Sobre Rinconete y Cortadillo

Free Will, the Picaresque, and the Exemplarity of Cervantes'sNovelas ejemplares

David A. Boruchoff

MLN, Volume 124, Number 2, March 2009 (Hispanic Issue), pp. 372-403(Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/mln.0.0121

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MLN 124 (2009): 372–403 © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

1 In this and subsequent references to primary sources, I indicate the internal divi-sions of the work followed by page numbers.

Free Will, the Picaresque, and the Exemplarity of

Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares

David A. Boruchoff

Although my subject is the Christian doctrine of free will and its importance in the revision of the picaresque at the hands of Miguel de Cervantes and others of his generation, rather than the theme of freedom more generally, I would begin by noting that freedom was a multifaceted and often polemical concern in early modern Europe. In this, it differed from today, when, under the enduring in!uence of lib-eralism and its validation of individual rights, individual achievements, and individual liberties, we are wont to cast freedom in a uniquely positive light, akin to that in which Don Quixote portrays the world stretching out before him when, “libre y desembarazado,” he departs the castle of the Duke and Duchess in part two of Cervantes’s novel. “La libertad,” he informs Sancho, “es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre. . . . ¡Venturoso aquel a quien el cielo dio un pedazo de pan sin que le quede obligación de agradecerlo a otro que al mismo cielo!” (2.58, 1195).1

For Don Quixote, freedom is a compound ideal consisting, on one hand, of the license to make one’s own way in the world and, on the other, of the absence of social (worldly) duties and conven-

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tions. Quite otherwise were the understandings of the missionaries Gerónimo de Mendieta and José de Acosta. Writing to Philip II in 1562 to acclaim the labors of his fellow Franciscans in bringing Chris-tianity to the natives of New Spain, Mendieta also construes freedom as a twofold phenomenon. Nevertheless, he complains that the laws enacted to ensure the civil liberties of the crown’s new subjects have impeded the higher goal of religious conversion, because, in its haste to release the Indians from the clutches of their native lords, Spain abandoned them to their own equally bad devices. “En tiempo de la in"delidad,” Mendieta explains, “nadie hacia su voluntad, sino lo que le era mandado, y ahora la mucha libertad nos hace mal, porque no estamos forzados á tener á nadie temor ni respeto” (2: 518). In the same vein, Acosta argues in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) that the oppression to which the Amerindians and others conquered by Spain in recent years have unjustly been subject has, in fact, been bene"cial to their salvation, for “Dios sacó bien de ese mal, e hizo que la sujeción de los indios les fuese su entero remedio, y salud.” He, too, explains:

Véase todo lo que en nuestros siglos se ha de nuevo allegado a la cristiandad en Oriente y Poniente, y véase cuán poca seguridad y "rmeza ha habido en la fe y religión cristiana dondequiera que los nuevamente convertidos han tenido entera libertad para disponer de sí a su albedrío. En los indios sujetos, la cristiandad va sin duda creciendo y mejorando, y dando de cada día más fruto, y en otros de otra suerte de principios más dichosos, va descayendo y amenazando ruina. (7.1, 376–77)

These contradictory understandings of freedom are typical of the crisis that arose in early modern Europe from the expansion of geographic, intellectual, scienti"c, and religious horizons, on one hand, and from the breakdown of traditional certainties and author-ity (auctoritas), on the other. They also inform the de"nitions of libre and libertad given by Sebastián de Covarrubias in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana, o española (1611). Starting with the premise that libre “Tiene por opuesto siervo. Y dízese liber qualquiera que es sui iuris,” and that libertad is the natural (or immanent) power to do whatever one likes, unless it is prohibited by the force of arms or by law (Libertas est naturalis facultas, eius, quod cuique facere libet, nisi quod vi, aut iure prohibetur), Covarrubias adduces "rst the positive, and then the nega-tive, aspects of freedom. Of the positive, he states: “Llamamos libre al soltero que no es casado. Libre, el que está sin culpa. Y libre, aquel a quien el juez ha dado por tal.” And of the negative: “Libre, el que

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2 The same senses also appear in English sources of the period. The Oxford English Dictionary attests, for example, that the word libertine was "rst applied to antinomian sects and then to other “free-thinkers,” particularly foreigners, who were not duly restrained by morality or religion in their words and actions (p. 1613).

3 Erasmus’s full statement, including the aphorism (“liber non est, qui servit vitiis”) misquoted by Noydens, reads: “Asked what is the most excellent thing in life, [Diogenes] said ‘freedom.’ But in truth he who is bound by vices is not free; nor can one who needs many things be free, and he who is avaricious, ambitious, and given to delights needs a great many, indeed.” This concept of freedom also informs the statements “he would indeed call slaves any who are bound by desires,” and “freedom, however penurious, is to be preferred to all the delights of wealth, by which freedom is made less” (Apophthegmata 175, 184). These and all translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

es suelto de lengua, diziendo todo lo que le parece, sin respetar ni perdonar a nadie” (764–65).2

To this even-handed exposition of civil liberties, Benito Remigio Noydens would add the following in his 1674 edition of Covarrubias’s Tesoro, bringing the spiritual and ethical demands of the freedom to think and choose for oneself to the fore to make it clear that one is anything but free if, in serving worldly and sel"sh interests alone, one abuses the power to choose wisely:

Tiene libertad, dize San Ambrosio, . . . el que no ama, quien no teme, el que a ninguno haze daño, quien con segura esperança de lo presente no teme lo venidero. Y no la tiene, dize Erasmo en sus Apothemas, el que a los vicios se rinde, sino sugeción desdichada y miserable esclavitud. Nemo liber qui servit cupiditatibus. . . . La libertad que buscan los hereges de nuestros tiempos y llaman libertad de conciencia, es servidumbre de alma y licencia que, como dize Lactancio, parit audatiam, quae ad omne !agitium, et facinus evadit. (Covarrubias 765)

These words and especially the warning that no one who is bound by desires is free—Nemo liber qui servit cupiditatibus—help to explain why the repudiation of the comforts had in the castle of the Duke and Duchess is concomitant with the pursuit of freedom for Don Quixote. For whereas Erasmus completes the aphorism cited (imprecisely) by Noydens with the comment “nor can one who needs many things be free, and he who is avaricious, ambitious, and given to delights needs a great many, indeed” (Apophthegmata 190),3 Don Quixote says to Sancho: “bien has visto el regalo, la abundancia que en este castillo que dejamos hemos tenido; pues en mitad de aquellos banquetes sazonados y de aquellas bebidas de nieve me parecía a mí que estaba metido entre las estrechezas de la hambre, porque no lo gozaba con la libertad que lo gozara si fueran míos, que las obligaciones de las

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4 Although all but ignored by critics, this assimilation of knight-errantry to saintly and apostolic endeavor occurs at other key junctures in part two of Cervantes’s novel, particularly in moments of transition and crisis, to reaf"rm the higher values informing Don Quixote’s calling against the opinion of those who take it as mere parodic imitation of knightly gestures, that is, as play acting. For example, when Don Quixote and Sancho set out again in Chapter 8, Sancho proposes “que nos demos a ser santos y alcanzare-mos más brevemente la buena fama que pretendemos,” prompting Don Quixote to respond: “muchos son los caminos por donde Dios lleva a los suyos al cielo: religión es la caballería, caballeros santos hay en la gloria.” Their conversation continues:

—Sí—respondió Sancho—, pero yo he oído decir que hay más frailes en el cielo que cabal-leros andantes.

—Eso es—respondió don Quijote—porque es mayor el número de los religiosos que el de los caballeros.

—Muchos son los andantes—dijo Sancho.—Muchos—respondió don Quijote—, pero pocos los que merecen nombre de caballeros.

(2.8, 756–57)

recompensas de los bene"cios y mercedes recebidas son ataduras que no dejan campear al ánimo libre” (2.58, 1195).

Although critics argue credibly for the envy and resentment that Don Quixote may harbor for others (Don Diego de Miranda, Camacho el rico, the Duke and Duchess) in the novel of 1615 whose wealth vastly exceeds that of his alter ego, Alonso Quijano, whose meager existence is set forth at the start of part one, it remains that Don Quixote’s praise of freedom, and his denigration of material goods and values, far surpass any negative motivation, despite the phrase “porque no lo [= el regalo] gozaba con la libertad que lo gozara si [aquellos banquetes] fueran míos.” That the repudiation of worldly comforts is instead positive can be seen, above all, in the af"nity of Don Quixote’s words to the asceticism of Christianity, with which he continually associates his own endeavor as knight-errant. It is, indeed, no coincidence that, immediately after issuing this paean to freedom, Don Quixote comes across the images of Saints George, Martin, James, and Paul, all “de los mejores andantes que tuvo la milicia divina,” “adventureros cristianos,” and “de los más valientes santos y caballeros que tuvo el mundo y que tiene agora el cielo.” This characterization rede"nes Don Quixote’s vocation—which, as a result, has little to do with the farcical notions of the Duke, Duchess, and other simplistic readers of part one—at a crucial point in the novel,4 and Don Quixote takes this encounter as auspicious, “porque estos santos y caballeros profesaron lo que yo profeso” (2.58, 1197–98). Similarly disassociat-ing true freedom and worldly values in the prologue to part one, the author’s friend advises that, “tratando de libertad y cautiverio,” he cite the Latin adage Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro (15)— freedom is


5 The two lines “Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro: / Hoc celeste bonum preterit orbis opes” form the moral of Walter of England’s versi"cation of Aesop’s fable of the dog and the wolf. To the same end, Noyden’s commentary on the word libertad states: “Non bene libertas pro toto benditur [sic for venditur] orbe. Quidam captivus cum venderetur, ac praecio [sic for praeco] diceret, se mancipium vendere: Sceleste, inquit, non dicas captivum. Non puduit durae conditionis, sed puduit tituli servilis. Tantus extat libertatis amor. Plutarco, in Laconem” (Covarrubias 765). The errors in this citation, its echoes of Walter of Eng-land’s adage, and its distinctly Spanish syntax invite the conclusion that Noydens was writing from memory and may have glossed, rather than quoted, Plutarch.

6 On the polemical idea of determinism in La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, see Boruchoff, “La malograda invención de la picaresca.”

not pro"tably sold for all the gold in existence—an assertion explained in the original, twelfth-century fable of Walter of England by the premise that freedom has no price because it is a God-given boon: Hoc celeste bonum preterit orbis opes (this celestial blessing surpasses all the riches of the world).5

The same constraints put upon freedom by material and social factors help to explain why Rinconete and Cortadillo are initially described, not for what they are and have, but for what they are not and have not. Negation underwrites the adjectives “descosidos, rotos y maltratados” used to sum them up by the narrator of Cervantes’s novel (Novelas ejemplares 161), leaving us, again, to imagine how these two characters differ from expectations. So, too, does absence inform the inventory of personal effects that follows. We are told that they have neither capes nor stockings, that their shoes lack soles, that their hats are without bands, etc. The social trappings, conventions, and ties that might de"ne them in the eyes of others are missing, so that, as Cortadillo suggests when the two "rst meet, in distancing themselves from parents and patria, they are free, indeed. Urged on by Rinconete’s pointed comment “[p]ues, en verdad . . . , que no parece vuesa merced del cielo,” he explains in language equally alien to his social identity: “Mi tierra, . . . no la sé, ni para dónde camino, tampoco. . . . [M]i tierra no es mía, pues no tengo en ella más de un padre, que no me tiene por hijo, y una madrastra que me trata como alnado; el camino que llevo es a la ventura, y allí le daría "n donde hallase quien me diese lo necesario para pasar esta miserable vida” (164).

This is, of course, a commentary on the picaresque genre and, more particularly, on the idea of environmental and hereditary determinism central to the self-justi"cation of La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes.6 For although the occupations of pardoner and tailor practiced by the two boys’ fathers suggest, within the imaginary of the time, a disdain for

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7 This compound aspect of free will is discussed by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theolo-giae 1.83, 1: 506a–10b. Like later Catholic theologians, Thomas Aquinas does not deny divine providence, but instead insists that God invested man with the freedom to use his also God-given discretion and ability to reason, which distinguish human beings from brute animals, as Aristotle said (Politics 1.2–6, 2: 1987–92). The biblical authority normally cited to support this doctrine is Ecclesiasticus 15:14: “God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel.” The Glossa ordinaria explains that this counsel is man’s free will, noting “potestate arbitrarii” interlinearly. To this, Nicholas of Lyra adds an extensive commentary on free will and sin, declaring that “God is the cause of causes and, moreover, the ef"cient cause of free will,” but “God is in no way the cause of sin,” because he does not ordain how free will is to be used (in Bibliorvm sacrorvm 3: 2045–48).

8 Succinctly stated by Thomas Aquinas in De malo 2.2, 238a: “sin does not have the quality of moral evil unless it derives from that which is voluntary,” this teaching is considered in detail in Summa Theologiae 1–2.74.1–75.4, 2: 1115b–30a.

9 Francisco Porras de la Cámara, racionero of the Seville cathedral, compiled a miscellany in the "rst years of the seventeenth century for the entertainment of the archbishop, Fernando Niño de Guevara (d. 1609). The manuscript that accordingly bears Porras de la Cámara’s name was rediscovered in 1788 by the secretary of the Real Academia

probity also found in their offspring, it remains that each of the latter has made a conscious and willful decision to become what he now is. This is the essence of free will or, more properly, free choice (liberum arbitrium, libre albedrío), an imperative that consists in the capacity of all human beings to distinguish and, therefore, choose between right and wrong, and also in the power to act upon this decision.7 This conjointly intellectual and moral agency, which theologians like Thomas Aquinas called potestas rationalis et voluntatis, and without which there would be neither error nor sin,8 is at the core of the Catholic understand-ing of salvation, as Erasmus made clear in de"ning free will as “the force of the human will by which man may be in a position to apply himself to, or turn away from, that which leads to eternal salvation” (De libero arbitrio 1220–21). The same agency is conspicuous in the speech of Rinconete and Cortadillo, whose expressions of cognition, discernment, volition, and potency—aprendí, abracé, saqué, tomé, dejé, salí, vi, procuré, etc.—stand in sharp contrast to the uncertainty, if not ambivalence and equivocation, both of the setting, and of the narra-tor’s commentary at the start of the novel. We are told that Rinconete and Cortadillo meet by chance (acaso), but their words and actions are ordered by the inner force of intellect and will.

This methodical contrasting of the inner and outer worlds of the protagonists sets the text published in the Novelas ejemplares of 1613 apart from that found in the manuscript (c. 1606) of Francisco Por-ras de la Cámara and, I maintain, re!ects Cervantes’s meditation on the problem of picaresque determinism.9 Not only does Cervantes


de San Francisco, Isidoro Bosarte, who had been charged with organizing the books and papers left behind in the colleges of the recently expelled Jesuits. Later that same year, the manuscript’s texts of Rinconete y Cortadillo and El celoso extremeño were published, along with La tía "ngida, another novella attributed to Cervantes, in volumes 4 and 5 of the Gabinete de lectura española. After passing from hand to hand and disappearing from sight, the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara found its way into the possession of the bibliophile Bartolomé José Gallardo, and was "nally lost forever on 13 June 1823, when Gallardo !ed Seville to escape the royalists. In what follows, all quotations from the manuscript versions of Rinconete y Cortadillo and El celoso extremeño are taken from Jorge García López’s edition of the Novelas ejemplares.

10 “En la venta del Molinillo, que está puesta en los "nes de los famosos campos de Alcudia, como vamos de Castilla a la Andalucía, un día de los calurosos del verano, se hallaron en ella acaso dos muchachos de hasta edad de catorce a quince años; el uno ni el otro no pasaban de diez y siete” (161). The self-conscious ambiguities of these lines from the Novelas ejemplares of 1613 contrast with the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara: “En la venta del Molinillo, que está en los campos de Alcudia, viniendo de Castilla para la Andalucía, ya en la entrada de Sierra Morena, un día de los calurosos del verano del año 1569 se hallaron dos muchachos zagalejos, el uno de edad de quince años y el otro de diez y siete” (651). Rather than to see this difference between the two texts as a means to heighten the agency of the protagonists by diminishing the omniscience of the narrator, some critics identify an essentially artistic intention, the quest for inverisimilitude or irrealism, nevertheless in opposition to traditional picaresque narrative.

11 “No menos le suspendía la obediencia y respeto que todos tenían a Monipodio, siendo un hombre bárbaro, rústico y desalmado” (Novelas ejemplares 215). The intel-lectual activity implicit in the term suspender is underlined by Covarrubias: “parar en algún negocio; suspenso, el que está parado y perplexo” (948).

12 “CONSIDERAR. Tener advertencia, pensar bien las cosas, reparando en ellas; del verbo considero, as, dispicio, iudicio, cogito” (Covarrubias 350).

heighten the agency of his actors at the start of the published novel by destabilizing that of the self-conscious, ironic, and no longer omniscient narrator,10 but he alters the conclusion so that Rinconete does not merely react to what he has seen with Monipodio but, more important, passes judgment upon it. In both versions the verb admirar conveys Rinconete’s surprise before occurrences that, in accord with Covarrubias’s de"nition of the term, are so extraordinary that he is moved to “inquirir, escudriñar y discurrir cerca de lo que se le ofrece, hasta quietarse con el conocimiento de la verdad” (43), while in the published novel he also pauses—the verb used is suspender 11—to weigh the signi"cance of his experience. Thus, if before, in the manuscript, his reading of Monipodio’s ledger “sacábalo de su juicio” (681), he is now able to make sense of it, as Cervantes indicates with the verb considerar: “Consideraba lo que había leído en su libro de memoria. . . . Finalmente, exageraba cuán descuidada justicia había en aquella tan famosa ciudad de Sevilla” (215).12 As a result, where the text of Por-ras de la Cámara climaxes in the statement that Rinconete “propuso

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13 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.18.1, 1: 303b–04a: “[O]ne opposite is known through the other, as darkness is known through light. Hence, it is right to grasp what evil is from the quality of good. We have said that good is everything desir-able, and as all nature desires its own being and its own perfection, it must be said that the being and perfection of any sort of nature has the quality of goodness. Hence, it cannot be that evil signi"es a kind of being or a kind of form or nature. It remains, therefore, that by the word ‘evil’ one means a certain absence of good. And for this it is said that evil is neither a thing existing in itself nor a good, for insofar as a thing of this kind that exists in itself is good, this thing [good] is removed from the other [evil].” See also De malo 1.1, 222b: “evil indeed is in things, but as privation and not as something real; and therefore it can be said that evil has existence in reason and not in reality, because in the intellect it is something, but not in reality.” This oppositional de"nition is also found in Covarrubias: “MAL. Opuesto a bien, latine malum. MALO. Lo que es contrario a bueno, y ay muchas diferencias de malo, las quales se queden para los "lósofos y teólogos” (781). In regard to malicia, Noydens adds: “Es vicio, como dize San Climaco, que está en la naturaleza, aunque no está en ella naturalmente, porque no es Dios criador de vicios, antes crió en el hombre muchas virtudes naturales, como la caridad, la compassión, la "delidad, que todo esto se halla aún entre gentiles” (781).

14 This notion of barbarism as a de"ciency or degeneracy is rooted in Aristotle, Poli-tics 1.5, 2: 1989–91. Explaining that speech distinguishes humans from beasts, making them “civil animals,” Thomas Aquinas notes: “they indeed say that every man whose language they do not understand is a barbarian,” and that a barbarian is “anyone seen to deviate from the human genus . . . and thus they naturally call those who lack reason ‘barbarians’” (In octo libros Politicorum 1.1, 11). Montaigne observes in his essay “Des cannibales” (Of Cannibals, 1580): “Everyone calls whatever is not of his own habit ‘barbarism.’ Truly, it seems that we have no image of truth and of reason but the example and idea of the opinions and habits of the land where we are. For, in that place, there is always perfect religion, perfect civility, the perfect and accomplished use of all things” (1.31, 1: 234).

en sí de aconsejar a su compañero no durase mucho en aquella vida tan perdida, peligrosa y disoluta” (682), Cervantes’s novel dwells on the moral consequence of the freedoms enjoyed by Monipodio by substituting the terms “tan mala, tan inquieta, y tan libre” for the word peligrosa in this series: “propuso en sí de aconsejar a su compañero no durasen mucho en aquella vida tan perdida y tan mala, tan inquieta, y tan libre y disoluta” (215).

We are thus reminded of the contrastive sense that la vida libre has in picaresque "ction. As evil is de"ned by Christian theology, not as something in itself, but as the privation, absence, corruption, or diminution of the good inherent in all God’s creation,13 and as barba-rism is always conceptualized in ancient, medieval, and early modern culture by those things—morality, reason, speech, clothing, personal property, tools, rulers, money, laws, religion—that barbarians are seen to lack in the eyes of another who has them,14 Monipodio’s freedom is characterized by what it is not, as the pairing of the adjectives perdida,


15 The de"nitions given for these terms by Covarrubias are all raised upon negation. For example: “DISSOLUCIÓN. El desatamiento, la desemboltura, el soltar la rienda a los vicios, con mal exemplo y escándalo. Dissoluto, el desatado, el desbaratado, el desenfrenado en los vicios” (478). Similar is the sense of libre in the description of Ro-dolfo at the start of La fuerza de la sangre: “la libertad demasiada y las compañías libres le hacían hacer cosas y tener atrevimientos que desdecían de su calidad y le daban renombre de atrevido” (Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares 304).

mala, inquieta, and disoluta with libre implies in the published novel.15 My point is not that Monipodio would necessarily be deemed evil, but instead that he would be perceived as less than fully human, at least as regards the moral and intellectual capacities that distinguish men from lesser animals. The narrator casts his physiognomy in terms usually reserved for beasts and savages—“moreno de rostro, cecijunto, barbinegro y muy espeso; los ojos, hundidos. Venía en camisa, y por la abertura de delante descubría un bosque: tanto era el vello que tenía en el pecho. . . ; las manos eran cortas, pelosas, y los dedos, gordos, y las uñas, hembras y remachadas; las piernas no se le parecían, pero los pies eran descomunales, de anchos y juanetudos”—while calling him “el más rústico y disforme bárbaro del mundo” (184). As with other adjectives used to describe Monipodio and his associates, disforme de"nes Monipodio by what he is not, that is, by his departure from what is commonly expected of a civil, rational, and human being.

This impression of de"ciency is ampli"ed because Monipodio is set in opposition to the exceedingly lucid Rinconete. Following the lead of Jerónimo Cortés, whose Libro de phisonomia natvral, y varios efetos de natvraleza (1598) went through at least a dozen editions in the "fteen years leading up to the publication of the Novelas ejemplares, readers of Cervantes’s time would understand that whereas lesser beings are inclined to follow the disposition of the body and stars, those endowed with reason can resist this natural in!uence to act freely, instead, upon their own judgments. As Cortés explains:

[L]a bondad y malicia del alma muchas vezes sigue la buena, o mala cõple-sion del cuerpo; de do se dixo aquel refran tã antiguo, y por la mayor parte verdadero, que quie mala cara tiene, malos hechos mãtiene: y es porque la disformidad y mala disposicion de la cara prouiene de la mala complesiõ de todo el cuerpo, y assi la mala cara y ruynes faciones del rostro, denotan pessimos costumbres en el alma; no porque la tal complesion y natvraleza sea bastante a forçar el libre aluedrio, sino porque resistimos poco a las malas inclinaciones naturales; agora procedan de la mala cõplesion, agora de la in!uencia de los cuerpos celestes, a los quales estan sugetas todas las cosas corporeas y elementales deste mundo. (5v–6r)

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The moral and linguistic framework of the novel leads us to com-prehend how and why, together and juxtaposed, the life stories of Rinconete and Monipodio “serán de gran consideración y . . . podrán servir de ejemplo y aviso a los que las leyeren” (215), for in them we see how reason and will endow man with true freedom, an ideal to which mere nonconformity cannot attain.

Something similar is at work at the beginning of La ilustre fregona, in that an act of will sets Carriazo on the path of a freedom also de"ned by absence. We are told redundantly, lest we miss the point, that Carriazo left home of his own volition: “llevado de una inclinación picaresca, sin forzarle a ello algún mal tratamiento que sus padres le hiciesen, sólo por su gusto y antojo, se desgarró.” So, too, are the comforts, duties, and expectations of the society that Carriazo forsakes a fundamental part of what, here too, and again in La Gitanilla, is called la vida libre:

[S]e fue por ese mundo adelante, tan contento de la vida libre, que, en la mitad de las incomodidades y miserias que trae consigo, no echaba menos la abundancia de la casa de su padre, ni el andar a pie le cansaba, ni el frío le ofendía, ni el calor le enfadaba. Para él todos los tiempos del año le eran dulce y templada primavera; tan bien dormía en parvas como en colchones; con tanto gusto se soterraba en un pajar de un mesón como si se acostara entre dos sábanas de holanda. (372–73)

The burden of social conventions is, in contrast, seen in Carriazo’s melancholy after his return to Burgos, completing the paradigm at issue: “Ni le entretenía la caza, en que su padre le ocupaba, ni los muchos, honestos y gustosos convites que en aquella ciudad se usan le daban gusto” (377). Not surprisingly, the freedom of Gypsies is presented in very similar conceits and language in La Gitanilla to make clear its oppositional character. Asserting that “la libre y ancha vida nuestra no está sujeta a melindres ni a muchas ceremonias,” a Gypsy elder explains:

Para nosotros las inclemencias del cielo son oreos; refrigerio, las nieves; baños, la lluvia; músicas, los truenos, y hachas, los relámpagos. Para nosotros son los duros terrones colchones de blandas plumas. . . . No nos fatiga el temor de perder la honra, ni nos desvela la ambición de acrecentarla, ni sustentamos bandos, ni madrugamos a dar memoriales, ni acompañar magnates, ni a solicitar favores. Por dorados techos y suntuosos palacios estimamos estas barrancas y movibles ranchos; por cuadros y países de Flandes, los que nos da la naturaleza en esos levantados riscos y nevadas peñas, tendidos prados y espesos bosques que a cada paso a los ojos se nos muestran. . . . Un mismo rostro hacemos al sol que al hielo; a la esterilidad


16 Written in indictment of the Reformation, Erasmus’s De libero arbitrio (1524) was contested by Martin Luther in De servo arbitrio (1525), prompting the more exhaustive defense of free will in Erasmus’s Hyperaspistes (1526). In citing this controversy, which brings to light various doctrinal differences between Catholic and Lutheran reformers, I do not mean to suggest that the analyses of Erasmus and Luther were the most insight-ful or in!uential of the many published in the sixteenth century. More important was the debate between supporters and detractors of Aristotle’s commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. This was launched by Girolamo Bagolino’s In Interpretationem Alexandri Aphrodisei de fato (1516) and Pietro Pomponazzi’s De fato, libero arbitrio, praedestinatione, prouidentia Dei, libri V (1520; 1st ed. 1567).

17 On 13 January 1547, the Council of Trent decreed that free will, and not grace alone, is needed for salvation, and that it is anathema to assert the contrary (Sacros. Concilii Tridentini canones et decreta 66). The dissenting views on free will of Luther had already been condemned by Pope Leo X in the bull Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520); those of Michel Baius would similarly be condemned by Pius V in Ex omnibus af!ictionibus (1 October 1567). Both texts in Henricus Denzinger 277, 351.

18 The Inquisitorial condemnation of Huarte’s Examen and a list of the passages to be expurgated are reproduced in facsimile in Index de l’Inquisition espagnole 999–1000. This work had already been condemned by the Portuguese Index of 1581 because of its anonymity.

que a la abundancia. En conclusión, somos gente que vivimos por nuestra industria y pico, y sin entremeternos con el antiguo refrán: “Iglesia, o mar, o casa real.” Tenemos lo que queremos, pues nos contentamos con lo que tenemos. (70–73)

As a result of these and similar statements, when the narrator of La ilustre fregona concludes that Carriazo “salió tan bien con el asunto de pícaro, que pudiera leer cátedra en la facultad al famoso de Alfarache” (373), early modern readers would have a very particular idea of what this means, in that Carriazo’s vida libre is free, not only of the social constraints that typically bind “decent” society, but also of the deter-minism and misery—that is, the forces that Christian theology labels necessitas or necessity—that picaresque precursors such as Lázaro de Tormes would have us see in their adventures.

This is perhaps to be expected, insofar as free will assumed greater importance over the course of the sixteenth century, becoming a sign and sine qua non of Catholic belief due to its prominence in the rift between Erasmus and Luther,16 and also in the decrees of the Council of Trent.17 When Juan Huarte de San Juan’s Examen de ingenios para las ciencias (1575) was put on the 1583 Index of works prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition, it was largely because of the contention that man’s habits are determined, rather than in!uenced or disposed, by the humors of the body.18 The heavily expurgated and revised text published posthumously in 1594 resolved this error in a way signi"-cant to our discussion; for it not only conformed to Catholic (and

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19 The original text of Huarte’s Examen insists at length upon the similarities between brute animals and humans, for which “se entiende que los brutos animales usan también de prudencia y razón mediante la compostura de su celebro, o que nuestra ánima racional no se aprovecha de este miembro por instrumento para sus obras” (94). In contrast, the revised edition reads in part: “La potencia en que di"ere el hombre de los brutos animales es el entendimiento. Y, porque éste hace sus obras sin órgano corporal ni depende de él in esse ac conservari, por tanto Naturaleza no añadió nada en la compostura del celebro humano” (385).

20 See Summa Theologiae 1.60.2, 1: 363a, and 1.115.4, 1: 688a, respectively. While both phrases were given their common meaning by Thomas Aquinas, they predate him in part, insofar as they draw upon Greek authors. On “vir sapiens dominabitur astris,” see note 33 below. The phrase “in naturalibus nec meremur nec demeremur” appears to be inspired by Aristotle: “[W]e are not called good or bad on the grounds of our

scholastic) doctrine, but appropriated the language of the Church’s decrees in proof of its obeisance. On one hand, it carefully distin-guished between the physical and intellectual facets of understanding to re!ect the teaching that, while man’s body and brain (cerebro) are subject to external forces, his mind (ingenio) is always free.19 On the other hand, it said in reference to what it had before asserted:

Pero esta opinión es falsa y contra el común consentimiento de los "lóso-fos morales, los cuales a"rman «que las virtudes son hábitos espirituales sujetados en el ánima racional.» Porque cual es el accidente, tal ha de ser el sujeto donde cae. Mayormente que, como el ánima sea el agente y movedor, y el cuerpo el que ha de ser movido, más a propósito caen las virtudes en el que hace que en el que padece. Y si las virtudes y vicios fuesen hábitos que dependieran del temperamento, seguirseía que el hombre obraría como agente natural y no libre, necesitado con el apetito bueno o malo que le señalase el temperamento; y de esta manera las buenas obras no merecerían ser premiadas ni las malas castigadas, conforme aquello: in naturalibus nec meremur nec demeremur. Mayormente que vemos muchos hombres virtuosos con temperamento malo y vicioso, que los inclina antes a pecar que a obrar conforme a virtud; de quien se dijo: vir sapiens dominabitur astris. . . . Por donde se entiende que la prudencia y sabiduría, y las demás virtudes humanas, están en el ánima, y que no dependen de la compostura y temperamento del cuerpo como pensaron Hipócrates y Galeno. (440–41)

Although Huarte does not indicate the source of the two quotations in Latin—“in naturalibus nec meremur nec demeremur” (in natural acts we acquire neither merit nor demerit) and “vir sapiens domina-bitur astris” (the wise man rules the stars)—both were well known in early modern times due to their prominence in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, where they upheld man’s free will against biological, emotional, environmental, and other irrational agents.20


passions, but are so called on the ground of our excellences and our vices. . . . [W]e feel anger and fear without choice, but the excellences are choices or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we are said to be moved, but in respect of the excellences and vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way” (Nicomachean Ethics 2.5, 2: 1746). Thomas Aquinas refers to this teaching in De veritate in terms similar to those cited by Huarte: “According to the Philosopher . . . , everything that is in the soul is a habit, or an ability, or a passion. But conscience is not a passion, for by passions we acquire neither merit nor demerit, nor are we praised or vituperated” (17.1, 263b).

21 This teaching is recurrent. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.111.2, 1.115.4, 1–2.9.4–5, and 2–2.95.5; Summa contra gentiles 3.84 and 3.93; De veritate 5.9–10; De anima 31.4; and Compendium theologiae 1.127–28. The adage “Astra inclinant, sed non urgent” is listed in John Clarke’s Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina under “Necessitas” (225), although it does not appear in Erasmus’s Adagiorum. Variants include: “Astra inclinant, non necessi-tant,” “Astra inclinant, sed non cogunt,” “Astra inclinant, sed non determinant,” etc.

It is no casual occurrence in this context that in 1599, in what was intended to be the "nal chapter of his life story, Guzmán de Alfarache explicitly repudiates the premise that his downfall was the result of adverse fortune by adducing the Church’s stand against judicial astrology: “No podré decir que mi corta estrella lo causó, sino que mi larga desvergüenza lo perdió. Las estrellas no fuerzan, aunque incli-nan. . . . Libre albedrío te dieron con que te gobernases. La estrella no te fuerza ni todo el cielo junto con cuantas tiene te puede forzar; tú te fuerzas a dejar lo bueno y te esfuerzas en lo malo, siguiendo tus deshonestidades, de donde resultan tus calamidades” (1.3.10, 1: 454). Although modern editors have failed to catch the reference, Guzmán’s assertion that “las estrellas no fuerzan, aunque inclinan” is no mere commonplace, but instead a direct citation from Thomas Aquinas,21 as James Mabbe made clear by retranslating it into Latin, before glossing it, in his English edition of 1622:

I cannot say, that my malignant Starre was the cause thereof, but that mine owne euill inclination was the worker of my woe; For the starres non compellunt, sed inclinant, they incline, but not constraine. They make men apt, but they doe not coact. . . . [F]or there is no necessitie, that it is, or should be so; it is thou thy selfe, that mak’st it so to be.

In these Morall and outward things, thou hast a kinde of free-will con-ferred vpon thee, whereby thou maist (if thou wilt) gouerne both thy selfe, and thy actions. Thy starre cannot constraine thee, nor all the heauens ioyned together with all the force and power that they haue, cannot compell thee against thy will. It is thou that forcest thy selfe to leaue what is good, and to apply thy selfe to that which is euill, following thy dishonest desires, whence these thy crosses and calamities come vpon thee. (1: 251–52)

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22 See, for example, Garcilaso de la Vega: “En este amor no entré por desvarío, / ni lo traté, como otros, por engaños, / ni fue por eleción de mi alvedrío: // desde mis tiernos y primeros años / a aquella parte m’inclinó mi estrella / y aquel "ero destino de mis daños” (“Égloga II” 164–69, 316). As the notes to the text indicate, the same "gure of speech is used by Jacopo Sannazaro in his Arcadia and by Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in several works.

23 Heinrich Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger: “That the character of humans is caused by the constellations can be understood in two ways. Either it is a necessary and suf-"cient cause or a conditional one that gives a tendency. If the "rst is stated, then this is not only false but heretical, because it is so contrary to the Christian religion that the truth of the Faith cannot even be saved amid such an error. Explanation. [When it is argued that e]verything happens obligatorily because of the constellations, it destroys merit and consequently demerit. In addition, because respectability in character is predetermined on the basis of this error in that the guilt of the sinner devolves upon the constellations, licence to commit evil without censure is granted. . . . If, on the other hand, one says that the character of humans is varied by the dispositions of the constellations in a conditional way that creates a tendency, then this can be true, since it is contrary neither to reason nor to the Faith. For it is clear that the varying disposi-tion of the body greatly contributes to the variation of the desires and character of the soul” (1.5, 2: 95–96, trans. Mackay).

24 Dante: “Voi che vivete ogne cagion recate / pur suso al cielo, pur come se tutto / movesse seco di necessitate. // Se così fosse, in voi fora distrutto / libero arbitrio, e non

The reasoning behind this statement is set forth, again, by Thomas Aquinas:

Acts of free will, which is the power of will and reason, are distinct from the causality of celestial bodies, for the intellect or reason is not a body or an act of a bodily organ; and as a consequence neither is the will. . . . Indeed, no body can impress itself on an incorporeal thing. Hence, it is impossible that celestial bodies impress themselves on the intellect and will directly, for this would be to suppose that intellect does not differ from the faculty of sense. . . . Wherefore celestial bodies cannot by themselves be the cause of the operations of free will. Nevertheless, they can incline [the will] to these dispositively insofar as they make an impression on the human body, and consequently on the sensitive powers, which are acts of bodily organs. . . . However, because the sensitive powers obey reason, . . . no necessity at all is imposed on free will by this; but instead, through rea-son, man is able to act against the inclination of celestial bodies. (Summa Theologiae 2–2.95.5, 1920b–21a)

Despite exceptions in the supposedly pagan world of pastoral literature—in which, as a rhetorical device, the choices of star-crossed lovers are said to be written in the heavens22—similar statements about the stars and free will abound in late medieval and early modern Europe. There are examples in religious and Inquisitorial handbooks such as Malleus Male"carum (1486),23 in creative works such as Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia,24 and in treatises on a broad variety of


for a giustizia / per ben letizia, e per male aver lutto. // Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia; / non dico tutti, ma, posto ch’i ’l dica, / lume v’è dato a bene e a malizia, // e libero voler; che, se fatica / ne le prime battaglie col ciel dura, / poi vince tutto, se ben si notrica. // A maggior forza ed a miglior natura / liberi soggiacete; e quella cria / la mente in voi, che ’l ciel non ha in sua cura. // Però, se ’l mondo presenta disvia, in voi è la cagione, in voi si cheggia” (You that are living refer every cause up to the heavens alone, just as if they moved all things with them by necessity. If it were so, free choice would be destroyed in you and there would be no justice in happiness for well-doing and misery for evil. The heavens initiate your impulses; I do not say all, but, if I did, light is given on good and evil, and free will, and if it bear the strain in the "rst battlings with the heavens, then, being rightly nurtured, it conquers all. To a greater power and to a better nature you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought” (16.67–83, 211–13, trans. Sinclair).

25 Among numerous examples, see Burton on the power of the heavenly bodies: “If thou shalt aske me what I thinke. I muste answere, they doe incline, but not compell; no necessitie at all: Agunt, non cogunt: and so gently incline, that a wise man may resist them; sapiens dominabitur astris: they rule vs, but God rules them” (1.2, 74). See also George Atwell, who presumes to defend astrology as follows: “Astra inclinant voluntatem, in nullo tamen necessitant. Accidit tamen frequentèr Astrologos vera prognosticare de moribus hominum, propter pronitatem eorum ad sequendum appetitum sensitivam. The stars incline the will . . . yet in no wise necessitate it, notwithstanding it often hapneth that Astrologers fore-tel truths concerning the manners of men, by reason of their proneness to fol-low their sensitive appetite. And though some pretending to the Art have abused it, onely to please those that have imployed them, upon hopes to have the more liberal reward, yet what is that to us, or against pure Astrology? . . . [T]he honest, sober and learned Astrologer (that makes reason his guide, and looks onely upon the natural and in!uential operation of the Planets and Stars) scorns & utterly abominates these actions” (“To the reader,” n.p.).

26 Torquemada: “las constelaciones in!uyen en los hombres no necesitándolos ni apre-miándolos, sino poniendo en ellos alguna inclinación para seguir la virtud de aquella in!uencia, la cual con mucha facilidad se puede evitar en lo que está en nuestro libre albedrío y voluntad” (368). This summarizes the detailed analysis of 362–68. Quevedo: “Semejantes sucesos nos inducen a decir que también Dios deja in!uir los astros en las honras y los imperios, y que pueden los hombres escudriñar de sus sucesos. La primera causa es Dios, y las segundas inteligencias son las que ejecutan su providencia. Las felicidades y miserias dependen del primer orden, consiguientemente de los astros, y después de la voluntad; ésta se mueve por el impulso. Decir que los cuerpos celestes son causas, es decir que las causas de la espada son el fuego y el martillo; pero ¿quién sujeta el artí"ce al instrumento? El arbitrio de los hombres no está sujeto al astro di-rectamente, sino por accidente, en cuanto recibe el cuerpo in!uencia del cielo, como también el espíritu animal tenue y corpóreo, y los humores mismos; y aunque el subir proceda las más veces del arbitrio de los hombres y de las virtudes del sujeto; pero

subjects, from astrology to philosphy, theology, and medicine. Dis-cussion of this subject was especially common in England after the publication of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621.25 A multitude of Iberian authors, including Antonio de Torquemada and Francisco de Quevedo, also upheld the ability of reason and will to resist external agents,26 in part because it was a consolation to many in

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como el hombre condesciende más con la parte sensitiva que con la racional, hemos de decir que disponen en el cuerpo, el astro como disposición, en el alma indirecta-mente; el ángel como persuasivo, y Dios como causa física motiva” (Sentencias, no. 345, 948); “La fortuna tiene mucha semejanza con las estrellas en lo movible, en el imperio sobre los cuerpos, en que no lo tienen sobre los ánimos” (Sentencias, no. 638, 970). In the "rst of these passages, Quevedo closely follows Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.83.1, 1: 507a–b. See also his discussions of reason and free will in Providencia de Dios 1257–58, 1264–65, and passim.

27 This idea is reiterated at the start of act two as Basilio declares: “A Segismundo, mi hijo, / el in!ujo de su estrella / (bien lo sabéis) amenaza / mil desdichas y trage-dias; / quiero examinar si el cielo, / . . . / o se mitiga, o se templa / por lo menos, y vencido / con valor y con prudencia, / se desdice; porque el hombre / predomina en las estrellas” (2. 1098–1111, 112). The idea also appears in Calderón’s El mágico prodigioso, where the devil states: “aunque el gran poder mío / no puede hacer vasallo un albedrío, / puede representalle / tan extraños deleites que se halle / empeñado en buscallos, / y inclinarlos podré, si no forzallos” (3.2120–25, 135).

those days to believe that the mind is always free, even if the body is not. This notion "gures prominently in the dramas of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in whose La vida es sueño (1636) Basilio cites the limited authority of the stars in matters that bear on man’s will in order to validate his decision to release his son Segismundo from the prison into which he had been thrown at birth:

. . . yerro ha sidodar crédito fácilmentea los sucesos previstos;pues aunque su inclinaciónle dicte sus precipicios,quizá no le vencerán,porque el hado más esquivo,la inclinación más violenta[,]el planeta más impío,sólo el albedrío inclinan,no fuerzan el albedrío.

(1.6.781–91, 100–01)27

If Guzmán’s rejection of judicial astrology is therefore rooted in a commonplace idea, his decision to cite the Church’s teachings on free will verbatim is nevertheless signi"cant, in that it occurs in a genre in which the self-conscious appropriation of classical and religious topoi plays a key role in the pícaro’s self-justi"cation. A similarly self-conscious declaration drawn from the writings of Thomas Aquinas on sin and free will is found in Cervantes’s Coloquio de los perros, in which la Cañizares declares:


28 The sense of la Cañizares’s words would be clearer if, as in some editions, the central statement were punctuated differently to read: “nosotros somos autores del pecado, formándole en la intención, en la palabra y en la obra, todo permitiéndolo Dios, por nuestros pecados.” That is, la Cañizares asserts that the evil in question is informed by sin, and that God permits this to happen.

29 La Cañizares goes on to explain the damage done by bad habits: “éste [vicio] de ser brujas se convierte en sangre y carne, y en medio de su ardor, que es mucho, trae un frío que pone en el alma tal, que la resfría y entorpece aun en la fe, de donde nace un olvido de sí misma, y ni se acuerda de los temores con que Dios la amenaza, ni de la gloria con que la convida; y, en efecto, como es pecado de carne y de deleites, es fuerza que amortigüe todos los sentidos, y los embelese y absorte, sin dejarlos usar sus o"cios como deben; y así, quedando el alma inútil, !oja y desmazalada, no puede levantar la consideración siquiera a tener algún buen pensamiento; y así, dejándose estar sumida en la profunda sima de su miseria, no quiere alzar la mano a la de Dios, que se la está dando por sola su misericordia para que se levante. Yo tengo una destas almas que te he pintado. Todo lo veo y todo lo entiendo, y como el deleite me tiene echados grillos a la voluntad, siempre he sido y seré mala” (599).

[T]odas las desgracias que vienen a las gentes, a los reinos, a las ciudades y a los pueblos; las muertes repentinas, los naufragios, las caídas, en "n, todos los males que llaman de daño vienen de la mano del Altísimo y de su voluntad permitente; y los daños y males que llaman de culpa, vienen y se causan por nosotros mismos. Dios es impecable; de do se in"ere que nosotros somos autores del pecado, formándole en la intención, en la palabra y en la obra; todo permitiéndolo Dios por nuestros pecados, como ya he dicho. Dirás tú ahora, hijo, si es que acaso me entiendes, que quién me hizo a mí teóloga, y aun quizá dirás entre ti: “¡Cuerpo de tal con la puta vieja! ¿Por qué no deja de ser bruja pues sabe tanto, y se vuelve a Dios, pues sabe que está más pronto a perdonar pecados que a permitirlos?” (Novelas ejemplares 598–99)28

Although ostensibly about the craft of witches like la Cañizares, this, too, is a commentary on the picaresque, for she answers her own question about why, knowing good, she persists in evil with an explanation that could as easily be offered by Lazarillo, Rinconete, Berganza, or any similarly rational and introspective, yet deviant and delinquent, pícaro: “A esto te respondo, como si me lo preguntaras, que la costumbre del vicio se vuelve en naturaleza” (599).29 Vicious habits are wont to become a way of life, though not a necessity (neces-sitas) in the strict sense of the term.

The distinction that la Cañizares makes between natural evils (males de daño or, in Latin, mala poenae), on one hand, and moral evils (males de culpa, mala culpae), on the other, is a key element in the theology of sin, for it allowed Christians to reconcile the free will invested in

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man as a rational being with the omnipotence and goodness of God. La Cañizares draws on the line of reasoning set forth, as we have seen, by Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae and other of his works such as De veritate :

Men do not acquire from birth any disposition in the intellective soul by which, without [their own] premeditation, they are of necessity inclined by celestial bodies or anything else to choose any [particular] end, except that there is in them from their very nature a necessary appetite for the ultimate end, that is to say, happiness, which does not impede freedom of choice, since diverse ways to attain that end remain available for choice; and the reason for this is that heavenly bodies do not make an impression in the rational soul without premeditation. There is, however, acquired from birth in the body of those born a certain disposition, both from the power of heavenly bodies, and from inferior causes, . . . by which the soul is in some way made prone to choose something, as much as the choice of the rational soul is inclined by the passions, which exist in the sensitive appetite, which is a corporeal power attendant on the dispositions of the body. But no necessity of choice is induced in [man] by this; for it is in the power of the rational soul to accept or suppress the passions that arise. Subsequently, however, a man is made [to be] of a certain sort by some acquired habit of which [he is] the cause, or by an infused habit that is not granted without [his] consent even though [he is] not its cause. And from this habit it results that man effectually seeks an end consonant with that habit; yet, despite this, that habit does not induce necessity, nor does it remove freedom of choice. (De veritate 24.1, 353a)

Thomas Aquinas continues, explaining more particularly the con-cepts used by la Cañizares: “Because good itself is the object of will, evil, which is the privation of good, is found in a special way in rational creatures that have a will. Thus, the evil that occurs from holding back the form and integrity of a thing has the quality of a penalty [malum poenae or mal de daño]. . . . But the evil that consists in holding back from a due action [i.e., one’s duty] in voluntary things has the quality of a fault [malum culpae or mal de culpa], for this is imputed as a fault to anyone who falls short of a perfect action, of which he has control by means of his will.” As a result, Thomas Aquinas concludes, “God is the author of the evil of penalty, but not of the evil of fault” (Summa Theologiae 1.48.5–6, 1: 308b–09b).

The examples of God-given penalties and human faults with which Thomas Aquinas and his commentators, including widely-read con-temporaries of Cervantes such as Francisco Suárez and Pedro de Rivadeneira, illustrate this doctrine are similar to those adduced by


la Cañizares.30 Her diction and manner of exposition, with its logical inferences, intermediate conclusions, and self-referentiality, would also call to the early modern reader’s mind any number of theologi-cal works on the subject. Hence the pointed comment of her "rst “reader,” Berganza: “¿[Q]uién hizo a esta mala vieja tan discreta y tan mala? ¿De dónde sabe ella cuáles son males de daño y cuáles de culpa? ¿Cómo entiende y habla tanto de Dios, y obra tanto del diablo? ¿Cómo peca tan de malicia no excusándose con ignorancia?” (602). Berganza asks what any educated person should of la Cañizares, and we should ask the same things of him and other pícaros. For, indeed, what la Cañizares says has little to do with witchcraft and the occult arts—although it was agreed that the devil and his minions cannot oblige others to do anything against their will—yet direct relevance for an understanding of the moral duty of all human beings, and especially of pícaros like Lázaro de Tormes, who bewail their fortunas y adversidades as natural evils (males de daño), instead of acknowledging that they are moral failings of their own making (males de culpa).

The need for self-reform concomitant with the awareness of sin is brought more precisely into focus by a very similar discussion of natural and moral evils in Feliciano de Silva’s Segunda comedia de Celestina (1534):

P#$%&'(). Lo que te quiere es, según pienso, consuelo y consejo para un gran mal. . . .

C*'*+,-$#. Hijo, si es mal de pena, yo holgaré de consolarle, porque Dios dizen los teólogos que es causa de los males de pena, y para esso son los buenos, y a esso vine al mundo, siendo apartada d’él; mas si es mal de culpa no es de mi hábito ni de mi auto-ridad, porque en los tales no se halla Dios, y por tal razón no se deven hallar sus siervos.

P#$%&'(). Muy santa está la puta vieja conmigo; como si no cerniese y amasasse yo tan bien como ella, me quiere hurtar la hogaça.

C*'*+,-$#. ¿Qué dizes, hijo?

30 See the examples in Summa Theologiae 1.49 and those given in the wake of the follow-ing statements: Suárez: “It is said that the evil of fault consists in a defect of action, . . . whether this be the lack of a free action due according to law or right reason, or the lack of honesty or rectitude due in such action; that is, whether it be the omission of an obligatory action, or an action lacking due rectitude. For the use of actual freedom is found only in voluntary action or the lack of voluntary action, and therefore this evil of fault by itself is foremost in this sort of action, because it is an evil of a rational creature in his capacity to act freely, that is, in his capacity as one using his freedom” (11.2.4, 1: 362b–63a); Rivadeneira: “todos los males de pena es nuestro Señor causa y autor, y no lo es ni puede ser de ningún mal de culpa” (366a).

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31 On the association of heresy and madness, see Boruchoff, “On the Place of Madness.”

32 Pandulfo’s comment “como si no cerniese y amasasse yo tan bien como ella, me quiere hurtar la hogaça” is based on the saying “a quien cierne y amasa, no le hurtes hogaza” glossed by Gonzalo Correas: “Quiere decir: al que sabe del arte, no trates de

P#$%&'(). Digo, madre, que ¿qué llamas males de pena?C*'*+,-$#. Hijo, muerte de padres, de madres, y de hijos y hermanos, pér-

didas de haziendas, con otros desastres que, mal pecado, cada día passan por los hombres, donde hay necessidad de consejo y consuelo, exercitando una de las obras de misericordia, que es consolar los tristes.

P#$%&'(). Y el mal de los amores, madre, ¿no es mal de pena?C*'*+,-$#. He, he, he; hijo, esse mal más propio es de culpa de mirar

y otras ocasiones; que la pena antes es remedio en los tales, pues sabe que el loco dizen que por la pena es cuerdo.

P#$%&'(). Esso, madre, es en mal de locura.C*'*+,-$#. Pues, hijo, ¿qué hallas tú en los amores para que no lo sea? Mi

amor, no curo yo tales enfermedades, pues sabes un proverbio que dize, que quien de locura enfermó, que tarde o nunca sanó; y el consejo que para esso yo puedo dar es para apartar tales vanidades. Ya passó, hijo, esse tiempo de liviandades, y antes es de hazer penitencia de lo passado que de perseverar en lo presente y por venir, pues sabes que de los hombres es el pecar, mas diabólico el perseverar. (13, 242–43)

As the conclusion of this passage suggests, males de culpa were associ-ated not only with sin, but also with heresy, in accordance with the equivalence of madness and heterodoxy in medieval and early modern times, and with the de"nition of heresy given by Isidore of Seville and reiterated in Inquisitorial handbooks: “Haeresis, from the Greek word meaning ‘choice,’ is where each, of his own free will, chooses for himself what things should be taught or accepted.” As Isidore goes on to make clear, when it comes to religion, there are strict limits to individual preference, insofar as Christians are to embrace the Church’s doctrine in its entirety: “We are, in truth, not permitted to bring ourselves to believe anything of our own choice. . . . We have God’s Apostles as examples, who did not in the least pick for them-selves what they would bring themselves to believe of their own choice, but instead faithfully spread the teaching received from Christ to the people” (8.3.2–3).31 Moral evil—for which, as Celestina notes, there is no consolation, yet only repentance—is accordingly the result of the misuse of free will. This assessment is decidedly orthodox, whatever Celestina’s motives for saying so to Pandulfo.32


engañarle, que no podrás. Metáfora de la que masa, que cuenta sus panes al ir y venir del horno” (32).

33 The notion that “the wise man rules the stars” was inspired by Ptolemy, who explains that the expert astrologer is able to avert many of the effects of the stars by knowing their nature (Centiloquium 5, 107v; Liber quadripartiti 1.3, 7v–10v). This teaching is repeated by Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae 1–2.9.5, 2: 772b). As we have seen, Huarte de San Juan includes it in his retraction. The adage is also cited by Torquemada, who appears to have taken it directly from Thomas Aquinas: “Y así, muchas veces nuestro Angel custodio es causa de guardarnos de no hacer ni cometer algunas maldades a que las constelaciones y cuerpos celestes nos inclinan, y también a que sigamos aquel camino que más provechoso nos sea, hasta venir por diversas vías a huir de los peligros que por causa de las in!uencias nos aparejan. Y estos pueden también huir los hombres y evitarlos con la discreción y la razón. Porque, como dice Ptolomeo: ‘El varón sabio y prudente será señor de las estrellas’” (4, 364).

Educated readers of Cervantes’s time would therefore see the state-ment, at the start of La ilustre fregona, that Carriazo left home “llevado de una inclinación picaresca, sin forzarle a ello algún mal tratamiento” (Novelas ejemplares 372) as an indication, not only of his ability to plot the course of his existence, but of his decision to do so. Amid all the props, characters, pursuits, and settings expected of picaresque "c-tion, Carriazo stands out for his incongruity as “un pícaro virtuoso, limpio, bien criado y más que medianamente discreto.” Yet more, he distinguishes himself for the depth of his intelligence, understanding, and self-control. For even as the narrator maintains that Carriazo is a consummate pícaro, the metaphor used to drive home this point calls attention to the effects of his ánima racional alone: Carriazo “salió tan bien con el asunto de pícaro, que pudiera leer cátedra en la facultad al famoso de Alfarache,” and “[p]asó por todos los grados de pícaro hasta que se graduó de maestro en las almadrabas de Zahara, donde es el "nibusterrae de la picaresca.” So, too, does the narrator proclaim: “¡no os llaméis pícaros si no habéis cursado dos cursos en la academia de la pesca de los atunes!” (373–75). Carriazo’s intellectual capacity is epitomized in various ways in the opening section of La ilustre fregona to make it clear that he is not engulfed in the seemingly adverse milieu in which he has chosen to live, but is instead able to impose his own will upon it, in conformity with the tenet repeated in most discussions of free will that “the wise man rules the stars, for he can undoubtedly control his passions” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.115.4, 1: 688a).33 Rather than rehearse these initial examples, I would instead look to the novel’s conclusion, in which Carriazo not only abandons his picaresque exploits, but, more important and surprisingly, ceases to exercise his autonomy, intellect, and will.

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34 The leading proponent of this reading is Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, who sums up his view as follows: “La novela trata de las aventuras de Tomás y Diego, sus amores, sus matrimonios, y el "nal feliz que en ellos lograron sus vidas. Como en toda novela idealista, la historia aquí contada tiene su prehistoria y su post-historia: se nos cuentan los orígenes de los dos muchachos y cómo, después de lo aquí contado, fuera de la novela, siguieron felices” (538–39). I would observe that Carriazo does not completely abandon his picaresque imagination and pursuits after arriving in Toledo, insofar as he jumps at the chance to become a water-carrier, no doubt inspired by tratado 6 of Lazarillo de Tormes. While this cover affords Carriazo freedom of movement, his exploits display not only ingenuity, but also a rashness and violence that contrasts with the discretion and self-control of his initial description.

35 “Llegaron las nuevas a la corte del caso y casamiento de la gitanilla; supo don Francisco de Cárcamo ser su hijo el gitano y ser la Preciosa la gitanilla que él había visto, cuya hermosura disculpó con él la liviandad de su hijo, . . . y más porque vio cuán bien le estaba el casarse con hija de tan gran caballero y tan rico como era don Fernando de Azevedo. Dio prisa a su partida, por llegar presto a ver a sus hijos, y dentro de veinte días ya estaba en Murcia, con cuya llegada se renovaron los gustos, se hicieron las bodas, se contaron las vidas; y los poetas de la ciudad, que hay algunos, y muy buenos, tomaron a cargo celebrar el extraño caso, juntamente con la sin igual belleza de la gitanilla” (Novelas ejemplares 107–08).

36 This assumption is based in part on the meaning of the word ilustre. See note 38 below.

Critics of La ilustre fregona have rightly observed that the picaresque quickly drops from sight when, on the road to Toledo, Carriazo and Avendaño come upon a muleteer who extols the beauty of a serving-girl in unexpectedly poetic language. The resulting deviation of the novel into a more ideal form of realism is patent,34 as is also the seemingly happy ending, in which the two teens return to Burgos, marry, and assume the noble duties to which they were born. The text is espe-cially insistent, if ironic, in regard to both the contentment and the compliance achieved at the end of Carriazo’s tale, and its celebration in literature: “Dio ocasión la historia de la fregona ilustre a que los poetas del dorado Tajo ejercitasen sus plumas en solenizar y en alabar la sin par hermosura de Costanza, la cual aún vive en compañía de su buen mozo de mesón, y Carriazo ni más ni menos, con tres hijos, que, sin tomar el estilo del padre, ni acordarse si hay almadrabas en el mundo, hoy están todos estudiando en Salamanca” (439). From this and other af"nities to La gitanilla,35 which was written in the same years, it has furthermore been assumed that the traits that make Carriazo an exemplary pícaro are, like those that make Costanza an “ilustre fregona,” a re!ection of noble birth.36 This is problematic, given the repudiation of determinism in all its forms (environmental, astrologi-cal, and hereditary) by the Church and Cervantes. Thus, although some noble readers might interpret these tales as con"rmation of


their own innate superiority, the more discerning reader to whom Cervantes directs the prologue of the Novelas ejemplares would likely reach a contrary and more daring conclusion in light of the anything but noble behavior of Carriazo’s father in La ilustre fregona and the sad effect that the return to the arms of the nobility has upon all the young protagonists of both works.37

In a text that begins with the premise that our actions are governed by the combined force of reason and will, and not by fate, it is dif-"cult to assent to the explanation that Carriazo’s father gives for his own misconduct as a youth. He asserts that the woman in whom he would engender Costanza should not be reproached for “lo que en ella parece mani"esto error y culpa conocida” (434), yet this state-ment only serves to implant the idea of her guilt in the reader’s mind. So, too, does he frame his tale in such a fashion that the crime to which he ultimately admits (“yo la gocé contra su voluntad y a pura fuerza mía”) seems to be ordained by a power beyond his control. He begins with the idea of fate (“Ordenó la suerte que un día, yendo yo a caza por el término de su lugar, quise visitarla, y era la hora de siesta cuando llegué a su alcázar”) and proceeds to recount, not so much his own actions as the effect of an external force upon him: “el silencio, la soledad, la ocasión, despertaron en mí un deseo más atrevido que honesto” (434–35). Although imbued with a supernatural if not providential aura, this explanation is also topical, at least in the context of Cervantes’s writings, insofar as Don Quixote uses practically the same words to voice the fear that he might give in to temptation upon "nding Doña Rodríguez in his bedroom: “¿quién sabe si esta soledad, esta ocasión y este silencio despertará mis deseos que duer-men, y harán que al cabo de mis años venga a caer donde nunca he tropezado” (2.48, 1110). As a result, even as Carriazo’s father implies that he now wishes to amend the misdeed upon which his honor depends, he does not in fact express contrition or regret. I need not retell the details of his story—in which he not only rapes, but coerces his victim to silence with the threat of dishonor—to make the point that, of all the actions in the novel, his are by far the most repugnant in both their content and telling. They are also the most picaresque, for Carriazo’s father exploits the self-serving deception that is fully realized only in "rst-person narrative.

37 On this difference between the surface action and deeper con!icts in Cervantes’s works, and between social and moral values, see the introduction to Boruchoff, “Com-petir con Heliodoro.”

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38 See, for example, Isidore’s de"nition of inlustris: “a word for the celebrity that shines brightly in many families because of the splendor either of wisdom or of vir-tue” (Etymologiarvm 10.126, n.p.). The lower sense of ilustre is instead, as Covarrubias explains, a re!ection of social values: “por translación se toma por el hombre noble, de alto linage y de gran renombre y fama, por sí y por sus mayores” (731). This lower sense resounds in the perspective of those who assert that Costanza is an ilustre fregona because of her noble blood.

39 The Corregidor subsequently says of Costanza that “su mucha honestidad y her-mosura obligan a que todos que la vieren se ofrezcan a su servicio” (426). The same combination of honesty and beauty is recurrent in the descriptions of Preciosa—not by coincidence another Costanza—in La gitanilla, with much the same effect on those with whom she comes into contact. For as the narrator notes: “la hermosura tiene fuerza de despertar la caridad dormida” (34).

Against this background, we are left to weigh the abrupt change in demeanor, not only of the younger Carriazo, but also of Costanza. Gone is the strength of mind and character that made Carriazo a singular pícaro at the start of the novel. Gone, too, are the ready wit and sharp tongue with which Costanza convinced even disapproving rivals such as la Gallega of her virtue. When asked if Costanza allows herself to be pawed and solicited by those lodging at the inn (“debe de dejarse manosear y requebrar de los huéspedes”), la Gallega says the following, in which, for all the opprobrium intended, it is instead Costanza’s decency, piety, and will that come across most strongly: “Par Dios, señor, si ella se dejara mirar siquiera, manara en oro; es más áspera que un erizo; es una tragaavemarías; labrando está todo el día y rezando. Para el día que ha de hacer milagros quisiera yo tener un cuento de renta. Mi ama dice que trae un silencio [sic for cilicio] pegado a las carnes; ¡tome qué, mi padre!” (432–33). It is no coincidence that these words recall the praise with which the mule-teer "rst drew Carriazo and Avendaño to Toledo—“Es dura como un mármol, y zahareña como villana de Sayago y áspera como una ortiga, pero tiene una cara de Pascua y un rostro de buen año. . . . No te digo más, sino que la veas, y verás que no te he dicho nada, según lo que te pudiera decir, acerca de su hermosura” (382–83)—for, in both cases, it is not Costanza’s outward appearance alone, but her moral compass within, that makes her ilustre in the higher sense of the term,38 not only among serving-girls and servants, but also among all human beings. As the narrator attests, Costanza showed herself to be “tan hermosa y tan honesta, que al Corregidor le pareció que estaba mirando la hermosura de un ángel en la tierra” (425).39 This Neoplatonic hermosura—this perfection of mind, body, and spirit; this


40 On the Neoplatonic concept of hermosura, see Boruchoff, “Free Will, Beauty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The in!uence that Christian theology had upon Neopla-tonism is often underestimated or ignored by modern critics. Also evident in works by humanists such as Juan Luis Vives, who asserts that “hermosura es tener tales líneas del cuerpo que sean expresión de la belleza del alma” (“Introducción a la sabiduría,” 1: 1207), this moral imperative informs Leone Ebreo’s de"nition of hermosura in the Spanish translation (1590) of Garcilaso Inca de la Vega: “La hermosura es gracia que deleitando el ánimo con su conocimiento, lo mueve a amar. Y la cosa buena o persona en la cual se halla esta tal gracia, es hermosa; pero la cosa buena en la cual no se halla esta gracia, no es hermos[a] ni fea: no es hermosa, porque no tiene gracia, ni es fea, porque no le falta bondad. Pero aquello a que faltan ambas estas cosas, que son gracia y bondad, no solamente no es hermoso, empero es malo y feo, que entre hermoso y feo no hay medio, pero entre bueno y malo verdaderamente no hay medio, porque lo bueno es ser y lo malo privación” (296). Ebreo goes on to explain that “la hermosura que se halla en los cuerpos es baja, poca y super"cial, en respecto de la que se halla en los incorpóreos; antes . . . la hermosura corpórea es sombra e imagen de la espiritual y participada de ella, y no es otra cosa que el resplandor que el mundo espiritual da al mundo corpóreo” (411). With this in mind, he also af"rms that, although heavenly bodies can directly in!uence the body, only the heavenly spirit and intelligence of God can move man’s human spirit and intelligence (214–21). On the theological sense of grace as “a divine gift that surpasses all endowments created by nature alone,” see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1–2.112.1, 2: 1374a.

41 The parallels between the endings of La ilustre fregona and La gitanilla are numerous and often exact, from the words with which each daughter is presented to her father (Ilustre 437; Gitanilla 101) and the proofs of her identity (Ilustre 430; Gitanilla 100), to the silence, tears, and obedience of both women after learning of their noble parent-age. In the case of La gitanilla, see pages 104–07.

grace in the popular and theological senses40—is suddenly lost when Costanza accedes to her birthright and duties as a noblewoman at the end of La ilustre fregona. Silent, confused, and submissive, “Costanza, que no sabía ni imaginaba lo que le había acontecido, toda turbada y temblando, no supo hacer otra cosa que hincarse de rodillas ante su padre, y tomándole las manos [as she had been ordered], se las comenzó a besar tiernamente, bañándoselas con in"nitas lágrimas que por sus hermosísimos ojos derramaba” (437). Needless to say, the same pattern is repeated at the end of La gitanilla.41

Cervantes’s rewriting of the ending of El celoso extremeño is espe-cially signi"cant for an understanding of his ideas and intentions in this regard. For, unlike the version in the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara, in that published in the Novelas ejemplares the wife Leonora does what no one in the novel (and very few outside of it even today) thought possible, given her youth and inexperience: she uses her dis-cretion and free will to decide the course of her existence. Her aged husband Carrizales, her disloyal dueña Marialonso, the virote Loaysa, and her parents all believe that they can, and must, protect her to suit their various interests, if not her own. In La ilustre fregona, the

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42 The manuscript of Porras de la Cámara is essentially the same: “no podía dar mejor respuesta que encoger los hombros y decir: ‘Todo aqueso derribó por los fundamen-tos la astucia de un mozo holgazán y vicioso, y la malicia de una falsa dueña, con la inadvertencia de una muchacha rogada y persuadida!’ Libre Dios a cada uno de tales enemigos, contra los cuales no hay escudo de pendencia [sic] que de"enda, ni espada de recato que corte” (708).

same conviction about the weakness and defenselessness of women underwrites both the comments of the Corregidor—“ni es decente ni conviene que esta doncella esté en un mesón” (Novelas ejemplares 425)—and the questions posed, as we have seen, about Costanza by her father: “debe de dejarse manosear y requebrar de los huéspedes.”An anonymous spectator at the serenade of the Corregidor’s son similarly expresses surprise at Costanza’s honesty, given her youth and the evil effects expected from her milieu: “es la más honesta doncella que se sabe, y es maravilla que con estar en esta casa de tanto tráfago, y donde hay cada día gente nueva, y andar por todos los aposentos, no se sabe della el menor desmán del mundo” (Novelas ejemplares 389).

The same expectations are expressed verbally and iconographically at a number of key moments in El celoso extremeño before they are epitomized by Carrizales in his "nal speech to his wife Leonora: “a ti no te culpo, ¡oh niña mal aconsejada! . . . ; no te culpo, digo, porque persuasiones de viejas taimadas y requiebros de mozos enamorados fácilmente vencen y triunfan del poco ingenio que los pocos años encierran” (367). Carrizales’s words in the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara are similarly, if slightly more, dismissive of the intellectual and moral capacities of young women: “no te culpo, ¡oh niña, mal aconsejada sin duda! . . . ; no te culpo, digo, porque persuasiones de taymadas viejas, y presencias de mozos importunos, fácilmente vencen el ingenio y poco valor que encierran tan pocos años como los tuyos” (712). In both cases, the narrator indeed speculates that, even had Carrizales been conscious of what was occurring around him, “no podía dar mejor respuesta que encoger los hombros y enarcar las cejas y decir: ‘Todo aqueso derribó por los fundamentos la astucia, a lo que yo creo, de un mozo holgazán y vicioso, y la malicia de una falsa dueña, con la inadvertencia de una muchacha rogada y persuadida!’ Libre Dios a cada uno de tales enemigos, contra los cuales no hay escudo de prudencia que de"enda ni espada de recato que corte” (362).42 It is therefore natural that the text of Porras de la Cámara goes on to relate that the young wife succumbed, as expected, to the wiles and wishes of those around her:


En "n, tanto dijo González [.Marialonso], que Isabela [.Leonora] se rindió, Isabela se engañó, Isabela se perdió, dando en tierra con todas las prevenciones de Carrizales. . . . Tomó González por la mano a Isabela, y casi por fuerza y medio arrastrando, preñados de lágrimas los ojos, la llevó al aposento donde Loaysa estaba, y dándoles la bendición con una falsa risa de mono, les cerró tras sí la puerta, y los dejó solos. . . . No estaba ya tan llorosa Isabela en los brazos de Loaysa, a lo que creerse puede. (707–08)

In contrast, the published novel abruptly and pointedly reverses course. Denying the devil’s power to corrupt an unwilling soul—in place of “una falsa risa de mono,” the dueña Marialonso now has “una risa falsa de demonio” (361), much as in the passage below Loaysa is called an “astuto engañador”—it states: “Pero con todo esto, el valor de Leonora fue tal, que en el tiempo que más le convenía, le mostró contra las fuerzas villanas de su astuto engañador, pues no fueron bastantes a vencerla, y él se cansó en balde, y ella quedó vencedora” (362). Therefore, when Leonora enters a convent instead of marry-ing Loaysa, as Carrizales had ordained in his testament, her decision can be seen as an assertion of her own judgment and volition, and not as contrition or compliance with an external code of value and conduct. It is, perhaps, not by chance that Leonora "nally casts her lot with the Catholic Church, an institution that, as a matter of doctrine, maintains the free will of all human beings.

This af"rmation of free will is again reinforced by differences between the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara and the published novel. In the latter, Leonora responds to Carrizales’s false assumptions, "rst by telling him “puesto caso que no estáis obligado a creerme ninguna cosa de las que os dijere, sabed que no os he ofendido sino con el pensamiento,” and then by entering the convent for unspoken motives, confounding the hopes and expectations of the spouse chosen for her by her husband: “cuando Loaysa esperaba que cumpliese lo que ya él sabía que su marido en su testamento dejaba mandado, vio que dentro de una semana entró monja en uno de los más recogidos monasterios de la ciudad” (368). In contrast, in the text of Porras de la Cámara, she states: “puesto caso que no estéis obligado a creerme ninguna cosa de las que os dijere, por las malas obras que me habéis visto hacer, yo os prometo y os juro por todo aquello que jurar puedo, que si permite el cielo que yo os alcance de días, que yo acabe los que me quedaren en perpetuo encerramiento y clausura, y desde aquí prometo, sin vos, de hacer profesión en una religión de las más ásperas que hubiere” (713), leaving no doubt as to the reasons behind

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43 Although the context and effect of the phrase are, as we have seen, different, Isabela’s entry into the convent is related in the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara in words similar to the published novel: “cuando Loaysa esperaba que ella cumpliese lo que ya sabía que el testamento de su marido le había dejado mandado, vio que dentro de una semana se metió monja en un monasterio de los más recogidos de la ciudad” (713).

44 It is not pro"table to list the many critics who express disdain for what they suppose to be an act of conformity by Cervantes in revising the ending of El celoso extremeño to suit what they posit as post-Tridentine morality. I would observe, nevertheless, that the “Entremés del viejo celoso,” which these critics cite as an example of the same story a lo lascivo, has been subject to a similarly reductive and misguided interpretation. For all the double entendres that suggest Cañizares’s impotence, inviting the spectator—or, more properly, reader, since the secondary sense of these statements is at times evident only in a second reading—to take the frustration voiced by his young wife Cristina as sexual in origin, with adultery accordingly a solution, it remains that we do not know what takes place between her and the galán behind the closed door of the bedroom. We hear Cristina’s words and the reactions of her husband and maid, but do not know

the reclusion that follows; she seeks, unambiguously, to atone for her “malas obras.”43

These systematic changes allow the narrator of the published novel to offer an explicitly exemplary conclusion by juxtaposing the assertion of Leonora’s free will to the commonplace of environmental determin-ism, that is, to the belief in corruption by an external in!uence: “yo quedé con el deseo de llegar al "n deste suceso, ejemplo y espejo de lo poco que hay que "ar de llaves, tornos y paredes cuando queda la voluntad libre, y de lo menos que hay que con"ar de verdes y pocos años, si les andan al oído exhortaciones destas dueñas de monjil negro y tendido, y tocas blancas y luengas” (369). In contrast, the manuscript of Porras de la Cámara merely repeats the ill-founded, if popular, idea that we should not expect the young and inexperienced to be able to stand up to the evil about them: “todos los que oyeren este caso es razón que escarmienten en él y no se fíen de torno ni criadas, si se han de "ar de dueñas de tocas largas” (713).

It is disappointing that so few readers, even today, have discerned the af"rmation of free will guiding the rewriting of El celoso extremeño, with most instead contending that Cervantes’s intent was to make the novel conform to the aesthetic and moral principles of his time and place. What these readers fail to understand is that the denial of adultery by someone presumed for her sex and youth to be passive and powerless, and, accordingly, dependent and malleable, was a far more profound challenge to social norms than the allegedly lascivi-ous ending of the original.44 It is not by chance that Leonora states


if what she says is a factual account of what is happening (as the maid assumes), or instead a series of declarations intended to provoke her husband (as he assumes). The ending, in which the previously closed space of Cristina’s married existence is thrown open to the world at large in the guise of neighbors, the alguacil, musicians, and danc-ers, invites the conclusion that what Cristina truly seeks is freedom, and that she obtains this by standing up to her husband, that is, by exercising her free will.

45 This phrase can be interpreted in various ways, including that proposed by Jorge García López: “Frase proverbial que viene a indicar que el cumplimiento de la ley se basa en el mantenimiento de sus condiciones” (74n275). Preciosa does indeed set a series of conditions for marriage, even as she plays with the word law to suggest that internal laws, the dictates of free will, outweigh those decreed by others: “Puesto que [i.e., aunque] estos señores legisladores han hallado por sus leyes que soy tuya, y que por tuya te me han entregado, yo he hallado por la ley de mi voluntad, que es la más fuerte de todas, que no quiero serlo si no es con las condiciones que antes que aquí vinieses entre los dos concertamos” (74). It bears note that the "rst de"nition of condición given by Covarrubias is ingenium (347), and all his examples refer either to inner qualities or outward status.

46 This conformity and humiliation (in the narrow sense) is intensi"ed by the fact that Preciosa’s words are related indirectly in the "nal pages of the novel. For example: “Preguntáronla si tenía alguna a"ción a don Juan. Respondió que no más de aquella que le obligaba a ser agradecida a quien se había querido humillar a ser gitano por ella, pero que ya no se estendería a más el agradecimiento de aquello que sus padres quisiesen” (102).

that she has offended her husband “con el pensamiento,” for she has dared to think for herself, rather than accede to what others have thought for her. In much the same way, Preciosa can be, as the narra-tor takes pains to point out, “en extremo cortés y bien razonada[, y] con todo esto, algo desenvuelta, pero no de modo que descubriese algún género de deshonestidad; antes, con ser aguda, era tan honesta que en su presencia no osaba alguna gitana, vieja ni moza, cantar cantares lascivos ni decir palabras no buenas” (29). Such accolades make it clear that virtue is an inner quality, and not outward compli-ance with social dictates. As Preciosa herself observes, “[c]ondiciones rompen leyes,”45 adding by way of explanation: “Estos señores bien pueden entregarte mi cuerpo, pero no mi alma, que es libre y nació libre, y ha de ser libre en tanto que yo quisiere” (74). As in La ilustre fregona, this moral resolve is abruptly and pointedly cast aside when Preciosa returns to the arms of the nobility, replaced by the wishes and judgment of her parents.46

Insofar as the endings of La fuerza de la sangre and several other of Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares similarly confront the reader with the virtues of free will, or with the failure to use it freely, guided by one’s own conscience and not by that of another, we are left to ask if, for all its supposed miseries, there is not, in fact, something positive to be

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said for the vida libre of pícaros, madmen, servants, Gypsies, orphans, and other marginal "gures. For in the absence of the duties and conventions that wrongly constrain “decent” society, they are free to say, do, feel, think, and even dream and dare to become what reason tells them, in accordance with free will.

McGill University

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