Читать книгу Don Francisco de Quevedo: Drama en Cuatro Actos - Eulogio Florentino Sanz - Страница 6

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When Philip IV became king of Spain in 1621 he inherited a kingdom whose resources had been recklessly wasted. His father, Philip III, had been ruled by the most inept of ministers, the Duke of Lerma. Great sums of money, wrung from the productive lower classes, had been spent to carry on a fruitless war in the Netherlands, to provide amusement for an idle, frivolous court, and to fill the pockets of the minister's creatures. Government was in the hands of a bureaucracy of parasites. The collective conscience of the governing class had withered and died. The office-holders in this bureaucracy had come to regard the acquisition of riches at the expense of the state as one of their official privileges.

If Spain were to maintain her preëminent position as the greatest power in Europe the most radical economic reform was necessary. Stimulus must be given to the productive activity of the country by relief from oppressive taxation, and expenditure must be wisely restrained and administered.

The situation demanded a man of exceptional keenness of vision, great energy, and absolute integrity. There were not lacking men who foresaw the disaster that threatened, men who still kept some of that energy and fearlessness that had made America a Spanish dependency, but such individuals were silenced as menaces rather than encouraged as helpers. In Philip himself the mental vigor and physical stamina of the Spanish Hapsburgs had been greatly diminished. The consanguineous marriages of his immediate ancestors had weakened the stock. There can be no doubt that he loved his people in his own pitiful, ineffectual way, but he was hopelessly weak; lacking in the ability and even the will to rule, he delegated government to Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares and soon to be the first Duke of San Lúcar.

Here, on the other hand, was a man of undoubted energy and courage. Yet his weakness was his utter lack of vision and his inability to profit by the mistakes of his predecessors. He had many a lesson to learn in the failure of the reigns of Philip II and Philip III; he should have seen that the reason for the disasters of the former was the continuance of a hopeless war in the Netherlands for the sake of an ideal of religious unity which the progress of the sixteenth century had made impossible; above all he should have realized the economic folly of a system of taxation and industrial repression that was choking the nation.

Olivares himself was to blame for the initial appearance in the machinery of the State of only a few vital weaknesses, for at the beginning of his administration many fatal tendencies were already at work. But because he failed to check those tendencies he must ever be the scapegoat. To be sure he signalized his arrival by a few months of rigid economy, but he did not cut deep enough. He soon realized the futility of saving where there was nothing to save. Then, either because he failed to see the source of the evil or because he lacked the constructive ability to attack it, he went to the extreme of lavish expenditure. As the situation grew more and more hopeless he temporized, striving to hide the internal decay beneath a gilded exterior of ostentatious wealth. As he plunged deeper his critics grew bolder, and to silence them his rule became more barbarously arbitrary.

Moreover, he found himself face to face with the great Richelieu at the head of a rich and well-administered France. Under him France was to become organized and to extend her dominions to her natural physical boundaries—at the expense of Spain. Olivares ruled Spain from 1621 until 1643, Richelieu ruled France from 1622 until 1642; it was a life-long duel between the two ministers. Richelieu laid the foundation for the greatness of Louis XIV, while Olivares made inevitable the abject impotence of Spain under Charles II.

The culminating disasters began to arrive in 1640 with the rebellion of Catalonia. The determination of the Catalans in 1626 to grant Philip no more arbitrary taxes marks the beginning of the revolt that ended with the entire loss of Catalonia. Olivares could never forget its opposition to his will. While the Catalans in 1639 were bravely resisting the entrance of French troops into Roussillon, Santa Coloma, the viceroy of Olivares, made even more severe his policy of sternness and repression. The Catalans were to be driven against the French and to be made to understand by the application of brute force that the welfare of their particular province was of small importance beside the prosperity of the kingdom in general. The Spanish soldiers quartered upon them behaved with such lawlessness that in May of 1640 the population of Barcelona broke into open rebellion. Santa Coloma was cut down in his attempt to escape the consequences of his lack of diplomacy and tact. From Barcelona the revolt soon spread through the entire province. It has been said that the gentle measures of repression inaugurated by the new viceroy, the Duke of Cardona, particularly displeased Olivares, who saw at last what he believed to be his opportunity utterly to crush Catalan liberty. The answer of the Catalans was to throw themselves into the hands of the French and Richelieu, by seeking foreign aid against Castile.

In September 1640 an army under the Marqués de los Vélez was sent north to straighten out the tangled affairs of Catalonia. At first he was successful, but in January 1641 he was beaten back from Barcelona itself after a bloody defeat at the hands of the local soldiery.

To make sure of French aid the rebels offered their allegiance to Louis XIII of France, and the revolt was kept alive with French money and soldiers, while Philip's armies were invariably defeated.

To complete our picture of the political situation we must turn for a moment to Portugal. There reluctant allegiance to the Spanish crown had already been severely strained during the previous reign by the high-handed procedure of Lerma, the favorite of Philip III. Portuguese administrative offices had been filled in Madrid, and the country was inconsiderately taxed to maintain Castilian sovereignty. Under Philip IV the regent of the kingdom was Doña Margarita, Duchess of Mantua and granddaughter of Philip II.[8] While she was ostensibly in control of the difficult Portuguese situation, the real ruler was Don Miguel Vasconcellos, a Portuguese of scant ability and bloodthirsty instincts; he was kept in command by Olivares dictating from Madrid. The announcement of Vasconcellos to the nation that it was the intention of Olivares to remove the last vestige of constitutional rule in Portugal by the suppression of the Portuguese Cortes drove the patriots to rally about the Duke of Braganza. A well-planned conspiracy was set on foot to place Braganza on the throne of Portugal and thus to rid the country forever of the hated Castilian sovereignty.

After the failure of all his attempts to bring Braganza to Madrid, Olivares tried desperately to win his favor by apparently putting the fate of Portugal entirely in his hands. It was a fatal course. Olivares sent him large sums of money to raise troops to keep the Portuguese situation in control and help in the repression of the Catalans; then he put Braganza at the head of them.

In November of 1640 Braganza proclaimed himself king. The regent Margaret was imprisoned. Vasconcellos was killed by the mob.

The news was received in Madrid with the deepest dismay. Pellicer[9] wrote: "These announcements should be written with blood, and deserve to be wept over rather than written, for they contain nothing less than the rebellion of Portugal and the coronation of Don Juan, whom they call Juan IV, the Duke of Braganza." It is commonly stated that Olivares announced the news of the rebellion to Philip by congratulating him upon the opportunity thus offered to seize the property of Braganza.

To add to the troubles in Portugal and Catalonia just described, a plot by the Duke of Medina Sidonia to make himself independent sovereign of Andalusia was discovered only just in time to prevent a serious rising.

The advisability of Philip's putting himself in person at the head of the troops in the north had long been the subject of earnest and bitter discussion between Olivares and his enemies. The latter had urged upon Philip the necessity of seeing with his own eyes the pass to which matters had been brought by the ineptitude and recklessness of his minister. This could best be accomplished by a visit of inspection to the revolted provinces. Moreover, with Philip and Olivares away from the capital the queen and those of the nobility who were working for the downfall of Olivares could proceed with a freer hand.

When once the royal party had left, Doña Isabel set about her task with true nobility and great energy. She was almost heroic in her efforts to encourage and inspire with loyalty to the crown the troops garrisoned in Madrid. She even sold her jewels to raise money for the campaign in Aragon.

Philip, meanwhile, was traveling slowly northward with great pomp and ceremony. Olivares was straining every nerve to prevent the king's realizing the desperateness of the situation. The monarch was denied to all visitors, and his attention was distracted by elaborate hunting expeditions. As he progressed toward Aragon, the French, moving southward, occupied Monzón.

December of 1642 found Philip again in Madrid. Portugal was hopelessly lost, Roussillon was in the hands of the French, while Catalonia and Aragon were in open revolt. Briefly sketched, this was the political situation at the opening of our play.

While Spain was at this time economically bankrupt, the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV comprise nevertheless the most brilliant decades of the Golden Century. These are the years that are marked by the greatest literary activity of Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and Quevedo. Lope had made the theater national and had prepared the way for the romantic genius of Calderón, while a throng of lesser lights, such as Tirso de Molina and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, were delighting the capital with plays in great profusion. For all this a great stimulus had come from the theater-loving Philip III, who lavished money without stint upon the gorgeous production of comedies, pageants, and masques.

Cervantes had shown the way to the novelists. In prose fiction true characterization had developed to keep pace with extensive and elaborate narrative elements. At the same time the outburst of lyric poetry was no less striking. The ability to write verse had become truly a necessary qualification for social success and even for political advancement. Great magnates surrounded themselves with a retinue of poets and men of letters who depended upon them for their support.

Don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, the central figure of our play, was one of the greatest personalities in this brilliant court. He was born in 1580. At barely twenty he left the University of Alcalá and plunged immediately into the life of the magnificently corrupt court of Philip III at Valladolid. When the capital was moved to Madrid in 1606 he had already won fame as a poet. The manuscripts of his satirical writings in prose and verse were eagerly sought and widely read. His thrusts were aimed at the ridiculous aspects of court life. His own indulgence in a career of thorough dissipation filled him with contempt for his wretched companions. Intimate association with men in high positions reached by either noble birth or corrupt influence made him familiar with the vices of Philip's government and with the ineffectiveness of the Spanish bureaucratic administration. In his "Sueños" (Visions) he satirized unsparingly men from all the walks of life. His attacks were at times mocking jeers at human weaknesses and at others outbursts of desperate fury against current injustice and stupidity.

After a short period of retirement from the capital he became the firm friend of Don Pedro Téllez Girón, Duke of Osuna, who had been named viceroy of Sicily in 1610. The uncommonly strong bond of friendship between these two men was founded upon mutual admiration of common qualities of fearlessness and red-blooded dash and spirit. In 1616 Quevedo followed Osuna to Naples, where he was of great service to him as adviser and confidential emissary. These years of semi-official activity brought Quevedo into the very midst of the tangle of politics involving France, Italy, and Spain, and above all into the bog of bureaucratic corruption. Osuna's business in Madrid with the prime minister, Lerma, was managed by Quevedo. Now Lerma and his creatures were amenable to reason only when accompanied by bribes. Access to him was denied to all who brought no gifts. Quevedo's disgust at these methods was boundless, but there was no avoiding them.[10] In recognition of his distinguished services Quevedo was made a knight of the order of St. James in 1618.[11]

In 1620 Osuna came to Madrid to answer the charge of having conspired to make himself independent viceroy of Naples. On his arrival he was thrown into prison, while Quevedo was held in custody at a distance from Madrid. Osuna died in 1624 before his guilt or innocence could be clearly proved. Quevedo afterward fought to clear his protector's name. At least he has secured his fame to posterity by the famous sonnet,

Faltar pudo su patria al grande Osuna,

Pero no a su defensa sus hazañas;

Diéronle muerte y carcel las Españas,

De quien el hizo esclava la Fortuna.

Lloraron sus invidias una a una

Con las propias naciones las extrañas;

Su tumba son de Flandes las campañas,

Y su epitafio la sangrienta luna.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

While Quevedo was enduring his enforced retirement Philip III died (March, 1621) and was succeeded by his son Philip IV. Uceda, the former's minister, was sent to follow his father Lerma into retirement and disgrace. Olivares, who had already won the confidence of young Philip, was installed as prime minister.

Superficial reforms by which Olivares signalized his arrival momentarily led Quevedo to hope for better things. He wrote to celebrate the wisdom of the new minister and to assure him of his loyalty. He was soon at liberty to enjoy the fame and wholesome respect that his political prominence and keen satire had won him. His enemies were numerous, but they dared not attack him. Olivares himself courted Quevedo, but the latter, grown discreet for the moment, lent his ear and not his heart: he could not give himself to a minister who was already beginning to show his unwillingness to go to the root of the evils that were ruining the country.

During these years of comparative political inactivity Quevedo had greater opportunity to study the vicious standards of living that stain this period of Spanish history. His writings are full of the scathing irony of his youth on the one hand, or of passionate religious fervor on the other. At other moments he indulges his tendency to seek refuge and comfort in the gentle stoicism of Seneca.

His reckless slurs on women did not prevent his taking a wife in 1633. Perhaps Doña Esperanza de Aragón possessed the qualities that Quevedo had flippantly demanded:

Noble, virtuous, and of good understanding, neither ugly nor beautiful; of these two extremes I prefer her beautiful, because it is better to have something to guard than some one to flee from. Neither rich nor poor, that she may not be buying me, nor I her. I desire her cheerful, for in our daily life we shall not lack for gloom. I wish her neither a young girl nor an old woman, cradle nor coffin, because I have forgotten my lullabies and not yet learned the prayers for the dying. I should thank God infinitely if she were deaf and a stammerer. But after all I shall esteem a woman such as I desire y sabré sufrir la que fuere como yo la merezco.

Their married life was cut short by the death of Doña Esperanza in the middle of the following year.

There can be no doubt of Quevedo's thinly-veiled distrust of the administration of Olivares during these years, nor that he foresaw the impending catastrophe. The campaign which he was now carrying on against the favorite drew upon him not only the fear but the hatred of Olivares. Philip himself was blind to the state of the peninsula, thanks to Olivares' successful efforts to keep him amused.

Finally one day early in December of 1639 Philip found in his napkin a petition in verse. It contained an eloquent description of the wretched condition of the country and a bitter arraignment of Olivares. Every circumstance pointed to Quevedo as the author. On the seventh of December he was arrested and his papers were confiscated. His disappearance was so sudden and complete that it was generally believed that he had been summarily done to death, but in reality he had been rushed to a dungeon in the monastery of San Marcos just outside the walls of the city of León. Here he received treatment probably intended to cause his death, for he wrote to his friend Adán de la Parra:

Although at first I had a tower of this holy dwelling for my prison... within a short time I was brought to another a great deal more comfortless. There I remain. It is nothing more than an underground room, as damp as a spring, so dark that it is almost always night in it, and so cold that it never ceases to seem January. Clear enough! they that take pleasure in seeing me suffer do not wish to cut once for all that which they must finally cut, but they wish rather that the frequency of their blows may make my martyrdom more painful by its longer continuance; for thus their satisfaction gains in length.

The tomb where I am buried alive is barely twenty-four feet long and nineteen wide. The vault and walls are in many places crumbling with dampness, and everything is so miserable that it appears rather the refuge of outlaw robbers than the prison of an honest man.

To enter it one must pass through two doors equally strong. One is at the level of the monastery floor and the other at the level of my cell, after twenty-eight steps that have the look of a precipice. Both are always closed except at moments when, more by courtesy than through confidence, they leave one open but the other doubly guarded.

In the middle of the room there stands a table where I am writing. It is large enough to permit of thirty or more books, with which my holy brothers keep me provided. At the right (to the south) I have my neither very comfortable nor extremely wretched bed.

The furniture of this miserable habitation consists of four chairs, a brasier, and a lamp. There is always noise enough, for the sound of my fetters drowns other greater ones, if not by its volume, by its pitifulness.... Not long ago I had two pairs, but one of the monks obtained permission to leave me with only one pair. Those that I am wearing now weigh about eight or nine pounds; the ones they took off were much heavier.... Such is the life to which I have been reduced by him who because I would not be his favorite is to-day my enemy.

He endured his confinement with fortitude, sustained by the conviction that he had given his best for the cause of justice.

The series of disasters that ultimately caused the fall of Olivares on January 23, 1643, has been discussed in another part of this introduction. Quevedo's release followed in June, but the iron had already entered his soul. A little more than two weeks before his death he wrote to his friend Francisco de Oviedo in a tone of profound discouragement:

They write bad news from everywhere, desperate news; and the worst of it is that every one expected it. All this, Don Francisco, I know not if it be drawing to its close or if it be already ended. God knows, for there are many things which, though they seem to exist and to have being, are no longer more than a word and a form.

He died at the age of sixty-five on September 8, 1645, at Villanueva de los Infantes.

Even the bare enumeration of the more important events of Quevedo's life suggests his eager activity. This characteristic is the most striking feature of his style. An idea is no sooner suggested than it is left undeveloped to make way for another, set down often in a sentence which in its turn is without a satisfactory conclusion; or the expression of it is so condensed that we marvel at its retaining any lucidity. Many of his earlier writings are little more than a series of sketches that appear to have been written with feverish impatience but at the same time with great penetration. In his satirical verses there is a world of double meanings and allusions that leaves the reader's mind dizzy. The variety of his works is great. His facile creative brain passed from a ribald ballad or letrilla to a life of St. Francis de Sales or a treatise on Divine Providence. But through them all one can discern the motif of patriotism in the form of virulent satire against the vices that were gnawing at the life of the nation, or of a fervent plea for better standards in public and private life. When he felt the impotence of his rage or the fruitlessness of his pleas he turned earnestly and longingly to his cherished Seneca. But even in this frame of mind we cannot help feeling that there is something intensely passionate in his very patience. He gave his best years to the battle against national decay. Perhaps it is not too much to say that he died of disappointment and disgust.

Quevedo's life, then, is by no means devoid of aspects that would appeal strongly to a romantic poet like Florentino Sanz. The most striking feature, of course, is his struggle with Olivares, followed by apparent defeat and imprisonment at San Marcos de León, which in reality meant a moral victory in the face of persecution. This in itself was an ideal situation to call forth the heroics of a romantic poet. Furthermore, Quevedo could properly complain that he had been misunderstood. He was giving himself to a great cause while many of his contemporaries recognized only the superficial wit or the obscenity of his satire. His proud scorn of stupidity and all mediocrity was easily susceptible of a romantic twist into a lofty contempt for the miserable human creatures that drag out their darkened groveling lives. To make the play an unqualified success it was necessary that Quevedo succumb to the gentle passion, although in reality Quevedo's stern heart had little room for it. There can be no denying his cynical disbelief in feminine virtue. Associations of his own choice gave him little opportunity for illusions on that score. To be sure, he married at fifty-two, but circumstances lead us to doubt his happiness. Quevedo in love is thorny ground for any author. It is difficult to understand how Sanz succeeded in making this innovation as plausible as it is. It is his surrender to virtues so sterling as those of Margarita de Saboya that saves him from being ridiculous. Perhaps one may be pardoned for a furtive smile at the implication that Quevedo must depart to mope in his tower, while Margarita, herself a widow, pines in the convent.

The name Quevedo has come to connote vaguely a personage of achievements as fabulous as those of Robin Hood. His undoubted skill as a swordsman has made him the hero of a thousand nocturnal escapades. His proverbial wit has forced upon him the responsibility for doubtful puns and innumerable bits of repartee. Unfortunately this is true to such a degree that to the uninitiated Quevedo is little more than a buffoon or a swaggering swordsman. It is easy to see that in his play Sanz intended to combat this mistaken conception. When it was first presented in 1848 there existed no authoritative and accessible edition of Quevedo's works[12] where he could be adequately studied and a fair estimate of him made. Such works of his as were spread broad-cast were usually the more objectionable excerpts from his less creditable works. They appeared in wretched volumes bearing a close resemblance to some that are published even now under such titles as "Quevedo, His Wittiest Prose, His Funniest Verses." Sanz felt the injustice deeply and set about its correction.

Those who knew Sanz personally[13] have been left with the clear impression that through the medium of Quevedo, Sanz poured forth his invective against those that refused to recognize his own ability.

There can be no doubt that the ultimate source, or rather the inspiration, of the play was the appeal to Sanz of the personality of Quevedo. There are other more tangible sources that may be briefly indicated. An important element in the plot is Queen Isabel's struggle to obtain from Olivares a certain letter which had been written in blood by the Conde de Villamediana and which would prove her fidelity to her husband, Philip. The existence of such a valuable document is pure invention. Villamediana's contemporaries are unanimous in saying that after being stabbed he died almost instantly and that his only words were "Esto es hecho." The romantic circumstances of Villamediana's attachment to the queen had been rehearsed to the public only a few years before the production of "Don Francisco de Quevedo." In 1841 the Duke of Rivas had published his four ballads, "Los Toros," "Las Máscaras y Cañas," "El Sarao," and "Final," under the title "El Conde de Villamediana." The affair then would be fresh in the minds of Sanz and his public. Don Juan de Tassis y Peralta, Count of Villamediana, was born in Lisbon in 1580, and was brought up in the court of Philip III. In 1614 he served in Italy, and the end of 1618 found him again in Madrid, where he lived magnificently, indulging freely his tastes for paintings, jewels, and horses. His satirical pen, attacking even the Duke of Lerma and the royal confessor, Fray Luis de Aliaga, was the cause of his exile from Madrid in 1618. At the accession of Philip IV he was recalled to Madrid and made a gentleman in waiting to the queen. Fallen ministers and the favorites of Philip III continued to be marks for his attacks. Olivares, the enemy of Villamediana and Doña Isabel, probably brought his libels to the attention of Philip. On August 21, 1622, as Villamediana was driving through the Calle Mayor, a man halted his coach, and, as the count was descending, ran him through the heart. The gossips of Madrid attributed the murder to Olivares, giving as his motive his hatred and fear of Villamediana. Others laid the blame upon Philip, whose jealousy had been aroused, they said, by Villamediana's marked attentions to Doña Isabel.

Further historical material for the play Sanz took from two arraignments of the administration of Olivares published by Valladares. The use of these sources by Sanz will be pointed out as briefly as possible. The circumstances of the imprisonment of Doña Margarita in Ocaña, her flight to Madrid, and her subsequent treatment at the hands of Olivares are presented in detail in the "Caída de su Privanza y Muerte del Conde-Duque de Olivares, Gran Privado del Señor Rey Don Felipe IV, el Grande, con los motivos y no imaginada disposición de dicha Caída,"[14] and in the "Memorial de Don Francisco de Quevedo contra el Conde-Duque de Olivares. Dado al Rey Don Felipe Quarto."[15] According to the account in the latter she had received no reply to her complaints against the evil conduct of Vasconcellos and the suicidal policy of Olivares toward the Duke of Braganza.[16]

The interview between Olivares and the queen about the establishment of the young Prince of the Asturias in separate apartments with an independent household (Act II, scene ii) was evidently taken from the "Memorial" (p. 214) and from the "Caída" (p. 49). Says Philip, "And why, Conde-Duque, would he not be better off in the apartment that you yourself occupy? It is especially for the firstborn of the king, and is the one in which my father and myself were when we were princes." There also is mentioned the removal of the Count of Lemos, the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, and Don Fernando de Borja from the palace.

In Act III, scene ii, Margarita laments the loss of Spanish possessions through the ineptitude of Olivares: