Celestina E-Book

Fernando de Rojas

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 370

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A bawdy romance from 1499 about 2 lovers and their go-between, Celestina

Das E-Book Celestina wird angeboten von Dedalus und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Dedalus would like to thank The Dept. of Books, Archives and Libraries of the Spanish Ministry of Culture for its assistance in producing this book.

THE TRANSLATORS

PETER BUSH

Peter Bush is an award-winning literary translator who was born in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and now lives in Barcelona. He read French and Spanish at Cambridge and researched Spanish fiction and history in Oxford. After teaching in London schools he became Professor of Literary Translation at Middlesex University and then at the University of East Anglia where he also directed the British Centre for Literary Translation. Recent translations from Spanish include Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura, from Catalan The Enormity of the Tragedy by Quim Monzó and A Not So Perfect Crime by Teresa Solana. Current projects include translations of Juan Goytisolo’s Juan the Landless, Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas and Najat El Hajmi’s The Last Patriarch.

JUAN GOYTISOLO

Juan Goytisolo, born in Barcelona in 1931, is Spain’s greatest living writer. A bitter opponent of the Franco regime, his early novels were banned in Fascist Spain. In 1956, he moved to Paris where he lived until 1996 when his wife, the writer Monique Lange died. He now lives in Marrakesh. He has long championed writers such as Fernando de Rojas, the Archpriest of Hiita and Blanco White who have been neglected by the Spanish academy. His most outstanding work in English translation includes two volumes of autobiography, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife and the trilogy Marks of Identity, Count Julian and Juan the Landless.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

The Translators

Introduction

Celestina

The Author to a Friend

The Author Apologises for his Errors in this Work that He Has Written, Argues and Makes Comparisons against Himself

Alonso de Proaza, Publishing Editor, to the Reader

Prologue to the Third Edition

The Author Concludes and Recalls the Reason why He Finished it the Way He Did

Afterword

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

Juan Goytisolo

The splendid translation by Peter Bush of Celestina, sometimes known as The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea or The Spanish Bawd, now gives readers in the English-speaking world access to an astonishingly modern work without a host of pedantic footnotes and in a form that reflects the spirit of the original. The publication in Burgos, Spain, of the first 16 chapters of an anonymous Comedy marks the birth in 1499 of a work crucial to the subsequent flowering of the language and literature of Spain in the picaresque novel and Don Quijote. A voice had suddenly burst on to the scene, unique in its lucid pessimism, corrosively destructive of consecrated values yet loyal to the author’s personal ethics, a voice unprecedented in European literature at the time.

The second edition, printed in Toledo and Salamanca in 1500 and then successive editions, included verse with acrostics of the author’s name, his status as a graduate of Salamanca and his place of birth, La Puebla de Montalbán. In a letter To a friend Rojas reveals that the first chapter somehow fell into his hands and that the language’s ‘beauty, its subtle artifice,’ its ‘pliant, but strong metal … never before in evidence in our Castilian’ encouraged him to continue the kernel and the young 23-year-old graduate claims he completed the task in ‘a fortnight’s holiday’. This is an astonishing assertion to be treated with caution, the same caution the half-hidden author uses to protect himself against critics and informants: ‘And since he [the first author]fearful of detractors and venomous tongues, always quicker to reproach than to create themselves, decided to conceal his name, don’t blame me if I don’t add mine to this unworthy conclusion.’

The edition that appeared in Seville, Toledo and Salamanca in 1502 gives us the work as we know it today in twenty-one chapters and accompanied by stanzas in which the author ‘apologises for his errors in this work’ and a Petrarchan philosophical prologue. And if these many false trails weren’t enough, the 1507 Saragossa edition boasts verse in which Rojas makes a profession of his Christian faith and for good measure flags up his condemnation of ‘false Jews’ in order to camouflage the agnosticism that seeps out of every page of his tragicomic tale.

The paternity of the first chapter remains a matter for doubt and debate. If a few stylistic and linguistic differences between the first chapter and the rest lead many academics to believe there was an author before Rojas, they then must explain how the anonymous manuscript, written decades earlier, came into the hands of a twenty-three year old student of Salamanca University who was able to exploit its potential with such skill and speed and create in a fortnight’s holiday a literary work that has fascinated readers for more than five hundred years.

Whoever fathered the literary embryo of the first chapter, we are at the beginning of a process that a century later climaxes in Cervantes’ literary inventiveness. It is clear that Rojas’ wiles and stratagems were his response to an urgent need to camouflage the subversive burden of the work, and, by the same token, his Jewish origins. Given the history of his family, Rojas had reason enough to be afraid: in 1485 the Inquisition tried close relatives and, in 1488 tried his father who was consequently sentenced as a ‘Judaiser’ and burnt alive at the stake, as thousands of his faith were at the time. The ‘lying witnesses and terrible tortures’ evoked by the old bawd in her dialogue with Pármeno reflected the experience of the young law student. Denunciations, dungeons and burning pyres of those condemned were part and parcel of Rojas’ moral landscape and environment. Regrettably, the young 23-year-old was familiar with what he wrote about. The precarious lives of the conversos, caught in a mesh of inquisitorial vigilance, likely economic ruin and society’s contempt, was the crucible that distilled literary works of extreme nihilistic pessimism and existential anguish. To paraphrase Gunter Grass – for whom, over almost a century, the Jews created the great culture of Germany while Aryan Germans cultivated their anti-Semitism – one could say with similar irony, with all the evidence to hand, that the Jewish conversos or new Christians created most of the important works written in Spanish in the 15th and 16th centuries while the mass of old Christians were horrified by the spectre of contagion with Spanish Jews and equally strove to bestialise Spanish Muslims.

Academics specialising in Celestina have engaged in barren debate over which genre to slot the work into: comedy, tragedy, dramatic novel or a novel in dialogue. This is but idle speculation: Rojas created a unique, unrepeatable narrative, beyond concepts of model or genre. It is not medieval, Renaissance, Stoic or moralizing. It is not trying to resurrect or develop previous themes or forms but attacks them and sets out to destroy existing social and literary hierarchies and subvert their meaning.

The references to Petrarch, the source of a large part of the philosophical prologue to the ‘Tragicomedy’ and frequent use of Latin aphorisms and quotations from Greek mythology, have led some historians to attempt to pigeonhole Celestina – clearly a work not susceptible to simple classification – within the Western Christian canon of didactic literature. They seem not to notice how the wealth of grandiloquent maxims and adages of Latin origin that stud the rhetoric of Calisto, Melibea, Pleberio and even of servants and prostitutes merely provides a framework within which the writer releases radically new harsh and demanding voices, whose possible affiliation must be sought outside the Western context.

A work like Celestina should be judged by the criteria that the writing itself generates. Apart from citing Ovid, Petrarch and collections of proverbs that were in vogue, Rojas shows he had some knowledge, at least from hearsay, of the philosopher-physicians, Avicenna and Averroes. Moreover, his remarkable creation of the character of Celestina would have been impossible outside the Arab tradition of the bawd that had taken root in Spain.

Additionally, one cannot understand the origins of Celestina if one is not aware of the origins of Fernando de Rojas himself: the disastrous persecutions suffered by his family, the purifying onslaught of the Holy Office, the dissatisfaction, humiliation and nihilism that prevailed in Jewish neighbourhoods all over the Peninsula. Confronted by a precariousness that threw a shadow over their futures, converted Jews often adopted amoral, individualist attitudes that expressed their scepticism in relation to the values generally accepted by their compatriots. The young conversos of Rojas’ generation were forced to live the cruel experience of an iniquitous, merciless society, where the so-called official values of the faith enforced prison, torture, confiscation of property, autos-de-fe, sambenitos, and other ignominy on non-believers. The hidden source of Rojas’ astonishing artistic maturity is located in his experience as the son of a well-off family suddenly cast into abysses of infamy and desolation. In a universe rushing to ‘a bitter, catastrophic end’, human beings lived without protection or providence, subject only to the inexorable dynamic of passions stripped of any morality.

The intense modernity of Rojas’ work springs from such inner disharmony and subversive social and artistic impulses. Five centuries after its first edition, Celestina portrays with disturbing lucidity and precision the fast-approaching universe of chaos and strife we now endure. Deprived of the “delectable sin of love” that she enjoyed for almost a month, Melibea conceives of her suicide as “my relief ” and “rest,” as an “agreeable end,” and does not stop to worry about the church’s condemnation of a step that will keep her forever from the beatitude of the blessed. The death of his only daughter plunges Pleberio, the heartbroken father, into irremediable solitude: “I complain of the world, because it created me within it,” he exclaims and, far from embracing religious resignation, he berates the world bitterly, harshly, in one of the most beautiful sequences in the whole work: ‘In my tenderest youth I thought you and your actions were ruled by a sense of order. Now I’ve seen the pros and cons of your fair-trading, I think you are a web of deceit, a wilderness, a home to ferocious beasts, a game played by cheats and tricksters, a treacherous marsh, a realm of thorns, a craggy peak, stony ground, a meadow full of serpents, a flowering orchard without fruit, a fount of tribulation, a river of tears, a sea of misery, toil without profit, sweet poison, vain hopes, fake cheer and true sorrow.’

After one has read that, how is it possible to speak of Christian doctrine and Senecan Stoicism? Like his father-in-law Alvaro de Montalbán, twice tried by the Inquisition in the course of his life, Rojas belonged to that group of conversos who had lost the faith of their ancestors without receiving the grace of the new law that was being imposed so brutally. In such an existential dilemma, a youth endowed with his literary genius could not but assault the walls and language of a society until he had destroyed them and built his own Tragicomedy from the ruins.

The only laws that rule the pitiless universe of Celestina are the sovereign edicts of sexual pleasure and the cash nexus. From the moment of his encounter with Melibea in the orchard, Calisto proclaims the primacy of sensual pleasure over any reward of life after death: ‘the holy saints’ bliss when enjoying the vision of the divine is surely less than mine when I gaze at you.’ When his servant Sempronio asks him whether he is Christian, he answers in no uncertain terms: ‘Me? No, I am a Melibean and I worship Melibea, I believe in Melibea and I adore Melibea.’ No divine precept or human rule will prevent him from ‘laying waste’ with his ‘shameless hands’ the ‘comely body and delicate flesh’ of the prey he has snatched. Not even news of the execution of his servants is enough to distract him from the imminent enjoyment of the object of his desires described in terms that recall De Sade’s nihilistic amoralism: ‘remember, Calisto, last night’s pleasures, your gentle lady and joy. And your life isn’t in pawn to your servants, so you don’t have to rue their deaths, and no grieving can equal the pleasure you felt.’

Celestina’s cynical observations that ‘there is no difference between women of the world, who love, and sheltered virgins, as they all say “yes” at the hint of a first request,’ given that ‘they’re all little miss superiors, but once they’ve ridden in the saddle, they can’t get enough,’ speak to the strength of the passions that weave the plot of the tragicomic tale. After lamenting Calisto’s ‘insistent pawing’ Melibea readily admits: ‘My lord, I’m the one most loving this, I’m the winner thanks to the incredible gift you bring on each of your visits.’ In this way, Celestina the wheeler-dealer acts as a go-between, levels prostitutes and noble women, erases differences, destroys the walls raised between Pleberio’s family mansion and her brothel and destroys established hierarchies.

It is no surprise to find the old bawd and other characters of her social class making frequent references to pure blood, lineage and honour. ‘You must suffer in this sad life to uphold their lives and honour,’ says the bawd, while servants and prostitutes energetically attack principles that had for centuries underpinned the religious and social status of the old Christian caste: ‘And some say that nobility is praise that comes from the just desserts and antiquity of the parents; I say another’s light will never shine on you if you don’t have any light of your own,’ Sempronio tells his master. And Areúsa declares to all and sundry: ‘You’ll never be happy if you let the views of the vulgar rule your roost. You take as you find, and it’s what you do that gives you pedigree. We’re all children of Adam and Eve, after all. We should try to be good in ourselves and not base our virtue on the nobility of our forbears.’

The virulent barbs in Celestina spare nobody. Attacks on the clergy, and by extension the church are numerous: from the young woman put in Celestina’s charge by a pot-bellied priest, to the order to restore at top speed the virginity of a betrothed woman surrendered to a prelate on Christmas Day, to the to-ing and fro-ing of the ‘old whore’ between masses and vespers between monasteries of both sexes where she weaves her “trysts and pleasuring.” These characterizations are part of a well-researched tradition of go-betweens of Arabic origins that was sustained by Catholic monarchies. The latter rewarded the loyalty of certain clergy by allowing them the substantial privilege of running houses for amorous encounters. Celestina is a professional who keeps an exact tally of the ‘maidenheads she has mended’, the priests who are ‘best patrons’ and the ‘sparkiest’. But to her acute awareness of her trade, of which she is so proud, Rojas adds dark features and traits – witchcraft and a repellent appearance – that make her similar to characters from Goya’s brush. The appearance of Celestina in church, mid-service, seems plucked straight from one of Goya’s etchings in the Caprichos. She relates how she is entertained by ecclesiastics of every distinction, from bishops to sacristans: ‘When I entered a church, hats were doffed in my honour, as if I were a duchess. The one who had the least dealings with me felt badly done by. If people saw me half a league off, they’d forget their prayers: one by one or two by two they’d come to where I was standing to see if I needed anything, to ask after their own interests. When I walked in, they’d get into a dither and couldn’t do or say anything right. Some called me “Lady”, others “Auntie”, others, “Beloved”, others “Old and respected”. There and then, they’d agree times to come to my house, times to go to theirs, they offered me money, pledges, other gifts, kissed the hem of my cloak, and some even pecked my cheek and kept me even happier.’ Her usurping of the role of the Virgin Mary and the honours the Virgin receives in church couldn’t be clearer. Rojas’ irreverence and his mocking of ecclesiastical hypocrisy was something new and only surfaced later, and visually, in Goya’s Sleep of Reason.

Iconoclastic attacks on the church and militant genealogies of the advocates of ‘blood purity’ are accompanied in Celestina by the prostitutes and servants’ criticism of the selfishness and rapacious ingratitude of their masters. Areúsa’s diatribe against Melibea is in sharp counterpoint to the elaborate rhetoric of other passages. The power of her rhetoric is astonishing: ‘They never call you by your proper names, it’s only “Bitch, do this! Bitch, do that! Where you off to, you grubby urchin? What did you do now, you good-for-nothing? Why did you eat that, greedy-guts? Call that a clean pan, you cow? Why didn’t you clean the counterpane, you filthy bitch? How dare you say that, fool? Who broke that plate, clumsy? What happened to the towel, thief? Did you give it to your pimp …?” And on top of that a thousand slaps, pinches, beatings and whippings.’

It is no exaggeration to equate the artistic originality and conquests of Rojas with the achievements of Cervantes, Velázquez or Goya. Rojas plays masterfully with different registers of speech, verges on sublime obscenity, decants coarseness, dizzily accelerates the pace of the narrative, threads arguments and phrases like pearls, harries, hustles and converts verbal play into a vibrantly alive work of art: ‘I did this. She said that. We told such and such a joke. I took her like this. I kissed her this way. She bit me. So I hugged her thus. She lay with me so. What a licker! What a repertoire! What foreplay! What smackers! Let’s go, come back, play some music, talk mucky, tell tall stories! What should we draw on the wall? You heard the gossip? She goes to mass, will be out and about tomorrow, let’s prowl up her street, look out her house, go at night. You hold the ladder and wait by the gate. How’d you get on? The cuckold got what was coming to him. He never went near her. Do it again. Let’s go back.’

Subject to the whims of untrammelled egoism, sunk in bitter, inevitable conflict, the characters in Celestina know no other law than immediate self-interest. Sempronio and Pármeno forget the loyalty they owe to their master the moment Celestina promises them a reward: ‘He can damage and destroy the lot. Give everything he has to the bawd, and then I’ll get my just desserts. As they say, “Stormy weather, rich pickings,”’ declares Pármeno. They finally murder the bawd when she refuses to share the fruits of her trade. The violence unleashed soon takes its toll: The two men are beheaded in the town square and, after his first anxious moment, their master Calisto repays them posthumously in the same coin: ‘So, you don’t have to rue their deaths and no grieving can equal the pleasure you felt.’ The perverse chain of cause and effect will in due course bring Calisto’s death and Melibea’s suicide.

Certainly there are some hopeful moments in the work – the maids and prostitutes’ self-esteem, their rebelliousness against their masters’ abuse of power, Areúsa’s moving solidarity with Elicia, an explicit defence of female sexuality. However, these flashes of light on the horizon of this universe ruled by the power of pleasure and the pleasure of power only help to deepen the gloomy shadows. A reading of Celestina gives little grounds for optimism. The frequent references characters make to the world as a ‘marketplace’ or ‘fairground’ in which people and merchandise are only ‘worth what they cost,’ and Pleberio’s distraught invective against ‘the deceitful fairground of life’ take on a disturbing slant when read in the light of the ceaseless decline of democratic, humanist values of solidarity in today’s Global Village, Shop or Casino, where the only law is the immediacy of profit. Does human life exist outside the laws of the market, or is it just one more product for sale? To the anguished question posed by growing inequalities, a close reading of Celestina brings us an inexorably negative answer from five hundred years ago: Nature and its blind laws reduce us all to the status of an expendable commodity in a godless, iniquitous world.

CELESTINA

1

Calisto ran into the garden in pursuit of his falcon, saw Melibea and immediately felt love stirring.

‘Melibea, I look at you and see why God is great.’

‘Why, Calisto?’

‘Because he let nature endow you with such perfect beauty, and granted a mere mortal like me the chance to meet you in this timely spot and declare my secret yearning. My good fortune goes far beyond any pledges, sacrifice, devotion or pious works I ever offered God to this end. What man’s body was blessed in this life as mine is now? The holy saints’ bliss when enjoying the vision of the divine is surely less than mine when I gaze at you? The abyss separating us is that they glory in it and never fear their bliss will fade whereas my happiness walks in the shadow of the insidious torture inflicted by your absence.’

‘Have you really been granted so much, Calisto?’

‘I’m sure of that. I couldn’t be happier if God had given me pride of place among his saints in heaven.’

‘Well, you’ll get an even greater reward from me, if you don’t stop.’

‘My ears are blessed to hear those words on your lips!’

‘They’ll feel less than blessed when you hear what I’m about to say, because you’re about to get the reward your rash words deserve. Why do you scheme to bring ruin upon yourself by pursuing a virtuous woman like me? Be gone, you selfish fool. I can’t bear to think a man felt it right in his heart to tell me of the delights of forbidden love.’

‘I leave devastated by this cruel twist in my fortunes.’

*  *  *

‘Sempronio, Sempronio, where the hell are you, Sempronio?’

‘I’m here, Master Calisto, I’ve been seeing to the horses.’

‘In that case, why do you come from the dining-room?’

‘The falcon fell off its perch and someone had to put it back.’

‘The devil take you. I hope you die a violent death followed by perpetual torture that’s even more painful. Off to my bedroom, sly wretch, and make my bed!’

‘Right away, master. Right away.’

‘Now shut my window and let darkness accompany this sad, blinded soul! My disappointment doesn’t deserve to see the light of day. Death that gives relief to sorrow is so welcome. If those doctors of old, Galen and Crato, came back now, they’d soon diagnose my illness! I beg the heavens to take pity on me and encourage her father, Pleberio, not to send my spirit, now wandering and terminally sick, to join the wretched souls of Piramis and hapless Thisbe!’

‘What are you talking about, master?’

‘Clear off! Don’t talk to me! Or my hands will throttle you before rage kills me.’

‘I’ll be off then as you prefer to suffer on your own.’

‘Yes, I do. And the devil go with you!’

*  *  *

‘He’ll more likely stay here and not come with me. Such bad luck! And all so sudden! What setback has so quickly blighted my master’s good fortune, and, worse still, addled his brain? Should I let him be or should I go in? If I let him be, he’ll kill himself. If I go in, he’ll kill me. I’ll stay put. Why should I worry? Let him die if he’s so fed up with life. Why should I die? I’m having too much of a good time. I live to see my Elicia and I should keep out of harm’s way. But if he dies and I’m the only witness, I’ll be the one the law will call in to make a statement. I should go in. Though if I do, he won’t want any sympathy or advice from me. It’s bad enough he doesn’t want a cure. I should let him come to his senses by himself. As people say, lancing ripe boils is a recipe for disaster. Let him wallow. Let him weep. A good weep and sigh soothes the sorrowing heart. If I’m with him, he’ll get angrier and angrier, because the sun loves to shine when it sees a chink in the clouds. Eyes ache when they see nothing and brighten only when something shows on the horizon. I’ll bide my time. If he kills himself, too bad. I might be better off. You never know. Still it’s wrong to put all your hopes in someone else’s death. The devil may even be setting me a trap, and if he dies, they’ll kill me, and that’ll be goodbye to all this. On the other hand, wise men say that if the lovesick can talk through their sorrows relief is round the corner, and that a pain repressed hurts twice as much. I’m caught between two extremes. The sensible thing would be to go in, placate and console him. He might sort himself out, but a little of my knowledge won’t do him any harm.’

*  *  *

‘Sempronio!’

‘Master.’

‘Bring me my lute.’

‘Here you are, master.’

‘Can sorrow exist to equal this?’

‘Your lute’s out of tune’

‘How can you tune your instrument if you’re feeling out of tune? How can a man feel harmonious when he harbours discord, when his will won’t obey his reason, when he feels peace, war, truce, love, hate, suspicion, insult and injury stabbing him in the chest, all prompted by a single thing? Why don’t you pluck away and sing the saddest song you know?’

‘Nero on the Tarpeian

sees Rome burn,

young and old scream

but he can only beam.’

‘My fire burns more fiercely and has much less pity.’

‘I was right. My master has gone mad.’

‘What’s that you are muttering, Sempronio?’

‘Oh, nothing very much.’

‘Tell me and don’t be afraid.’

‘I was only wondering how a fire that strikes down one individual could possibly be worse than one that burns a great city and all its inhabitants.’

‘I’ll tell you how. A flame that endures eighty years is worse than one that lasts a day, and one that kills a single soul is worse than one that turns a hundred thousand bodies to ash. The difference between the fire in your song and the one burning me is as great as the gap between appearance and reality, life and artifice, a shadow and its source. What’s more, if the fire of purgatory is anything like this, I’d prefer my spirit to follow those of brute animals than choose that path on my way to glory with the saints.’

‘I was half right. He is mad and a heretic into the bargain,’ mumbled Sempronio.

‘Didn’t I tell you to speak up when you’ve got something on your mind?’

‘I said God would never wish such a thing on you, and that what you just said is a kind of heresy.’

‘Why?’

‘Because what you say goes against the Christian religion.’

‘And so what?’

‘Aren’t you a Christian?’

‘Me? No, I’m a Melibean. I worship Melibea, I believe in Melibea and I adore Melibea.’

‘You said it. Melibea is certainly great. His heart can’t cope with her and she’s now bubbling out of his mouth,’ muttered Sempronio before venturing, ‘Enough said, I can see what’s troubling you and I’ve got the cure.’

‘Don’t promise the impossible.’

‘I’m not, it’s very easy. The first step to good health is to know the cause of the sickness.’

‘What reasoning can ever right what’s beyond reason?’

Sempronio mused to himself: ‘Ha, ha! Is this what’s firing Calisto? Is this his sorrow? As if love fired its darts at him alone … Oh, almighty God, how impenetrable your mysteries! What power you gave love to put a lover in such a spin. You shun half measures and he’s like a lover spurned. They all go too far and break free; like fighting bulls spiked in the neck and hurtling nimbly over every barrier. You are a god to drive a man to forsake his mother and father for a woman and, like Calisto, not just them, but Him and His law. So, what’s the big surprise: haven’t sages, saints and prophets all abandoned You for the sake of love?’

‘Sempronio!’

‘Master.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘Ah, he’s changed his tune.’

‘What’s your verdict on my illness?’

‘That you love Melibea.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Isn’t it bad enough to tie your will to a single post.’

‘You don’t know the meaning of the word loyalty.’

‘Wallowing in woe isn’t loyalty. Where I come from, they call it being plain daft. You philosophers of Cupid can call it what you like.’

‘Well, people don’t normally deride what they like doing. Aren’t you fond of praising Elicia, that friend of yours?’

‘Do what I say and not what I do.’

‘What are you slandering me for now?’

‘For making man’s dignity depend on the imperfections of a weak woman.’

‘A woman? Don’t insult her. She’s God, God, I tell you!’

‘You really think so? You must be joking?’

‘Joking? I believe she is God and I proclaim that she is God, and I don’t believe another sovereign exists in heaven despite the fact she dwells among us.’

‘Did you ever hear such blasphemy or see such blindness?’ Sempronio tittered.

‘What are you laughing at now?’

‘I laughed because I don’t think a worse sin was ever invented in Sodom.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They were fond of abominable acts with strange angels, but you’ve got someone you call “God” in mind.’

‘Blast you. You’ve made me laugh, and that wasn’t what I had in mind.’

‘So what? Were you all set to weep for the rest of your days?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I love that woman and she makes me feel so inferior I can never hope to reach up to her.’

Sempronio grunted to himself, ‘You pusillanimous son of a bitch! Yet another Nimrod, another Alexander the Great, not content to be masters of the earth, you want to be masters of the universe!’

‘Please repeat what you just muttered before going on.’

‘I said you’re more hot-blooded than Nimrod or Alexander. You’re so desperate to get a woman, many of whose kind have frolicked with lusty muleteers and coarse beasts. Or did you never read about Pasiphae romping with her bull or Minerva dallying with a dog?’

‘Don’t believe such cheap gossip.’

‘And was what your Grandma did with a monkey all gossip too? And what your Grandpa did to it with his knife?’

‘Blast this foolish nonsense you’re coming out with!’

‘I’ve touched a raw nerve, have I? Read the history books, study the philosophers, look at the poets. Their books are full of women’s vile deeds, and the disasters they have brought upon men who sang their praises like you. Listen to Solomon when he says women and wine make men renege. Take advice from Seneca and read what a low opinion he has of them. Listen to Aristotle; think Bernardo. Gentiles, Jews, Christians and Moors all agree on this at least. However, don’t make the mistake of assuming what they said applies to all women because there were and still are many saintly, virtuous and remarkable exemplars of the species. Their shining characters fly in the face of such general vituperation. But who could ever find time to recount the misdeeds of the other sort, their lies, flightiness, simpering ways, tempers and temerity? They dare to do whatever enters their heads without pausing for a moment’s thought. They are all play-acting, lip, deceit, sleight of hand, frostiness, ingratitude, infidelity, slander, denials, scheming, arrogance, vainglory, conning, stupidity, scorn, haughtiness, lies, charlatanry, greed, filth, wanton lust, scaremongering, threats, witchery, fraud, insults, rude talk, and impenitent whoring. Just think of the pea-brains under the flimsy fabric holding those tresses in place, the giddiness under the ruffles, finery and long, regal dresses, the whims sluicing behind those painted temples. That’s why people say, “Instruments of the devil, sin of sins, ravagers of paradise.” Don’t you remember that bit in the prayers for the Festival of St. John where it says, “This is woman, the ancient curse of man that cast Adam from the delights of paradise, that sent the human race to hell, woman scorned by Elias the prophet”, etcetera, etcetera?’

‘I know, and so said Adam, Solomon, David, Aristotle and Virgil but they all gave in to a woman. Who am I to be more strong-minded than they?’

‘I’d prefer you to follow those who fought and conquered them, not those they conquered. Avoid their double-dealing. You’ll never understand them! They’re hard to fathom. They’ve no sense of measure, reason or fair play. First they play hard to get. When they’ve let you through the eye of the needle, they insult you in the street: summon and dismiss you; call and reject you; lovey-dovey, then kick you in the teeth, and are quick to anger and slow to abate. They always keep you guessing. Their company is incredibly poisonous and infuriating, much more that than any tingle of pleasure they might give you in harness!’

‘Well, you know what? The more you go on, the longer your list of drawbacks, the more I love her. I don’t see why you bother.’

‘I can see you are a young man who can’t reason or rule his passions. It’s hopeless trying to teach someone who’s had no schooling.’

‘Sempronio, what do you know? Who ever taught you?’

‘Who? They did, of course. As soon as they let their hair down, they lose all shame, and let men into their secrets and lots more besides. Be your own man. Live up to your rank and reputation. It’s much worse for a man to fall from his rightful perch than try to give himself airs.’

‘What’s all this got to do with me?’

‘With you? First you’re a man and a talented one at that, a man Nature endowed with the best she had: looks, wit, robust limbs and rippling muscle. Into the bargain, Lady Luck dealt you equal shares of riches in your head and in what’s on display for everyone to see. In terms of wealth to parade around, that Lady Luck hands out, nobody could be more blessed than you. To boot, your stars make you everyone’s favourite.’

‘But not Melibea’s, Sempronio. Melibea surpasses in every way whatever you’ve just praised in me. Look at the nobility and antiquity of her lineage, her family’s huge wealth, her scintillating wit, gleaming virtue, stature, ineffable grace and sovereign beauty. Do you want me to describe them so you’ve got an idea? And I will only refer to what’s visible, because if I could speak of what’s hidden, I wouldn’t have to worry about refuting your pathetic arguments.’

‘What claptrap will my besotted master come out with now?’ Sempronio gnashed under his breath.

‘What was that you said?’

‘I said, “Get on with it.” I’ll be only too happy to hear what you’ve got to say.’ Then he whispered, ‘May God help you as much as I find it such fun to listen to you.’

‘What?’

‘God help me and I’ll be delighted to hear you.’

‘Well, I’ll linger on her every feature and make you really happy.’

And yet more muttering, ‘What a bore. This is all I needed. Get it over and done with.’

‘I’ll start with her hair. Did you ever see the skeins of fine gold they spin in Araby? Her hair is prettier and no less resplendent, whether down to her heels, or plaited with ribbons and enough to turn men to stone.’

‘Donkeys more like!’ quipped Sempronio.

‘What’s that?’

‘I said her hair is no donkey’s bristle.’

‘How low you stoop to make such comparison.’

‘Are you so high falutin’ then?’ he whispered again.

‘Slanted green eyes, long eyelashes, thin arched eyebrows, dainty nose, small mouth, even white teeth, full red lips, oval face, and high bosom. If only I could describe what her round firm breasts are like! A man goes crazy just to get a peep. Her complexion is so smooth and silky. Her skin makes snow seem sombre, and it’s all highlighted by colours she adds to make her own work of art.’

‘This fool is in his element,’ moaned Sempronio.

‘Such dainty hands, soft flesh, long fingers, large painted nails, like rubies among pearls. I couldn’t see her other delights, but by their shape I declare them finer than anything Paris saw in his judgement of the three goddesses.’

‘Have you done?’

‘I was as brief as I could be.’

‘All this may be true enough, but you’re a man who deserves much more.’

‘How come?’

‘How come? She’s imperfect and as a result desires and yearns after you as someone who is less than you. Didn’t you ever read the Philosopher where he says, “As matter yearns after form, so woman yearns after man”?’

‘I despair! When will it be like that between Melibea and me?’

‘One day perhaps, although when you have her and see her through other eyes, free of your present delusions, you may come to hate her as much as you love her now.’

‘What other eyes?’

‘Eyes that see clearly.’

‘Tell me, how do I see her now?’

‘Through a magnifying glass, that makes little seem big and petty seem great. And as I don’t want you getting suicidal, I’ll rise to the challenge and help you get what you desire.’

‘May God give you whatever you desire. It’s wonderful to hear you say this, but I don’t expect you to deliver!’

‘On the contrary, I will.’

‘God speed you on your way, Sempronio, and the brocade doublet I was wearing yesterday is yours to keep.’

‘May God help you prosper, after granting me such a gift.’

‘And you shall give me many more. I’m going to extract all I can from this little game. Anyway such a trifle will help get her into his bed. I’m on the right track. I’ll take whatever my master offers. Nobody gets anywhere without giving a gift or two,’ Sempronio quietly ruminated.

‘Don’t let up now.’

‘Or you. A servant can’t work hard if his master’s lazy.’

‘Have you given a thought as to how you’ll do your good deed?’

‘I’ll tell you how. A long time ago I bumped into a bearded lady at the far end of our street by the name of Celestina, a cunning dabbler in the magic arts and every other kind of evildoing. I reckon she’s made and unmade more than five thousand virgins in this city. She can fire rocky crags with lust, if she puts her mind to it.’

‘When can I talk to her, Sempronio?’

‘I’ll bring her here. Meanwhile, you get ready. Be generous, and give it some thought while I go and tell her of your plight, so she can soon come up with a cure.’

‘Will you be gone long?’

‘I’m off right away. God be with you.’

‘And go with you too. Oh, almighty enduring God, who guides those who’ve lost their way, who guided the Kings from the Orient by a star to Bethlehem and duly returned them home, I humbly beg You to guide my Sempronio so he can turn my pain into pleasure, and I can finally reach the goal I desire, not that I deserve to!’

*  *  *

‘Good news, Elicia! It’s Sempronio! Sempronio!’

‘Shush, Celestina.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got Crito in bed with me.’

‘Put him in the broom cupboard, quick! Tell him your cousin’s come.’

‘Crito, hide in here! My cousin’s just come.’

“I’m done for now!” thought Elicia.

‘I’ll be pleased to, don’t worry.’

‘I was so wanting to see you, dear Celestina. I thank God for making it possible.’

‘My son, my prince, you’ve sent me into a real spin. I can’t believe my eyes. Come and give me another hug. How could you go three days without dropping by? Elicia, look who we’ve got here, Elicia!’

‘Who, mother?’

‘It’s Sempronio.’

‘I’m so pathetic! My heart’s beating fit to burst! And where’s he been?’

‘Look, he’s right here. I’ll give him a kiss, if you won’t.’

‘You’re so two-faced, Sempronio! I hope cancer kills you or your worst enemies get you or you get a stiff sentence for your crimes and die a cruel death! Ay!’

‘Tee, hee, hee! What’s wrong, Elicia? What’s biting you?’

‘It’s been three days! I hope God wipes you off the planet, and never visits or comforts you! I pity any wretch who puts her hopes of happiness in you!’

‘Hush, my lady. Do you think absence can douse my deep love for you or the fire burning in my heart? Wherever I wander, you go with me. Don’t feel so sorry for yourself and don’t torture me any more than I’ve already suffered. But tell me, whose are the footsteps I can hear upstairs?

‘Oh, it’s only a lover of mine, replied Elicia’

‘That’s not hard to believe.’

‘I bet! Why don’t you go and take a look!’

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Drop it, Sempronio, ignore this crazy Jane. She’s moody and upset because you’ve been away so long! Go on up and she’ll act even crazier. Come and talk to me and let’s not waste any more time,’ suggested Celestina.

‘So who is upstairs?’

Do you really want to know?’

‘Naturally.’

‘A lass waiting for a friar.’

‘Which friar?’

‘Don’t ever try to find out.’

‘Come on, mother dear, which friar?’

‘Can’t you drop it? The minister, the fat friar, of course.’

‘Poor thing. Is she up to a heavy load!’

‘Well, you know, we all have our crosses to bear. You’ve seen a good few sore bellies in your time.’

‘No, a lot of legs waving in the air!’

‘Don’t be so rude!’

‘Forget my filth and just show me the way!’

‘Ah-hah, you dirty boy! You want to see her? Your eyes are bulging out of their sockets. My two aren’t enough. Go now then, take a look at her and forget me forever!’

‘Hush, for God’s sake. Why are you angry with me? I don’t want to look at her or any other woman on this earth, but I must have a word with my dear old Celly, so goodbye.’

‘Off you go then. Get out, you ungrateful soul, and don’t come back for another three years!’

‘Mother, trust me. I’m not up to any tricks. Celly, get your coat and we’ll be off. While we’re walking I’ll tell you what’s on my mind because if we delay, we’ll both be the poorer.’

‘Come on then. Elicia, you stay put. Goodbye. And shut the door. I won’t be long!’

*  *  *

‘Dear old Celly! Put everything else out of your head and listen to what I’ve got to say. Then let your imagination wander, but don’t spread your net too wide. If it goes everywhere, you won’t catch a single fish. Use your commonsense. I’m going to tell you a story the likes of which you’ve never heard before. It’s also a fact that since I started working with you, I’ve only wanted success you too can share.’

‘May God do good by you, my boy, and rightly so, for you’ve taken pity on this old sinner woman. Tell me quick. We’re almost there, so no need for preambles or flowery words to win me over. Get to the point. Don’t blather. A few choice words will do.’

‘Right you are. Calisto is burning hot for Melibea. He needs me and he needs you. Since he needs us both, let’s both profit. Success comes when people grab the opportunities that come their way.’

‘Too true. I’m with you and on the case already. I can tell you your good news pleases me as much as a surgeon greets a broken neck. He sticks an eager knife in, scores the damaged flesh and ups his charges while promising a quick cure, and I’ll follow suit with Calisto. I’ll raise his spirits with a sure-fire remedy, because, as they say, “Faint hopes depress the heart”. The more beside himself he gets, the more I’ll egg him on. You follow me?’

‘Quiet now. This is his front door, and, as they say, “Walls have ears”.’

‘Knock then,’ Celestina told Sempronio.

Bang, bang, bang.

‘Pármeno!’

‘Sir.’

‘You gone deaf?’

‘What is it, sir?’

‘Someone’s knocking on the door. Quick.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Pármeno.

‘Open the door. It’s me and a lady.’

‘Sir, Sempronio and that filthy old whore are banging on your front door.’

‘Shut up, you evil-minded sod, she’s an aunt of mine. Run and open the door to them!’