The Poetry of the Fantastic in "El Caballero de Olmedo" Author(s): Donald A. Yates Reviewed work(s): Source: Hispania, Vol.

43, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 503-507 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/335964 . Accessed: 16/09/2012 19:45
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THE POETRY OF THE FANTASTIC IN DE OLMEDO" "ELCABALLERO

DONALDA. YATES

Michigan State University Among the plays of Lope de Vega that have best weathered the assault of the shifting winds of theatrical vogue and style is his semi-historical drama, "El Caballero de Olmedo."* It is not only one of Lope's most engaging dramas;it is also one of his most representative. The play, written probably between 1620 and 1625, remains remarkably appealing today-over three centuries later-squarely on the merits of the playwright's choice of material and his dramatic treatment of that material. Historian Angel Valbuena Prat has succinctly expressed in the following lines the first of two qualifications which brought Lope greatness: "Lope de Vega crea el teatro nacional espafiol. Fija en una f6rmula, en un procedimiento, todos los elementos dispares del periodo anterior. Alma popular en lo esencial, comprende el sentido 'pico, tradicional,de la raza y el que puede agradar y entretener a su ptiblico."' This capacity for probing into the soul of the Spanish traditional heritage and creating a theatre that would delight an action and emotion-loving audience together with his second qualification for greatness, a profound sense of poetry, were the principal elements in Lope's creation of what has come to be known as the Golden Age "comedia." Valbuena has written with respect to this genre: la 'comedia'de Lope Puede considerarse
la vida, en su aspecto nacional y popular. A los momentosde mas fina calidad supranacional,se Ilega precisamente por ahondar en leyendas y problemasde su raza, como en Peribhiez, en El
caballero de Olmedo o Fuenteovejuna. (Ibid.,

p. 305).

In this respect, Lope was attracted by the traditional ballads-"canciones" and "cantares"-and he employed these immediately-recognized Spanish songs to color and give appealing national flavor to his plays. In "El Caballero de Olmedo," Lope builds an entire dramaaround one of these ballads. The play is carefully constructed on the incidents of the song in question and has as its climax the moment when the "canci6n" is recited by a minor personage in its complete, familiar, fullyrounded form. In the play, as Enrique Anderson Imbert has pointed out in the title of his essay on the subject, "Lope dramatiza un cantar."2 Professor Anderson Imbert further specifies the playwright's intent:
Y, por lo menos una vez, Lope se complaci6 en imaginar el momento inicial de un cantar, ese momento preciso en que alguien lo inventa

y lo entrega al pueblo. E1 Caballero de Olmedo,

de la poesiatradicional, (Ibid., p. 64.) Here, then, is the brief, haunting song in question: Que de nochele mataron al caballero la galade Medina la florde Olmedo le avisaron Sombras
que no saliese

del misteriosoproceso es esto: una dramatizaci6n

y le aconsejaron que no se tuese el caballero la galade Medina *A paper read at the 62nd meeting of the la florde Olmedo Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, At this point there is some basis for raisAnn Arbor,Michigan, March 21, 1958.

como un extenso cuadro, amplio y variado, de

503

504

HISPANIA several factors which contribute to the mood of fantasy yet another of the possible interpretations, we find we have brought about the emergence of further testimony of Lope's dramatic art and a striking manifestation of his profound poetic nature. Let us turn to the play. The action is set in Medina in the time of king Juan II. Historically, the year is 1451. Don Alonso, the proud gallant caballero of the title, has fallen in love with the young and beautiful D6na Ines. Following their first casual and star-crossed meeting at the fair in Medina, Don Alonso enlists the aid of old Fabia, an enterprising crone outwardly patterned after the celebrated Spanish folk-figure, the Celestina, to deliver to Inds' hand an amorous note declaring his devotion. Fabia performs her duty well and arranges for a nocturnal meeting between Don Alonso and the equally involved Inds in the latter's garden. When Don Olonso and his page, Tello, arrive at the rendezvous, they come across Don Rodrigo and a companion who, themselves, have matrimonial intentions-Don Rodrigo toward Ines and his friend toward her sister Leanor. The rivals quickly come to swordplay and the two would-be suitors are sent off into the night in rout by Don Alonso and Tello. The following morning, Rodrigo and his friend-not to be denied-present themselves before the girls' father, Don Pedro, state their marriageplans, and are accepted as prospective sons-in-law. When Dofia Inds, now hopelessly enamored of Don Alonso, hears of the fate her father has arrangedfor her, she forthwith gives her family to believe that she wishes to enter a convent. Exploiting this pretense, 'the resourceful Fabia and Don Alonso's companion, Tello, find anopportunity to enter regularly into Dofia In.s' home (as intermediaries for the lovers) in the guise of tutors who are to prepare Dofia Inks for convent life. At

ing the question: was Lope actually dramatizing the precise origin of the song, as Anderson Imbert proposes, or was he merely constructing a play about the details of the familiar song? That is, was the playwright simply letting the minimal "canci6n" suggest to him the dramatic structure of an entire play? Further, what, precisely, was the nature of Lope's employment of the ballad of the Caballero of Olmedo? Not until we have considered this question can a fair judgment be given to the degree of success Lope attained in the use of this particular traditional subject matter. There is an element in the play as Lope wrote it which needs to be interpreted as cautiously as possible, since an understanding of the playwright's intent cannot be reached without determining the precise role assigned to this dramatic factor. This is the element of fantasy. Mystical and supernatural occurrences were very much a part of the popular heritage of legends and superstitions of the playwright's age; and Lope incorporated this coloring of fantasy quite naturally into the tradegy of The Caballero of Olmedoas he employed it in many of his other plays.3 This problem of the implications of the fantastic element-if not at times the arguable question of its actual presence-has been commented upon many times. Leo Spitzer, Menindez y Pelayo, Anderson Imbert, and Jose Montesinos all have given interpretationsof the evident supernatural element in the play. It is notable, however, that the theories put forth are lacking in agreement. Is the song sung by the "labrador" one from the "emanating anonymous popular patrimony" as Leo Spitzer claims? Is it "the song of Fabia" as Anderson Imbert proposes? Or is it something yet distinct from these? The matter seems worth some deliberate examination. For if, in "El Caballero de Olmedo," we give to the

DE OLMEDO" "EL CABALLERO

505

this point the King, Juan II, enters the city and great celebrations and festivities are planned in Medina in his honor. At a bullfight which is part of the festival, Don Alonso has occasion to save the life of his rival, Don Rodrigo. For this reason, the caballero feels that Don Rodrigo can no longer hold any ill-feelings against him. However, Don Rodrigo's jealousies are only aggravated by the humiliation he has suffered through Don Alonso's brave and noble act, and he plans to lie in wait under the cover of darkness along the road from Medina to Olmedo to kill the caballero who, he is certain, will then be travelling that lonely highway. Don Alonso, meanwhile, has had waking premonitions of evil to come. And following his farewell to Ines after the bullfight, a masked spectral figure has appeared to him, momentarily blocking his departure for Olmedo. The spectre uttered no words save "Don Alonso, Don Alonso" when Don Alonso promptly demanded the intruder's identity. Uttering this, the mysterious figure disappeared. In spite of the forewarnings, and in spite of old Fabia's urgings, Don Alonso insists on departing that night for Olmedo where his parents, always apprehensive, are awaiting his return. His obligation, he feels, is to relieve their parental anxiety. So the caballero leaves Medina for Olmedo. Here begins the most famous scene of the play. Passing through the depths of a forest along his route, Don Alonso is arrestedin his passage by a song being sung somewhere off in the blackness of the night. The voice approaches Don Alonso slowly, chanting:
Que de noche le mataron la gala de Medina, la flor de Olmedo.

to delay his nighttime journey to Olmedo. The voice comes gradually closer:
Sombrasle avisaron que no saliese,

y le aconsejaron que no se fuese el caballero, la galade Medina la florde Olmedo.

D. Alonso.

D. Alonso. iHola, buen hombre, el que canta! Labrador. ?Quien me llama? D. Alonso. Un hombre soy que va perdido. Ya voy. Labrador. Veisme aqul.

Sale un Labrador

?D6nde vas? A mi labor. Labrador. D. Alonso. ?Quien esa canci6n te ha dado, que tristementehas cantado? Labrador. Alla en Medina, sefior. D. Alonso. A mi me suelen llamar el Caballerode Olmedo, No puedo deciros deste cantar mas historia ni ocasi6n, de que a una Fabia la oi. Si os importa,ya cumpll con deciros la canci6n, Volved atris; no paseis desde arroyo. En mi nobleza, D. Alonso. fuera ese temor bajeza. Labrador. Muy necio valor ten6is. Volved, volved a Medina D. Alonso. Ven t6 conmigo. Labrador.

(Aparte.) Todome espanta.

y yo estoyvivo.

No puedo.(Vase.) Labrador. And the peasant disappears into the pressing dark of night. Don Alonso accuses himself aloud of falling victim to the fancies of fear, to the deceptions of his imagination. Still, he calls out to the invisible figure: ?D6ndefu6, Oye, escucha. el eco. Aguarda, responde
que apenas sus pasos siento? Oye, aguarda. iAh, Labrador! iMuerto yo! Pero es canci6n que por algin hombrehicieron de Olmedo, y los de Medina en este camino han muerto.

al caballero,

A la mitadd61l estoy: ?qu6han de decirsi me vuelvo?

Gente viene . . . No me pesa; si alli van, ir6 con ellos.

Don Alonso, startled by the song's reference to him, interprets the strange coincidence as a ruse of Fabia who still wishes

Someone was approaching. It was Don Rodrigo and his followers. Don Alonso, not given the chance to unsheath his

506

HISPANIA

sword, is wounded and left to die. The falling action of the play relates Tello's discovery of the foul act and the immediate condemnation of the villains by the king. On the pronouncement of their sentences, the play ends. It is proper now to ask: what, in the mind of the dramatist-but above all of the poet-was the physical setting of this play? Was it a world of fact, of reality-or of half fact and half fantasy? We are guided by some observations. We know that in this play Lope juggled historical events to suit his purpose. The time of the play, as we have noted, is set, by the intervention of Juan II, in 1451. The actual assasination of the true Caballero of Olmedo (a certain Miguel Ruiz de la Fuente4) is documented as taking place in 1521. One feels assured that this was not a case of ignorance on the dramatist's part, for by setting the crime back seventy years, he situated the story in the tragic, violent reign of Juan II-a time of suspicion, intrique and superstition. This background enhanced the telling of the tragedy. In this, Lope clearly drew on his poetic license. Is it possible now that Lope in a like manner, and for some deliberate purpose, wove fantasy together with reality in his dramatization of the ballad? Several dramatic incidents above mentioned suggest that this is so. These incidents form the series of forewarnings that Don Alonso received against making his way back to Olmedo by night. First, there was a waking premonition which Don Alonso recounted to Tello. Then there was the shadowy figure -interpreted by Valbuena as a manifestation of Don Alonso's own shadow (Valbuena, p. 312)-which tried to block the caballero's departure. And finally, there who appeared and vanwas the '"labrador" ished under the cover of darkness along the road between Medina and Olmedothe peasant who sang the "canci6n"which

proved to be the death knell for Don Alonso. What are the possible explanations of the appearance of the spectre and the "labrador"? In the case of the former, Anderson Imbert has proposed three possibilities: the spectre is Don Alonso's own ghost, arriving, supernaturally, from the future to warn him of his imminent death; the spectre is an hallucination of Don Alonso; or, he is an agent of Fabia, disguised and sent to avert the tragedy (Anderson, p. 68). The same interpretations, one realizes, can apply equally to the figure of the "labrador." Which, then of these? Rejecting categorically the element of fantasy, some critics have seen in these events only the handiwork of Fabia. And their stand is apparently supported by the fact that, throughout the play snatches of the ultimate song-a word here, a phrase there-are heard falling from the lips of the old woman.5 Yet, what is interesting to note here is the fact that Fabia herself has supernatural powers ascribed to her by other charactersin the play. Tello addresses Fabia as "t6i, Fabia, ensefiada estais/a hablar al diablo (Blecua, p. 50, lines 615-616). And Don Rodrigo, at one point speaks of Fabia "que puede trasponer un monte;/Fabia, que puede detener un rio/... Fabia, que ... puede Ilevar a un hombre por el aire/(Ibid., p. 106, lines 506, 507 and 512). So Fabia, named as instigator of the "supernatural"occurrences, has apparent supernatural qualities in her own right. Lope's great popular audience, one might add, would believe in those powers, too. It is worth noting that Don Alonso, who on repeated occasions, denies any belief in witchcraft, and who suspects Fabia's scheming manipulations behind the appearance of the spectre, has a tardy change of mind. In the midst of the sequence of tragic events on the road to Olmedo, Don Alonso, even after hearing

"EL CABALLERO

DE OLMEDo"

507

the "labrador's" reference to Fabia, searches his mind for the meaning of the "canci6n," but does not consider the terrible song as a design of Fabia. These are some of the problems of interpretationcreated by the element of fantasy in this play. Now if we consider the type of theatre that Lope created before and after the composition of this single drama, we are confronted with the suggestion of a possible inspiration the playwright may have received when he contemplated the original ballad as a basis for a poetic drama. It would be this: his intent was to propose an origin for the ballad, but at the same time, by leaving the principal characters in the creation of the song within the shadow of fantasy, make the moment of creation poetic, mystical-as if he were attempting consciously to avoid naming the name of the true originators for fear of spoiling, or diminishing the appeal of popular anonymous tradition. Lope, therefore, would propose a dramatic origin for the song, without reducing the charm of the mystic process of creation. Just as Lope took poetic license with historical fact, he may have exercised the same right with respect to the documentation of the song's origin. The song, thereby, would be the creation of no man. It would be a "canci6n" that simply appeared, magically, in the woods, one night, along the road from Medina to Olmedo. Surely, such an interpretation does

nothing to detract from the world's admiration for so able a dramatist and perfect a poet as the incomparableLope who here, regardless of interpretation, has infused the feeling of a people, the mood of a time, the grace of his own poetic genius into a remarkable drama woven around the traditional Spanish ballad which opens with the quietly tragic lines:
Que de noche le mataron al caballero la gala de Medina la flor de Olmedo ... NOTES
1A. Valbuena Prat, Historia de la literatura espaiola, (Barcelona, 1958), I1, p. 303. 2 Enrique Anderson Imbert, Los grandes libros de occidente, (Mexico, 1958), pp. 63-74. El rey don Pedro en Madrid, El duque de Viseo, Las paces de los reyes, San Nicolas de Tolentino, El marques de las Navas, and El infanzdn de Illescas.

3Among the numerous plays of Lope in which the element of fantasy figures prominently are:

4 For a discussionof the historicalbackgroundof the legend of the Caballero,see the Introduction Editorial Ebro, (Zaragoza, 1947), p 15. 5We note that near the end of the first act, Fabia has on her lips bits of the final song: "No te desconsueles,hija; vuelve en ti, que tendris presto estado con el mejor y mis noble caballero que agoratiene Castilla; porque seri por lo menos el que por iinico llaman
El Caballero de Olmedo." by Jos6 Manuel Blecua to El caballero de Olmedo,

and "Don Alonso ha de ser tuyo; que serIs dichosa espero con hombreque es en Castilla
la flor de Olmedo." la flor de Olmedo."

OUR ANNUAL MEETING

Don't forget the dates of our 42nd Annual Meeting in San Diego, December 2830, 1960. The El Cortez Hotel rates will be $7.50 for a single room with bath, and $10.50 for a double (or twin bed) room with bath. Further details appear in the program on p. 575 of this issue.