Los Sinónimos Voluntarios and the Sonetada
It will be clear by now that the Quixote sonnets form part of a literary mundillo . In Seville, Valladolid, and Madrid, literary and personal relations were interwoven to such a degree as to render the two inseparable. Literature, and especially poetry, was the medium through which friendships were nourished, rival
factions were strengthened, and wars were waged. Poetry was often the weapon; the literary academies, the battleground. As often as they praised their mutual friends, poets would insult and revile their enemies. This could be done through subtle allusions or the most bitter personal invective. Cervantes was involved in both, and one of his favorite targets was Lope de Vega.
Cervantes had praised Lope in both the Galatea and the encomiastic sonnet discussed earlier "En honor de Lope de Vega" (Appendix 33). As mentioned, the poem was included among the preliminaries to the second edition (1602) of Lope's epic poem La Dragontea . However, by the time Cervantes was creating the Quixote preliminary and closing verses—probably the last part of the book to be written—their relationship was such that he filled them with sharply ironic allusions to his rival. Of course, Cervantes was not the only person to do so. As a result of his immense popularity among the masses and the concomitant envy of less successful poets, Lope found himself the constant butt of jokes and satirical pieces. As he himself complained in an epistle to Gaspar de Barrionuevo:
No se tiene por hombre el que primero
no escribe contra Lope sonetadas
como quien tira al blanco de terrero.
Luego se canoniza de poeta . . .
cualquiera que ha enseñado a su vecino
el sonetazo escrito contra Lope.[72]
[He who has not written sonetadas against Lope,
like a person taking aim at a target,
cannot call himself a man.
Then whoever has shown his neighbor
a sonetazo written against Lope
canonizes himself as a poet.]
The sonetada, a sonnet steeped in bitter personal invective and burla, flourished at the turn of the century.[73] It was intimately linked to literary academies and fed by the bitter rivalries rampant at the time. One Sevillian "academy" especially excelled at the sonetada . Baptized the Academia de Ochoa by
Francisco Rodríguez Marín, it was a rather motley association of younger poets: Juan de Ochoa, Mateo Alemán, Alonso Alvarez de Soria, Luis Vélez de Guevara, and Miguel de Cervantes.[74] In opposition to the members of Juan de Arguijo's aristocratic, humanistic, and above all prestigious Sevillian academy, the Ochoans' forte was extemporaneous, highly satirical verse.[75]
Therefore, when an unsuspecting Lope traveled to Seville in 1602 to visit his Camila Lucinda (Micaela de Luján) and Arguijo's academy, the Ochoans celebrated his arrival with several outrageous sonetadas (Appendix 57–60). These poems were designed to insult Lope and subvert his princely standing in the official literary community from which these lesser figures were excluded. Although each inflammatory sonnet was probably a group effort, all the verses have distinctly Cervantine ingredients. First, the dialogic structure is favored by Cervantes in several of his burlesque sonnets. In addition, the ruffianesque language in sonnet 57 is very reminiscent of the sonnet "Al túmulo de Felipe II en Sevilla" (Appendix 37), and even more so of "De otro valentón, sobre el túmulo de Felipe II" (Appendix 38). Expressions such as "Vive Dios," "Por Jesucristo," "Por el Hijo de Dios," and "Voto a Cristo" suggest that the narrators of "Lope dicen que vino" are two more Cervantine valentones . Sonnet 58 makes the same criticisms that Cervantes would make in his later Viaje del Parnaso : true poets starve while Parnassus has been usurped by greedy poetasters and mozos de golpe . This last expression indicates both popular poets who made their living by improvising vulgar poetry on demand,[76] as well as the young boys charged with answering the door of brothels.[77] This cruel inculpation combines the two constant criticisms Cervantes will make of Lope: his vulgarization of poetry and his sexual improprieties.
Even if we, at such great distance, cannot say for sure who wrote these poems, it would seem that Lope was able to identify Cervantes as at least co-author: their poor relations date from this period. And they would deteriorate even more after the publication of Part One of Cervantes's great novel. This is because the Quixote poems also function as underground sonetadas, albeit in a more subtle way. Personal satire in published books
had to depend more on irony and sarcasm than the outright vulgar invective that circulated anonymously. Beginning with Urganda's preliminary verses, the poems contain a plethora of thinly veiled and highly ironic allusions to Lope's works and private life. There are doubtless jabs at other contemporary figures, but what at that time were patent innuendos and "in jokes" are mostly undecipherable today. Nevertheless, given our knowledge of the Fénix's life and works, much of the criticism of Lope can be decoded. It certainly caused great consternation at the time and a flurry of reprisals in Lope's camp.
The major retaliation on Lope's part was, of course, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda's apocryphal Quixote . Through his as yet unidentified minion, Lope tries to get his own back by insulting the true Quixote . In the prologue to his novel Avellaneda reveals how stung Lope was by Cervantes's pointed allusions when he says that even though he could, he will not "hacer ostentación de sinónimos voluntarios" (show off with voluntary synonyms) as his rival had.[78] These "sinónimos voluntarios" are nothing other than the mischievous and at times ruthless allusions to Lope scattered throughout Don Quixote I . Nevertheless, several authors have argued over the correct interpretation of the expression. Rodríguez Marín feels they are what we today call "apodos, alias, motes" (nicknames or aliases).[79] Angel Rosenblat sustains that the expression refers to plain synonyms: "términos de significación parecida o afín."[80] However, both authors seem to miss the point, which is, why voluntarios ? Is there such a thing as involuntary synonyms? Avellaneda is using a metalanguage full of second intentions. He is speaking directly to Cervantes, advising him that he has understood his purposeful and meaningful synonyms—allusions—but chooses not to do the same (which, of course, he does). Justo García Soriano has best understood and deciphered the sinónimos voluntarios, saying of them:
En ellos está la malicia y la clave de las ofensas. Es indudable que Avellaneda se refiere aquí a las indirectas, apodos, alusiones mortificantes, ironías burlescas y frases de doble sentido, contenidas en el prólogo, versos preliminares y elogios de los Académicos de la Argamasilla, de la primera parte del Don Quijote cervantino.[81]
[In them lies the malice and the key to the offenses. Avellaneda doubtless refers to the hints, nicknames, mortifying allusions, burlesque irony, and double entendres contained in the prologue, preliminary verses, and encomiums of the Académicos de la Argamasilla in Part One of Cervantes's Don Quixote .]
The latent references to Lope require careful analysis. Urganda's preliminary verses are an indication of what is to come. The lines "No indiscretos hieroglí-[ficos] / Estampes en el escu[do] [Put no vain emblems on thy shield / Or pompous coats-of-arms display]" are a repudiation of the spurious Carpio family shield with its nineteen towers and pompous motto "De Bernardo es el blasón, las desdichas mías son [the coat of arms is Bernardo's, the misfortunes mine]." Lope displayed these on several of his works, starting with the 1598 Arcadia .[82] The same towers led Góngora to produce his famous sonetada "Por tu vida, Lopillo, que me borres."[83]
Among other allusions to Lope are "Hablar latines rehu-[sa] [No Latin let thy pages show]" and "que el que imprime neceda-[des] / dalas a censo perpe-[tuo] [For fooleries preserved in print / Are perpetuity of shame]." The former refers to both Lope's penchant for Latin quotations and his rather tenuous grasp of that language. It also makes fun of the emblem and accompanying inscriptions that adorn his 1604 Peregrino en su patria . The frontispiece of the book shows Pegasus taking wing and the inscription "Seianus michi Pegasus," a pictograph of envy with the motto "Velis, nolis, Invidia," and, finally, a pilgrim with the caption "Aut unicus aut peregrinus." Urganda's latter verses reflect Cervantes's opinion of Lope's works: they are nothing but necedades .
García Soriano has neatly and schematically pointed out the bases for the attacks by other writers upon Lope. First were his amorous excesses, especially the long-standing and adulterous affair with Micaela de Luján that was still going strong at the time. Lope's extreme romantic sentimentality, expressed shamelessly in his biographical poetry, accompanied these public displays. Next were his known arrogance and ostentatious self-display: his genealogical pretensions (given the fact that he was the son of a humble embroiderer), the phoenix emblem and
mottos "único y solo" and "aut unicus aut peregrinus," and his association with the mythical steed Pegasus. Lope's innate presumption also led him to believe, not without reason, that everyone envied him—hence the "Velis, nolis, Invidia" inscription. His pedantry made him include pseudoerudite cites and Latinisms in his works, yet at the same time he turned his back on Aristotelian precepts and churned out entertainment for the masses. All these elements form the background of the Quixote poems.
Because of Lope's highly public sentimental life, all allusions to love or sensuality are suspect in Cervantes's sonnets. Amadís's mention of his "llorosa vida" and Don Quixote's copious tears (Appendix 45) immediately bring to mind Lope's famous "Serrana hermosa" epistle.[84] Written to Lucinda in absentia, it is a lengthy exhibition of weepy sentimentality. The poem had already prompted Góngora to assign Lope the nickname of "yegüero llorón" (crybaby mare-keeper).
In a similar manner, Oriana's sonnet (Appendix 47) can be interpreted on one level as a crushing criticism of Camila Lucinda. The idea that Dulcinea (Lucinda) made Don Quixote (Lope) "venturoso" is charged with sexual significance, as is Oriana's desire to "goz[ar] los gustos sin escote." The statement that Dulcinea escaped chastely from her courteous knight can also be interpreted as a supremely ironic statement about Lope's sentimental misadventures with Luján. Oriana's wish to exchange London for Dulcinea's hamlet recalls Micaela de Luján's plebeian origins. The serrana hermosa was, in fact, born in a small and insignificant Manchegan town.
Lope had also reincarnated Lucinda as Angélica and himself as Orlando in La hermosura de Angélica (1602). Cervantes has fun with Lope's attempt to emulate Ariosto in Orlando Furioso's sonnet to Don Quixote (Appendix 49). He slyly makes evident that the poem refers to Lope in the first quatrain: "Si no eres par, tampoco le has tenido; / que par pudieras ser entre mil pares, / ni puede haberle donde tú te hallares, / invito vencedor, jamás vencido." The "peerless" knight is, of course, the same one who is "aut unicus aut peregrinus." In the tercets Cervantes maliciously mocks the repeated comparisons Lope made of his affair with Lucinda and the story of Orlando and Angélica.[85]
Lope established a correlation between the legendary couple and the great love that also drove him to madness, despair, and misfortune. Especially pointed are the mentions of "decoro," "proezas," and "fama." Lope's amorous exploits were, indeed, famous, as was his considerable lack of decorum in matters of the heart.
In this same vein, Don Belianís's claim that "fui diestro, fui valiente, fui arrogante; / mil agravios vengué, cien mil deshice. . . . Hazañas di a la fama que eternice; / fui comedido y regalado amante;" (Appendix 46) are appropriate for a man of Lope's vanity. The Fénix eternalized his own amorous hazañas ; the proof that he was a comedido y regalado amante can be read in his poetry. In fact, this entire sonnet can easily be conceived as having been written by and about Lope. This is especially true given the final verse where, ironically enough, he must admit to envying Don Quixote's (Cervantes's) superior deeds (literature).
In the final words of his encomium (Appendix 50), the Caballero del Febo says Don Quixote has made Dulcinea "famosa, honesta y sabia" in the eyes of the world. The line recreates verse 1,418 of Garcilaso's Second Eclogue: "dulce, pura, hermosa, sabia, honesta" (sweet, pure, beautiful, wise, honest). But in addition there is terrible sarcasm contained in Cervantes's adaptation of the verse: the word "honesta" when Lope and Luján were public adulterers, and "sabia" when Lucinda was a known illiterate.[86] In this poem Lope's motto surfaces once again when the knight says he loved Claridiana "por milagro único y raro." In a like manner, Amadís prophesies that the author of Don Quixote's exploits will be "al mundo, único y solo" (Appendix 45). The connection between these expressions and Lope would have been painfully obvious at the time.
Soriano believes that the Quixote poems also mock Alonso de Castillo Solórzano. Besides being Lope's friend, this poet often served as his secretary at academies presided over by the more famous bard. This bears upon the identity of the académicos de la Argamasilla. On this covert level, Cervantes is ridiculing both Lope and his assistant as officers of an absurdly pretentious academy. Castillo was also tremendously bald, thus the mention of the "calvatrueno" in Monicongo's sonnet (Appendix 53) was an additional torment.
Because of the close personal relationship that existed between Lope and Castillo, Soriano feels that Sancho (who is called escudero, alcagüete, and mayordomo in the poems) is a mask for the latter. In addition, any mention of amo and escudero can be interpreted as allusive to the two friends. Because of this, Burlador's sonnet (Appendix 56) is filled with malicious intent. The escudero Sancho is constantly insulted as being foolish. His dueño is no better off; by association he is as manso as his mount Rocinante. Both master and squire are ultimately denounced as asses. Another insinuation is contained in Solisdán's sonnet to Don Quixote (Appendix 51). Here the mention of a possible desaguisado committed by Dulcinea could easily refer to a rupture in one of Lope's love affairs caused in some way by Castillo, the mal alcagüete .
It is in the dialogue between Babieca and Rocinante (Appendix 52), however, where the allusions to Lope and Castillo Solórzano are most complex. This sonnet has already been discussed as part of the burla equina tradition. On its personal, underground level, the poem is a satire of Lope and his escudero-mayordomo Castillo. The latter is the target hidden behind the mask of Babieca, and the former is represented by Rocinante. On this personal level the malicious mention of paja is highly suggestive.
We know by his many poems to and about Lucinda that Lope's long affair with Micaela de Luján had its ups and downs. He often complains of her disdain and of his jealousy, and hints to a possible betrayal on the part of Lucinda in La hermosura de Angélica . In Canto V he speaks of Lucinda's many suitors, adding "pero ignoro / quién fuera de tus méritos Medoro [but I know not / what Medoro enjoyed your merits]." Soriano feels Góngora was using this material to ridicule Lope in his ballad "Desde Sansueña a París."[87] In this erotic satirical poem a certain Berenguela "da a un paje / lo que a tantos amos niega [grants to a page / what she denies to so many masters]" while Dudón (a famous thirteenth-century French doctor) comments "Basta, señores, que andamos / tras la paja muchas bestias [Enough, gentlemen / for we are many beasts in pursuit of fodder]." Thus Góngora wickedly links paja (meaning both "straw" and "sexual relations") and paje in a poem whose underground
topic can be traced to Orlando's (Lope's) difficulties with Angélica (Camila Lucinda) as a result of the intromission of Medoro (the unidentified paje ).
In chapter 1 of Part Two of the novel, Don Quixote also asserts that Angélica was "una doncella destraída, andariega y algo antojadiza" who "despreció mil señores, mil valientes y mil discretos, y contentóse con un pajecillo barbilucio [a giddy damsel, flighty and somewhat wanton. . . . She treated with scorn a thousand gentlemen, men of valor and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced sprig of a page]." The knight goes on to say how "un famoso poeta andaluz lloró y cantó sus lágrimas [a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears]" (Luis Barahona de Soto's Las lágrimas de Angélica ), and "otro famoso y único poeta castellano cantó su hermosura [another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty]" (Lope's La hermosura de Angélica ). In this way Cervantes neatly joins the story of Angélica's dalliance with the pagecillo barbilucio to the "famoso y único castellano" (aut unicus aut peregrinus ) who sung her beauty.
Given this background, the equine dialogue takes on another meaning through the wordplay on the terms paja and paje . In addition, we should remember that the Donoso Entreverado's verses also contain another veiled allusion to this same situation. Rocinante tells how Lazarillo (another paje ) stole the blind man's (Lope's) wine (the source of his pleasure) with a paja . And finally, the second tercet of the sonnet is the ultimate blow, where the amo and escudero are declared "tan rocines como Rocinante."
Cervantes's burlas, if somewhat obscure today, were certainly not so at the time. Both Lope and Castillo were perfectly conscious of the snide insinuations. As a result, Lope wrote his sonetada "Pues nunca de la Biblia digo lé—," (Appendix 61) and Castillo Solórzano his sonnet epitaph "Al caballo Babieca, aludiendo a un necio" (Appendix 62).[88] Lope's sonnet also responds to the sonnet "Hermano Lope, bórrame el soné[to]" (Appendix 63). Although this last poem has been attributed to both Góngora (by Foulché-Delbosc and Orozco Díaz) and Cervantes (Pellicer and Entrambasaguas), it seems most likely to be a product of Cervantes or at least of the Academia de Ochoa. The sonnet is tailed, a type of composition Góngora used only
very rarely.[89] It would also be Góngora's sole extant cabo roto sonnet. Biruté Ciplijauskaité, the editor of Góngora's complete sonnets, also doubts Góngora's authorship. Cervantes, in contrast, did write both versos de cabo roto and tailed sonnets.[90] But the inventor of cabo roto verse was probably Alonso Alvarez de Soria, an enemy of Lope and card-carrying member of the Academia de Ochoa.[91] Thus, although no attribution can be definitively proved, the sonnet seems closer to Cervantes than to Góngora. Be that as it may, Lope obviously thought that Cervantes was its author. Line one of his sonetada ("Pues nunca de la Biblia digo lé—") is a reaction and response to Cervantes's line 4 ("pues nunca de la Biblia dices le—").
The sonetada attributed to Lope includes the standard elements of this type of invective. He starts by calling Cervantes "co-" and "cu-": coco (bogyman) and the indispensible cuco (cuerno or cornudo ). The term frisón comes from the burla equina tradition. Frisians were very large, corpulent, and heavy-footed beasts generally used for pulling carriages. The insult probably does have some basis in fact, since in his prologue to the Novelas ejemplares Cervantes describes himself as "algo cargado de espaldas, y no muy ligero de pies [somewhat stooped in the shoulders and not very light-footed]." The same can be said of verse 7 when Lope says "Hablaste, buey; pero dijiste mú ." He is probably alluding to Cervantes's stutter. The second and third stanzas malign the old soldier's crippled hand and participation at Lepanto, as well as his age—a potrilla being an old man who considers himself young. Avellaneda will use these same insults in his apocryphal Quixote, causing Cervantes to complain in the prologue to Part Two of his novel:
Lo que no he podido dejar de sentir es que me note de viejo y de manco, como si hubiera sido en mi mano haber detenido el tiempo, que no pasase por mí, o si mi manquedad hubiera nacido en alguna taberna, sino en la más alta ocasión que vieron los siglos pasados, los presentes, ni esperan ver los venideros.
[What I cannot help resenting is that he charges me with being old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to hinder time's passage, or as if the loss of my hand had occurred in some tavern and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen or the future can hope to see.]
Because the last two stanzas are a total defamation of Don Quixote, this poem could very well be the "soneto malo, desmayado, sin garbo ni agudeza alguna, diciendo mal de Don Quijote [the bad, insipid sonnet, totally lacking in charm and wit, criticizing Don Quixote ]" that Cervantes received in a letter con porte while in Valladolid. He recounts the anecdote in the Adjunta del Parnaso .
Castillo's sonnet (Appendix 62) is an epitafio jocoso that contains another burla equina : he also calls Cervantes a caballo frisón . At the same time Cervantes is a ciclán in terms of talent. This word is used for animals having only one testicle. Once again, the link to the false Quixote is patent in that Castillo accuses Cervantes of being known and despised as a fool. Avellaneda similarly says in his prologue that Cervantes is so lacking in friends that he had to invent his own laudatory sonnets to Don Quixote . Finally, Babieca (Castillo) is revindicated as an honorable steed while Cervantes is reviled as a nag.
It has been seen that the Quixote poems function and can be interpreted on the level of sonetadas . They attest to and illustrate the problematic literary relations and rivalries that blossomed at the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. What separates the Quixote sonnets from the other poems discussed in this chapter is their subtlety, artfulness, and innate guile. Rather than blatant ad hominem satire, they depend on ambiguous innuendo and double meanings to make their mark. However, we must also admit that Cervantes was capable—as were Lope, Góngora, and Quevedo—of the kind of rude poetry rarely published or analyzed. Indeed, this would probably be the last thing the poets themselves would want for such verse. Nevertheless, by studying it we learn more of the authors' character and attitude toward literature. Such poetry ultimately helps illuminate the darker corners of a world gone by.