The chivalric dragon: hagiographic parallels in early Spanish romances
1977; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 54; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/1475382772000354189
ISSN1469-3550
Autores Tópico(s)Spanish Philosophy and Literature
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: AMADÍS DE GAULA [G. ORDÓÑEZ DE or RODRÍGUEZ DE MONTALVO]CHIVALRY [AS LITERARY/CULTURAL THEME]HAGIOGRAPHYLIBRO DEL CABALLERO CIFAR [F. MARTÍNEZ?]MARTÍNEZ, FERRÁN (fl. late 13th cent./early 14th cent.)MONTALVO, GARCI ORDÓÑEZ DE or RODRÍGUEZ DE (c.1440–before 1505?)RELIGION [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME]ROMANCES/NOVELS OF CHIVALRY Notes 1. The chapter and Unamuno's progressive readings of it have been studied by Diego Catalán, ‘Tres Unamunos ante un capítulo del Quijote’, in Spanish Thought and Letters in the Twentieth Century, ed. Germán Bleiberg and E. Inman Fox (Nashville 1966), 101–41. Recall that the false Quijote of Avellaneda opens when Don Quijote has been given a Flos sanctorum (here, that of Alonso de Villegas, publ. in 1578) as a remedy. For a time, it sparks a new turn in Don Quijote's fictional interests, and he tries to explain its merits to Sancho (see the ed. of Martín de Riquer, Miguel de Cervantes: Obras completas, I [Barcelona 1967], 1152–54). But Avellaneda's Quijote soon closes the book bored. What interests us is how the separate authors have their separate Quijotes respond to the same matter. Avellaneda's offers an orthodox and unenthusiastic appreciation of the legends of the saints, with an almost embarrassed defence of some of the more bizarre episodes. Cervantes’ Quijote, of course, immediately makes a stirring personal transformation of the saints, claiming them for his own world. 2. A similar attempt at sanctoral-chivalric genealogy is found in chap. 37 of Tirant lo Blanc, ‘Com Tirant demanà a l'ermità que li digués en quina edat del món eren estats millors cavallers’ (ed. M. de Riquer [Barcelona 1947], 85–86), when the hermit relates the whole scheme of Old Testament, Classical, and Grail heroes to the exemplary contemporary knights. 3. Romancero general, II (BAE, XVI), 323b. No record of a Spanish novel of chivalry on the theme exists, though the legend is prominent in Golden-Age literature. Versions include Lope de Vega's Nacimiento de Ursón y Valentín, príncipes de Francia, and the ballad of ‘Don Claudio y Doña Margarita’ (probably inspired by Lope's play). Joseph E. Gillet has proposed that Ursón y Valentín was a source for the Quijote, since two of the episodes in the Quijote—'Clavileño’ (II, 41) and ‘la cabeza encantada’ (II, 62)—are found in the earlier tale. Gillet believed that both Lope and Cervantes used an Italian translation of the original French romance of chivalry Valentin et Orson. (‘Clavileño : su fuente directa y sus orígenes primitivos’, Anales Cervantinos, VI [1957], 252–253.) A complete comparison between the details of the Alexis legend and chaps. 69–74 of Valentin et Orson is made by Arthur Dickson, Valentine and Orson : A Study in Late Medieval Romance (New York 1929), 251–64. Perhaps an echo of this same motif can be found in the ‘Earl of Warwick’ (‘lo comte Guillem de Vàroic’) episode of Tirant lo Blanc (chap. 4, ed. Riquer, pp. 16–18). In order to atone for his sins, Guillem goes to an hermitage, changes his garb, and lives alone without concern for earthly affairs. Once a week, he goes to the city of Warwick asking for alms, unrecognized because of his new appearance. Even his wife does not identify him, though she is touched by his humility and gives him alms. 4. The interval is different in the two tales : Alexis lives his last seventeen years unrecognized in his home (Legenda aurea, reading for 17 July); Valentin's penance lasts only seven years (see the English trans, of the French, made by Henry Watson at about 1503, ed. A. Dickson, Valentine and Orson [London 1937], 313). 5. See Dos obras didácticas y dos leyendas (Madrid 1878), 88–93. 6. Menéndez Pelayo, Orígenes de la novela (Madrid 1961 [ed. ‘Nacional’]), I, 296; Thomas, Las novelas de caballerías españolas y portuguesas, trans. E. Pujais (Madrid 1952), 16–18. 7. ‘The sources of El Cavallero Cifar’, RHi, X (1903), 11–30. The connexion was also studied by Gordon Hall Gerould, ‘Forerunners, congeners, and derivatives of the Eustace Legend’, PMLA, XIX (1904), 335–448. Gerould identifies a relationship between the Eustace story and a tale in the Thousand and One Nights (‘Abu-Szaber the Patient’); but he believes that the Zifar was derived from the life of St Eustace (362–65, 446). 8. Dos obras didácticas, 87–88. A more elaborate comparison of related motifs in the two legends (e.g., the separation of brothers and the stealing beast [wolf]) is offered by Dickson, Valentine and Orson: A Study …, 104–13. See also A. D. Deyermond, ‘The lost genre of medieval Spanish literature’, HR, XLIII (1975), 236; Gerould, op. cit., 356–61. 9. The romance of Cresentia (Un muy fermoso cuento de una santa emperatriz que ovo en Rroma et de su castidat) has been edited by Adolf Mussafia, ‘Eine altspanische Prosadarstellung der Crescentiasage’, Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Classe, LIII (1868), 499–562; that of Carlos Maynes (Un noble cuento del enperador Carlos Maynes, de Roma, e de la buena enperatriz Sevilla, su muger) by José Amador de los Ríos, Historia crítica de la literatura española, V (Madrid 1864), 344–91, and by A. Bonilla y San Martín, Libros de caballerías, I (NBAE, VI) (Madrid 1907), 503–33. For an essential classification of these tales, see Deyermond, ‘Lost genre’, 236–37. 10. Although this prayer is found more frequently in Old Spanish poetry (Poema de mio Cid 330–65, Berceo's Loores de Nuestra Señora 91–92, and Milagros 454, Poema de Fernán González 105–13, Libro de buen amor 1–10, Rimado de Palacio 770–81), it is also invoked by distraught heroes, or cited in reference to their dilemmas, in early romances. Compare Cuento de una santa emperatriz [Cresentia], ed. cit., 523, ‘Mas el piadoso Dios, que a la ssu bendita madre enbió el ángel Graviel et que libró a santa Ssusana del testimonio falso por el profecía Daniel, acorrió a la enperatriz,’ and 536, ‘Sennor, que libraste Daniel et lo guardaste en el lago de los leones fanbrientos ! Sennor, que guardaste los tres ninnos en la fornaz sanos et ledos, et te loaron cantando ! Sennor, que guardaste Jonas tres días en el vientre de la ballena salvo, que ningunt mal non prendió …’ ; also, El cuento muy fermoso del enperador Ottas de Roma, et de la infante Florençia su fija, ed. Amador de los Ríos, Historia crítica, V, 441, ‘Dios que guardastes a Daniel de los leones et Elias el profeta levastes …’ and 459, ‘Señor, vós que distes manos a la donzella Anastasia de Rroma que ella non las avia, et que andava pediendo limosnas, et que guardastes los tres niños en la fornalla ardiente, et que librastes Sancta Susana del crimen en que era acusada, et Daniel en el lago de los leones fanbrientos …’ 11. Compare the episode in Estoria del rrey Guillelme, ed. Knust, in Dos obras didácticas, 224. 12. Historia das novellasportuguezas de cavalleria: Formação do Amadis de Gaula (Porto 1873), 40–41. 13. Ibid., 42. 14. Ibid. Note that the version of the life of St Amandus in the Legenda aurea (6 February) and the Old Spanish adaptations of it (Bibl. Nacional MS 12688, folios 276d–279d, Escorial library h–I–14 63c–64b, h–III–22 175c–176d, K–II–12 50c–51a) make no mention of the specific names, nor of the age of the saint, upon which Braga bases his comparison. 15. A sample investigation would be that of the vision of the other world as a mediaeval genre (cf. the stories of Drihthelm, Tundale) and its relation to the Purgatory of St Patrick. Dickson (Valentine and Orson: A Study …, 264–65) suggests that the last chapter of V. and 0. is taken from the St Patrick legend. Others who comment upon the theme in Peninsular literature include Menéndez Pelayo, Orígenes, I, 289ff., María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, in her appendix to H. R. Patch, El otro mundo en la literatura medieval (Mexico 1956), 377, and L. A. Murillo, The Golden Dial: Temporal Configurations in ‘Don Quijote’ (Oxford 1975), 169, n. 29. 16. ‘La leggenda di S. Eustachio’, Nuovi Studi Medievali, III (1926–27), 223–58. 17. Tradition and Technique in ‘El libro del cavallero Zifar’ (London 1974), 27–70. A recent study that would emphasize Western materials in the Zifar is Kari Alfred Blüher's ‘Zur Tradition der politischen Ethik im Libro del Caballero Zifar’, ZfrPh, LXXXVII (1971), 249–57. 18. Walker, 33–39. 19. Ibid., 39–50. It is unlikely that Walker's suggested ‘Semitic’ stylistic features will persuade all readers. For the most part, Walker has turned some small, accidental correspondences into a large thesis of active symbiosis; what he documents as Semitic style is more apparently French. An example would be the use of certas and related forms in the Zifar which for Walker ‘certainly corresponds very closely indeed to the use of ‘inna in Arabic’ (42). In order to prove that çertas represents a rare and deviant device in Old Spanish, he adduces only thirteen other usages (41–42, n. 65). However, a study of the item in similar literary context— in dialogue of early romances, modelled after French originals—would show that çertas is not so exotic as to construct a case for another Arabic calque about it. Compare the following documentations (from editions cited earlier) : Est. rrey Guillelme, 177 (twice), 178 (twice), 187, 188, 207, 222, 239; Cuento de una santa emperatriz (Cresentia), 522, 523, 530, 532, 533, 550; Carlos Maynes, 346, 348, 352, 353, 365, 375, 376; Enperador Ottos de Roma, 395, 398, 400, 401, 407, 410, 426, 436, 438 (twice), 440 (thrice), 441 (twice), 442, 445, 447, 449, 455 (twice), 456, 466, 467. Rather than a Near-Eastern borrowing, çertas was a stylistic trait of the early romance; if anything, it would seem a calque as well as an etymological reflex from French. Note that in other novels of the period çierto will have the same function. Moreover, even early English versions of French originals will not disguise the form: cf., for example, Valentine and Orson, ed. cit., 240, ‘Certes sayd the patriarke we are founded in the honour of god and of the holy saint Thomas.’ 20. Note, however, a general renewal of the critical position welding romance and legends of saints : Vol. VI of Medievalia et Humanística (2nd ser., 1975) contains a series of essays, under the heading ‘Medieval Hagiography and Romance’, which explore the boundaries and confluence of the two genres. 21. See Nancy Bre Miller Black's Columbia Univ. diss., ‘The Hero's Fight with a Dragon or Giant Adversary in Medieval Narrative’ (New York 1971); also, E. Ingersoll's less specialized study, Dragons and Dragon Lore (New York 1928), 181–96. 22. Curiously, the episode with the dragon was not included in the legend of St George until the twelfth century ; it became a permanent segment in the tale only through its inclusion in the Legenda aurea. John E. Matzke (‘The legend of Saint George: Its development into a roman d’aventure’, PMLA, XIX [1904], 449–78) believes that it may have been derived from an early form of the rhymed romance of Sir Beves of Hamtoun. The legend of St George is conserved in several Old Spanish versions of the Legenda aurea : Bibl. Nac. MS 5548, fols. 121r–126v; Bibl. Nac. 10252 112c–116d; Escorial M-II-6 41v-44v; K-II-12 73cff.; h-I-14 91dff.; h-III-22 379bff.; Bibl. de Menéndez Pelayo MS 9, 58bff., etc. For a complete listing of early Latin lives of St George, see the Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, I (Brussels 1898–99), 502–07. 23. Dickson, V. and 0.: A Study, 226–27. 24. Related stories include that of St Sylvester in the Legenda aurea (31 December), conserved in Old Spanish in Bibl. Nac. MS 12688, fol. 128, 5548, fols. 37r–43r, Escorial h–I–14, fols. 39b–42b, etc., and in the Primera crónica general, chap. 318, ed. Menéndez Pidal, I, 187b–90b; St Margaret, Legenda aurea (20 July), in Old Span., Bibl. Nac. MS 780, fol. 245, whose encounter with the dragon is described also in Juan de Padilla, Los doze triumphos de los doze apóstoles, in Canc. cast, del s. XV, ed. Foulché, I, 349b; St Philip, Bibl. Nac. MS 780, fol. 10a; also, episodes of encounter with dragons described in the readings for the feasts of SS. Isidore (Bibl. Nac. 780, fol. 140b), Benedict (Bibl. Nac. 5548, fol. 94v), James the Greater (Bibl. Nac. 5548, fol. 227r). Note also the legend of Christ and the dragons (e.g., in the Castigos e documentos, ed. Pascual de Gayangos [BAE], LI, 145) : dragons appear in the cave where the Holy Family and others have taken refuge from the heat. All are alarmed, but when Christ stands before the dragons, they worship Him and go their way. In addition, there was an extremely prominent iconographic tradition of St Martin and the dragon which may have shaped certain fictional descriptions of the dragon. See Emile Mâle, L’Art religieux du XII e siècle en France (Paris 1947), 259–62. Finally, one might assume a link between the descriptions of fantastic beasts in mediaeval bestiaries and in romances and hagiographies. (Cf. Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou trésor, ch. CXXXXI, ‘Des dragons’, ed. F. Carmody [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1948], 134). 25. The manuscript is described in Knust, Dos obras didácticas, 104–05. 26. The text seems to have served as a base for the life of St Martha in Álvaro de Luna's Libro de las virtuosas e claras mujeres, Book III, chap. 16, ed. Menéndez Pelayo (Madrid 1891), 337. 27. On Montalvo's treatment of material from the primitive Atnadîs in Book III, see Antonio Rodriguez-Moñino, ‘El primer manuscrito del Amadís de Gaula’, in Relieves de erudición (Madrid 1959), 37–38. 28. Compare a similar description in the early English version of Valentine and Orson, ed. Dickson, 218–19: ‘I tell the that I haue sene the beest, and wyte that she is muche hedyous and more gretter of body than a horse, and she hathe also wynges ryght great, and fethered lyke a Gryffon, and hath the head of a serpent, wyth a maruaylous loke, the skyn couered wyth scales much harde and thycke as fysshe that swymme in the see.’ Other dragon episodes in early Hispanic fiction should be mentioned here. In ch. 146 of Las sergas de Esplandián (ed. Gayangos, BAE, XL, 533) there is an incidental dragon legend. The hero's first feat after being armed a knight in Primaleón de Oliva (Seville 1525), ch. 18, fols. 16b–17a, is to kill a dragon who guards the magic fountain. In Book I, ch. 18 of Don Belianís de Grecia, 2d ed. (Medina del Campo 1564), the hero slays a dragon who threatens the damsels (‘era tan grande que más de veynte y cinco pies tenía en largo; era más gruesso que un toro por la cinta …’ [fol. 27d]). One of the most curious dragon episodes is in the ‘dance of death’ sequence in the allegorical romance of chivalry, El cavallero del Sol (Medina del Campo 1552). In ch. 70, fol. 104b, the figure of Death enters a cave, finds a huge dragon (‘una fiera y desemejada sierpe de terrible grandeza, fornescida de agudos cuernos y crueles uñas, las sus espaldas unas boladoras alas cubrían …’), and mounts him for a wild ride in which poison will be spread to all. In Damasio de Frías y Balboa's Lidamarte de Armenia, edited and annotated by Mary Lee Cozad (Ph. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1975) there is a dragon sequence; Dr Cozad believes that in this late romance the source was Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, Book I, canto 8 (p. 990). A. Galmés de Fuentes has made a special study of dragon sequences in aljamiado chivalric narrations, in El Libro de las batallas (narraciones caballerescas aljamiado-moriscos) (Oviedo 1967), 49–50. J. E. Varey shows that huge figures of dragons were important in popular festival demonstrations of the period (Historia de los Uteres en España [Madrid 1957], 62–72). 29. Menéndez Pelayo, Orígenes, I, 291, 452.
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