Para Que Sirven Los Diamantes En Words Of Wonders
Ronald
The spelling of Spanish names and places mentioned in the text has beenadjusted to the rules set by the Academia Real Espaola. The spellingof quotations in ancient Spanish presented in the text haves been keptas they were written in the oriignal work.
In order to prevent a difficulty that sometimes arises of distinguishing between theauthor and the editor, especially when author's and editor's notes to a text bothoccur, the following plan has been adopted. The text of the author and its variantshave been printed throughout in 'old style' type, while all notes &c. added by theeditor have been set in 'condensed' type. It is hoped that this innovation will befound of no small service to the general reader as well as to the student.
Simple as the bibliography of the Galatea really is, a habit of conjecture hassucceeded in complicating it. Though the earliest known edition of the book isunanimously admitted to have appeared at Alcal de Henares in 1585, it is oftenalleged that the princeps was actually issued at Madrid during the previousyear. This is a mistaken idea arising, probably, out of a slip made by GregorioMayns y Siscar, the first Spaniard[1] who attempted to write a formal biographyof Cervantes. In his thirteenth paragraph Mayns[2] remarked by the way that[Pg viii]the Galatea was published in 1584; but he laid no stress upon the date, anddismissed the matter in a single sentence. The error (if it were really an error,and not a mere misprint) was natural and pardonable enough in one who livedbefore bibliography had developed into an exact study. Unfortunately, it wasreproduced by others. It is found, for instance, in a biographical essay onCervantes which precedes the first edition of Don Quixote issued by the Royal[Pg ix]Spanish Academy;[3] and the essayist, Vicente de los Ros, adds the detailthat the Galatea came out at Madrid. It was unlucky that this statementshould be put forward where it is. The Academy's responsibility for thetexts issued in its name is chiefly financial: for the rest, it habitually appointsthe most competent representatives available, and it naturally gives eachdelegate a free hand. But foreigners, unacquainted with the procedure, haveimagined that Ros must be taken as expressing the deliberate and unanimousopinion of the entire Academy. This is a complete misapprehension. On theface of it, it is absurd to suppose that any corporation, as a whole, is irrevocablycommitted to every view expressed by individual members. Even were it otherwise,it would not affect the case. An error would be none the less an errorif a learned society sanctioned it. But, as a matter of fact, like all thoseconcerned in editing texts or in writing essays for the Academy, Ros spokefor himself alone. He was followed by Pellicer[4] who, though he gives 1584 asthe date of the princeps, is less categorical as to the place of publication. Sometwenty-two years after Pellicer's time, Fernndez de Navarrete[5] accepted hispredecessors' view as regards the date, and to this acceptance, more thanto anything else, the common mistake is due. Relying on Navarrete'sunequalled authority, Ticknor[6] repeated the mis-statement which has sincepassed into general circulation. Further enquiry has destroyed the theory thatthe Galatea first appeared at Madrid in 1584. However, as most English[Pg x]writers[7] on this question have given currency to the old, erroneous notion, itbecomes necessary to set forth the circumstances of the case. But, beforeentering upon details, it should be observed (1) that no copy of the supposititious1584 edition has ever been seen by any one; (2) that there is not even anindirect proof of its existence; and (3) that, so far as the evidence goes, noedition of the Galatea was published at Madrid before 1736: that is to say,until more than a century after Cervantes's death.
Each of the foregoing circumstances, considered separately, tells against thecurrent idea that the Galatea was published at Madrid in 1584, and it mighthave been hoped that an intelligent consideration of their cumulative effectwould ensure the right conclusion: that the story is a myth. But, so DonosoCorts[21] maintained, man has an almost invincible propensity to error, and thediscussion on so plain a matter as the bibliography of the Galatea lends colour tothis view. The amount of confusion introduced into the debate is extraordinary.It is occasionally difficult to gather what a partisan of the alleged 1584 editionholds; his pages blaze with contradictions: his theory is half-heartedly advanced,hastily abandoned, and confidently re-stated in a bewildering fashion.[22] Again,what was originally put forward as a pious opinion is transfigured into a dogma.Just as there are some who, when writing on the bibliography of Don Quixote,[Pg xv]insist that the 1608 edition of that book "must have been revised by the author,"[23]so there are some who, when writing on the bibliography of the Galatea, insistwith equal positiveness that there "must have been an edition of 1584."[24] Thisemphasis is out of place in both cases; but it is interesting and instructive to notethat these two opinions are practically inseparable from each other. The coincidencecan scarcely be accidental, and it may prove advantageous: for, obviously,the refutation of the one thesis must tend to discredit the other. If a writerbe convicted of error in a very simple matter which can be tested in a moment,it would clearly be imprudent to accept his unsupported statement concerning a farmore complex matter to which no direct test can be applied. And, as it happens,we are now enabled to measure the accuracy of the assertion that the princeps ofthe Galatea was published at Madrid in 1584.
Cervantes was in his thirty-third year when he was ransomed at Algiers onSeptember 19, 1580, and, when he reached Portugal in 1581, he may haveintended to enlist once more. It has, in fact, been generally thought that heshared in at least one of the expeditions against the Azores under the famousMarqus de Santa Cruz in 1581-83. This belief is based on the Informacinpresented by Cervantes at Madrid on June 6, 1590;[29] but in this petition to theKing the claims of Rodrigo de Cervantes and Miguel de Cervantes are set forth[Pg xix]in so confusing a fashion that it is difficult to distinguish the services of theelder brother from those of the junior. It is certain that Rodrigo served at theAzores in 1583, and we learn from Mosquera de Figueroa that he was promotedfrom the ranks for his distinguished gallantry in the action before Porto das Moas.[30]But it is by no means clear that Miguel de Cervantes took any part in eithercampaign. Such evidence as we have tells rather against the current supposition.It is ascertained that Cervantes was at Tomar on May 21, 1581, and that he wasat Cartagena towards the end of June 1581, while we have documentary evidenceto prove that he pawned five pieces of yellow and red taffeta to Napolon Lomelinat Madrid in the autumn of 1583.[31] If these dates are correct (as they seem tobe), it is scarcely possible that Cervantes can have sailed with Santa Cruzfor the Azores.[32] The likelihood is that he had to be content with somecivil employment and, if so, it was natural enough that he should turn toliterature with a view to increasing his small income. A modest, clear-sightedman, he probably did not imagine that he was about to write masterpieces, orto make a fortune by his pen. He perhaps hoped to keep the wolf from thedoor, or, at the most, to find a rich patron, as his friend Glvez de Montalvo haddone.[33] If these were his ideas, and if, as seems likely, he thought of marrying atabout this time, it is not surprising that he should write what he believed wouldsell. So far as we can judge, he would much rather have wielded a sword than agoose-quill, and he was far too great a humorist to vapour about "art" or an"irresistible vocation." His juvenile verses had found favour with Juan Lpez deHoyos, and perhaps Rufino de Chamber had appreciated the two sonnets writtenin Algiers; but the spirited tercets to Mateo Vzquez had failed of their effect, andCervantes was shrewd enough to know that versifying was not lucrative. Eightyyears before it was uttered, he realized the truth of the divine Gombauld's dying exclamation:On paie si mal des vers immortels! Fortunately, he had many stringsto his bow. Like Lope de Vega, he was prepared to attempt anything and everything:prose or verse, the drama, picaresque tales, novels of adventure, and therest. But, to begin with, he divided his efforts between the theatre and fiction.
It may seem strange that Cervantes, whose transcriptions from life areeminently distinguished for truth and force, should have been induced toexperiment in the province of artificial, languid pastoralism. But if, as Tainewould have it, climate makes the race, the race makes the individual, and atthis period the races of Western Europe had gone (so to say) pastorally mad.[56]The pastoral novel is not to our modern taste; but, as there is no more stabilityin literature than in politics, its day may come again.[57] In Cervantes's time therewas no escaping from the prose idyll. Prodigious tales from the Indies had stimulatedthe popular appetite for wonders, and the demand was supplied to satiety inthe later chivalresque romances. Feliciano de Silva and his fellows could think ofnothing better than the systematic exaggeration of the most marvellous episodesin Amads de Gaula. The adventures became more perilous, the knights morefantastically brave, the ladies (if possible) lovelier, the wizards craftier, thegiants huger, the monsters more terrific, and so forth. In this vein nothingmore was to be done: the formula was exhausted. The rival and more culturedschool, founded by Sannazaro, endeavoured to lead men's minds from thesenoisy banalities to the placid contemplation of nature, or rather of idealizedantiquity, by substituting for the din of arms, the stir of cities, and thefurrowing of strange oceans by the prows of vulgar traders, the still, primeval
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