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.