrounding villages. The Town Council ordered the purchase of 1,981 varas of double-baize cloth for the confection of mourning attire for 165 public officials. This is an astronomical amount by sixteenth-century standards—1,664 meters of fabric. It also produced a great scarcity of black baize, resulting in a tremendous price increase.^[63] This created great consternation among the poor, who could not afford the cloth. Many were imprisoned for not complying with the edict. The new king, Philip III, finally ordered that the mourning be relaxed somewhat and the prisoners were released.^[64]

The monument was as ostentatious as possible: three levels high and located in the nave between the cathedral's two choirs. It was designed to imitate the church of San Lorenzo el Real in El Escorial and to commemorate the life and glories of Philip II and his Spain. The catafalque was crowned by a dome topped with a globe. This, in turn, was grasped in the claws of a phoenix about to soar from its ashes. The mythical bird's head reached almost to the vault of the cathedral. The structure was decorated with a multitude of paintings (one of them celebrating the battle of Lepanto), statues, figures, inscriptions, altars, pyramids, globes, and almost 500 columns. The casket itself reclined

in the center of the second level of the monument. Resting on a scarlet cushion on top of the tomb was a gold crown studded with gems.

The funeral ceremonies began as planned in the cathedral. Unfortunately, in the middle of the November 27th requiem mass a disagreement arose between the Town Council, the Inquisition, and the Royal Tribunal because the Tribunal had placed a black cloth on the bench upon which the judges and their wives were sitting. The Cabildo sent a representative to speak to the Regent of the Tribunal, explaining that protocol specified that the benches be uncovered. But the Regent ignored the man, turned to his constables, and barked: "Tomad a este desvergonzado y llevadlo a la cárcel y echadlo de cabeza en un cepo [Carry this insolent fellow off to jail and throw him headfirst into the stocks]." When the representative tried to explain, one of the Tribunal judges bellowed out: "Hi de puta, sucio, desvergonzado, ¿vos habéis de hablar? [You dirty, insolent son of a bitch, you have something to say?]," and the representative was carried off to jail.

The mass was continued until the members of the Inquisition arrived, already incensed by the news of the black cloth. The Secretary of the Inquisition, a corpulent man by the name of Briceño, marched straight to the steps of the tomb in front of the Tribunal, ordered that the mass be stopped, and summarily excommunicated the entire Royal Tribunal. The Regent immediately ordered the arrest of Briceño, but the Secretary managed to escape. The Regent then ordered that the mass continue, but this was impossible while excommunicated persons were present in the church. This produced a tremendous standoff. The Tribunal refused to leave the cathedral, and the Inquisition refused to lift the edict of excommunication. The former threatened to arrest the members of the Town Council, and the latter threatened to excommunicate the priest officiating if the mass were continued. And thus they remained, seated and in silence, from the early morning until four o'clock that afternoon. Both parties finally abandoned the cathedral, and an appeal was sent to the crown to resolve the matter.

The ridiculous dispute was finally settled a month later. The Inquisition was ordered to pay the cost of the candle wax and

the Royal Tribunal was forbidden from using the black cloth. However, the affair meant that the monument remained in position during the entire month of December. Not only the residents of Seville but also thousands of visitors were able to view and admire the tomb, lured by the news of its magnificence and by the gossip surrounding the dispute. Sevillian poets could also enter and recite their respectful verses in praise of the tomb and of Philip II.^[65]

Cervantes resided in Seville at the time and was eagerly following the events in the cathedral. He would have seen the tomb and perhaps even witnessed the inauspicious posturing, the insults, and the demands that finally ended in nothing. The result of all this was, naturally, the sonnet "Al túmulo de Felipe II." There is a clear relationship between the protagonists of the disgraceful scene in the cathedral and the braggart and soldier in the sonnet, which also ends in nothing.

But the sonnet's appearance on the scene created another comical incident. Apparently Cervantes entered the cathedral on December 29 and recited his poem before various people. The episode was witnessed by the chronicler Ariño, who reports that "este dia estando yo en la Santa Iglesia entró un poeta fanfarron y dijo una otava sobre la grandeza del túmulo [while I was in church that day a bragging poet came in and recited an octave on the tomb's grandeur]."^[66] The sonnet has been reedited in several places, occasionally with slight and at times more important variants.^[67] Because Ariño calls Cervantes a fanfarrón, identifying him with the narrators of the poem, it seems our author conceived a poetic reality that imposed itself upon everyday reality. As always with Cervantes, the line dividing reality and fantasy is blurred.

The sonnet spread like wildfire, circulating across Spain in manuscript copies and broadsheets. One indication of its tremendous success is the fact that the last verse ("fuese, y no hubo nada") remains today as a kind of adage.^[68] The poem's great popularity also suggests an attitude toward Philip II that is difficult to reconcile with the "official" one, placing in doubt the true sentiments behind the exequies.

Both the language used by the protagonists as well as the images reveal the immense lie that the tomb represented, the false

sympathies that it inspired, and the hypocrisy of the society that created it. From verse one the soldier's vulgar apostrophes discredit the meaning of the funeral celebrations. He reduces the entire spectacle to a pecuniary value and in a language that exudes lack of respect for the supposedly religious monument in honor of the dead king. Instead of true religious sentiment the tomb provides flash for the masses and mere religious formulas. Formulas that in reality have been trodden to the ground by the petty envies and inflated egos of the persons who organized the supposedly solemn acts. In this way the soldier's bravado and almost sacrilegious expressions echo the altercation between the Inquisition, the Town Council, and the Royal Tribunal. This costly yet ersatz catafalque of questionable taste has replaced the sincere act of faith.

The poem is constructed around a series of demystifications. The first is the fact that the tomb is being "admired" not by the Sevillian elite, but by members of the lowest stratum of society: a soldier and a valentón .^[69] The narrators may be dazzled by the monument's superficial magnificence, but their words belie the integrity of both the structure and the sentiments behind its erection.

A key element in this process of demystification is the use of vulgar language. The ruffians' expressions of admiration are of the lowest possible linguistic register. First, the soldier employs crude oaths (voto a Dios, por Jesucristo ) rather than a euphemism (such as, for example, voto a tal ). This type of billingsgate has been analyzed by Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of Rabelais.^[70] He calls it the language of the marketplace, identifying curses and profanity (jurons ) as the unofficial elements of speech which refuse to conform to etiquette and the conventions of respectability. The same can be said for the soldier's use of oaths in Cervantes's poem. However, rather than employing them in the marketplace, he does so in church before a monument dedicated to the memory of a deceased monarch. This linguistic license undermines the highly serious, even sacred, nature of the tomb. Through the soldier's use of profanity the officiality embodied by the monument is subverted and a situation of liberating laughter results. A similar comically subversive effect is created by the use of the gambling term "Apos-

taré" with respect to the, king's soul. The monarch himself is even referred to irreverently as "el muerto." This term is absolutely lacking in respect and reduces the dead king and his tomb to the category of trivia.

A not-so-subtle criticism of the tremendous expense involved in the tomb's construction and in the obsequies can be easily detected behind the soldier's words. This is made especially evident by his vocative: "¡Oh, gran Sevilla, / Roma triunfante en ánimo y riqueza [Oh, great Seville, Rome triumphant in spirit and in riches!]," another great demystification. It is true that the grand tomb reveals Seville's wealth, but not in the way in which the soldier believes. Just as the monument was an empty shell made of wood and cardboard to simulate marble, Seville's wealth was also purely superficial. If the tomb's surface were scratched, it would be revealed that it floated upon air, as did the Sevillian economy of the time. The city was practically bankrupt, having only the appearance of wealth.^[71] Its soul was as wretched as the squabblers in the cathedral had shown Seville's power structure to be.

When the ruffian comes on the scene in the second tercet we are reintroduced to one of Cervantes's favorite subjects. Quevedo informatively describes what he calls the "valientes de mentira" in his Capitulaciones de la vida de la corte, y oficios entretenidos en ella :

Estos por la mayor parte son gente plebeya, tratan más de parecer bravos que lindos, visten a lo rufianesco, media sobre media, sombrero de mucha falda y vuelta, faldillas largas, coleto de ante, estoque largo y daga buida; comen en bodegón de vaca y menudo . . . beben a fuer de valientes. . . . Sus acciones son a lo temerario; dejar caer la capa, calar el sombrero, alzar la falda, ponerse embozados y abiertos de piernas, y mirar a lo zaino . . . no hablan palabra que no sea con juramento . . . dicen voacé, so compadre, so camarada.^[72]

[For the most part these are common types, they try to resemble toughs rather than dandies, dress as ruffians in knee-stockings and breeches, wide-brimmed hat, long coattails, suede jerkin, long sword, and shining dagger; they eat beef and tripe in taverns and drink like the brave. . . . Their actions are foolhardy; they drop their cape, pull their hats down low and turn up the brim, cover

themselves up to the eyes, sit with legs apart, and give sideways looks . . . they do not speak a word without an accompanying oath . . . they say things like voacé, so compadre, so camarada .]

Cervantes's valentón does precisely what is expected of him, right down to the sideways glance.^[73] This seemingly belligerent tough is a worthy brother to the "valentón de espátula y gregüesco" of sonnet 35. To borrow Quevedo's phrase, they are both "accionistas de valentía." In this poem the bravonel 's fierce mentís, an insult that had to be defended by the sword, is exposed for what it is: an empty threat.^[74]

The estrambote that finishes off the sonnet is a gem. With the vain gesticulating and attitude of foolish bravura with which he attempts to disguise his cowardice, the valentón embodies all the surrounding fanfaronade. He is as false as Philip II, as the supposedly pious men who ordered construction of the tomb, and as the masses who cannot or will not distinguish between tinsel and reality. The soldier's and the valentón 's menacing attitudes are exposed as meaningless, empty gestures. The true heroism that the soldier should embody and that Cervantes lived at Lepanto has been reduced to a few paintings on a grotesque monument. And the soldier is now the colleague of a vulgar coward.

Philip II does not come off very well, either. In the only allusion to the king, Cervantes ironically insinuates that his soul, in an absurd act of arrogance, will abandon heaven to enjoy the flattery of his sumptuous, temporary, and fake tomb on earth. It is not the first time that Cervantes treats this monarch with subtle irony; he did so in a very indirect way in his sonnet "A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz." Américo Castro has also interpreted several verses from La Galatea as alluding to Philip II. It is in Book II, when Silerio, while posing as a truhán, recites the following lines: "De príncipe que en el suelo / va por tan justo nivel / ¿qué se puede esperar dél / que no sean obras del cielo? [From a prince whose path / on earth is so true / what, save deeds from Heaven, / can we expect to view?]." He also cites the quintillas that Cervantes wrote upon Philip II's death. There the poet calls the king a "nuevo y pacífico Marte [new and peaceful Mars]" and comments that the gold the people say

he gathered "en el cielo lo escondías [you had concealed in Heaven]."^[75]

According to Castro, Cervantes alludes to the king's lack of military spirit and courage. His interpretation coincides well with this poem; by referring to Seville ironically as "triunfante en ánimo," we cannot help but remember both the disastrous Armada of ten years earlier, which clearly marked Spain's decline as a world power, and the ignominious events in Cádiz. To the contrary of what the soldier says, Seville, Spain, and its deceased king, triumph neither in spirit nor in wealth. Just like the tomb, their grandeur is pure facade.

The entire sonnet ends in nothing. The tomb is in reality a fantasy, a ceremonial artifact totally devoid of artistic, religious, or patriotic meaning. The edifice is merely symbolic of the dead king and designed to hold nothing but air. In fact, it is a kind of enchanted tomb, as empty of true sentiment as it is of its inhabitant. The only tangible value given to it is monetary. And in this respect the construction of the fabulously opulent tomb for a funeral service programmed to last only two days was nothing but an outrageous andaluzada . The poem is a denunciation made by a person on the fringes of society, who can also analyze and describe that society better than anyone else. But, as always, Cervantes never loses his sense of humor. With him we laugh at society and at the same time, at ourselves and at our own presumption. In place of the nada in which the monument (which in the end was merely an illusion) remains, Cervantes has ultimately created a poetical monument that is solid and lasting.

In "Al túmulo" Cervantes's skillful control of tone, structure, and language produces his best and most faultlessly executed burlesque sonnet. In terms of structure, the poem is perfectly laid out. The first three stanzas lead in an ascending rhythm to line 12, where the change of narrator provides a corresponding modification of tone and tempo from feverish bluster to feeble bravado. The estrambote finishes off the poem, correctly, with an expert twist. The last line is the strongest and the final clause, and especially word, carry and resume the entire sonnet: "no hubo nada."

The language Cervantes utilizes in this poem serves to characterize the two narrators to a degree rarely achieved in

seventeen short verses. The soldier's and the valentón 's words show the former to be a vulgar, ignorant fool and the latter, a presumptuous coward. The soldier uses a language full of profanity, vulgarisms, and socially and linguistically substandard elements. The valentón 's speech is equally nonstandard and blustery.

The soldier's fondness for curses is evident in his use of the two oaths "Voto a Dios" and "Por Jesucristo vivo." As mentioned before, these expressions are markedly blasphemous. Cervantes, of course, is well aware of this. For this reason they appear only this once in his writings. In Don Quixote more sympathetic characters will substitute for voto a Dios the less passionate voto a mí, voto a tal, and even the comical voto a Rus (this uttered, of course, by the knight's faithful squire). In contrast to other Cervantine protagonists (even the rustic Sancho), the soldier is too uncouth to bother with euphemisms.

In addition to these curses, the soldier also uses the language of gambling ("Apostaré") and of currency ("diera un doblón," "vale más que un millón"). Any mention of money in burlesque verse lowers the linguistic register considerably. We only have to think of the poetry of Quevedo to realize that money was a tainted subject in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. To speak of it was definitely in poor taste at the time. Money was generally connected in poetry with undesirables: gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, and other venal women, and in society with Italian usurers and the mercantile classes (read Jews and conversos ). Thus the soldier's claim that he would give a doblón to describe the tomb's magnificence is loaded with ironic disdain toward the ostentatious monument.^[76] In addition, a doubloon was a gold coin of considerable value; it is unlikely that the soldier would have access to many. For this reason the exaggerated pecuniary value he places on the monument (each piece being worth a million) is equally ironic and ridiculous. What would such an individual know of the aesthetic or monetary value of a supposed work of art?

The soldier's speech is typically improper, almost substandard. The vulgarism "la anima," combined with the offensive "del muerto," creates a ninth verse characterized by three increasingly coarse components. The valentón uses a similarly

nonstandard vernacular with the syncopes "voacé" (vuestra merced ) and "seor" (señor ). Both are usual forms of address in the underworld. For this reason other Cervantine ruffians will use these terms, especially the latter one. The basket boy asks Rinconete and Cortadillo: "Díganme, señores galanes: ¿voacedes son de mala entrada, o no? [Tell me, gallant gentlemen, are you thieves or not?]."^[77] The immortal galley slave of Don Quixote protests to his guard: "Ginés me llamo, y no Ginesillo, y Pasamonte es mi alcurnia, y no Parapilla, como voacé dice [My name is Ginés, not Ginesillo, and my family name is Pasamonte, not Parapilla as you say]" (I: 22). In the interlude El rufián viudo, forms of both vulgarisms are used by Chiquiznaque: "Mi so Trampagos, ¿es posible sea / Voacé tan enemigo suyo? [My dear Señor Trampagos, is it possible / that you be such an enemy to yourself?]."^[78]So, a further contraction of seor and señor, was and still is (especially in Andalusia) an insulting appellative that precedes derogatory adjectives or nouns (e.g., so idiota, so imbécil ).^[79] With these subtle linguistic nuances the valentón not only identifies his own common nature but cunningly affronts the soldier at the same time.

The terms chapeo and mirar al soslayo are also somewhat vulgar sounding. The former is, of course, a rather presumptuous Gallicism (chapeau ) to describe the wide-brimmed hat favored by ruffians.^[80] The latter is a gesture that typifies the coward: the sideways glance to assure that there is no danger that Quevedo calls "mirar a lo zaino."

The sonnet employs an additional type of language that if not vulgar, is at least highly ambiguous. Words such as espantar, máquina, braveza, and mancilla are not free of double meanings and negative connotations. The first of these words, according to Covarrubias, means to cause horror, fear, or admiration. Thus the soldier's reaction is not necessarily one of simple admiration. The monument's size and ostentation may, in fact, shock and dismay.

The seventeenth-century lexicographer defines máquina as "una fábrica grande e ingeniosa [a large and ingenious structure]." The word can also mean affair or scheme: maquinación, trampa .^[81] Cervantes has used máquina in these latter acceptations in other works. For example, the priest in Don Quixote is called

the "trazador desta máquina [concocter of the scheme]," referring to the complicated trick used to cage Don Quixote and return him home (I: 46). Sancho warns Don Quixote to beware of how he hits his head during his penance for fear that he might put an end to the whole business with the first blow: "que con la primera se acabase la máquina desta penitencia [that the very first may put an end to this whole business of penance]" (I: 25).

Another meaning of máquina is of a complicated, chaotic tangle or mess. Cervantes uses the word thus in Don Quixote during the great dispute at the inn: "y en la mitad deste caos, máquina y laberinto, de cosas [in the midst of all this chaos, complication, and general entanglement]" (I: 45). He uses almost the same expression in the Coloquio de los perros when Berganza alludes to the complicated plot of Montemayor's Diana, saying "la sabia Felicia, que con su agua encantada deshizo aquella máquina de enredos y aclaró aquel laberinto de dificultades [Felicia the Wise, who with her enchanted water undid that maze of entanglements and cleared up that labyrinth of problems]."^[82] And once again in Don Quixote, Cide Hamete says of the knight's retelling of his adventures in the cave of Montesinos: "no pudo fabricar en tan breve espacio tan gran máquina de disparates [he could not in so brief a time have put together such a vast network of absurdities]" (II: 24).

Finally, our author has used the term in the sense of a complex machine or apparatus. At the beginning of Don Quixote the innkeeper is suspicious of the knight's strange collection of armor: "temiendo la máquina de tantos pertrechos [awed by all this complicated weaponry]" (I: 2); the savage who carries Clavileño into the ducal garden says: "Suba sobre esta máquina el que tuviere ánimo para ello [Let the knight who has the courage to do it mount this machine]" (II: 41); and in the printer's shop at Barcelona Don Quixote and Sancho view "toda aquella máquina que en las emprentas grandes se muestran [all the work that is to be seen in great printing firms]" (II: 62).

Given all the somewhat negative acceptations above, it is obvious that the connotations of the term máquina in this sonnet are also extremely ambiguous, if not downright derogatory. Although use of the word with reference to architectural monu-

ments was far from rare, when seen within the context of such an extremely ironic poem, and especially given the nature of the narrator, it is difficult to interpret the word in other than a disparaging sense.^[83]

Braveza is another questionable term. Covarrubias speaks of "Bravos edificios" (magnificent buildings) and gives "grandeza" as a synonym of "braveza." This meaning conforms well to the poem. Nevertheless, in germanía the word stands for the bravado and fanfaronade typical of the braggart.^[84] Once again we are faced with a term full of ambiguities. The narrators' very words betray the monument for what it is: empty show and bravado. These negative connotations cannot be ignored; the poem's comicity is embedded in their irony.

Mancilla casts another ambiguous shadow over the poem. A diminutive of mancha, the term means both stain and shame (mácula, lástima ). In other words, it is both a shame (lástima ) and shameful (vergüenza ) that the monument will not last a century, given the fact that "Cada pieza vale más que un millón." Because of the proximity and rhyme between the parallel phrases "que es mancilla" and "oh, gran Sevilla" (which are also equal in length), the former contaminates the latter. Mancilla, in fact, equals Sevilla ; the two become an indivisible unit. Seville, with the andaluzada of the tomb, is, in fact, a mancilla for all Spain. The vocative "oh, gran Sevilla" is also highly ironic, especially when coupled with "Roma triunfante en ánimo y riqueza." In the first place, what would such an uncouth individual know of triumphant Rome? And as mentioned before, Seville was not as wealthy as appearances would suggest and was as morally bankrupt as Rome in her decadence. Cervantes also cleverly links Seville with Philip II through the paronomasia ánimo—ánima .

Another skillful piece of wordplay is the repetition of the verb gozar . The dead monarch's soul will abandon the glories of heaven to enjoy the dubious yet highly flattering pleasures afforded by the monument. The term has been reduced from its noble, liturgical context to the intimate, personal one of possession and selfish indulgence.^[85] In the final analysis, it is incompatible with the idea of mourning and funeral ceremonies.

In this sonnet the lexicon, the ironic tone, and the carefully

controlled structure (leading inexorably to the final "nada") provide a different view of the tomb and of Philip II's image. It is society's marginados who, with their unconscious subversion of language and of the system, have the final word with respect to the monument and Seville. And this final word, significantly enough, is "miente."

In this and the two preceding masterpieces of burlesque poetry Cervantes employs various linguistic registers and polysemy to expand the possibilities of symbolic and connotative language to create poetry that is ambiguous yet crystal clear at the same time. His verse, paradoxically, can be meaningful nonsense. The lexicon he chooses runs the gamut from the liturgical to the blasphemous, from the prosaic to the erotic. The tone of the poems ranges from the hyperbolic, to the ridiculous, to the insulting. These general characteristics are typical, to a degree, of all Cervantes's independent burlesque sonnets.

Burlesque Sonnets in Other Works

The depth of thought that so characterizes all Cervantes's prose works is naturally extensive to his dramatic art. The increased critical attention recently directed to Cervantes's plays by Hispanists such as Joaquín Casalduero, Bruce Wardropper, Jean Canavaggio, Edward Friedman, and Stanislav Zimic, has contributed to a growing understanding of Cervantes's unique contribution to the Spanish theater.^[86] This last critic has pointed out that for Cervantes the theater, and literature in general, is not only pure entertainment; it has a Messianic, intellectual and spiritual function as well.^[87] Cervantes's intellectualization of drama extends to considerations of what the Spanish comedia established by Lope is, and what it should be. One of the fundamental aspects of Cervantes's theater is, in fact, literary criticism. And the key to understanding the relationship between Cervantes's and Lope's dramatic art depends, in part, upon the correct interpretation of La entretenida .^[88]

Desirous of garnering for himself the public success that Lope was enjoying, in La entretenida Cervantes attempts to utilize the structure of the comedia nueva to outdo his rival. However, the Lopesque elements he incorporates are inevitably

qualified by critical comments, ironic references, and contradictions.^[89] This criticism sprang both from Cervantes's ideas of what good theater should be and from the conflicting concepts held by him and by Lope with regard to life and literature in general. Because of this vital conflict the literary criticism contained in La entretenida is often bitter personal satire against Lope at the same time.^[90]

What relates La entretenida to the burlesque sonnet is the fact that one of its more striking formal characteristics is the inclusion in the drama of six sonnets (Appendix 39–44). This is a highly unusual number as compared to Cervantes's other plays.^[91] However, the purpose of these sonnets becomes clear when we remember that Lope often abused this metrical form in his dramatic works.^[92] He included as many as eight sonnets in his Comendadores de Córdoba .^[93] Therefore, Cervantes's parodic intent is obvious.^[94]

The comicity of these sonnets lies in their burlesque nature. They are not inherently or superficially comical (except, perhaps, sonnet 39) as are Cervantes's other burlesque sonnets. Their comicity becomes apparent only within the context of the play, where they parody the conventions of the comedia nueva . In other words, it is not the content of the sonnets themselves that is burlesque; they are burlesque in the manner in which they relate to their narrator, to the plot, and to the comedia nueva . Because of this parodic element these poems also differ from the type of burlesque sonnet usually included in Golden Age drama.

Zimic has pointed out the essential difference between the burlesque sonnet in the Spanish comedia in general and Ocaña's double cabo roto sonnet (Appendix 39). He affirms that the graciosos of the comedia nueva use the burlesque sonnet to mock the language of Gongorism and to parody their masters' love sonnets, thus also satirizing their sentiments. The gracioso also employs the sonnet to speak of love with servant girls or to explain his sentiments to the public.^[95] However, both these characters are typically depicted as incapable of deep feelings of love. Their role is to display the comical aspects of the pursuit and superficial eroticism.^[96] In Ocaña's sonnet, however, in spite of its comically vulgar expressions, "la genuinidad y fuerza del sen-

timiento se impone de manera inconfundible . . . Ocaña nos resulta cómico, pero no se lo propone, de manera obligada, como los graciosos de la comedia nueva [the sentiments are undeniably genuine . . . Ocaña seems comical to us, but not in the forced manner of the standard gracioso ]."^[97] In La entretenida the so-called commoners are as capable, if not more, than the nobles of higher emotions.

This notwithstanding, Ocaña's sonnet is still typically burlesque in that it is also a parody of traditional Petrarchan love sonnets in which the disdained lover bewails his situation. The scornful lady is transformed here into a fickle scrub-girl and sublimity of thought and expression is debased into a series of vulgar and grotesque images. Therefore, although Ocaña's feelings are heartfelt, they are expressed in a style appropriate to his station.

With respect to this sonnet's form, Zimic offers the explanation that Cervantes is mocking contemporary plays in which the graciosos would often recite sonnets with playfully manipulated word and verse endings.^[98] As opposed to this gratuitous wordplay, the use of cabo roto in Ocaña's sonnet is both aesthetically functional and meaningful. When Ocaña denounces Cristina as a "pu-[ta]" he is recalling and echoing her earlier insult when she called him "laca-[yo]."^[99]

Cervantes and Lope (and others) both used cabo roto sonnets as vehicles for personal invective. Therefore, the sonnet is another sly and malicious reminder to Lope that he is the true object of the metrical joke. In addition, and although he does not make the connection with Lope, Zimic has ingeniously observed that the syllables omitted by Ocaña form several vulgar, offensive words which reflect negatively on Cristina and her suitors: rata(ón), ratera, trotadora, sayón, remolón, descoco, jodes, lodosa, collón, cojón, and so on.^[100] Within the critical context of this play, these terms could be applied just as easily to Lope (supreme "competidor en amor") as to Cristina.

Torrente's sonnet (Appendix 40) satirizes the use to which sonnets are generally put in Golden Age drama. Rather than pronouncing a heart-rending soliloquy while alone on stage, the capigorrón is surrounded by a numerous group of characters all carrying on several conversations at once. The scene is highly

comical with Torrente trying to emote while at the same time Marcela and Don Antonio greet and converse with Cardenio, who, dressed as a pilgrim, is posing as their cousin Silvestre de Almendárez. Torrente is also ostensibly wooing Cristina while Ocaña seethes and grumbles in the background. Even Dorotea is still on stage making ironic observations about the false pilgrim. Torrente's recitation of his sonnet is interrupted by all these conversations; this totally subverts any dramatic or emotional impact his poem might have. Nobody is interested in his precipitous crush and his love dirge is fragmented into a series of meaningless asides.^[101] So fragmented is it, in fact, that the final estrambote is split off from the previous stanzas and recited by Don Antonio. Thus the indivisible sonnet is fractured and its internal cohesion as well as its external structure are irrevocably destroyed. Cervantes is saying that the sonnets are often not only meaningless additions to the play but also have no internal significance even as isolated poems.

Torrente's statement in the second tercet that his ansias "no pueden caber en un soneto" is an additional ironic allusion to the traditional role fulfilled by the sonnet in the comedia —a vehicle for expressing the torments of the soul. These, in turn, often come about as the result of an instantaneous and highly unrealistic flechazo . Cervantes realizes that it is ludicrous to expect one metrically limited poem to express convincingly the depth of feeling of a person truly in love.^[102] In the same way this verse comments upon the ultimate superficiality of the comedia nueva that sacrificed profound thought and emotion to heightened drama and action.

The remaining sonnets in La entretenida are recited by the various leading men. In keeping with the parodic nature of the play, these are designed to burlesque and subvert the conventions of the comedia nueva with respect to these characters and their formulaic sentiments. Don Antonio represents the typically heartsick galán who morbidly revels in his suffering. Montesinos has observed that the standard lover "se goza en sus cuitas como una voluptuosidad dolorosa. El amor . . . llega, a tener aquí cierto carácter de perversión [takes pleasure in his sorrows as a painful voluptuousness and love becomes a kind of perversion]."^[103] Cervantes neatly satirizes these purely

dramatic and literary excesses in the person of Don Antonio, the decidedly ineffectual lover who does nothing but whine throughout the play.^[104] Totally absorbed by his self-imposed afflictions and with his beloved's name constantly on his lips, he is unaware that his actions make his sister fear incest (both she and his lady are named Marcela). The insinuations of incest in this play have caused some discomfort among critics. However, when we realize that Don Antonio is a pure parody of the one-sided galán, the comic nature of Marcela's fears (which result from her brother's ridiculous and extravagant behavior) becomes obvious.

Don Antonio's two sonnets (Appendix 41, 42) are in keeping with his fundamental theatricality and exaggeratedly dramatic sentiments. In the first he bemoans the hardships he suffers as a result of his beloved's absence. This ausencia was, of course, a major convention often abused for dramatic effect in the comedia . For this reason Cervantes mocks the gratuitousness of the theme through Antonio. Because Marcela's absence is attributable to the fact that her father has sealed her away in a monastery, her lover's lament becomes totally ridiculous. The hyperbolic ayes and linking of absence to death ring totally false in a somewhat effeminate character who has probably never spoken a word to his beloved.^[105] The supreme irony of the sonnet, as it relates to its narrator, is resumed in line 11: "¡Oh milagros de amor, que nadie entiende!" Who, indeed, could understand such behavior? Cervantes seems to be linking milagros to the locuras performed in the name of love that he ridicules so brilliantly in Don Quixote . As in the novel, it is not the theme of love expressed in this somewhat commonplace sixteenth-century line that Cervantes parodies; it is the lack of authentic sentiment behind the words.

Avalle-Arce has noted that this sonnet is a reworking of two octaves extracted from an eclogue contained in La Galatea . He feels that the sonnet is a rather unsuccessful poem because Cervantes has tried to compress within a shorter form ideas previously expressed in a more flowing meter.^[106] However, the sonnet is "defective" simply because the situation to which it refers is ludicrous. By itself it is a quite accomplished love poem. The problem is that Don Antonio is a cardboard galán who

utters only stereotypic and inappropriate reactions to his self-imposed situation. Just as the authors of the Don Quixote sonnets are buffoons and thus write senseless poetry, Don Antonio is an absurd and self-absorbed pseudolover. Thus any love poetry, no matter how superficially lovely, on his lips becomes nonsense.

Don Antonio's next sonnet (Appendix 42) presents a similarly inappropriate reaction to his situation. Although he has no reason to be, he is consumed by jealousy.^[107] Nevertheless, this sonnet is also quite beautiful. Zimic interprets this as Cervantes suggesting that even though the comedia nueva contains much verse that is artificial and objectionable, at times it contains good poetry. He concludes that for Cervantes, Don Antonio's indiscriminate use of poetry is grave and laughable. The beauty and solemnity of the verses and the ridiculous situation to which they apply are mutually exclusive. Even the most worthy poetic style becomes comic if used inappropriately.^[108]

It is, indeed, this indiscriminate and indispensable dependence upon the jealousy theme in the theater that Cervantes is criticizing.^[109] Of course, the theme was very close to Lope, in his life as well as his theater. He was known to be a tremendously jealous person, and many of his works, especially his lyric poetry, are riddled with confessions of the celos he suffered as a consequence of his many love affairs. For this reason Don Antonio's posturing could be an oblique reflection on Cervantes's rival.

Cardenio's sonnet (Appendix 43) is an ironic description of his personality. This student aspires to Marcela's hand and, at the urging of her squire Muñoz, enters into a complicated ruse to gain access to her home. Once inside, Muñoz tells him, he will see how he fends for himself. Later, of course, it turns out that Cardenio falls dumb before Marcela, thus revealing his spinelessness and lack of ingenuity. The sonnet anticipates his future failure: his appropriately "estrecha y débil esperanza" (faint and slim hope) that flies upon "flacas alas" (slender wings) will never attain "el punto que pretende" (the point desired). His "atrevidos pensamientos" (daring thoughts) will, indeed, melt before the presence of Marcela, and Cardenio will be plagued by fears of being exposed as an impostor. Cardenio,

although a student, is a fool. Even he admits that his capigorrón Torrente is more intelligent than he. Rather than using his wits to court Marcela, he depends upon a foolish scheme concocted by an untrustworthy old servant whom he must bribe. Torrente passes correct judgment on the plan when he comments "Todo aquesto es disparate [All this is madness]" (Cervantes, Teatro completo, 556).

Once again, we have a sonnet of undeniable quality. Seen out of context it is fairly typical of the type of love poetry written at the end of the sixteenth century.^[110] However, Cardenio is reciting the poem while walking along the street with Torrente, who is nibbling on a piece of membrillo toledano . With the last verse of his sonnet still lingering upon his lips, Cardenio turns to Torrente, finds him eating, and feeling this is a dishonor, growls: "¿Comes? Buena pro te haga; / la misma hambre te tome [You're eating? I hope you profit from it / and may hunger itself strike you]" (Ibid., 551).^[111] Torrente has obviously been ignoring the lovelorn Cardenio's histrionics and concentrating on his quince instead. Thus any inherent beauty the sonnet has is undermined by the ridiculous situation.

Zimic has observed that even though almost all the characters in this play have prominent comic features, the most ridiculous traits are embodied precisely by the nobles.^[112] The membrillo scene is a perfect illustration of this. Torrente and the quince are comical, but it is Cardenio who appears ridiculous. Any seriousness he might wish to convey with his sonnet is completely subverted by the shadow of Torrente tagging along behind munching on his sweet. Once again, the comicity of the sonnet depends entirely upon its context.

The same can be said of Don Ambrosio's sonnet (Appendix 44). As before, when taken out of context the poem is quite good. Like the previous one, it seems fairly typical of late-sixteenth-century sonnets. In fact, it contains many expressions reminiscent of the Herreran school: "mar cano," "débil leño," "pisa alegre." However, where Cervantes's composition differs from those of Herrera is in the estrambote . This element, which in Cervantes's poetry is always associated with the burlesque, casts a dubious shadow over the poem.

Once again, the sonnet is effectively subverted by its context.

Don Ambrosio is also enamored of Marcela Osorio, therefore, when he hears that a beautiful "Marcela" resides in the Almendárez house, he assumes that she is his beloved and has been hidden there by her father. The confusion stemming from her name is typical of the type of impossible enredos so dear to the comedia de capa y espada . Ambrosio recites his sonnet on the glories of hope while waiting to find out if, in fact, Marcela is staying at the Almendárez home. This lover is very similar to Don Antonio; they both supposedly adore the same woman from afar and carry on in the same melodramatic way. Ambrosio admits that he has never spoken to his beloved: "Améla honestamente, / adoréla rendido, / solicitéla mudo, / aunque los ojos son parleros siempre [I loved her honestly / I adored her devotedly / I wooed her silently/although the eyes always speak out]" (Cervantes, Teatro completo, 585). Nevertheless, when confronted with the news that she is betrothed to another, he is ready to kill his rival. The effect at the bottom of Ambrosio's and Antonio's sonnets is a parody of the exaggerated and inappropriate histrionics of Golden Age drama's stock leading men.

The ultimate significance of all the Entretenida sonnets is to point to the senselessness of the type of theater produced by Lope. Rather than attempting to elevate the masses through a thoughtful, edifying art form, the comedia turned its back on the intellect to appeal to the passions. All was sacrificed on the altar of entertainment and commercialism. In Cervantes's eyes, Lope obstructed the creation of truly great literature in Spain. By admitting incultura into art, by creating for the masses, and by appealing to the lowest common denominator among the public, he established the tradition of a literature devoid of intellectual content. Cervantes, who wished to create and see performed the type of intellectually provocative drama he admired, found the way effectively blocked by the Lope phenomenon. And he responded in part by creating La entretenida . It was his way of proving he could also produce mindless entertainment for the corrales if he wished. But as evidenced by this play, Cervantes could not write Lopesque drama without criticizing it at the same time.

And Cervantes's criticism is quite complex. To express it he

has, in effect, created a new type of burlesque. The burlesque he employs with the Entretenida sonnets is neither "high" (treating a low subject in an elevated manner) nor "low" (treating an elevated subject in a base manner). Instead Cervantes has inserted several of his own quite beautiful serious sonnets into a burlesque context. By doing so he points out the fact that the comedia often contains good poetry, but such verse is lost to facile drama. The idealism that is embodied by the sonnets and which characterizes Cervantes's notion of the poetic art is crushed by the vulgar realism of the Toledan quince and the stage. For this reason the primary function of the sonnets in La entretenida is an intellectual and critical one. As with all Cervantes's burlesque sonnets, they are never merely superficially comical. They require thoughtful analysis on the part of the reader or listener to be fully appreciated. This intellectualization of the comic reveals a concomitant and often remarkable depth of meaning.

Comicity of the Independent Sonnets

With Cervantes the burlesque sonnet is emancipated from the tradition inherited directly from Italy. He abandons most of the types of comicity encountered in the Italian and Spanish Renaissance and turns instead to the subtleties of humor. Gone is the raucous laughter of earthiness, coarse language, exaggerated caricature, and the rambunctious praise of wine, women, and song. Notably missing is the current of obscenity for its own sake. Although Cervantes is not adverse to including sexual allusions and euphemisms in his poetry, these are relatively few and never gratuitous. They always serve a critical or exemplary purpose; Cervantes will not chastise woman for her hyperbolized sexuality.

Also totally absent from Cervantes's burlesque sonnets (and his literature in general) is the current of misogyny so prevalent before. Cervantes's attitude toward women is complex and positive. The female characters he creates cannot be reduced to mere stereotypes such as the ugly crone or the harridan wife. Indeed, the fact that Cervantes wrote no burlesque sonnets on

women is indicative of his lack of romantic cynicism and of the respect he felt for the opposite sex.^[113]

Another area of traditional burlesque is the parody of serious poetic currents found in Italian and Spanish Renaissance anti-Petrarchism. But there is no such overt parody in Cervantes's burlesque sonnets: no subversion of Petrarch or Garcilaso, no debasing of mythological gods, no praise of the material life to counteract the ecstasies of courtly love. This is an indication of the esteem in which Cervantes held classical poetry. He could not bring himself to parody a literature that he respected and admired, as he did the excesses of the chivalric romance. Cervantes objected to the vulgarization of poetry, whether in the comedia nueva or in the form of "torpes sátiras" and "desalmados sonetos." Nevertheless, he did indulge in personal invective (although in a guarded way), as will be shown in my discussion of the sonnets which surround Part One of Don Quixote .

The adoxographic tradition also holds few attractions for Cervantes, except for one important modality. He has no time for praise of such silly (or obscene) things as bedpans, cuernos, or carrots. He does, however, praise madness in his great novel. By lauding our folly, he exalts our humanity. This comprehension and acceptance of human foibles is also evident in his burlesque sonnets.

Cervantes brings a new tone and different concerns to the burlesque sonnet tradition. But above all he brings a new conception, a new understanding of the complexities of human nature. He still mocks and ridicules folly: the valentón 's bravata, the presumption of Seville's power structure, a fellow poet's amorous escapades, a ruffian's unlikely conversion to the religious life. However, he does so with humor, not with bitter satire. Cervantes does not observe and criticize from a superior distance. He realizes that he, too, has his own follies and we, as his readers, become aware of our own presumptions.

The burlesque sonnet before Cervantes deals in absolute judgments: Cupid is a rapaz tiñoso, there is nothing worse than to have a wife. Cervantes deals in ambiguities, in multiple perspectives, in the equivocal nature of our personal criteria, in irony and in paradox. Just as his sonnets express nonconformity

with the social reality, they also reject a large part of the burlesque tradition.

As mentioned before, simple comicity is not enough for Cervantes. This can be seen, for example, in the lack of true nonsense rhyme among his works. His poetry is consequential and intellectual, never frivolous, foolish, or silly. It is rarely superficially comical alone; it always has a serious critical core. This intellectualization of the comic carries over to his style. He employs irony to a degree rarely done before in the burlesque sonnet tradition. In the past poets had depended largely on vulgarity, invective, and trivial witticisms to make the reader or listener laugh. Cervantes is not interested in laughter in his burlesque sonnets; he is interested in making us smile.

Irony is, indeed, the cornerstone of his sonnets' comicity. Cervantes says one thing but implies another, or he employs equivocal language open to several interpretations. For this reason a thesis claiming that "Al túmulo de Felipe II" is a sincere encomium can, and has, been defended. Cervantes is never strident in his denunciations of society's ills. Instead he depends on the subtle undermining effect of paradox and ambiguity.

A linguistic current that flows strongly through Cervantes's burlesque sonnets is germanía . Ruffianesque poetry, as said before, was very popular in Spain at the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Cervantes often adopts its expressions and characters. (His fondness for the figure of the valentón is more than evident.) However, rather than write long, tedious romances that the uninitiated cannot read without the aid of a lexicon, Cervantes is judicious in his use of jargon. Because of this his poems flow smoothly; they have gracia —both charm and wit.

One element that must be mentioned in terms of the comicity of Cervantes's burlesque sonnets is his use of different narrators. He will perfect this procedure in the Don Quixote sonnets. Allowing the protagonists of the poems to speak in their own voices (while at the same time describing their gestures) adds immediacy, agility, and a degree of comicalness not present in indirect speech. It also transforms the sonnets into brief yet vivid scenes of contemporary life. Indeed, many of Cervantes's poems do enjoy a generous measure of theatricality. This, of

course, is carried to the limit in the sonnets included in his dramatic works. The comicity of those poems lies precisely in the incongruity between the narrator's words and the surrounding situation. All these elements of Cervantes's comicity will be present to some extent in his subsequent sonnets—those which frame part one of his masterpiece. At the same time, the burlesque poems in Don Quixote represent the culmination of the author's work in this poetic vein.