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A Study Of Baltasar Gracian'S 'El Criticon': Sources And Selected Themes

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A Study Of Baltasar Gracian'S 'El Criticon': Sources And Selected Themes

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Content 70-8523
FABILLI, Josephine Caroline, 1910—
A STUDY OF BALTASAR GRACIAN’S EL
CRITICON: SOURCES AND SELECTED
THEMES. [Portions of Text in Spanish].
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1969
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
Copyright © by
JOSEPHINE CAROLINE FABILLI
1970
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
A STUDY OF BALTASAR GRACIAN'S EL CRITICON:
SOURCES AND SELECTED THEMES
by
Josephine Caroline Fabilli
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfullment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Spanish)
June 1969
UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
T H E G RADUATE S C H O O L
U N IV ERSITY PARK
LO S A N G EL ES. C A L IFO R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
JOS.EPHiaS..CM.QLIKE..EABJLiI....
under the direction of h.SX... Dissertation C om
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The G radu
ate School, in partial fulfillm ent of require
ments for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For suggestions and helpful criticism received, I owe
thanks to the members of my guidance committee: Professors
Ramon J. Sender, chairman; Robert E. Curtis; and Rene F.
Belle. With his memories of Huesca, Professor Sender has
made the city of Gracian and Lastanosa come alive to one who
has not yet been there.
I am indebted to Professor Alexander Kosloff for his
explanation of the contents of a Russian periodical article.
My thanks go to various libraries for the use made of
their collections during the progress of this dissertation.
In addition to the library of the University of Southern
California, I have consulted works in the libraries of the
University of California, Berkeley (inter-library loans) and
Los Angeles; of the California State College at Los Angeles;
and of the Los Angeles Public Library. At the University of
Southern California, my special thanks go to Miss Helen W.
Azhderian and the staff of the Reference Department; to
ii
Wallace R. Nethery, librarian of the Hoose Library of
Philosophy; and to Dale 0. Jarvis, Assistant Librarian for
Public Services. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the in
terest and cooperation of these and other members of the
library staff.
Lastly, and especially, I express my deepest apprecia
tion for my family's unfailing and encouraging devotion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................... ii
INTRODUCTION........... 1
Chapter
I. LIFE AND WORKS OF GRACIAN....................... 6
Life of Gracian
Works of Gracian
II. CRITICISM AND INFLUENCE OF GRACIAN............ 26
III. ANTECEDENTS AND POSSIBLE SOURCES OF
EL CRITICON.................................... 41
Allegorical Writings in Spain before
Gracian
Antecedents and Possible Sources of
El criticon
IV. A RENAISSANCE TRANSLATION OF HAYY BEN
Y A C D A N ........................................ 58
V. ASPECTS OF LIFE IN EL CRITICON................ 74
Nature
Man
Life
The Vices
The Virtues
iv
Chapter Page
Wisdom
"Saber Vivir"
Books
Friendship
Conversation
VI. WOMAN IN EL CRITICON............................. 117
VII. GRACIAN'S AMBIVALENCE: PESSIMISM AND
OPTIMISM........................................ 164
CONCLUS I O N .................................................185
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ 190
V
INTRODUCTION
This study of the sources and of selected themes of
Baltasar Gracian's allegorical novel El criticon seeks to
clarify certain aspects of the life and work of Gracian.
After a discussion of Gracian's life, writings, and
influence, two subjects receive emphasis. Concerning the
first subject, on a possible Arabic source of the novel, a
number of writers have noted resemblances between the early
chapters of El criticon and Hayy ben Yacdan, a philosophi
cal novel by the medieval writer Ibn Tufail. Until 1926 it
had been generally accepted that Ibn Tufail's risala had
suggested some episodes to Gracian, although how the latter
might have come to know the Arabic work was uncertain since
the Latin translation, by Edward Pococke, of Hayy ben
Yacdan did not appear until 1671, twenty years after the
publication of the first part of El criticon. In 1926 an
article by Emilio Garcia Gomez on his discovery in the
Escorial of the manuscript of an ancient Arabic tale
1
provided a possible link in the chain of transmission, for
it appears that the tale, of an era well antedating that of
Ibn Tufail, is the source of both Hayy ben Yacdan and El
criticon. A chapter in the present study treats of a Latin
translation of Hayy ben Yacdan reported to have been made in
the fifteenth century. Though it appears that the earlier
translation was not published, it is possible that there
was knowledge of it in Spain before Pococke published his
translation.
The second matter treated, of a more subjective nature,
is Gracian's view of women in his philosophical novel, a
topic which appears not to have been treated at length
before. As a preamble, consideration is given to certain
aspects of life as seen by Gracian, whose misogyny was a
logical consequence of his generally pessimistic view of
life. Eight important allegorical characters of El criticon
are then presented as examples of Gracian's close observa
tion of women. The Greeks, the Romans, and before them the
Hebrew people in the Old Testament were generally critical
of women, blaming them for most of the world's evils. It
was not to be expected that Gracian would depart from this
classical view. As a contrast to his general opinion of
women, instances are related in which Gracian, in spite of
his expressed misgivings about women, showed a consideration
for them that might not have been expected in one with his
views•
Gracian, whose intellectual attitude at times makes his
doctrine seem harsh, has been variously judged by writers.
Especially divergent are the views held of him as a human
being. A summary of a number of opinions is given, followed
by a conclusion concerning Gracian's teaching and his occa
sional departure from the norms of action recommended in
his writings.
The text followed in this study of El criticon is that
of Miguel Romera-Navarro 1s three-volume critical edition,
published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938-
1940.
The contents of El criticon are:
PRIMERA PARTE
En la primavera de la ninez y en el estio
de la juventud
I. Naufrago Critilo encuentra con Andrenio,
que le da prodigiosamente razon de si
II. El gran teatro del Universo
III. La hermosa Naturaleza
IV. El despenadero de la Vida
V. Entrada del Mundo
4
VI. Estado del Siglo
VII. La fuente de los Enganos
VIII. Las maravillas de Artemia
IX. Moral anotomia del Honibre
X. El mal passo del salteo
XI. El golfo cortesano
XII. Los encantos de Falsirena
XIII. La feria de todo el Mundo
SEGUNDA PARTE
En el otono de la varonil edad
I. Reforma universal
II. Los prodigios de Salastano
III. La carcel de oro y calabogos de plata
IV. El museo del Discreto
V. Plaga del populacho y corral del Vulgo
VI. Cargos y descargos de la Fortuna
VII. El hiermo de Hipocrinda
VIII. Armeria del Valor
IX. Anfiteatro de monstruosidades
X. Virtelia encantada
XI. El texado de vidrio y Momo tirando piedras
XII. El trono del Mando
XIII. La jaula de todos
TERCERA PARTE
En el invierno de la vejez
I. Honores y horrores de Vejecia
II. El estanco de los Vicios
III. La Verdad de parto
•
>
H
El Mundo descifrado
V. El palacio sin puertas
t
H
>
El Saber reynando
VII. La hija sin padres en los desvanes del mundo
VIII. La cueva de la Nada
IX. Felisinda descubierta
X. La rueda del Tiempo
XI. La suegra de la Vida
XII. La isla de la Inmortalidad
CHAPTER I
LIFE AND WORKS OF GRACIAN
Life of Gracian
Baltasar Gracian* a son of Francisco Gracian and
Angela Morales* was born in Belmonte* near Calatayud*^ in
Aragon* and was baptized on January 8* 1601. Baltasar and
the other children of the family— Magdalena* Pedro* Felipe*
and Raimundo— all entered religious orders. It is not
known when Baltasar went to Toledo* where he was brought up
by his uncle Antonio Gracian* a priest. Returning to Ara
gon* Baltasar entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona in
May 1619* and eventually studied in the Order's schools in
Calatayud and Zaragoza. In 1627 he took the four vows re
quired of Jesuits and was ordained a priest. He taught
humane letters in Calatayud until 1630 and spent the
^The ruins of the ancient Bilbilis* home of Martial*
were in the vicinity. Gracian was often pleased to recall
that he was a countryman of the Roman poet.
6
following year in the Order's house in Valencia.
In 1631 Gracian was teaching at the Colegio of the
~ 2
Companxa in Huesca, where his friendship with Juan Vin-
cencio de Lastanosa, later his good friend and patron, must
have begun. That same year he was named professor of moral
theology at Lerida, and two years later he was transferred
to the Colegio in Gandxa, where he made his solemn profes
sion on July 25, 1635. At this time he may have been plan
ning his first work, El heroe, which appeared in 1637. In
16 36 he returned to Huesca, remaining there until 16 39.
Toward the end of that year he went to Zaragoza as confessor
to the Duke of Nocera, Viceroy of Aragon. Later he may have
accompanied Nocera to Madrid, for Gracian was there in 1640,
and again from 1641 to 1642. In the capital Gracian visited
the royal palace and met some important persons, among them
Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, poet and dramatist and personal
secretary of Felipe IV. It is recorded that the sermons
preached by Gracian in Madrid drew large crowds.
By 1642 Gracian was assistant rector of the Companxa's
Colegio in Tarragona. During a visit to Valencia in 1644 he
The abbreviated form "Companxa" will be used xn thxs
paper to refer to the Companxa de Jesus, or Society of
Jesus.
spoke to his congregation of a letter from hell and gave
them to understand that he would reveal its contents later.
Whether meant as a joke or as a means of arousing interest,
the announcement must have produced a stir, for he was
obliged to retract his statement. The unpleasant memory of
this incident stayed with Gracian and probably helped to
tint his view of the Valencians, who generally do not fare
well at the point of his pen.
Toward the end of 1646 Gracian was in Lerida as mili
tary chaplain to the Marques de Leganes, who had gone to
relieve the city then occupied by French forces. Here
Gracian was so successful in exhorting the troops to bravery
that he earned the name of "padre de la victoria." He
returned to Huesca late that year and resumed his writing
and publishing, with occasional assignments to other towns
of Aragon. It was between 1651 and 1652 that Manuel de
Salinas, prebendary of the cathedral in Huesca, and Gracian
engaged in a literary dispute which resulted in ill will for
the latter.
In 1652 Goswin Nickel, General of the Companxa in Rome,
wrote to the Provincial in Aragon censuring Gracian for
having "sacado a luz con nombre ajeno, y sin licencia,
algunos libros poco graves y que desdicen mucho de nuestra
3
profesion." At the end of that year Gracian was sentj
probably as a disciplinary measure, to the Order's new
Colegio in Graus. During 1653 he was in Zaragoza. His
publishing and correspondence were active at this time and
until late in 1655, after which little is known of Gracian's
activities. He may have been in Zaragoza teaching Scrip
ture, while writing the third part of El criticon, until the
summer of 1657. The appearance of the third volume, again
without permission, brought a public reprimand from his
superiors and orders to fast on bread and water. He was
deprived of his teaching post in Zaragoza and was trans
ferred to Graus for several months. Thereafter he was in
residence at Tarazona, with various duties, including the
responsible one of spiritual director. No reply was made by
the General in Rome to his request for permission to trans
fer to a mendicant order. Gracian died in Tarazona on
December 6, 1658.
The first works of Gracian were small treatises pub
lished between 1637 and 1647: El heroe, El politico don
3
Adolphe Coster, Baltasar Gracian; traduccion, prologo
y notas de Ricardo del Arco y Garay (Zaragoza, 1947), Apen-
dice III, no. 9, p. 351.
10
Fernando el Catolico, El discreto, and El oraculo manual y
arte de prudencia. His rhetorical treatise, Arte de inge-
nio, tratado de la aqudeza, appeared first in 1642 and in a
revised form in 1648, with the title of Aqudeza y arte de
inqenio. His only devotional work was El comulqatorio,
published in 1655. The three parts of his allegorical novel
and most important work, El criticon, were issued succes
sively in 1651, 1653, and 1657.
Works of Gracian
Gracian's first work was El heroe, issued under the
pseudonym of Lorenzo Gracian in Huesca in 16 37 through the
interest of the author's friend and patron, Juan Vincencio
de Lastanosa. The book was probably dedicated to the king,
4
Felipe IV. In twenty chapters called primores, each de
scribing a quality befitting a king or leader, Gracian ex
horts his reader to strive to become a "varon gigante" with
4
As copies of the first edition have disappeared, there
is uncertainty about the dedication. An existing manuscript
of El heroe contains a dedication to the king, but in the
1639 edition that dedication was omitted. It is believed
that there may have been two editions in 1637, one dedicated
to the king and the other to Lastanosa. Cf. Arturo del
Hoyo's edition of Gracian's Obras completas (Madrid, 1960),
pp. cxx-cxxiii (hereinafter referred to as Hoyo), and E.
Correa Calderon, Baltasar Gracian. su vida y obra (Madrid,
1961), pp. 39-40.
11
the aid of his dwarf of a book. Some anecdotes illustrate
the eminent qualities recommended. The work is carefully
planned and balanced, a mature first work by one who all his
life admired heroes and was himself drawn to the heroic
life. Gracian was much pleased, later, to find that his
book was in the palace of Buen Retiro and that it had been
praised by the king.
In this work Gracian may have tried to do for the hero
what Niccolo Machiavelli (whom he did not admire) did for
the principe. In this case as well as in most of his later
ones, Gracian drew on Giovanni Botero's Petti memorabili di
personaggi illustri (Torino, 1608) for some of his histori
cal illustrations; and he quoted also such classical writers
as Homer, Virgil, Xenophon, Tacitus, and Caesar. More re
cent sources include Commines, Pedro Mateo, Fuenmayor, and
probably Nicholas Faret, whose Honneste-Homme (Paris, 1630)
had been translated into Spanish by Ambrosio de Salazar in
1633 (Coster, pp. 91-94).
El heroe was translated into French by Nicolas Gervaise
in 1645; and the same year there appeared Le heros frangois,
an imitation of Gracian's work, by Ceriziers. A part of
El heroe was translated by Amelot de La Houssaie, and a
translation of the complete work was done by Joseph de
12
Courbeville, S.J., in 1725. An English translation by Sir
John Skeffington, with a prologue by Izaak Walton, was pub
lished in 1652. Early Italian translations appeared in 1695
and 1706, the first by C. A. Tornesi and the later one by
F. I. Civatier.
Gracian's second work, El politico, was published in
Zaragoza in 1640 under the same pseudonym of Lorenzo Gra
cian, with Lastanosa as patron. This work was dedicated to
the Neapolitan, Francesca Maria Carafa, Duke of Nocera,
Viceroy of Aragon, to whom Gracian had just been appointed
5
confessor. Here, again, the author expresses his admira
tion for heroic men of the past, whose qualities he sees
exemplified in Fernando el Catolico. El politico is a brief
work in the form of a discourse which presents political
models accompanied by illustrations from history, some of
them drawn from Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger,
Botero, Giovio, Sedeno, and Guevara.
That Gracian himself thought well of this work of his
is seen in El criticon, where he says of it: "'Esta otra
5
Coster, p. 33: "Gracian tuvo en mucho su proteccion,
pues le dedico su segunda obra, que modestamente declaraba
no ser sino el resumen de las conversaciones del Virrey:
El Politico Fernando."
13
[obra], aunque pequena, si que es preciosa.1 ... 'No tiene
0
otra falta esta Politica sino de autor autorizado.1"
There was a German translation of El politico in 1672,
done by Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein. One in Italian, by
Giovanni P. Marchi, appeared in 1703. In 1730 Etienne de
Silhouette (under the initials M. D. S.) published his
translation, Reflexions politiques de Balthasar Gracian sur
les plus grands princes, et particulierement sur Ferdinand
7
le Catholique. Another French translation, by Courbeville,
appeared in 1732.
In 1642 the Arte de inqenio, tratado de la aqudeza, was
published in Madrid, with Lorenzo Gracian again as author,
and dedicated to the royal heir, Baltasar Carlos. The book
was reworked and enlarged and reappeared in 1648 under the
title Aqudeza y arte de ingenio, printed in Huesca by Juan
Nogues. This work, not well organized and somewhat
^El criticon, edicion critica y comentada por M.
Romera-Navarro (Philadelphia, 1938-1940), II, 4, p. 164. In
this and future references, the number following the volume
number refers to the crisi.
^Silhouette mentions this translation, begun in Spain,
at the end of his "Viaje de Francia, de Espana, de Portugal
y de Italia" (in Jose Garcia Mercadal's edition of Viajes de
extranjeros por Espana y Portugal, III [Madrid, 1962], 185-
271) .
14
confusing, consists of sixty-three discourses on the rhe
toric of the conceptistas. The numerous examples of con
cepts, metaphors, and other rhetorical figures contained in
the work make it an important anthology of conceptism.
Illustrations are culled from authors of a number of coun
tries, from the time of ancient Rome down to Gracian's own
generation, and include, among other writers, the Latins
Horace, Ovid, Pliny, Ausoniusj the Italians Guarini and
Marinoj the Portuguese Sa de Miranda, Camoens, and Jorge de
Montemayor; and the Spaniards Ledesma, Gongora, Paravicino,
Carrillo y Sotomayor.
Before Gracian, the Bolognese Matteo Pellegrini had
published his Delle acutezze (1639), in which he analyzes
and censures conceptism. It seems clear that Gracian knew
8
this work and made use of it.
Passages by Gracian on rhetorical matters have been
translated, but the Aqudeza as a whole, with its numerous
selections from writers of various countries, does not lend
®Cf. Coster, pp. 234-240. Hoyo, pp. clxi-clxii: "El
Arte de ingenio es la unica obra que, de las suyas, reela-
boro y amplio Gracian. Este hecho insolito se ocasiono,
posiblemente, a causa de la existencia del tratado de Pelle
grini. La tranformacion [sic) del Arte de ingenio en la
Aqudeza y arte de ingenio obedece, sin duda, a un deseo de
distanciar la obra propia de la del tratadista italiano."
15
itself to translation.
Under the patronage of Lastanosa, Gracian's El discreto
was published by Juan Nogues in Huesca in 1646, attributed
once more to Lorenzo Gracian and dedicated to the prince
Baltasar Carlos. An acrostic sonnet by Manual de Salinas at
the beginning of the work reveals the identity of the author
of this work as well as the preceding ones and of some
others to come. As El heroe had been for a royal individual
in command, El discreto aimed to further the education of
the royal heir. The twenty-five realces describe the con
duct of a man of judgment, a discreto, which makes the book
useful also to other individuals, especially to the "uni
versal man" or man of the world— the French honnete-homme of
9
the eighteenth century, or the English "gentleman." In
this work, as in El heroe, Gracian may have been influenced
by Nicholas Faret is - L'honneste-homme.. Gracian owes some
thing also to El galateo of Lucas Gracian Dantisco, an
adaptation of Giovanni della Casa's Galateo. In this work,
says Arturo del Hoyo,
Al configurar el tipo del discreto, Gracian trato de
g
L. B. Walton, in his translation of Gracian's The
Oracle (London, 1962), p. 12.
16
proponer, propuso el hombre ideal de su tiempo. ... Nos
ha dado la imagen ideal del hombre espanol del siglo
XVII. Y en ese sentido, aporto un retrato universal,
como en el Renacimiento lo habia hecho Castiglione en
El Cortegiano. (p. cli)
The work consists of discussions of virtues, each of
which is illustrated with dialogues, essays, letters, alle
gories. Among the persons given as models of certain vir
tues or qualities are Augustus, Fernando el Catolico, Car
los V, Francisco de Borja, the Duchess Artemisia Doria y
Colonna, Lastanosa, the Duke of Nocera, Luis Mendez de Haro,
and the Count of Aranda.
Much of El discreto was translated into French by
Amelot de La Houssaie. Courbeville's translation, entitled
L'homme universel, appeared in 172 3. An Italian translation
based on that of Courbeville was published in 1679; and
another one, entitled II savio politico corteggiano, was
done by Domenico de la Crux and appeared in Vienna in 1704.
T. Saldkeld translated El discreto into English in 1726,
entitling it The Compleat Gentleman.
El oraculo manual y arte de prudencia was printed in
Huesca in 1647 by Juan Nogues and, like Gracian's earlier
works, bore the name of Lorenzo Gracian as author and had
Lastanosa as patron. There are no known copies of this
17
first edition, but the Madrid edition of 1653 is dedicated
to Luis Mendez de Haro. The work is composed of 300 aphor
isms, some of them repetitions or restatements of rules and
counsels that had appeared in El heroe and El discreto. It
probably contains also maxims from or destined for the
Avisos al varon atento and El galante, works which Gracian
was planning and which, if written, have been lost. It is
a somewhat confusing work, for the maxims are not arranged
in a logical order. The basic theory is the importance of
prudence as an ingredient for a mature, successful life in
the world. A. del Hoyo says:
Lo que hizo, en definitiva fue trasladar, casi diria
secularizar o mundanizar, la prudencia tomista. Sin
salirse del esquema tomista, acometio una adaptacion
borroca y social de las nociones tomistas de la pru
dencia. (p. clvii)
As in his other works, Gracian draws on the Romans, especi
ally the moralists, such as Seneca and Plinyj and he also
shows the influence of Quevedo and Antonio Perez, among the
Spaniards.
Of Gracian's works, this is the one best known outside
of Spain, partly owing, perhaps, to Schopenhauer's interest
in it and to his translation of it into German (Hand-Orakel
und Kunst der Weltklugheit [Leipzig, 1861]). In his
18
introduction to a 1924 edition of Amelot*s French transla
tion of El orciculo, Rouveyre says:
On peut ... affirmer que 11 Homme de Cour est un des
textes fondamentaux de l'ancien Regime humaniste et
classique, et que* de la Rochefoucauld a Goethe, il
a ete lu par le public le plus averti qui fut jamais.
El oraculo manual has been one of the most popular and
most translated of Gracian*s works. An Italian translation,
Oracolo manuale, was published in 1669. Amelot de La Hous-
saie's French translation, L'homme de cour, appeared in
1684. It was used by Francesco Tosques for his Italian
translation, L'uomo di corte, 1698. Another French trans
lation, entitled Maximes de Baltazar Gracien, was done by
Courbeville in 1730. An English translation based on that
of Amelot appeared in 1694 with the title The Courtier1s
Oracle, and it in turn served John J. Savage for his version
of 1702, The Art of Prudence. A German translation was done
by Adam G. Kromayer in 1686, and one by J. L. Lauter in
1687.
Gracian*s masterpiece is a three-part allegorical
•^Baltasar Gracian, L'homme de cour, maximes traduites
de l'espagnol sur 1*edition originate de 1647 par Amelot de
La Houssaie ... et precedees d'une introduction par Andre
Rouveyre (Paris, 1924), p. viii.
19
novel, El criticon. The first part, entitled En la prima-
vera de la ninez y en el estio de la juventud, was published
by Juan Nogues in Zaragoza in 1651, dedicated to the Portu
guese Pablo de Parada, governor of Tortosa. This time
Garcia de Marlones, an anagram for Gracian y Morales, ap
peared on the title page as the author. The second part,
En el otono de la varonil edad, was published in Huesca,
also by Juan Nogues, in 1653, with a dedication to Don Juan
de Austria and again under Gracian's original pseudonym,
Lorenzo Gracian. The third part of the novel, En el in-
vierno de la vejez, was printed in Madrid by Pablo de Val in
1657 under the same pseudonym and with a dedication to
Lorenzo Francisco de Urritigoyti of Siguenza.
This work is a moral study of man in the four periods
of his life: childhood, youth, maturity, and old age. Re
peating and enlarging on what he has said in his previous
works, Gracian now presents in fictional form his ideas on
the qualities necessary to form a prudent man living in the
world. No longer does the author intend to create heroes;
his aim is now to make "persons" of ordinary men. In the
characters of the experienced Critilo and the ingenuous
Andrenio, the author symbolizes the different aspects of
the human personality. The action does not take place at a
given time, nor is the setting an identifiable one, for the
author is not interested in local color or realistic de
scriptions . His disdain for concrete reality, however, does
not result in a lifeless panorama. Quite the contrary, for
his numerous allegorical and stereotyped figures, some of
them grotesque, have an impressive reality. Along with
borrowings— never servilely used— Gracian invents his own
allegories, apologues, dialogues, and proverbs and often
improves on those of others. In thirty-eight chapters
called crisis'* ' ' * ' (thirteen in each of the first two books
and twelve in the third) he presents the fortunes of Critilo
and Andrenio in their journey through life, a voyage during
which man must become a "persona, 1 1 a "discreto, " if he is to
find a prudential kind of happiness.
An Italian translation of El criticon, done by Pietro
Cattaneo, was published in Venice in 1679. Paul Rycaut's
English translation of the first part of the novel was en
titled The Critick and appeared in 1681. A French transla
tion of the first book, entitled L1homme detrompe, was done
by Guillaume de Maunory in 1696. A German translation by
■^Gracian had used the word with the meaning of "criti
cism" in previous works. It is a word of Greek origin mean
ing "to judge," used in medical contexts. In each of the
chapters of El criticon the author seeks to make an impar
tial judgment of customs or mores.
21
Gottschling appeared in 1708.
El comulgatorio was the only one of Gracian's works
submitted to the censors of the Compania and approved by
them. It was published in Zaragoza in 1655, dedicated to
one of Gracian's faithful readers, Dona Elvira Ponce de
Leon, Marquesa de Valdueza and the queen's camarera mayor,
with the hope that she would bring it to the attention of
the "royal eyes." Here the author for the first time uses
his own name on the title page and also refers to three of
his previous works, El heroe, El discreto, and El oraculo.
He says to the reader: "Entre varios libros que se me han
prohijado, este solo reconozco por mio, digo legxtimo,
sirviendo esta vez al afecto mas que al ingenio"; and adds_
that he wrote it in compliance with a vow he had made on an
occasion when he was in danger of his life (Hoyo, p. 1016) .
As the title suggests, El comulgatorio is a work of devo
tion, to be used for Communion. Each of the fifty medita
tions treats of a passage from the Bible and each consists
of four parts: preparation, Communion, obtaining the fruits
of the sacrament, and thanksgiving. The style "es el que
pide el tiempo," says the author. This means that it is
conceptist, but it is less so than his other works, in
keeping with the Jesuit Order's preference for a plain
style, productive of fruit, in devotional literature.
Whatever the stylistic faults of this "libro casi unico en
la literatura devota espanola" (Hoyo, p. cxc), they dis-
13
appear before the sincere piety and emotion of the work.
An anonymous Italian translation of El comulgatorio
appeared in 1675; and another Italian translation, entitled
Meditazioni sopra la SS. Communione, by Francesco de Castro,
S.J., was published in 1713. A French translation, Modele
d'une sainte et parfaite communion, was published by Claude
de La Grange in 1693. In 17 34 a German translation by Marco
A. Engmann was published. It was not until 1875 that an
English translation appeared, entitled Sanctuary Meditations
for Priests and Frequent Communicants, by Mariana Monteiro.
. . 14 .
Miscellaneous works of Gracian include the following,
written at the command of his superiors:
1 ?
"It is excellent in manner and style, and the au
thor's restraint is shown by the fact that even in dealing
with the subject of Martha and Mary he refrains from antith
esis." A. F. G. Bell, Baltasar Gracian ([Oxford], 1921), p.
34.
^Correa Calderon, p. 197: "Pero estos leves lunares
que un espiritu critico pudiera hallar en El Comulgatorio.
desaparecen o se diluyen ante la sincera piedad, ante la
autentica emocion y congoja que sus paginas comunican."
-*-^For more details see Correa Calderon, pp. 201-210;
Hoyo, pp. cxc-cxcvii. "Escritos varios" and the "Episto-
lario" are in the latter work, pp. 1107-1160.
23
1. Relacion breve de la vida y muerte del hermano
Bartholome Vallsebre, defuncto en Tarragona a 26 de abril
1620; in Gracian1s handwriting but unsigned.
2. Necrologia del P. Garcia de Alabiano, who died in
Zaragoza in 1624; in Gracian's hand, unsigned.
3. Profesion de cuatro votos, July 25, 1635, in Latin
and signed Baltasar Gratianus.
4. Carta anua de la Casa de Probacion de Tarragona,
1642, in Gracian's hand but unsigned.
Gracian wrote aprobaciones to the Entretenimiento de
las musas by Francisco de la Torre Sevil (Zaragoza, 1653);
to La perla; proverbios morales de Alonso de Barros (Zara
goza, 1656); and to the Vida de Santa Isabel, infanta de
Ungria (Zaragoza, 1655). These aprobaciones are signed
Lorenzo Gracian.
Attributed to Gracian is the unsigned prologue to Jose
Alfay's Poeslas varias de grandes ingenios espanoles (Zara
goza, 1654). In the selection of poems for this important
anthology Gracian probably had a part.
Gracian collected the mission sermons of P. Pedro
Jeronimo Continente, one of his former teachers in the Com-
pania, entitling the work Predicacion fructuosa (Zaragoza,
1652) . As the author died before the final touches could
24
be given to the manuscript, it was Gracian who completed it
and who wrote the dedication, signed with his own name, to
Bishop Esteban Esmir of Huesca.
In his foreword to El discreto, Lastanosa promises the
reader that "un Atento y un Galante" are to follow from the
same author, but so far there is no evidence that these
works were written or published. It is possible that one or
both of them became part of El oraculo, but A. del Hoyo be
lieves that El galante has disappeared, probably for politi
cal reasons. Gracian himself, in his Discreto. refers
several times to El atento, but not to El galante.
According to Correa Calderon, in the first edition (a
copy of which was found by Eugenio Asencio) of El politico,
there is mention of another of Gracian's works in the cen-
sura by Juan Francisco Andres de Uztarroz which says:
"Merece El Politico que V. Ex. le haga la honra que al Heroe
y la que previene al Ministro real." The latter may never
have been published.
The meditations on "la preciosa muerte del justo,"
which were promised in El comulgatorio, may not have gone
beyond the planning stage.
Two works erroneously attributed to Gracian are: El
forastero (Brussels, 1633), included in Nicolas Antonio's
25
Bibliotheca hispana nova and in Antonio de Capmany1s Teatro
de la elocuencia espanola; and Selvas del ano (in verse)j
whose author was probably Juan Francisco Ginoves of Zara
goza .
The letters from Gracian which survive cover the years
16 34 to 1655, with a gap for the very important years from
1656 to 1658. The persons to whom the letters were ad
dressed include Lastanosa; Juan Francisco Andres de Uzta-
rroz, chronicler of Aragon; Don Manuel de Salinas; the poet
Francisco de la Torre Sevil, and Jesuits in Madrid. Letters
received by Gracian include two from the General of the
Companla, Muzio Vitelleschi; two from Salinas; one from the
Marques de San Felices, and one from the General of the
Order, Goswin Nickel. There is a total of thirty-three
letters from Gracian and six from his correspondents.
CHAPTER II
CRITICISM AND INFLUENCE OF GRACIAN
Among the early critics of Gracian, the Frenchman
Antoine de Brunei, who was in Aragon in 1655, praised El
criticon but had reservations about its concise style and
obscure language.'*' In 1658 Lorenzo Matheu y Sanz (under the
pseudonym of Sancho Terzon y Muela) published his unsparing
Critica de refleccion y censura de las censuras, which ad-
2
vised readers not to waste their time reading El criticon.
The author, a Valencian, was in part motivated by a desire
to chastise Gracian for the latter1s animosity toward
Valencian persons and things.
Gracian*s influence on Spanish writers of his time and
of the period immediately following is not acknowledged by
■'•"Viaje de Espana," in Jose Garcia Mercadal, Viajes de
extranjeros a Espana y Portugal, II (Madrid, 1959), 499.
^This work has also been attributed to Paulo de Rajas,
S.J., of Valencia.
26
27
some who owed ideas to him. "Quienes mas le deben procuran
disimularlo," remarks Correa Calderon:
Algunos ... entran a saco en los libros del jesuita,
sin preocupacion alguna, como si se tratase de bienes
mostrencosj procurando no citar siquiera su nombre para
que no resulte facilmente identificable el origen de
sus expolios. (p. 285)
Among the works which may have used El criticon as a model
are Juan de Palafox y Mendoza's Ano espiritual (1662) and
Juan Martinez de Cuellar1s Desengano del hombre en el Tri
bunal de la Fortuna y Casa de Descontentos (166 3). El
politico of Gracian may have influenced Antonio Costa's
Vida de Numa Pompilio, segundo rey de los romanos (1693)
and Antonio Codorniu's Indice de la philosophia moral
christiano-politica, dirigida a los nobles de nacimiento y
espiritu (1753). What the costumbrista Francisco Santos
3
owes to Gracian has been shown by John Hays Hammond.
Outside of Spain, Gracian was more appreciated than in
his own country. The French Jesuit Dominique de Bouhours
had mixed praise and censure for Gracian in his Entretiens
d'Ariste et d'Eugene (1671) . Paul Rycaut, who in 1681
3 . .
Francisco Santos' Indebtedness to Gracian, University
of Texas Hispanic Studies (Austin, 1950) .
28
published his English translation of the first part of El
criticon, was the first to note a likeness between Gracian's
theme and that of Ibn Tufail's risala. Amelot de La Hous-
saie, who had translated Machiavelli1s II principe in 1683,
recognized the importance of El oraculo manual and trans
lated it into French in 1684, entitling it L'homme de cour.
Other translators who expressed opinions on Gracian's im
portance include the French Maunory (1696), who praised
Gracian's imagination, and Jean de Courbeville (1723), who
considered him a genius; the Italian Francesco Tosques
(1698), who declared him to be one of the most profound men
of the time,- and the English T. Saldkeld (1726), who called
Gracian a genius. As the many translations of Gracian's
works appeared in France, reviews and articles were pub
lished in the Memoires de Trevoux and the Journal des sa
vants .
In eighteenth-century Spain, Gracian was neglected or
unfavorably judged by men of letters. An exception was
Fernando Calderon de la Barca, writer of political trea
tises, who in 1715 warmly praised Gracian and acknowledged
his importance. As is not surprising, Ignacio de Luzan in
his Poetica (1737) criticized the culteranos and Gracian's
Agudeza y arte de ingenio. The Aragonese Felix de Latassa
29
included Gracian in his Bibliotecas antigua y nueva de
escritores aragoneses (1796-1802), but "se contenta," says
Romera-Navarro, "con formular un juicio brevisimo, y tan
general, que lo mismo que a Gracian puede encajarseles a
otros cien contemporaneos" (El criticon, I, p. 35). It was
Antonio de Capmany who first (1794) evaluated El criticon
with understanding, although he was very critical of some of
Gracian1s other works.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Manuel
Silvela judged El criticon very favorably in the introduc
tion to his Biblioteca selecta de la literatura espanola
(1819). Years were to pass before a discerning critic,
Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, would make his appearance and
re-evaluate many authors. In his Historia de las ideas
~ 4
esteticas en Espana he delivered a fair judgment on the
works of Gracian and especially on El criticon.
An important work on Gracian's ideology and his influ
ence in Germany was Karl Borinski's Baltasar Gracian und die
Hofliteratur in Deutschland (1894) . This work was reviewed
by Arturo Farinelli in his Gracian y la literatura de corte
^Coleccion de escritores castellanos. Criticos (Ma
drid, 1920), III, 520-521.
30
en Alemania (1896), about which Romera-Navarro says that
"mas que resena, constituye uno de los estudios mas doctos
y penetrantes que se han escrito sobre nuestro ingenio ara-
gones y la literatura didactica espanola e italiana" (El
criticon, I, p. 41).
Early in the present century another thoughtful critic,
Azorin, reconsidered the merits of Gracian, wrote about him
from time to time, and aroused new interest in him. In 1913
Adolphe Coster wrote about Gracian and this time the work
was a fundamental and exhaustive study of the life, environ-
5
ment, and works of the man. Another Frenchman, Andre
0
Rouveyre, studied the doctrinal import of Gracian's works
in 1924. Benedetto Croce wrote a number of works on
Spanish-l'talian relations, political and literary, and spe-
7
cifically on Gracian's friendship with the Duke of Nocera.
In this company of scholars belongs Miguel Romera-Navarro,
^"Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658," Revue hispanique, XXIX,
No. 76 (December 1913), 347-752.
^Baltasar Gracian, Pages caracteristiques, precedees
d'une etude critique par Andre Rouveyre; traduction origi-
nale et notices par Victor Bouillier (Paris, 1925).
^"Personaggi della storia italo-spagnuola. II duca di
Nocera e Baltasar Gracian," La critica; rivista di lettera-
tura, storia e filosofia, XXXV (1937), 219-235.
31
whose works on Gracian, especially his edition of El criti
con, assure him a place of honor among the gracianistas.
Other scholars of this century, already too numerous to
mention in a brief study, have been reappraising Gracian as
a moralist and literary artist.
The works of Gracian were translated into the major
European languages and were published most frequently in
France, Italy, England, and Germany. There have also been
Dutch, Hungarian, Swedish, Latin, and Russian translations
of Gracian. His influence has been especially felt in
France and Germany.
In France, Gracian influenced La Rochefoucauld through
8
Madame de Sable, whose salon La Rochefoucauld frequented.
Coster believes that it was probably through Madame de
Sable, who knew Spanish, that La Rochefoucauld came to know
El oraculo manual, in which the origin of some of the
Maximes (1665) can be seen. Madame de Sable collaborated
with La Rochefoucauld in composing and refining maxims, one
of the occupations of the guests at her salon. When the
Abbe d'Ailly published Madame de Sable's maxims (1678) after
Q
Graydon Hough, "Gracian's Oraculo manual and the
Maximes of Mme. de Sable," Hispanic Review, IV (1936), 68-
72.
32
her death, it was noted that some had been derived from
Gracian. Opinions vary as to the extent of Gracian's in
fluence on La Rochefoucauld.
La Bruyere's Caracteres were published in 1687, several
years after Amelot's French translation of El oraculo
manual, which would have made it possible for the former to
read L'horome de cour. "No es dudoso," says Coster,
que mas de una vez [La Bruyere] pensase en ... [Gra
cian] , ya para criticarle omitiendo el nombre, ya para
inspirarse. Lo hemos observado al estudiar el Oraculo;
se encontarian hasta una docena de pasajes semejantes.
(p. 288)
Commenting on statements made about Gracian1s influence
on the two French writers above, Farinelli declares :
Muy atrevida, y, a mi parecer, completamente falsa, es
la suposicion de que los moralistas franceses La Roche
foucauld y La Bruyere, deben considerarse como suceso-
res y discipulos de Gracian ... La concordancia, muchas
veces literal, resulta casi siempre de la misma fuente
consultada, de la imitacion de los clasicos y de Seneca,
en especial.-*-®
Coster (p. 288) sees the possible influence of Gracian
^Coster, pp. 132, 287. Also Andre Rouveyre1s intro
duction to L'homme de cour, Amelot de La Houssaie's trans
lation of El oraculo manual (Paris, 1924), p. vii.
-*-®Arturo Farinelli, estudio critico in Gracian's El
heroe, El discreto (Madrid, 1900), pp. 250-252.
33
in Fenelon, whose Aventures de Telemaque appeared in 1699,
several years after the publication of Maunory's L1 homme
detrompe, a translation of El criticon. In the person of
Fenelon's Mentor one might see Gracian's hero, Critilo.
In his Traite du vrai merite de l'homme (1734), Le
Maitre de Claville mentions Gracian, whom he knew through
the translations of Amelot and Courbeville, and he recom
mends that the reader be ready with pen in hand to take
notes on what Gracian says. It is possible that Claville's
admiration may have influenced Rousseau, who was a reader of
Claville (Coster, p. 288). To Coster it seems that the
beginning of the first book of Rousseau's Emile was inspired
by a sentence from El criticon (pp. 148, 292, n. 35).
There may be traces of El oraculo in the works of
Vauvenargues, published in 1746 (Coster, pp. 288-289).
Voltaire knew Gracian's works and mentioned him in his
correspondence as well as in his Dictionnaire philosophique
(art. "Figure") (Coster, p. 289). There are certain simi
larities in his Candide (1759) which may not be pure coin
cidence, according to Correa Calderon (p. 302) and Dorothy
H
M . McGhee.
"Voltaire' s Candide and Gracian's El Criticon, " PMLA,
LI I (1937), 778-784.
34
In view of Corneille's interest in Spanish subjects,
12
Coster wonders if Corneille may not have been familiar
with El heroe of Gracian.
In Germany, Gracian's influence was felt in the court
literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a
subject studied by Borinski and Farinelli, as already men
tioned. More decisive still was Gracian's influence on
German philosophers of the nineteenth century, especially
on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
It is possible, thinks Farinelli, that Schopenhauer was
led to study Gracian by Goethe, who had read the Oraculo
manual. Schopenhauer became so much interested in Gracian
that he read all of his works and in 1832 translated the
Oraculo (published in 1861) . In fact, Gracian became
Schopenhauer's favorite author, as the latter wrote in 1832
to his friend Keil. Some years earlier (1819) Schopenhauer
had paid tribute to El criticon in his The World as Will and
13
Idea. He would have translated the novel if he had been
1 2
"Corneille a-t-il connu 'El Heroe* de Baltasar Gra
cian?" Revue hispanique, XLVI (August 1919), 569-572.
-^Translated from the German by R. B. Haldane and J.
Kemp (London, 1957), I, 311: "Three detailed allegorical
works are known to me, one, open and avowed, is the incom
parable 'Criticon' of Balthasar Gracian. It consists of a
35
able to find a publisher for it.
Through Schopenhauer, who was Nietzsche's master, Gra
cian also influenced the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Here the relationship is less easily established, for
Nietzsche does not mention Gracian in the works published
during his lifetime. The Spaniard's name occurs in Nietz
sche 's correspondence and posthumous works. In a letter to
Peter Gast, Nietzsche agrees with the former's opinion of
14
Gracian as one of Europe's most subtle writers. Rouveyre
believes that Nietzsche was more familiar with Gracian's
works than he admits, and he quotes a passage from Nietz
sche's Le Voyageur et son ombre, in which he sees a veiled
reference to Gracian and possible evidence that Nietzsche
knew El discreto and El criticon.^ On the subject of
great rich web of connected and highly ingenious allegories,
that serve here as the fair clothing of moral truths, to
which he thus imparts the most perceptible form, and aston
ishes us by the richness of his invention. The two others
are concealed allegories, 'Don Quixote' and 'Gulliver's
Travels.'" Another English translation (The World as Will
and Representation [New York, 1966], 2 vols.) has been done
by E. F. J. Payne, whose version of the passage quoted above
appears in Vol. I, 241.
•^Friedrich Nietzsches Briefe an Peter Gast, hrsg. von
Peter Gast (pseud.) (Leipzig, 1908), letter of September 20,
1884, p. 198.
■'■^Gracian, Pages caracteristiques, p. 74.
36
important European thinkers, Rouveyre considers Gracian the
link between two groups of moralists: Descartes-Pascal-La
Rochefoucauld and Kant-Schopenhauer-Nietzsche (p. 47).
About Gracian as a psychologist, he says:
Si on peut ne considerer Gracian que comme un empirique
genial, en revanche il apparait comme le psychologue le
plus aigu, et comme le pessimiste avise le plus Spre que
la terre ait porte. (pp. 65-66)
It was in part Gracian's pessimism which found a response in
Schopenhauer, although there is a great distance between the
latter1s pessimism and that of the Spaniard. "Le pessimisme
de Gracian," says Bouillier, "ne preche pas, comme celui de
Schopenhauer, la resignation, l'ascetisme, la negation de la
■ „16
vie.
In his comparison of the two men, Vossler declares that
the mistake must be avoided of attributing to Gracian ideas
held by his admirer Schopenhauer. The two did, perhaps,
have affinities as artists, but in the essential matter of
faith they differed. Gracian, firm in his belief in eternal
happiness, did not pretend to speculate:
Su pesimismo no podia, por eso, ser sino ocasional y
■^Victor Bouillier, Baltasar Gracian et Nietzsche
(Paris, 1926), p. 19.
37
limitado a lo momentaneo e inmediato, nunca fundamental
en el sentido de Schopenhauer. Para Gracian el pesi-
mismOj repetimos, era tan solo un tema, nunca un motivo
y, menos aun, un sedante, ni impulso ni apaciguamiento
para su alma varonil y esforzada. El quietismo, que
entonces empezaba a asomar su rostro sombrio en Espana
... se hallaba tan lejano de Gracian como, por ejemplo,
de Quevedo, su apasionado camarada en la lucha.-^
Cautioning against exaggeration, Bouillier says in his
methodical analysis (p. 18) of the Gracian-Nietzsche ques
tion that he does not claim for the former an important role
in the formation of the "immoralist" and "antichristian"
Nietzsche. He dissents from conclusions, which he considers
unwarranted, reached by some (Coster and Rouveyre) who have
treated the subject.
Bouillier studies the style of Gracian and Nietzsche,
noting that the latter gives brief, significant titles at
the head of each aphorism, as does the former in El oraculo
manual. Several of these titles recall some of Gracian's,
and the thoughts expressed in others bear the stamp of Gra
cian, even when there is no verbal similarity. For the
aphorism Nietzsche "avait une vocation naturelle" which was
further developed by him. He uses the rhetorical figures of
17 • ~
Karl Vossler, Introduccion a la literatura espanola
del siglo de oro, 3. ed., Coleccion Austral (Mexico, 1961),
pp. 137-138.
38
conceptism and at times the allegory, and in addition has
recourse to such cultist elements as Latinisms and neo
logisms. His style owes something to certain favorite
classical writers who might be considered ancestors of con
ceptism: Thucydides, Sallust, Seneca, and Tacitus, the last
two being also much read by Gracian.
Bouillier then studies the moral ideas, in which field,
even more than in style, "il conviendra d'attribuer le role
essentiel a la parente des genies, plutdt qu'a une influence
bien caracterisee du devancier" (p. 18). While Nietzsche
treats the great philosophical problems, Gracian generally
limits himself to practical psychology and a worldly moral
ity. There is only an indirect connection between the pes
simism of Nietzsche and the instinctive and Christian pes
simism of Gracian. Both have the pessimism of energetic
natures, which strive to get the best out of life possible.
Unlike Gracian, Nietzsche is not concerned with practical
ambitions, but has vague aspirations toward the noble and
heroic.
In psychology Gracian does not treat the theoretical
or general aspect. Nietzsche emphasizes it. Both study
men, but Nietzsche is more given to introspection than to
external observation. He lived much of his life in
39
isolation, while Gracian had contact with people in various
environments. At times Nietzsche, too, treats of practical
psychology, a field in which he may have received sugges
tions from Gracian as well as lessons in the art of observ
ing .
"En matiere de morale," declares Bouillier, "il n'y a
pas de rapport fondamental a chercher entre Gracian y
Nietzsche, meme en ne considerant que la morale pratique, la
seule dont releve le premier" (p. 24). While Nietzsche
seeks to destroy Christian and other accepted moral stand
ards, Gracian does not challenge Christian morality, though
he does on occasion interpret it with casuistic freedom.
There are, in addition, some coincidences proceeding from
the fact that both have haughty, aristocratic natures. In
their joint disdain for pity and the weak, Gracian is moved
by practical considerations; Nietzsche, by philosophical and
sociological ones. Bouillier continues:
Nietzsche n'a pas emprunte ses arguments a Gracian, et
tout ce qu'on peut conclure de leur accord contre la
pitie, c'est que tous deux appartiennent, au moins en
theorie, a l'ecole de la force, de l'energie morale
poussee au besoin jusqu'a la rudesse. (p. 26)
Bouillier sees no relationship between Nietzsche's
superman, an abstraction and a type for the future, and
40
Gracian's hero, the great man, especially the great states
man, of which the world has had a number of examples.
The conclusions of Bouillier's study are that Nietzsche
profited from knowing El oraculo manual through Schopen
hauer's translation. First, he obtained from it examples of
form. His aphorisms, for example, are more like Gracian's
than like those of his other models, La Rochefoucauld and
Lichtenberg. Second, the subtle psychology of El oraculo
exerted some influence on him. Bouillier's judgment is that
"si Gracian ne peut etre considere que dans une mesure assez
restreinte comme un inspirateur de Nietzsche, il y a plus de
titres pour etre classe parmi ses precurseurs" (p. 29).
CHAPTER III
ANTECEDENTS AND POSSIBLE SOURCES
OF EL CRITICON
Allegorical Writings in Spain
before Gracian
El criticon is part of a long tradition of allegorical
writing in Spain. Some examples are the Psicomaquia of
Prudentius in the fourth century; the Disputa del Agua y del
Vino and the struggle between Don Carnal and Dona Cuaresma
in the Arcipreste de Hita's Libro de buen amor; Santillana's
El infierno de los enamorados; Mena's El laberinto de For-
tuna, the Dance of Death; Diego de San Pedro's Carcel de
amor. In the Renaissance period there were Alfonso de
Valdes' Dialogo de Mercurio y Caron; Villalon's El crotalon;
Cervantes' Numancia; Santa Teresa's Moradas. Works of this
type in the baroque age included Gongora's Soledades; Que-
vedo's Suenos, Calderon's El gran teatro del mundo and La
vida es sueno; Saavedra Fajardo's Empresas politicas.
41
42
Gracian combines in his work the allegory and the
oriental apologue, a form already popular in Spain and of
which an illustrious example is El conde Lucanor by Juan
Manuel, for whom Gracian had great admiration.'*' Mateo Ale
man, another favorite of Gracian, also includes apologues in
his famous novel Guzman de Alfarache.
The Biblical theme of life as a difficult journey is
found in literature down the centuries. In the novels of
chivalry, for instance, the knights are tested in a series
of adventures as they go through life. A novel of this
type, "a lo divino," is mentioned by Correa Calderon (p.
185): Pedro Hernandez de Villalumbrales' Caballero del Sol,
libro intitulado peregrinacion de la vida del hombre (Medina
del Campo, 1552), in which the hero battles constantly
against vice in defense of reason. A similar novel is by
Padre Alonso de Soria, Historia y milicia cristiana del
cavallero Peregrino, conquistador del cielo (Cuenca, 1901).
Allegories were common in the religious writings of
ascetics and mystics, including Teresa de Avila. In Gra
cian's own time Padre Luis de Palma published his Camino
■*"Erasmo Buceta, "La admiracion de Gracian por el in
fante d. Juan Manuel,” Revista de filologla espanola, XI
(1924), 63-66.
43
espiritual de la manera que lo ensena San Ignacio en el
libro de los Ejercicios (1625) and Practica y breve decla-
racion del camino espiritual (1629). The Jesuit Nieremberg
wrote the Vida intima y camino real para la perfeccion
(1633).
The themes of disillusion and the brevity of life had
often been treated in literature; for example, by Jorge
Manrique, Calderon, and others. In Gracian's time, two
religious writers used this motif symbolically: Padre
Alonso Remon, in La casa de la Razon y el Desengano (1625),
and Padre Nieremberg, in Diferencia entre lo temporal y
eterno, crisol de desenganos (1643).
Among the last to join the line of allegorical writers,
Baltasar Gracian closed the so-called "siglo de oro" and
brought to a climax the allegorical tradition when between
1651 and 1657 he issued the three volumes of his Criticon.
This distinguished work contributed to the fame of the
author in Spain and in other countries. As might be sup
posed, not all judgments of the novel were favorable.
Antecedents and Possible Sources
of El criticon
Among Spanish antecedents of El criticon there are only
suggestions, frequently indirect. Accounts of shipwrecked
44
or marooned persons had always existed but became more fre
quent and real as cases— like that of Pedro Serrano in the
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios reales— were re
ported from the New World. More numerous and important,
however, are the eastern antecedents of Gracian's novel, the
story of a life journey which is reminiscent of the legend
of Buddha.
A possible Spanish influence in El criticon is Alonso
de Soria's Historia y milicia cristiana del Caballero Pere-
arino (1601) . Arturo del Hoyo (pp. clxxix-clxxxi) gives a
summary of the work and quotes Padre Monasterios, who sees
an antecedent for Andrenio in Soria's novel. In this spir
itual novel of chivalry, the hero has no teacher except
nature during the first twenty years of his life. His
father Glicerio, married to Filisa, had lived in Armenia,
where he died in a battle against the sultan of Egypt.
Filisa took refuge in a cave, where Peregrino was born. The
separation of mother and child occurred when the former had
to leave the cave to obtain food. Had not a doe heard
Peregrino's cries and nourished him, he would have died.
Grown to manhood and having come to a knowledge of God by
the unaided light of nature, an angel was sent to instruct
him further. His life thereafter is a pilgrimage at the
45
end of which he suffers martyrdom and dies after having
attained la Casa de la Victoria.
A work that had long been thought a source of the early
chapters of El criticon is Hayy ben Yacdan, a risala or
short treatise in the form of a letter, by the Moorish
philosopher Abu Bakr Ibn Tufail. Born in Guadix before 1110
and later a physician in Granada, Ibn Tufail became secre
tary of the governor of that province. Subsequently he was
physician and high official of the Almohade sultan Abu Yacub
Yusuf I (116 3-1184), ruler of Mohammedan Spain and of North
2
Africa. In 1182, Ibn Tufail resigned his medical post on
account of age but continued as vizier while the sultan
lived and later with the latter's son and successor, Abu
Yusuf Yacub. Ibn Tufail died in Marrakesh in 1185 or 1186.
There is evidence that Ibn Tufail was versed in all the
sciences of his time. Various writings on medicine, astron-
omy, philosophy, and poetry are attributed to him, but it
seems that only his risala has survived. Some of his sci
entific ideas, as on the planetary system, are found in Hayy
2
It was Ibn Tufail, a protector of savants in an en
lightened court, who introduced to the sultan the young
Averroes (Ibn Rochd) and who suggested later that Averroes
undertake a commentary, desired by the sultan, of the works
of Aristotle.
46
ben Yacdan. His astronomical views influenced the theory
of Alpetragius (Al Bitrugi) on homocentric spheres.
3
The purpose of Hayy ben Yacdan is to show the concep
tion held by the falasifa, Arab philosophers inspired by
4
Hellenism, on the relationship between and agreement of
5
religion and philosophy.
The plot of the risala is as follows: On a desert
island a child is born, some say by spontaneous generation,
while others relate that he was transported there in a chest
Translations of this title vary slightly: The Living
Son of the Wakeful One (or, of the Watcher). George Sarton,
Introduction to the History of Science, II (Baltimore, 1931),
pt. 1, p. 354, says: "This proper name is symbolic. It
means the Living One, son of the Vigilant; the Vigilant is
God: .e., the intellect of man derives from the Divine
intellect."
^In a section on "Les 'falasifa' ou philosophes aristo-
telico-neoplatoniciens," Leon Gauthier says: "Les grands
noms qui apparaissent sont, dans 1'Orient musulman: al-Kindi
(m. 870); al-FSrSbi (m. 950); Ibn SinS (Avicenne)(m. 1037);
puis, dans 1'Occident musulman: Ibn BSdjja (Avempace)(m.
1138); Ibn Thofail (m. 1185); Ibn Rochd (Averroes) (m. 1198)."
La pensee musulmane a travers les ciges (Bibliotheque de
1'Institut d'Etudes Superieures Islamiques d*Alger, VII)
(Alger, 1957), p. 63.
5
Gauthier says: "C'est cette grave question, 1'accord
de la religion et de la philosophie, qui fait l'objet es-
sentiel du Hayy ben YaqdhSn d'Ibn Thofail. ... Elle ne forme
pas seulement le couronnement de 1'oeuvre ... elle en est le
principe organisateur." Ibn Thofail; sa vie, ses oeuvres
(Paris, 1909), p. 66.
47
set afloat on the sea by his mother, a princess of a nearby
island, who entrusted the child to Providence in order to
save him from the harm that threatened them both. Adopted
by a doe, Hayy grows up. Being of great intelligence, he
not only provides for all his needs but, by observing and
reflecting, discovers the high truths of physics and meta
physics. While living an ascetic and contemplative life, he
tries to separate his intellect from the exterior world and
from his body in order better to unite himself to God. In
his fifties, when he has reached mystical union with God, he
meets Asal, who has come from the neighboring island in
order to lead an ascetic and prayerful life on Hayy's is
land, which he had thought deserted. Asal teaches Hayy to
talk and learns with amazement that the latter1s philosoph
ical system is a transcendent interpretation of all revealed
religions. Hearing about life and men on the neighboring
island, ruled by the good king Salaman, a friend of Asal,
Hayy asks to be taken there in order to reveal to the in
habitants the sublime truths which he has discovered. A
passing ship provides transportation and Hayy preaches to
the people of the island. But he soon learns that pure
truth is unassimilable by common humanity, so enslaved by
the senses. The two men then return to Hayy's island in
48
order to dedicate themselves to the higher way of life which
Hayy had attained alone.
This work was known in the fourteenth century through
Moses of Narbonne's commentary in Hebrew (1349) on a Hebrew
translation by an unknown, but it was not until the seven
teenth century that Haw ben Yacdan became celebrated. In
1671 there appeared at Oxford the Arabic text with a Latin
translation by Edward Pococke entitled Philosophus auto-
didactus sive epistola Abi Jaafar ebn Tophail de Hai ben
Yokhdan. English translations appeared soon after, by
Ashwell (1686), George Keith (1674), Simon Ockley (1708j
revised by A. S. Fulton in 1929), and Paul Bronnle (1904).
The novel was translated into Dutch in 1672 and into German
in 1726 and 1783. In 1900 a Spanish translation by Fran
cisco Pons Boigues appeared, and one (done from another
manuscript) in French by Leon Gauthier. A Russian transla
tion was published by J. Kuzmin in 1920. Angel Gonzalez-
Palencia made another Spanish translation in 1934, and Leon
Gauthier revised his own translation in 1936. The latter
gives details on manuscripts, editions, and translations in
his study of Ibn Tufail and in his translations of Hayy ben
49
g
Yacdan.
In 1763 the Jesuit Bartolome Pou noted the similarities
between Ibn Tufail's novel and Gracian's. Others who later
agreed on the resemblance include Menendez y Pelayo, Fran
cisco Codera, Leon Gauthier, Adolphe Coster, and Miguel Asin
Palacios. There was uncertainty, however, about the means
of transmission from one author to the other inasmuch as the
first part of El criticon was published in 1651, twenty
years before the appearance of Pococke1s Latin translation
of Hayy ben Yacdan.
In the mid-1920's the manuscript of an ancient Moorish
tale was found in the library of El Escorial by Emilio
Garcia Gomez. Written in aljamiado and seemingly of Ara
gonese or Valencian origin, the story provided a link in the
chain of influence between Ibn Tufail and Gracian. Entitled
Historia de Dulcarnain Abmaratsid el Himyari y Cuento del
g
Hayy ben Yaqdhan; roman philosophique d'Ibn Thofail
(Collection du Gouvernement General de 1'Algerie) (Alger,
1900), introduction. Ibn Thofail, sa vie, ses oeuvres, pp.
46-48. Hayy ben Yaqdhdn, roman philosophique d'Ibn Thofail;
texte arabe avec les variantes des manuscrits et de plu-
sieurs editions, et traduction frangaise, 2e ed. rev., augm.
et completement remaniee (Beyrouth, 1936), pp. xxii-xxxiv.
A briefer list of translations, editions, and studies
appears in Sarton, II, pt. 1, 355.
50
idolo, del rev v su hija, the story begins with a prologue
which presents Alexander the Great— Dulcarnain— coining upon
the island of Arin* on the equator. Puzzled by a strange*
enormous idol on the island* he questions an aged monk* who
relates its history:
The king of that island had a daughter whose son* the
astrologers predicted* would succeed the king on his throne.
Taking precautions against realization of the prophecy* the
king encloses his daughter and her nurse in a fortress.
Grown up* the princess sees Xams* son of the vizier* falls
in love with him* and succeeds in introducing him into her
quarters. Later* she repents and goes to a hermitage* where
her son is born. In order to save him* she places him in a
chest* secures it* and commends him to God as she entrusts
the chest to the waves. On a desert island* where the child
is deposited by the tides* a doe finds him and nourishes
him. He grows up* learning to hunt and fish and to outwit
the animalsj he observes creation and reflects on it. Mean
while* Xams has succeeded his father as vizier. Losing the
king's favor* he is cast out to sea* where the winds direct
his boat to the deserted island. He meets the young man
who is his son* teaches him to speak* exchanges life histo
ries with him* and instructs him in religion. Eventually a
51
ship rescues them* and they land on the king's island, where
the princess acknowledges her lover and her son. The latter
eventually becomes king, and it is he who constructs the
idol which later arouses the curiosity of Alexander the
Great.
Garcia Gomez published in 1926 the Arabic text of this
story and its Spanish translation in a study containing an
analysis of the tale, its systematic comparison with Hayy
ben Yacdan and El criticon, and the conclusions that might
7
be derived from the analysis. The tale is identified as of
Arabian or Iraqi origin, part of the Alexandrian cycle.
Like the story of Sinbad the Sailor and other Arabic sea
tales, it portrays the astonishment of Arabian travelers in
their early contacts with the fabulous civilizations of the
East. With the Arab invaders the story eventually found its
way to Spain, where, centuries apart, Ibn Tufail and Gra-
cian heard it and adapted it to their uses. It seems es
tablished that El cuento del idolo, del rey y su hija was a
source for some of the episodes in both Hayy ben Yacdan and
El criticon. The likenesses to be found in the latter two
n
Emilio Garcia Gomez, Un cuento arabe, fuente comun de
Abentofail y de Gracian (Madrid, 1926).
52
works proceed from their common source, the Cuento. If
Gracian did not see a written version of the Cuento. he
could have learned about it from personal contact with the
moriscos of Aragon when he was sent on missions to them, or
he may have heard it from other persons. Evangelizing among
the moriscos was a concern of the Jesuits as it was of other
religious orders.^
Rethinking on the subject of El criticon was going on
in Russia in the 1920's, following the publication of a
Russian translation of Hayy ben Yacdan by I. P. Kuzmin in
1920. In that connection D. K. Petrov, a Russian Hispanist,
9
treated again the matter of Gracian's sources. He granted
Q
A manuscript that was in Lastanosa's library is evi
dence of this interest on the part of the Jesuits: Doctrina
Christiana del cardenal Bellarminio [sic] en ytaliano i
Arabigo (Roma, 1613) . It appears on p. 78 of The Library of
Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, Patron of Gracian (Geneve,
1960).
Q
"Un probleme hispano-arabe," Zapiski kollegii vosto-
kovedov pri Asiatskom Muzee (Leningrad), II (1926), 7 3-90.
The same issue contains obituary notices for Petrov and
Kuzmin on pp. 163-170 and 175-180 respectively. I am in
debted to Prof. Alexander Kosloff for his explanation of the
contents of this Russian article. Petrov's and Garcia Go
mez1 studies and conclusions are discussed in Ign. Kratch-
kovsky's review of Emilio Garcia Gomez' "Un cuento arabe,
fuente comun de Abentofail y de Gracian," Litteris: An In
ternational Critical Review of the Humanities, IV (March-
December 1927), 28-33.
53
the existence of likenesses in Hayy ben Yacdan and El cri
ticon but considered these few compared with the dissimi
larities. The faltering Andrenio, especially, is vastly
different from the spiritually-minded Hayy. Petrov con
cludes that Ibn Tufail's supposed influence on Gracian does
not exist. The paper written on this subject by Petrov was
read at a meeting of the Russian Archeological Society in
1922 and was translated into French by Kuzmin, but its pub
lication was delayed until 1926, after the death of Petrov.
The conclusions of Garcia Gomez and Petrov were reached in
dependently, neither knowing of the other's investigations
on the subject.
Some of the similarities in the Cuento, Hayy ben Yac
dan, and El criticon are:
1. A desert island in or near India is the setting for
the child's early yearsj for Hayy, until his fifties.
2. Andrenio is born on an island. In the other two
works the child reaches the island after being set adrift by
his mother in a chest. All three are adopted by animals
which feed and protect them.
3. The child in each story learns to provide for his
needs and to dominate the animals. He notices that these
are better fitted by nature to defend themselves than he is.
54
4. He observes nature, reflects, and comes to some
knowledge of God. Hayy reaches the state of mystical union
with God.
5. Xams, Asal, and Critilo are amazed to find an in
habitant on the island each reaches; and the young man in
each case is no less astonished upon his first sight of
another human being.
6. In each case the newcomer teaches the child of
nature to speak and gives him religious and other basic in
struction. While in El criticon there are fewer details in
this respect, and religious instruction as such is not
specifically mentioned, the dialogues between Critilo and
Andrenio presuppose such teaching, for Critilo's remarks as
Andrenio tells his story are clearly elaborations of pre
vious basic religious teaching.
7. The man saved is the young man's father in the
Cuento and in El criticon, while Asal and Hayy are not re
lated .
8. In the two works just mentioned, passing ships
rescue the fathers and sons, who then go in search of the
mothers. Hayy's motive in leaving the island is to share
his knowledge of God with the world, but being repulsed, he
returns to the island.
55
Among the differences, these are to be noted: Andrenio
and the hero of the Cuento are ordinary human beings in an
unusual situation. They have an ordinary destiny, whereas
for Hayy the end of life is mystical union with God. Nature
for the first two is a glorious spectacle; for Hayy, the
means by which he rises to ever higher stages of knowledge
and wisdom. Lacking in Gracian is any reference to birth by
spontaneous generation, mention of which would indicate his
acquaintance with Ibn Tufail1s novel. However, since the
axiom ex nihilo nihil had long been universally accepted, it
is possible that Gracian would have ignored the subject of
spontaneous generation even if he had been acquainted with
the risala.
This influence of an ancient popular tale permits one
to conclude with Garcia Gomez that
la influencia arabe sobre la cultura occidental, y muy
singularmente sobre la espanola, no se cierra con la
Edad Media; antes, perdura hasta muy entrada la Edad
Moderna, ... El caso actual es contundente e invita a
ahondar en el estudio de la literatura morisca, arabe
y aljamiada, ... En el vemos la transmision de un tema
puramente oriental, realizada respecto a un autor tan
tipicamente occidental como Gracian, y a una obra que
se publica en el ano 1651, es decir, casi en visperas
del siglo XVIII. (p. 6)
Nevertheless, the borrowings by Ibn Tufail and Gracian
do not lessen the originality of their works, which have a
56
metaphysical intent in the case of the former and a moralis
tic one in the latter. In graceful, poetic prose, Ibn Tu
fail presents the solitary thinker— a subject which had also
interested Avicenna and Avempace— and shows him, uncorrupted
in nature, developing his innate powers until he understands
the universe and attains to union with the Divine. Gracian,
on the other hand, in his brilliant, satirical novel follows
the natural man, Andrenio, as he stumbles through life, far
inferior in moral resistance to Critilo, the man strength
ened and made wise by his life in society.
Commenting on the elements common to the Cuento and
Hayy ben Yacdan, Gauthier emphasizes Ibn Tufail's original
ity, which, he says, consists less in narrative invention or
in philosophical innovation than in the skillful adaptation
of the borrowed elements for a philosophical statement:
Le tour de force d'Ibn Thofail, oblige de plier a
1'exposition methodique des speculations les plus ab-
struses de son temps, scientifiques, metaphysiques,
mystiques, exegetiques, une fable naive et sans con-
sistance, est d'avoir su trouver dans cette meme diffi
culty le moyen de surpasser infiniment son pauvre mo
dule, et, d'en avoir tire un recit ferme, naturel,
coherent, auquel, d'un bout & 1'autre, une haute idee
directrice sert de principe organisateur
^ Hayy ben Yaqdhan, roman philosophique d'Ibn Thofail
(1936 edition), p. ix.
57
Ibn Tufail has fused the narrative with the philosophical
part of his work, producing an original and integrated work
of art.
On the frame of a humble popular tale, then, two im
portant works were constructed, which, after borrowing some
episodes, departed widely from the original source in style
and purpose. Ibn Tufail and Gracian remain original in the
essentials. Of Hayy ben Yacdan and El criticon, Angel
Gonzalez-Palencia concludes:
Las dos obras magnas de la literatura espanola ... de-
rivan, pues, de una remota fuente comun, de un cuento
adaptado por cada uno de sus egregios autores de mara-
villoso modo literario a la tesis filosofica o alego-
rica que se proponian demostrar . - * ■ ■ * -
■ ' • • ' • Historia de la literatura arabigo-espanola, 2. ed.
rev. (Coleccion Labor. Seccion III, Ciencias literarias,
no. 164-165. Biblioteca de iniciacion cultural) (Barcelona,
1945), p. 348.
CHAPTER IV
A RENAISSANCE TRANSLATION OF
HAYY BEN YACDAN
In the lists of translations of Ibn Tufail's philo
sophical romance, there appears to be no mention of a
Renaissance translation in Latin made by Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola. Carlo Alfonso Nallino refers to it in his arti
cle on Ibn Tufail in the Enciclopedia italiana di scienze,
lettere ed arti: "Una versione ebraica fu commentata in
ebraico da Mose di Narbona nel sec. XIV e tradotta in la
tino, per uso suo personale, da Pico della Mirandola nella
1 2
seconda meta del XV." He believes Umberto Cassuto to have
been the first to call attention to this translation, one
which Pico himself declares he made, and which has not been
■Vol. XVIII (Roma, 1933), 684.
^Gli ebrei a Firenze nell'eth del rinascimento (Firen
ze, 1918), p. 322.
58
59
3
published, according to Nallino.
Between 1488 and 1489 Pico was absorbed in Biblical
studies and was writing his Heptaplus, a commentary on the
first chapters of Genesis, which he dedicated to Lorenzo dei
Medici and published in 1489. Ibn Tufail's risala inter
ested him in connection with the Heptaplus. In his life of
Pico, Eugenio Garin says:
A proposito del problema della congiunzione dell'uomo
con l'intelletto attivo e con Dio e dell'eco che ne
troviamo in P[ico], va tenuto presente che egli aveva
perfino tradotto la famosa opera di Ibn Tofail.^
Pico was well prepared to write his work. After
studying canon law in Bologna as a young man, he began to
receive a classical and extensive education in 1479. He
studied at the universities of Ferrara and Padua, the latter
one of the chief centers of Aristotelian tradition. In 1485
3
Carlo Nallino, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti
(Roma, 1948), VI, 219: "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (n.
1463, m. 1494) ... aveva gia tradotto [Hayy ibn Yagzan) in
latino da un1anonima versione ebraica, come fu rilevato,
credo per la prima volta, da U. Cassuto nel suo eccellente
libro Gli Ebrei a Firenze nell'eta del Rinascimento, Firenze
1918, pag. 322 (in base a dichiarazione esplicita dello
stesso Pico). Questa traduzione e inedita."
^Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: vita e dottrina
(Firenze, 1937), p. 205, n. 1, where Garin also refers to
Cassuto, p. 322.
60
he was for a time at the University of Paris, the main cen
ter of scholastic philosophy and theology. In 1486 he re
turned to Florence and later moved to Perugia, where he
5
studied Arabic and Hebrew. He was "able to absorb ideas
and traditions that most of his contemporaries would have
considered incompatible," according to Kristeller, who con
tinues :
Adding the study of Hebrew and Arabic to the more com
mon Latin and Greek, he not only gave an impulse to
oriental studies but also came into direct contact with
the heritage of medieval Arabic and Jewish philosophy.^
That the first two years of Pico's philosophic training
(1480-1482) should have been passed at Padua is considered
profoundly significant by Avery Dulles:
In the course of the fifteenth century, Padua had be
come the most important metropolis of scholastic thought.
Paris and the northern schools were atrophied by life
less formalism, among other reasons because their in
tellectual life had ceased to enjoy that stimulating
contact with Arabic thought which in earlier centuries
had contributed so largely to the rise of Western scho
lasticism. The Paduan school, on the other hand, was
C
Summarized from Paul 0. Kristeller, Eight Philosophers
of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, Calif., 1964), p. 56.
^Introduction to section on Pico della Mirandola in The
Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer, Paul
Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr. (Chicago,
1948), pp. 215-216.
61
saved from this degeneration by its close ties with
Arabic and Jewish philosophy. Because of these ties*
Paduan scholasticism has frequently been dismissed with
the mere label of Averroism. Closer examination, how
ever., reveals that this school was in reality an ex
ceedingly complex product of the interaction of Eastern
and Western thought.^
Pico, a friend of Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano, and other
humanists, and a frequenter of the Florentine Academy,
"considered the main purpose of philosophical thought to be
g
the reconciliation of Scholasticism and Platonism," and to
this end he devoted his efforts.
At Padua, Pico had been a pupil of the Jewish Averroist
9
Elia del Medigo, and later he studied Aramaic with Flavio
^Princeps concordiae: Pico della Mirandola and the
Scholastic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), p. 26.
®Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in
Renaissance Philosophy, trans. with introd. by Mario Domandi
(New York, 1963), p. 2.
^From Cassuto's article on Elia in the Enciclopedia
italiana, XII, 561: "Medico e filosofo ebreo, noto anche,
fra i latini, col nome di Helias Cretensis. Nacque in Can-
dia fra il 1450 e il 1460, e studio a quanto pare all'uni-
versita di Padova,... Le sue traduzioni e le sue esposizi-
one in latino, in gran parte stampate, furono uno dei tra-
miti per la conoscenza del pensiero averroistico nel mondo
crist'iano. Alcune sue trattazioni di filosofia averroistica
furono da lui elaborate anche in ebraico. In ebraico
scrisse poi in Candia,... I1opera Behinath ha-Dath (Esame
della religione) sui rapporti tra religione e filosofia,
nella quale segue passo passo le tracce di Averroe, e per
gli argomenti piu particolarmente ebraici, quelle di Mai-
monide. Mori a Candia alia fine del 1492 o al principio
62
Mitridate. But it was especially in Jochanan Alemanno, with
whom he studied Hebrew literature, that he found a teacher
"worthy of him," according to Cassuto.^
Alemanno's father was probably born in Paris, says
Cassuto, and brought to Italy at a tender age after the
expulsion of the Jews from France in 1394. As the name
Alemanno suggests, the family may have been of German ori
gin. Jochanan ben Izchak Alemanno,^ Pico's teacher, was
probably born in Italy and was brought up in Florence.
12
There, says Gann, he became closely connected with the
Platonic culture of the time. His works are of a
del 1493."
^ Gli ebrei, p. 282: "[Elia del Medigo] si limito a
voltare o ad esplicare per lui [Pico] in latino opere
ebraiche; nel secondo [periodo], dopo avere appreso la lin
gua ebraica e quella caldaica o aramaica da Flavio Mitri
date, trovo per la letteratura ebraica e per il pensiero
ebraico un maestro degno di lui in Jochanan Alemanno."
■^Cassuto, Gli ebrei, p. 301, n. 3: "[Jochanan Ale
manno] nel capitolo 19 del suo Chaj ha-'Olamim dice di
appartenere all'ebraismo italiano.... aggiungendo pero che
la Francia era la sua patria.... e che il suo cognome era
1tedesco,' ossia Alemanno.... Nella prefazione al Cheshek
Shelomo, pubblicata in Rev, des et. juiv., XII, p. 255-256,
egli si presenta al lettore col nome di Jochanan ben Izchak
da Parigi."
1 2
Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life m the
Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz (New York, 1965), p. 126.
63
13
philosophical nature and include Biblical commentaries.
His learning was wide, and that he had a vigorous intellect,
with sharp powers of observation, can be seen in his judg
ment of Lorenzo the Magnificent and in his comments on the
Florentines. Cassuto does not consider Alemanno an original
thinker; he was essentially a scholar, eclectic in his
14
views.
It was with Alemanno that Pico continued his oriental
studies when he returned from France in 1486. Earlier he
had studied the sources of Averroism with Elia del Medigo,
and with Flavio Mitridate he had read Cabbalistic texts.
Now, with Jochanan Alemanno he pondered and investigated
Hebrew solutions to religious problems, especially the value
13
Among Alemanno1s works are: Chaj ha-'Olamim (L1im-
mortale); Cheshek Shelomo (L'amore di Salomone), his prin
cipal work; 'Ene ha-'Eda, a philosophical commentary on the
Pentateuch; a Miscellanea; and others which have not come
down to us. The years of composition or publication, with
information on location of manuscripts, are given by Cas
suto, Gli ebrei, p. 301, nn. 3-4; pp. 305, 314; and in his
article on Alemanno in the Enciclopedia italiana, II, 290.
14
Gli ebrei, pp. 315-316: "Pari alia vastita della
dottrina era in Jochanan Alemanno il vigore dell1intelletto,
formatosi con si ampie e ricche letture; lo spirito di os-
servazione era in lui acutissimo, e notevole la limpidezza
dell1esposizione, nonostante lo stile ricercato e pesante."
64
and significance of revelation. The fruit of these studies
15
was his Heptaplus, a mature work in preparation for which
he had made his Latin translation of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn
Yacdan. While making this translation* Alemanno1s explana
tions were undoubtedly of value to him* for Alemanno pos
sessed a Hebrew translation of Ibn Tufail1s work. With
reference to Alemanno* Garin says:
[Pico] si inspira probabilmente— come si e notato— a
Jochanan; sotto il suo influsso traduce, da una versione
ebraica* il celebre "romanzo filosofico" di Ibn Tufail
sul processo di liberazione dello spirito del filosofo*
"quo quisque pacto per se philosophus evadat."-^
"^Eugenio Garin* La cultura filosofica del rinascimento
italiano; ricerche e documenti (Firenze* 1961)* p. 242:
"Sotto la guida di Jochanan Alemanno aveva approfondito ar-
gomenti appena sfiorati con Elia del Medigo e Flavio Mitri-
date* suoi primi maestri nel viaggio di scoperta fra i monu-
menti del pensiero orientale. Se col primo si era rivolto
alle fonti dell1averroismo e col secondo aveva entusiastica-
mente letto i testi cabbalistici* ora* in piu composte medi-
tazioni* indagava le soluzioni che i pensatori ebraici ave-
vano dato dei problemi religiosi* in particolar modo circa
il valore ed il significato della rivelazione. Frutto di
questi studi sara 1'Heptaplus, esposizione simbolica dei
primi versetti della Genesi."
16
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola* p. 39. The Italian
translation of the Latin phrase above— "in quale maniera
ciascun filosofo per conto suo* riesca a liberare (il suo
spirito)"— is given in the contribution by G. Dell'Acqua and
L. Munster* "I rapporti di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola con
alcuni filosofi ebrei*" L'opera e il pensiero di Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola nella storia dell'umanesimp, Convegno
internazionale per il V centenario della nascita di Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola [September 1963] (Firenze* 1965)*n* 166.
65
According to a Florentine document cited and reproduced
17
by Cassuto, Alemanno owned a copy of Hayy ibn Yacdan xn a
Hebrew translation of unknown authorship, and from that work
Alemanno often "loved" to quote. Cassuto believes it prob
able, if not certain, that the marginal notes in a Munich
manuscript of the risala may be Alemanno's, although the
manuscript itself, done in 1551, cannot be Alemanno's per
sonal copy mentioned in the Florentine document, but may be
* -4 - 18
a copy of it.
Moritz Steinschneider, medievalist and bibliographer,
is not certain that the annotations in the 1551 manuscript
are by Alemanno, but, continues Cassuto, "we who know that
he [Alemanno] owned personally a manuscript of the Chaj ben
Joktan, cannot but hold it very probable that he annotated
it as he read it." Cassuto refers to a parallel between one
~^Gli ebrei, pp. 313, 403-404.
J-^Gli ebrei, p. 313: "E assai probabile, per quanto
non possa dirsi sicuro, che debbano attribuirsi a Jochanan
Alemanno alcune annotazioni marginali al Chaj ben Joktan,
l'epistola di Abu Bekr ibn Tofeil tradotta in ebraico da un
anonimo, che molto frequentemente egli ama citare nelle sue
opere, e della quale un documento fiorentino ci attesta aver
egli posseduto personalmente un esemplare. Le annotazioni
si trovano in un codice monacense del Chaj ben Joktan, che
non puo identificarsi con quello che vien menzionato dal
documento fiorentino, essendo stato scritto nel 1551, ma puo
esserne una copia, diretta o indiretta."
66
such note and a passage in one of Alemanno's own works, the
Chaj ha-'Olamim, to which Steinschneider calls attention in
19
his Alfarabx.
20
As mentioned by Cassuto, Pico's statement about his
translation of Hayy ben Yacdan appears in his Opera, p.
21
423. The work which contains the passage is Pico's attack
on astrology, first book, which can also be consulted in
Garin's edition of Pico's Disputationes adversus astrologiam
divinatricem. The passage in the latter edition reads:
Scripsit etiam Abubater de natalibus praedictionibus et
eodem nomine alius philosophica, praecipueque librum Quo
quisque pacto per se philosophus evadat, quern anno su-
periore ex hebraeo vertimus in latinum; sed ille Alcha-
sibi, hie vero Tofail filius.^
19
Cassuto, Gli ebrei, p. 313, n. 3, says: "Stein
schneider, Die hebr. HSS.... in Munchen, 2 ediz., p. 40, no.
59; Alfarabi, p. 249; Hebr. Obers., p. 365. Lo Steinschnei
der propone solo dubitativamente 1'attribuzione a Jochanan,
ma noi che sappiamo aver egli posseduto personalmente un ms.
del Chaj ben Joktan, non possiamo non ritenere molto proba-
bile che egli fosse venuto annotandoselo nelle sue letture.
Cfr. anche il paralello fra una di queste annotazioni e un
passo del Chaj ha-Olamim rilevato presso Steinschneider,
Alfarabi, p. 249."
^ Gli ebrei, p. 322.
^ Opera quae extant omnia . . . Editio vltima, superi-
oribus multo correctior & locupletior (Basileae [1572?-
1573?]), I, pt. 2, 423.
22
Alchasibx and Tofail appear as Altasibi and Trxpdxs,
respectively, in the early edition above (n. 21).
67
On the facing page is the Italian translation of the pas
sage :
Anche Abubater ha scritto sulle predicazioni natalizie*
e un suo omonimo ha scritto di filosofia* e specialmente
quel libro sul modo in cui il filosofo raggiunge la
liberta* che l'anno scorso io ho tradotto dall1ebraico
in latino. Ma quello era figlio di Alchasibi* questo
di Tofail.^
Pico's translation* then* was probably done before
1489* inasmuch as by September of that year he was receiving
congratulations and letters of thanks for his published
24
Heptaplus, according to Garin.
Pico observes that at times Abu Bakr al-Hasan ibn
al-Khasib* a writer of Persian origin* was confused with
23
Disputationes adversus astroloqiam divinatricem....
a cura di Eugenio Garin (Edizione nazionale dei classici del
pensiero italiano* 2-3) (Firenze* 1946-1952)* I* 80-81.
Pico's work was published posthumously in 1496.
^Giovanni Pico della Mirandola* De hominis dignitate,
Heptaplus, De ente et uno, e scritti vari a cura di Eugenio
Garin (Edizione nazionale dei classici del pensiero itali
ano* 1) (Firenze* 1942)* p. 32. In the text of the Hepta
plus the translation seems not to be mentioned* but there is
a reference to "Abubacher Arabs" on p. 276 and to "Abuba-
cher" on p. 330. In the index* p. 593* the entry referring
to these pages reads: "Abubacer [Abu Bekr ibn Tufail]."
In an early Italian translation of the Heptaplus (Le
sette sposizioni intitolate Heptaplo.... tradotte in lingua
Toscana da Antonio Buonagrazia.... (Pescia* 1555), "Albu-
macher Arabo" appears on p. 82; "Abubacher" on p. 122.
68
Abu Bakr b. Abd el Malik al-Keisi ibn Tofeil, the well-
known philosopher. Commenting on this in his edition of the
Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, Garin re
iterates that "il libro che il Pico tradusse e il romanzo
filosofico 'Hayy ibn Yakdhan, Oj come tradusse il Pococke,
Philosophus autodidactus.... Pico si serviva della versione
v 25
di Mose di Narbona."
There is uncertainty as regards the author of the
Hebrew translation of the risala which Pico used as a basis
26
for his own translation. Munk and Garin attribute a
translation of Hayy ben Yacdan to Moses of Narbonne, while
Cassuto,2^ Steinschneider,2^ and George Sarton2^ say that
25
I, 642, n. 13. In his edition of Pico's De hominis
dignitate, Heptaplus, etc., cited above, Garin repeats that
Pico "aveva tradotto in latino il romanzo filosofico di Ibn
Tofail, Hayy ibn Yakdhan, il vivente figlio del vegliante,
probabilmente dall'ebraico di Mose di Narbona" (p. 51).
^ Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859),
p. 417.
^ Gli ebrei. p. 313.
2®0n p. 21 of his Catalogus codicum hebraeorum biblio-
thecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, Lugduni-Batavorum, apud E.
J. Brill, 1858, Steinschneider has an entry in Hebrew fol
lowed by: "Hai ben Joktan opus notissimum Arab, auctore
ABU-BEKR IBN TOFEIL, hebr. per Anonymum cum Comm. Mosis
Narbonii, finito in urbe Cervera . . . pridie festi Pentec.
(22 Maji) anni 1349 ..."
^ Introduction to the History of Science. In Vol. Ill,
69
the translator's identity is not known.
What became of Pico's Latin translation of Ibn Tufail's
risala? So far it seems not to have come to light and, un
fortunately, there is every probability that it was lost or
destroyed. After Pico's death in 1494, his writings were
in part published and, when undecipherable, otherwise dis
posed of. At times the writing resembled hieroglyphics, for
Pico often wrote or dictated rapidly, as is reported by his
30
nephew and biographer, Gianfrancesco della Mirandola.
In his will (September 1492) Pico had provided that his
books be sold or disposed of as his family might see fit,
but four years elapsed after his death before they were
bought by a bibliophile, and in the meantime they were in
the hands of the Dominican Brothers of San Marco in
pt. 1, p. 608, he says, concerning Ibn Tufail: "Haiy ibn
Yaqzan translated into Hebrew by an unknown scholar under
the title Jehiel ben 'Uriel. Moses completed his commentary
in Cervera 1349. He included it in an analysis of the Kitab
tadbir al-mutawahhid (De regimine solitarii) of Ibn Bajja,
. . . which was one of Ibn Tufail's main sources. This
analysis is particularly important because we know Ibn
Ba j j a's work only through it."
•^Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus
. . . , pp. 52-54. Elia del Medigo found Pico's writing
hard to read; so did Cardinal Richelieu's librarian, Jacques
Gaffarel, who had the opportunity to handle some of Pico's
manuscripts. Jules Dukas, Recherches sur l'histoire du
quinzieme siecle (Paris, 1876), pp. 49-50.
70
Florence. In 1498 they were bought by Cardinal Domenico
Grimani of Venice. There were 1,190 volumes in Pico's
library, according to the inventory made in 1498. But these
31
figures, says Pearl Kibre, give an inadequate idea of the
actual size of the collection, since the custom was to bind
several treatises together in one volume. Kibre ranks
Pico's collection with the largest of the private libraries
of the period.
Little is known of Pico's library after its transfer to
Grimani. "In all probability," says Kibre,
it formed part of the bequest at Grimani's death in 1523
to the monastery of the Brothers of San Antonio di Cas-
tello at Venice for the erection of a library for public
use. There it is believed to have been consumed in the
fire of 1687 which destroyed the refectory of the monas
tery, . . .
where precious paintings, books, and manuscripts were kept.
Not all of Grimani's books shared this fate, however, as is
attested by the number of volumes containing his name which
are in various libraries. But at the time that Kibre wrote,
none had appeared bearing Pico's name as former owner (pp.
20-21) .
~^The Library of Pico della Mirandola (New York, 1936),
pp. 21-22. Ibn Tufail's name seems not to appear in this
catalog.
71
It would seem* then* that what may have been the first
Latin translation of Ibn Tufail's risala— some 200 years
before Pococke1s translation— has not come down to us- That
this translation was made by such an important Renaissance
figure as Pico della Mirandola makes the loss all the more
regrettable.
The question arises whether in spite of the fact that
Pico's translation seems not to have been published* some
knowledge of it and of its general contents might have
reached Spain by Gracian's time. Owing to Pico's importance
and to the close cultural and political ties that existed
between Italy and Spain during the Renaissance and subse
quently* it is possible that the translation was mentioned
in correspondence or by persons traveling between the two
countries. Moreover* as Pico's personal library was a
notable one* bibliophiles as well as writers would have been
interested in the disposition of his collection after his
death and may also have written about its contents to book
lovers in other countries.
It seems that Pico himself had had the desire to travel
to Spain* a plan which Jose Garcia Mercadal says was
thwarted by the officials of the Inquisition* who undoubted
ly objected to some of Pico's unorthodox writings. In the
72
prologue to his edition of the journals of travelers to
Spain and Portugal, Garcia Mercadal says on this subject:
Pico de la Mirandola, ... parece haber tenido en
proyecto la realizacion de un viaje a Espana, que no se
llego a verificar, para sosiego de los celosos vigi
lantes de la Inquisicion, que, al solo anuncio de aquel
intento, acudieron a los Reyes Catolicos para pedir su
castigo si a tanto se atrevia.~^
Specific mention of a number of foreign visitors to the
Lastanosa home is made by Correa Calderon, who includes a
Conde de Mirandola among the visitors with Italian surnames
or titles: "el Duque de Ferrara, Juan de Medicis, el Prin
cipe de Squilache, el conde de Mirandola, el Marques de
Pescara" (p. 31). No dates are given for these visits.
That Gracian, like other educated men of his time,
would be familiar with the writings of Pico della Mirandola
is not surprising. In the correspondence of 1652 between
Gracian and Manuel de Salinas, the latter mentions Pico
twice to support his stand on a literary difference with
Viaies de extranieros por Espana y Portugal, desde
los tiempos mas remotos, hasta fines del siglo XVI; recopi-
lacion, traduccion, prologo y notas por J. Garcia Mercadal
(Madrid, 1952), I, 31. Two members of the Mirandola family,
Francisco Maria and Alejandro, are mentioned among the vis
itors to Spain in the eighteenth century (III, 25).
73
33
Gracian.
While it is not known if news of Pico's translation of
Hayy ben Yacdan had reached Spain before 1651* when the
first part of El criticon appeared* or before 1671* when
Pococke1s translation made the risala generally known* the
translation by Pico della Mirandola is evidence of the in
terest in Arabic thought that existed in Renaissance Italy.
■^Letter of March 17* 1652* in Hoyo* pp. 1145-1146.
CHAPTER V
ASPECTS OF LIFE IN EL CRITICON
The two pilgrims of El criticon'* ' are shown undergoing
the ordinary experiences of life, encountering difficulties
which at times overcome them or which they master. As he
2 3
follows Critilo and Andrenio, the author comments on many
aspects of life, taking always a forthright stand. Among
the topics on which he has much to say are nature, man,
■ * " A collection of crisis or judgments. M. Romera-
Navarro (I, p. 97, n. 19) says: "Opino que por El Criticon
ha de entenderse libro de criticas.1 1 When deciding on a
title for this work Gracian may have recalled an analogous
case, that of two satirical works entitled Satyricon, by
Petronius and by John Barclay.
9
The critic or man of judgment, capable of discerning
the truth in things and in men.
*3
From the Greek word for "man." M. Romera-Navarro (I,
p. 110, n. 46) comments: "Ni el nombre del personaje ...
ni su caracter corresponden al hombre en estado natural,
segun los criticos han entendido, sino al hombre comun,
sujeto a las pasiones, sin la prudencia, sabiduria y modera-
cion del Sabio o Critico."
74
75
life* the vices and the virtues, wisdom, "saber vivir" or
the practical sense, books, friendship, and conversation or
dialogue. In the pages which follow, Gracian's views on
these subjects are given. Other matters of interest to
Gracian, such as historical and political events and the
psychology of nations, have been omitted as his views
thereon can be deduced from his statements on the more basic
problems.
Nature
Nature in El criticon has an important place, especi
ally in the first four crisis, in which the theater of the
universe is described. Nature is presented as it appears to
Andrenio1s wondering gaze when he is freed by an earthquake
from his cave located within a mountain. Listening to
Andrenio's discovery of the world, Critilo envies his priv
ilege of seeing all things for the first time, new, as the
first man must have seen them, and he understands Andrenio's
feelings: "Bien lo creo que quando los ojos ven lo que
nunca vieron, el coragon siente lo que nunca sintio" (I, 2,
p. 119). As the chapters unfold, Andrenio continues to
relate his discoveries in nature and its pageantry, dwell
ing on its various forms, its steady constancy while
76
changing. He talks about the animals and other creatures;
the fecundity* utility* and beauty of nature and the hier
archy of created beings. In the fourth chapter* "El des-
penadero de la vida*" Critilo's reflections on nature and
on man* and his warnings* become more insistent.
Liberated by the earthquake— "eclipse del alma* pa-
rentesis de mi vida"— Andrenio was all of a sudden faced
with "la gran maquina criada." He watched the sun climb and
how "con una soberana callada majestad se fue senoreando de
todo el hemisferio llenando todas las demas criaturas de su
esclarecida presencia" (I* 2* p. 121)* a sight which stole
his soul away: "Yo quede absorto y totalmente enagenado de
mi mismo."
Andrenio's narration elicits exclamations from Critilo
and comments on "aquella infinita increada belleza*" a means
to the understanding and love of God. With such instruction
he intersperses counsel for right living* as when Andrenio
describes the wonder of his first starlit night and of the
moon* "presidente de la noche." Critilo summarizes: "No
es tanto la noche para que duerman los ignorantes quanto
para que velen los sabios" (I* 2* pp. 12 3-124). When the
richness of the earth is discussed* Critilo reflects that
the infinite liberality of the "sabio Hazedor" obliges man
77
to serve and venerate Him with the same generosity.
In this labyrinth of prodigies, Andrenio finds himself
"gustosamente perdido." As he watches the birds, he is
fascinated by the variety in their "vana plumageria." Turn
ing his gaze shoreward, it seems to him that the sea,
"haziendose lenguas en sus aguas," is envious of the land.
He marvels to see such a frightful monster "reduzido a
orillas y sujeto al blando freno de la menuda arena." Noth
ing but dust protects against this fierce enemy. Two ele
ments, fire and water, replies Critilo, have been imprisoned
in a way "suavemente fuerte" by Providence, otherwise they
would long ago have made an end of the earth and its in
habitants .
The variety of winds is discussed, and the useful
beauty of the mountains, "firmes costillas del cuerpo muelle
de la tierra." Laughing waters are a favorite image of the
author. Andrenio never tires of watching its "alegre trans-
parencia." In a later chapter Critilo with difficulty dis
suades him from drinking from the "fuente de los enganos"
(I, 7) whence "brollava el agua por siete canos," and whose
water was "muy clara y bien risuena."
Observing the harmony of this universe composed of
contraries, Andrenio asks: "78
concierto tan estrano, compuesto de oposiciones?" This
gives Critilo the opportunity to make again the kind of
paradoxical statement dear to Gracian: "Todo este universo
se compone de contrarios y se concierta de desconciertos:
uno contra otro" (I, 3, p. 137).
Throughout the novel Gracian refers to God as maker,
governor, provider:
... aquel divino Arquitecto de esta gran casa del orbe
[quien] no solo atendio a su comodidad y firmeza, sino
a su hermosa proporcion. (I, 3, p. 132)
... la infinita sabiduria del Criador, con la qual dis-
puso todas las cosas en peso, con numero y medida; ...
(1, 3, p. 134)
j... [la] infinitemente sabia providencia de aquel gran
moderador de todo lo criado, que con tan continua y
varia contrariedad de todas las criaturas entre si,
templa, mantiene y conserva toda esta gran maquina del
mundol (I, 3, pp. 138-139)
... atencion divina ... la divina assistencia ...
(passim)
Gracian, like Pythagoras, Plato, and Fray Luis de Leon,
speaks of the music of the spheres: "Oydse una dulcissima
armonia, alternada de vozes y instrumentos, que pudiera
suspender la celestial por media hora"-< (II, 10, p. 307) .
The various ages of man are described in terms of the
seasons, as "la jovial juventud" and "los verdes prados de
la juventud." With a series of personifying verbs and
79
varied rhythm, Gracian presents the ages dynamically.
Rapidly-passing youth:
Es la ninez fuente risuena: nace entre menudas arenas,
... b[r]olla tan clara como sencilla, rie lo que no
murmura, bulle entre campanillas de viento, arrullase
entre pucheros y cinese de verduras que le fajan. Pre-
cipitase ya la mocedad en un impetuoso torrente, corre,
salta, se [a]rroja y se despena, tropegando con las
guijas, rifando con las flores, va echando espumas, se
enturbia y se enfurece. (II, 1, pp. 17-18)
Then comes middle age with its even, steady flow:
Sossiegase, ya rio, en la varonil edad, va passando tan
callado quan profundo, caudalosamente vagaroso, todo es
fondos sin ruido; dilatase espaciosamente grave, ferti-
liza los campos, fortaleze las ciudades, enriqueze las
provincias y de todas maneras aprovecha. (II* 1, p. 18)
Finally, old age, when the waters reach the sea:
Mas jail, que al cabo viene a parar en el amargo mar de
la vejez, abismo de achaques, sin que le falte una gotaj
alii pierden los rios sus brios, su nombre y su dulgura;
va a orga el carcomido bajel, haziendo agua por cien
partes y a cada instante zozobrando entre borrascas tan
deshechas que le deshazen, hasta dar al traves con dolor
y con dolores en el abismo de un sepulcro, quedando en-
callado en perpetuo olvido. (II* 1, p. 18)
In one of Gracian's descriptions of old age there is a
faithful picture of winter in nature as well as of waning
life:
Estavan ya nuestros dos peregrinos del mundo, los
andantes de la vida, al pie de los Alpes canos, ... Era
la region tan destemplada y tan triste que, entrados en
ella, a todos se les elo la sangre. ... Veian blanquear
80
algunos de aquellos cabegos, quando otros muy pelados,
cayendoseles los dientes de los riscos. No discurrxan
bulliciosas las venas de los arroyuelos, porque la mucha
frialdad los avia embargado la risa y el bullicio. De
modo que todo estava elado y casi muerto. Aparecxan
desnudas las plantas de sus primeras locuras y verdores,
y desabrigadas de su vistoso foliaje; y si algunas hojas
les avian quedado, eran tan nocivas que matavan no pocos
al caer, ... No se vexan ya rexr las aguas como solxan;
llorar si, y aun crujir los caranvanos. No cantava el
ruysenor enamoradoj gemxa sx, desenganado.
— iQue region tan mal humorada es esta!— se lamentava
Andrenio. (Ill, 1, pp. 20-22)
This passage is an example of Gracian's power to make
nature come alive, which he accomplishes here especially by
the use of personifying verbs and adjectives: a sad and
distempered region of toothless peaks, the clamorous "dis-
currir" of the streamlets arrested by the cold, the once-
green plants now divested of their early foolishness. Like
petulant old age, the whole region is ill-humored. It is a
vivid presentation of the likeness of advanced age and deep
winter.
Gracian's view of nature agrees to a large extent with
that of the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century, for
whom the consideration of the visible world was a means of
approach to the Creator, a view held also by some classical
writers, like Cicero and Seneca, who by observing nature had
come to believe in a Providence governing the world. In
81
El criticon there are reminiscences of Fray Luis de Gra
nada's appreciation of nature as expressed in his Intro-
duccion del siiribolo de la fe (1582) . Among the places de-
4
scribed in the latter work is the island of Santa Elena,
which is the setting of the early chapters of Gracian's
novel. Like Fray Luis de Granada, who designates night as
a fitting time to praise God, Gracian recommends it as a
time for the wise to keep vigil. He echoes the observation
made by classical and other writers, that familiarity les
sens admiration, even before the wonders of nature. Gra
cian, who is especially observant of contrasts and antago
nisms, repeatedly dwells on the accord in nature that comes
from the balance of discordant or opposing forces.
Man
Gracian's conception of man is the Christian one, that
he is a fallen creature with one foot in this world and one
in the next. He was created a reasonable being, superior
to all the other creatures and to be served by them; he, in
turn, "finalmente se ordena y se dirige para Dios,
4 • -
Fray Luis de Granada, Maravilla del mundo; seleccion
y prologo de Pedro Salinas (Mexico, 1940), pp. 37-38. The
selections are from the first book of the Introduccion del
siiribolo de la fe.
82
conociendole, amandole y sirviendole." His lordship over
the world is to be with the mind., not the belly, "como per
sona," not as a beast\ he is to be the lord, not the slave,
of all created things. The latter are to follow him, not
drag him.
In his analysis and evaluation of man, Gracian uses
such strong terms that the picture turns out dark. As
Andrenio is about to enter the world, Critilo warns him that
they are now among enemies, so it behooves him to keep his
eyes open, to live on the alert, proceed with caution, to
listen, and not to trust anyone:
— ... Advierte, Andrenio, que ya estamos entre enemi-
gos: ya es tiempo de abrir los ojos, ya es menester
vivir alerta. Procura de ir con cautela en el ver, en
el oir y mucha mas en el hablarj oye a todos y de nin-
guno te fiesj tendras a todos por amigos, pero guardarte
has de todos como de enemigos. (I, 4, p. 149)
In fact, few men deserve that name, "fieras, si, y fieros
tambien," horrible monsters. There is no wolf, lion, tiger,
or basilisk that approaches man's cruelty. As an example
Critilo relates the story of a criminal who for his misdeeds
had been buried in a pit filled also with a variety of the
most dangerous animals. A stranger passing by was moved by
pity and stopped to free the captive. As the animals es
caped, each in his own way thanked the rescuer, but the
83
criminalj once freed, killed him in order to rob him.
Andrenio is asked to judge for himself which is more cruel,
man or beast. While Andrenio is still marveling— more than
on the day that he first saw the world— Critilo compounds
his astonishment by telling him about women, who are worse
still— very devils.
Not even one's own parents, brothers, or children can
be trusted. Gracian lists some of the men to beware of:
Quando vieres un presumido de sabio, cree que es un
necio; ten al rico por pobre de los verdaderos bienesj
el que a todos manda es esclavo comun, el grande de
cuerpo no es muy hombre, el gruesso tiene poca sustan-
cia, el que haze el sordo oye mas de lo que querria,
el que mira lindamente es ciego o cegara, el que huele
mucho huele mal a todos, el hablador no dize cosa, el
que rxe regana, el que murmura se condena, el que come
mas come menos, el que se burla tal vez se confiessa,
el que dize mal de la mercaderia la quiere, el que haze
el simple sabe mas; al que nada le falta el se falta a
si mismo, al avaro tanto le sirve lo que tiene como lo
que no tiene; el que gasta mas razones tiene menos, el
mas sabio suele ser menos entendido; darse buena vida
es acabar; el que la ama la aborrece, el que te unta
los cascos te los quiebra, el que te haze fiestas te
ayuna; la necedad la hallaras de ordinario en los buenos
pareceres; el muy derecho es tuerto, el mucho bien haze
mal, el que escusa passos da mas; por no perder un bo-
cado se pierden ciento; el que gasta poco gasta doblado,
el que te haze llorar te quiere bien: y al fin, lo que
uno afecta y quiere parecer, esso es menos. (I, 7, pp.
216-218)
Another apologue tells of the cubs of a fox returning
to the den frightened after having seen an elephant for the
84
first time, and then a lion on the following day. The
mother reassures them, saying that those animals are not to
be feared despite their appearance. On the third day the
cubs return happy because they have met a smiling, peaceful,
unarmed creature. That one, says the mother, is one to
flee: "Basta que tiene mana: esse es el hombre" (III, 6,
p. 182). To make life more complex, says Gracian elsewhere,
each man is different. Concisely, he resumes the problem:
"Visto un leon, estan vistos todos, y vista una oveja, to
das; pero visto un hombre, no esta visto sino uno, y aun
esse no bien conocido" (I, 11, p. 318).
Men are "hijos del barro y nietos de la nada, " kin to
worms, wedded to corruption. As the Bible says, man passes
away like a flower, is reduced to a shadow. Man's inclina
tion to what is forbidden makes him a slave to his lower
appetites.
La parte inferior esta siempre de ceno con la superior,
y a la razon se le atreve el apetito y tal vez la atro-
pella. El mismo inmortal espxritu no esta essento de
esta tan general discordia, pues combaten entre si (y
en el) muy vivas las passiones: ... ya vencen los vi-
cios, ya triunfan las virtudes, ... (I, 3, 138)
The entire universe is composed of contraries, as Seneca
said. There is nothing that does not have an opponent to
battle— the elements against one another, evils against
85
good, one epoch against another; the very stars are in con
test. "Todo es arma y todo guerra."
Today men are inferior to those of other times.
No conocian las perlas aquellas primeras senoras, pero
eranlo ellas en la fineza. Los hombres eran de oro y
se vestian de pano; agora son asco y rozan damasco. Y
despues que ay tantos diamantes, ni hay fineza ni fir-
meza. (Ill, 10, pp. 321-322)
A summary of man's state is the following:
... los hombres de hogano, llenos todos de engano,
mugeres de embeleco: los ninos mienten, los viejos
enganan, los parientes faltan y los amigos falsean. ...
mundo inmundo, laberinto de enredos, falsedades y qui-
meras. (Ill, 3, p. 86)
Each age of man brings its own sorrows. Youth, which
rises like a smiling fountain, turning into a stream and
later into a torrent— "essa no es edad, sino tempestad."
Youth finds "despierto el engano" when it is as yet unaware
of the strength of its passions. Critilo remembers his
early years and relates his mistakes to Andrenio:
Mas yo, entre tanto bien, me criava mal; como rico y
como unico, cuidavan mas mis padres fuesse hombre que
persona. ... fuy entrando de carrera por los verdes
prados de la juventud, tan sin freno de razon quan pi-
cado de los viles deleites: ... (I, 4, p. 156)
This vicarious experience does not suffice Andrenio, who
has to make his own discovery of the world, with his own
86
trials and errors. The real undertaking is the prime of
life— "la gran provincia que emprendemos"; man at that time
"esta en su punto," neither so far gone as in old age nor so
raw as in youth. Having acquired prudence along with forti
tude, man " ... en la varonil edad esta en su sazon, y del
valor tomo el renombre de varonil; es en ella valor lo que
en la mocedad audacia y en la vejez rezelo: aqui esta en un
medio mui proporcionado" (II, 8, p. 261). In old age the
consumed vessel starts leaking. Some who reach this stage
are rotted rather than ripe, senile instead of elderly; in
their long years they have lived little. Observing them,
Andrenio remarks: 1 1 . . . yo siempre crei que el encanecer
era un regumarse el mucho seso, y agora conozco que en los
mas no es sino quedarsele el juizio en bianco" (III, 7, p.
242). But the elderly whose experience has made them wise
are called by Gracian " ... los clarissimos de noche y
escurxssimos de secreto, gran profundidad con tanta clari-
dad" (III, 1, p. 47) .
5
Gracian is irritated by fools. He excoriates the
^"Warmth is not a characteristic of Gracian as a
writer. It is, nevertheless, undoubtedly there when he is
portraying an ass." L. B. Walton in his edition of Gre
cian's The Oracle, p. 10.
87
infinite breeds which has members even in the highest
places. In the most famous universities, " ... aunque
muchos son sabios en latin, suelen ser grandes necios en
romance"; and he adds: " ... entre muchos doctores no halle
un docto" (II, 4, pp. 127-128). The "bachilleres" already
know everything; nothing .that is told them is new to them
("el que todo lo sabia ya, nada le cuentan de nuevo"). The
aphorism of Pablo de Parada, Gracian's distinguished Portu
guese friend, is repeated with approval: "Son tontos todos
los que lo parecen y la metad de los que no lo parecen."
Aiming at the rich, the author more than once observes that
among the members of the Order of the Golden Fleece there
are some who remain "borregos," nor does he spare persons
in the religious state: "Topareis brutos en doradas salas
y bestias que bolvieron de Roma borregos felpados de oro;
... " (III, 4, p. 132).
The careless, the spendthrifts, the gamblers— "gente
toda de la cofradia del hijo prodigo"— will never lack "un
amigo enemigo" to lend them money.
Among beautiful persons there is often "necedad," and
as a consolation to plain women, Gracian offers the thought,
"a las necias la hermosura."
The necios end up being led by the mad: " ... en la
88
tierra de los necios, el loco es rei, ... " (II, 13, p.
370) .
Life
Life is depicted variously as a toilsome uphill journey
which the pilgrims make on their way to their true home, as
a river flowing to the sea, as a battle against evil.
Man arrives in this world "a escuras .. . y aun a d e
gas" and passes in his youth from the darkness of ignorance
to the twilight of awareness, only to realize eventually
that he has been "trasladado de la cuna a la urna, del
talamo al tumulo." Man finds that everything in life is
strife and war, "una milicia sobre la haz de la tierra."
If one observes well, one perceives that everything in life
tricks miserable man:
... el mundo le engana, la vida le miente, la fortuna
le burla, la salud le falta, la edad se passa, el mal
le priessa, el bien se ausenta, los anos huyen, los con-
tentos no llegan, el tiempo buela, la vida se acaba, la
muerte le coge, la sepultura le traga, la tierra le
cubre, la pudricion le deshaze, el olviso le aniquila:
y el que ayer fue hombre, oy es polvo, y manana nada.
(I, 7, pp. 241-242)
To make matters worse, life is turned around, with deceit at
the entrance to the world and disenchantment at the exit,
falsehood at the beginning and the truth at the end, there
ignorance and here useless experience. What especially
89
gives cause for reflection is that even though disillusion
ment arrives late it is neither acknowledged nor valued.
As Critilo is lamenting this state of affairs, he is over
heard by another person, who agrees that there is reason to
complain about the "desconcierto" of the world, but not to
ask who ordained it so. The question is, rather, who dis
ordered the world, who discomposed it; for the world was
not like this in the beginning. It is man who is respon
sible for its present condition.
In this world only the "tontos" can live happily; it
can truly be said that the "buenos" inherit the earth, for
only they are happy in it. Justice is one-eyed when it is
not blind. Gold, "aquel poderoso metal que todo lo rine y
todo lo rinde," rules the world. Presents go to the afflu
ent and riches are inherited by the rich.
When inspecting the merchandise in "La feria de todo
el mundo" (I, 13), Critilo and Andrenio are guided by
Egenio, the man of six senses, who explains to them the real
value of many articles which few are buying, even when the
price is low or when the wares are priceless. Among these
articles are experience, friendship, courtesy, patience,
truth. Few enter a shop which has a sign reading "Aqui se
vende el bien a mal precio." This is no cause for
90
astonishment, comments Egenio, for such wares are little
valued in the world.
Things are very different when they are not merely seen
but felt. Most people, however, do not examine things but
go by appearances. When Andrenio learns that it is possible
to appear to be without being, he inquires into this inter
esting "arte de hazer parecer," one much practiced in "El
hiermo de Hipocrinda" (II, 7). With more experience he
learns that "el gran primor es no ser y parecerlo, esso si
que es saber." It is not necessary to kill oneself study
ing, for by dint of artful self-praise one can go far.
"Mucho vale el pico, " for even the parrot, which has one,
finds a place in palaces and on the best of balconies (II,
7, p. 246).
In addition to not seeing below the surface, each per
son receives a different impression from what he does see.
The same thing is white to one and black to another. Most
people are dyers, who color things in the most becoming
colors, for " ... segun es la aficion assi es la afectacion;
habla cada uno de la feria segun le fue en ella: ... " (III,
5, p. 172). Though all may speak the same language in a
country, in order to ascertain the truth of things it is
necessary to rely on the art of deducing or even divining.
Although Gracian believes that only in society does a
man become a "persona*" at times he criticizes large cities
and capitals* agreeing with other writers who have expressed
"desprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea." "No se oyo jamas
verdad en corte*" he declares* and* "Toda gran corte es
Babilonia." Recalling perhaps his own stay in Madrid* he
aummarizes in a few words Critilo's experience in "Los en-
cantos de Falsirena": "Salio de Madrid como se suele*
pobre* enganado* arrepentido y melancolico" (I* 12* p. 364).
An omen of what life holds in store for every one is
had at birth, when the trumpet which ushers into the world
the king of creation is nothing more than his own wail.
Once he starts on the road through life* the ascent is very
steep. Evils are long-lasting and distress eternal* while
happiness comes diluted. Those who wear the crown of high
office suffer corresponding headaches: "A gran peso, gran
pesar." Injustice and ingratitude are part of this life*
as can be seen in the lives of many great men who were
ostracized or exiled simply because of their greatness.
Every teacher of good can expect the very stones to rise up
against him. The world has always been so. In spite of the
changes that occur in it* in the end it remains the same.
"Las cosas las mismas son que fueron, sola la memoria es la
92
que falta."
At the end of their visit to Fortuna (II, 6), made
during the middle part of their lives, Critilo and Andrenio
are given an "espejo de desenganos" to help them in the
future. Later on they are to meet the Descifrador (III, 4),
who will solve many an obscure puzzle in their lives.
Far from having freedom, "el que mas tiene, de mas
depende"; true happiness does not consist in having every
thing but in desiring nothing. The wise person will limit
his needs, for "no esta el mundo para tomarlo de assiento."
Man has here a lodging, not a dwelling of his own. All
things that he has in this world have been lent to him, vir
tue alone being his own.
Gracian does not share the view that the voice of the
people is the voice of God; rather, it is the voice of the
god Bacchus. The mob is credulous, barbarous, stupid, and
malicious, says he, recalling some city populations which
he has observed. The "discreto" is alarmed when all he does
pleases everyone, " ... lo mui bueno es de pocos, y el que
agrada al vulgo, por consiguiente, ha de desagradar a los
pocos, que son los entendidos" (II, 5, p. 192). The word
"vulgo," as used by Gracian, does not distinguish social
classes but includes anyone who deserves the term, from
93
the lowly to persons in the highest places. "Nunca pense
verj" remarks Andrenio in the "Plaga del populacho y corral
del Vulgo," "tanto necidiscreto junto, y aqui veo de todos
estados y generos, hasta legos" (II, 5, p. 177). These are
people who judge things without having any judgment; what
they have not known for themselves they know for others;
"aviendo perdido sus casas, tratan de restaurar las repub-
licas."
The Vices
The vices and virtues are discussed in detail and often
personified. Among the mythological characters who repre
sent the former are Cacus, Antheus, the harpies, and the
hydras. The aspect of vice is often "agradable y florido,"
but those ensnared by vice become slaves to themselves,
dragging chains, "tan cargados de hierros quan desnudos de
azeros." Striking metaphors are often used, such as "al-
quitran de amor," "los caniculares del vicio," and "mano de
nieve, garra de nebli" (lust).
Among the lesser vices is laziness. There are some
men, called by Gracian "sabios de fortuna" or "de ventura,"
who are reputed learned though they have never shaken the
dust off a book or lost sleep to earn their fame. When
94
Andrenio learns about this easy way to fame he is attracted
by "aquello de saber sin estudiar, letras sin sangre, fama
sin sudor, atajo sin trabajo, valer de valde” (II, 4, p.
129) . The lazy, the pleasure-loving, and others who do not
bestir themselves to become real persons fall eventually
into the "cueva de la nada," inhabited by a multitude de
scribed as "sepultados en vida, amortajados entre algodones
y embalsamados entre delicias" (III, 8, p. 258).
Anger is permitted with moderation, "por quanto el nunca
enojarse es de bestias." Tolerance in this case on the part
of the irritable Gracian is reminiscent of Dante's leniency
with shortcomings which he himself possessed.
Among those in the "anfiteatro de monstruosidades" (II,
9) is the deceitful person, to whom perdition is meted out—
"uno que, viviendo de burlas, se iba al infierno de veras."
There is no greater enemy of truth than verisimilitude,
as incarnated in those whom Gracian calls "los caricompues-
tos de virtud y de vicio" and in the maliciously hypocriti
cal .
Gracian's strongest shafts are reserved for the chief
of the capital sins, pride, and the various forms it takes,
such as honor. One element which can result in pride is
learning, and there is no worse madness than that which
95
comes from too much learning: " ... no ay peor locura que
enloquecer de entendido, ni mayor necedad que la que se ori-
gina del saber" (III, 7, p. 234). A "gran senor" once
assembled physicians to ask if they could find a way for him
to talk through the occiput, for talking through the mouth,
like everybody else, was common and vulgar. In this haughty
group are those who devote their time and attention to pro
tocol, studying whom to seat and where; were it not for this
occupation, they would not know which was their right hand.
Many of distinguished ancestry have nostrils for "el
negro humo de la honrilla" but not for the fragrance of
virtue. Such was the "linajudo, mui preciado de honrado,"
who said of his lineage "que a el le venia mui de atras,
alia de sus antepassados, de cuyas hazanas vivia." To him
Momo replied:
— Essa honra, senor mio ... ya no huele bien, rancia
esta. ... Poco importa la honra antigua, si la infamia
es moderna. ... Buscad en nuevas hazanas la honra al
uso. (II, 11, pp. 333-334)
The itch to ennoble one's surname is satirized:
— £No notais ... las colas que anaden todos a sus
apellidos, Gongalez de Tal, Rodriguez de Qual, Perez
de Alla y Fernandez de Aculla? lEs possible que nin-
guno quiere ser de acd? (Ill, 7, p. 229)
Even Spaniards of the humble classes do not fail to put on
96
airs when the situation permits. In Italy there was hardly
a Spanish soldier who soon after arriving did not call him
self Don Diego or Don Alonso. "Signori, den Espana quien
guarda la pecora?" asks an Italian. ";Anda!" is the reply,
"que en Espana no ay bestias ni ay vulgo como en las demas
naciones" (III, 7, p. 240).
Man is so full of malice that nature herself could not
trust him. In order to reduce somewhat his violence she
withheld from him the claws, fangs, horns, and other means
of defense that she distributed to the other animals.
The Virtues
When Andrenio first discovers the universe on the is
land of Santa Elena, it is man as seen in himself that he
finds most remarkable in creation. But it is not enough to
be a man; one must also become a "persona," which for Gra
cian means "hombre de prendas." The "Plaga del populacho"
(II, 5) is described as being full of people but without
persons, although the half-persons are numerous. Gracian
recalls Diogenes with his lamp and relates that a great
philosopher who wanted to put up a "tienda de ser personas"
and also sell some important truths in the Plaga del popu
lacho had to withdraw finally as he had not been able to
97
sell even a small disillusion.
When relating his story to Andrenio, Critilo recalls
how in his youth while adorning his body he was leaving bare
his soul of the "verdaderos arreos, que son la virtud y el
saber." These, however, and all the natural advantages that
one may have, will remain sterile if courage does not accom
pany them. " ... poco importa que el consejo dicte, la
providencia prevenga, si el valor no executa" (II, 8, p.
280). In "La entrada del mundo" (I, 5) the pilgrims come
upon sculptures representing the virtues, each flanked by
the opposing vices. Among such groups is Fortitude, placed
between Rashness and Cowardice. The queen of all the vir
tues is Prudence, which prevents excesses.
Against certain difficulties, humility is the best
response, for in certain situations " ... no vale el hazer
piernas ni querer hombrear." With confidence in an eventual
victory and by using the right stratagems, giants can be
overcome by dwarfs.
The home of virtues, Virtelia's palace visited by
Critilo and Andrenio, had such fragrance that it seemed the
"camarines de la primavera, las estancias de Flora" had been
thrown open, or that a breach had been made in Paradise; and
the harmony of voices and instruments heard there was such
98
as to be able to stop for a time the music of the spheres.
Vanity once appeared before Reason, alleging that she
was the animator of good deeds and therefore deserved a
place among the Virtues. Since many good things are done
for one's fame and honor, some who were present at the
audience did not consider the paradox a bad one, but Reason
rejected the claim, saying: "Es la honra sombra de la vir-
tud, que la sigue y no se consiguej ... es efeto del bien
obrar, pero no afectoj ... diadema de la hermosissima vir-
tud" (II, 11, p. 320).
At Virtelia's court (II, 10) there appeared at times
persons who requested virtues tailored to their tastes.
One, for instance, asked for a virtue "mui acomodada y
llevadera." A delicate woman came to say that she wanted
to go to heaven, but that it had to be "por el camino de las
damas," as the way of fasting and penance was too much for
her. A powerful man wanted not the ordinary virtues of
people, "sino mui a lo senor, una virtud alia exquisita."
Virtelia asked if he wanted to go to everybody else's
heaven. He pondered a while, then replied that he did, if
there was not another one. To this extravagant kind of
theology Virtelia answered that there was no ladder to
heaven except that of the ten commandments, which is the
99
same for rich and poor.
In the chapter on "La rueda del tiempo" (III, 10) the
pilgrims are shown by the Cortesano how the world changes
through the ages and yet remains the same. Famous persons
are recalled and their deeds are related. On the whole* it
seems to the author that the world is getting worse; and as
the wheel of Time turns he thinks nostalgically of " ...
aquellos hombres buenos y llanos* sin artificio ni embeleco*
tan sencillos en el vestido como en el animo* sin pliegues
en las capas y sin doblezes en el alma ... " (III* 10* p.
317). Is there any greater happiness* he asks elsewhere*
than to live among upright men* men of truth* conscience*
and integrity?
Since the definition of life is movement* the problems
of life must not be faced reluctantly but with prompt valor.
One should not be like the man ("si lo es un necio") on the
flowery bank of a river who was invited to swim over to the
side where the fruits were ripe* but who wanted to wait for
the river to finish flowing by* so that he might cross over
without getting wet. "Lo acertado*" says Gracian* "es poner
pecho al agua y con denodado valor passar de la otra vanda
al puerto de una seguridad dichosa" (II* 9* p. 282).
Disappointments* when they come* must be accepted. It
100
takes judgment to embrace the truth. Time, which corrodes
all things, makes Truth beautiful. When Critilo and Andre-
nio are presented to Truth and kiss her hand in homage, they
receive very different impressions. To Andrenio her hand
tastes bitter but to the mature Critilo, sweet.
How many, laments Gracian, lose centuries of fame be
cause they are unwilling to work briefly to deserve it.
With courage, unfavorable fortune can be counteracted. How
does a man become somebody? "Queriendo." It is the will
that is important. In addition, " ... no hay que desconfiar
de la vitoria." The lion that lies in wait for everyone is
overcome if the wayfarer arms himself well and fights even
better, " ... que todo lo vence una resolucion gallarda."
The body, says Gracian, grows until the twenty-fifth
year, and the heart until the fiftieth, but the spirit con
tinuously, which argues for its immortality. The heroic
man achieves also the immortality of fame, the desire for
which is laudable, since it stimulates great deeds. Not by
ease is eminence attained, but by the sweat of heroes and
fighters, the midnight oil of the wakeful writers. There
is no flying to eternity on "plumas alquiladas."
High office requires a correspondingly greater degree
of self-sacrifice and fortitude. He who holds the scepter
101
knows the rules that he must obey:
... no ser suyo, sino de todos, no tener hora propia,
todas agenas, ser esclavo coraun, no tener amigo perso
nal, no oir verdades, ... aver de dar gusto a todos,
contentar a Dios y a los hombres, morir en pie y despa-
chando.® (II, 12, pp. 357-358)
Man once appeared before God complaining that his life
was shorter than that of some lesser creatures. And who,
replied God, had told man that he had not been granted a
longer life than that of the raven, the oak, or the palm
tree? Man should acknowledge his good fortune and appre
ciate his advantages, and realize that it is in his power
to live eternally :
Procura tu ser famoso obrando hazanosamente, trabaja
por ser insigne, ... y lo que es sobre todo, se emi-
nente en la virtud, se heroico y seras eterno, vive a
la fama y seras inmortal. ... Y entiende esta verdad,
que los insignes hombres nunca mueren. (Ill, 12, p.
382)
Wisdom
Wisdom is the spiritual nourishment of a real person,
whom it guides through life. So explains Critilo to
Andrenio at the beginning of their journey when on the road
Suetonius relates this of Vespasian. The saying is
attributed also to a prefect of the emperor Hadrian, Turbo.
Romera-Navarro1s edition of El criticon, II, p. 358, n. 102.
102
they come upon a mound erected to Mercury, the wayside god
who represents wisdom and points out the right path. Un
fortunately , man dies when he should begin to live; that is,
when he has become a seasoned person, wise and prudent, rich
with experience and full of accomplishments, and when he
could be of most use of himself and to others.
The "sabios" in this world are few indeed; " ... no ai
quatro en una ciudad; ique digo quatro!, ni dos en todo un
reino" (II, 5, p. 168) . These render good for evil; with
their wisdom alone they can obtain what they need, for they
have little material wealth, the latter being at variance
with wisdom. Riches, on the other hand, are of little value
without wisdom.
In this world the wise are usually luckless, unappre
ciated if not rejected, as Fortuna herself admits in the
chapter dealing with her questionable distribution of
favors. "Ya se," she says, "que los sabios son los que
hablan mas mal de mi, y en esso muestran serlo" (II, 6, p.
218). Being in straits, they are usually melancholy and
complain about their adverse fortune. Because of their
prudence and wisdom they are the very ones who should be in
high places; instead, they are humbled and forgotten.
One of the persons whom Critilo and Andrenio seek in
103
their journey is Sofisbella, who represents "sabiduria, 1 1
through whom they hope to obtain all the good that can be
desired. They are told that though once esteemed* no one
now pays any attention to her, for nowadays " ... no ai otro
saber como el tener." In spite of his short luck, however,
" ... el sabio, consigo y Dios, tiene lo que le basta" (I,
13, p. 403).
Even after having attained "sabiduria," which safe
guards one from many errors and sins, man cannot be sure
that he will not be subject to a greater fault— pride. For
just as the cedar engenders in its heart the worm that will
eventually rot it, " ... assi de la misma sabiduria nace la
hinchazon que la desluce, y en lo mas profundo de la pru-
dencia la presuncion que la desdora" (III, 7, p. 213).
"Saber Vivir"
"Saber vivir" is the greatest "sabiduria." It is
necessary to know oneself, to acquire knowledge, and become
a complete person. There is no "senorio" without "saber."
To become a man one must deal with those who are men— in
the world— consequently, seeing the world is part of one's
education. Indeed, the best book to study is the world it
self. Although Gracian has criticized large cities as
104
places where vices abound and trickery is rife, he also
speaks of them as "escuelas de toda discreta gentileza."
Gracian joins such classical writers as Horace and Ovid
in counseling moderation as the rule of life. At the "En-
trada del mundo" (I, 5), when presented with a choice of
roads to follow, Critilo selects one of a "prudente y feliz
mediania." The author recalls a Greek saying on the subject
and rewords it: 1 1 Huye en todo la demasxa; porque s iempre
dano mas lo mas que lo menos" (I, 5, p. 177). While most
mortals follow the extremes, " ... el saber vivir consiste
en topar el medio" (III, 6, p. 184).
The instructions for living given by the centaur
Chiron to Critilo and Andrenio include the advice to look at
the world not as others do, or from their angle, but from
the opposite direction, so as to see it other than it ap
pears; 1 1 ... y con esso, como el anda al rebes, el que le
mira por aqui le ve al derecho, entendiendo todas las cosas
al contrario de lo que muestran" (I, 7, p. 216).
In "El mal paso del salteo," where all are compelled to
enter the "estancia de los vicios," Critilo says that he
will go in where no one else does. Seeing crowds flocking
into all the doors, he declares: " ... yo he de entrar por
donde los otros salen, haziendo entrada de la salida: nunca
105
pongo la mira en los principios, sino en los fines" (I, 10,
p. 310).
To help Andrenio discover who Falimundo is, one of
Artemia's ministers tells him to look into a mirror turned
to reflect Falimundo's domain. "Advierte," he says,
que lo que no se puede ver cara a cara, se procura por
indirecta. ...
No ha de ser de esse modo ... sino al contrario,
bolviendo las espaldas, que las cosas del mundo todas
se han de mirar al rebes para verlas al derecho. (I,
8, p. 258)
The advice is taken, and by looking contrariwise, the true
nature of Falimundo is revealed to Andrenio.
On one occasion when the two travelers are threatened
by a tiger, the only thing to do is 1 1 ... no alborotarse ni
inquietarse, sino esperalle mansamente: a gran colera, gran
sossiego, y a una furia, una espera" (II, 10, p. 304) . Re
membering his crystal shield, Critilo holds it up. The
beast, seeing its reflection, becomes frightened at his own
image and flees. There are times when problems should be
faced with patience rather than with warfare.
At one stage of his journey Critilo has need of all his
penetration when he finds himself among " ... reagudos,
gente toda de alerta, hombres de ensenadas, de reflexas y
de segundas intenciones, de trato nada liso, sino doblado"
106
(XII., 6, p. 179) . Gracian stresses the importance of not
accepting what appears on the surface; one must try to un
veil the human heart in order to know man. This art of
penetration is extolled:
Aquello de llegar a escudrinar los senos de los pechos
humanos, a descoser las entretelas del coragon, a dar
fondo a la mayor capacidad, a medir un celebro por capaz
que sea, a sondar el mas profundo interior: esso si que
es algo, essa si que es fulleria y que merece la tal
habilidad ser estimada y codiciada. (Ill, 5, p. 156)
Asked to identify himself, the unknown companion who has
been talking with Critilo and Andrenio replies that he is
"el Veedor de todo," a Zahori, and he continues: "Yo veo
Clarissimamente los corazones de todos, ... como si los
tocasse con las manos." Those who do not have a similar
ability, he says, are deceived seven times a day; they are
superficial men.
Pero a los que descubrimos quanto passa alia en las
ensenadas de una interiordad, aculla dentro en el fon-
don de las intenciones, no hay echarnos dado falso.
Somos tan tahures del discurrir que brujuleamos por
el semblante lo mas delicado del pensar; con solo un
ademan tenemos harto. (Ill, 5, p. 157)
Books
Books are "amigos manuales," more precious than silver
or gold, for they can serve as guides in the labyrinth of
107
man's life. After a rowdy youth it took a long prison sen
tence to make Critilo turn to books and learning, as he
tells Andrenio:
Viendome sin amigos vivos, apele a los muertos, di en
leer, comence a saber y a ser persona (que hasta en-
tonces no avia vivido la vida racional, sino la besti
al), fuy llenando el alma de verdades y de prendas,
consegui la sabiduria y con ella el bien obrar. ...
Estudie las nobles artes y las sublimes ciencias,
entregandome con aficion especial a la moral filosofia,
pasto del juizio, centro de la razon y vida de la cor-
dura. (I, 4, pp. 161-162)
Now he had better friends than before— the severe Cato,
Seneca, Socrates, the divine Plato. After regaining his
freedom he was able to make friends, "que con el saber se
ganan los verdaderos .1 1
Reading is a habit which turns a mere individual into
a person. "jO! gran gusto el leer, empleo de personas, que
si no las halla, las haze" (II, 4, p. 124). Gracian often
praises the accomplishments and generosity of his friend
Lastanosa, whose rich library was made available to his
friends. In the chapter on "El museo del discreto" Gracian
dwells on the many books in Lastanosa's home, and exclaims:
lO fruicion del entendimientoI jO tesoro de la memoria,
realce de la voluntad, satisfacion del alma, paraiso de
la vida! ... para mi no hay gusto como el leer, ni centro
como una selecta libreria. (II, 4, p. 165)
108
Gracian expresses his judgment of certain, books and
authors in the chapter on "Reforma universal" (II, 1).
Novels and comedies are not for mature men but for pages and
sewing girls and for those who dream while awake. In gen
eral, poetry in the vernacular, especially if light, amor
ous, or burlesque, is to be permitted only to young men.
Foolish books, among which Gracian includes the ones that
7
ridicule such works, are to be replaced by the works of
Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, and others who have known how
to combine utility with amenity (dulqura).
Gracian consigns also certain books to "La cueva de la
nada" (III, 8) where useless and pampered persons end up.
Among them are books full of flattery and devoid of truth
and substance. Book after book is thrown in: ";Alla van
essas novelas frias, suenos de ingenios enfermos, essas
comedias silvadas, llenas de impropiedades y faltas de
7
In his note to this passage, Romera-Navarro says that
one of the books Gracian may have in mind is Quevedo's par
ody, Las necedades y locuras de Orlando. "Recuerdese lo que
dejamos expuesto en la Introduction acerca del silencio casi
absoluto de Gracian sobre el Principe de los Ingenios y su
obra (I, 50, 18-31), a la cual solo alude en una ocasion
(ibid., nota 150). De referirse a el aqui, inexplicable
seria la ceguedad critica del agudismo aragones, y mas aun
cuando tenemos en cuenta su entusiasmo por el estilo de
Mateo Aleman, que es para mi el que mas se parece al estilo
de Cervantes" (II, 1, pp. 35-36, n. 134).
109
verisimilitud!" Also into the cave go Spanish historical
works, which Gracian considers inferior to the heroic deeds
by Spaniards that they describe. The discussion of books
continues at the Isla de la Inmortalidad (III, 12), where
boring, useless books are termed "insufribles farragos,"
written not with ink but with "aguachirle."
Gracian regrets that for every one who likes books
there are a hundred who prefer playing-cards. Reading,
however, should not be indiscriminate but selective, as he
makes plain in his criticisms of books and authors.
Although much can be learned from books, Gracian agrees
with other writers who believe that even more is to be
learned from the world itself, as he says through the char
acter of the Descifrador: "Discurrio bien quien dixo que el
mejor libro del mundo era el mismo mundo, ... 1 1 (III, 4, p.
117) .
Friendship
Like such classical writers as Cicero and Seneca,
Gracian has a lofty idea of friendship. A friend, he says
repeatedly, is "un otro yo." This is the relationship be
tween Critilo and Andrenio, an even more important one than
that between father and son, as the former states on one of
110
the occasions when the latter has gone astray and he feels
that half of himself is missing: " ... Andrenio., aun mas
amigo que hijo ... "
Recalling his disordered youth, Critilo relates that it
was not until he had suffered in prison, become a mature
person, and reached a degree of "sabiduria" that he made
other friends: "Gane luego amigos, que con el saber se
ganan los verdaderosj ... " Indeed, knowledge is considered
by Gracian of little use if it cannot be shared with
friends: "£,De que sirve al sabio su mucho saber, si no
tiene amigos capaces con quien comunicarlo?" (III, 9, p.
287) .
One of the classical characters met by Critilo and
Andrenio is the multiple-headed and multiple-limbed Geryon,
who points to himself as a figure of what friendship should
be, "un alma en muchos cuerpos." One who lacks friends is
g
a maimed person walking blindly through life. As a ring
fits the finger, so should friends suit each other. Think
ing of a Biblical verse, Gracian adds that a friend cheers
g
"El que no tiene amigos, no tiene pies ni manos, manco
vive, a ciegas camina." And recalling a Biblical passage,
the author adds: "Y j ai del solo!, que si cayere no tendra
quien le ayude a levantar” (II, p. 96 and n. 69).
Ill
the heart and heals moral wounds.
Having defined a friend as "un otro yo," Gracian also
observes that such a one is difficult to find: "£De modo
que buscais un otro yo? Esse misterio solo en el cielo se
halla." Cicero and other classical writers have had the
9
same idea of friendship, as Romera-Navarro observes. In
"La feria de todo el mundo" (I* 13) one of the traders says:
"— Aqui oy no se fia ... ni aun del mayor amigo, porque
manana sera enemigo," a thought expressed in classical lit
erature .
There can be no happiness without friends, says Gracian
through the allegorical character of Amistad:
— Aquella soi yo sin quien no ai felicidad en el
mundo, y con quien toda infelicidad se passa. En las
demas dichas de la vida se hallan mui divididas las
ventajas del bien, pero en mi todas concurren: la hon
ra, el gusto y el provecho. No tengo lugar sino entre
los buenos; que entre los malos, como dize Seneca, ni
soi verdadera ni constante. Denominome del amor, y
assi a mi no me han de buscar en el vientre, sino en
el coragon, centro de la benebolencia. (II* 2, pp.
53-54)
One of his own good friends, the Duke of Nocera, Gra
cian characterizes as " ... aquel grande amigo de sus
^11, 3, p. 90. See also I, p. 262, n. 99 on the idea
of a friend as another self.
112
amigos y que tan bien lo sabla ser."^ The author's devo
tion to that friend continued to be expressed openly even
after Nocera, Viceroy and Captain-General of Navarre and
Aragon, had lost the king's favor and had died tragically in
prison.
Conversation
A man may arrive at knowledge, says Gracian, by one of
four ways: with years, travel in many lands, the reading of
many books, and conversation with wise friends. Of the
four, he considers the last the most pleasant means. He
describes the conversation of one of his own learned
friends, a man of parts, Lastanosa: "su hablar, aunque muy
medido, muy gustoso." The type of conversation that de
serves the term, for Gracian, " ... es de entendidos y ha de
tener mucho de gracia, y de las gracias, ni mas ni menos de
tres" (I, 8, p. 249). This strict rule as to numbers is
relaxed later to include as many as four, but if there are
more than four in a conversational group, noise and confu
sion will result.
■*"^To him Gracian had dedicated El politico, in which
he calls him "Mecenas y maestro mio juntamente"; and he
writes of him admiringly in El discreto, in the Agudeza, and
in El criticon.
113
Communication by writing abolishes distance between
friends and cancels time, for the wise of past ages speak to
us daily in their eternal writings: " ... viven los sabios
varones ya passados y nos hablan cada dia en sus eternos
escritos, iluminado perenemente los venideros" (I, 1, p.
109) . People cannot live without a common language, and
even children is isolation will invent a tongue with which
to communicate among themselves. Elsewhere Gracian says*
"De modo que es la dulce conversacion banquete del entendi-
miento, manjar del alma, des[ah]ogo del coragon, logro del
saber, vida de la amistad y empleo mayor del hombre" (III,
12, p. 379). Indeed, " ... la dulce conversacion [es] el
mejor viatico del camino de la vida" (I, 11, p. 320).
Gracian repeatedly dwells on the pleasure and profit
to be derived from conversation with a few persons. That
he prized opportunities for conversation of an elevated
order is seen in his frequent references to Lastanosa1s
home, a mecca for distinguished visitors from Spain and
other countries.
Gracian1s views and teachings on the above subjects can
be summarized briefly. Nature is a magnificent spectacle in
which one can rejoice for its own sake, but which should
also raise man's mind to God. As in the case of other
baroque writers, the admiration of Gracian for nature is
tainted with diffidence, for he finds that man cannot trust
her. Man, the subject of El criticon as of most of Gra-
cian's works, is a creature weakened by the fall, but who
still has the possibility of achieving that place among the
other creatures which is his birthright. Although Gracian
finds man more often base than noble, he constantly presents
examples of men and women who have excelled in virtue or in
works. His belief in the educative and ennobling power of
good models marks him as a true son of Ignatius of Loyola.
Man may not be capable of perfection on earth, but he can by
striving make himself worthy of living forever. The journey
of life begins in ignorance and generally ends at a time
when experience and enlightening disillusion have fitted man
to begin to live. In a world created good but disordered by
man, wisdom is essential, for it makes the journey more
tolerable while preventing undue attachment to a transitory
world.
One by one, all of the vices are examined and their
practitioners reproved. Pride is revealed in its various
guises. Hypocrisy is flayed, especially in "El hiermo de
Hipocrinda" (II, 7).
115
Though man is nature's masterpiece, he remains incom
plete if he does not live by reason, grow in virtue, and
develop his potentialities. The finest natural and moral
qualities may remain fallow in one, however, if confidence
and the courage to act are wanting. By the use of the will,
virtue can be acquired and adverse fortune can be overcome
or minimized. Wisdom is an essential quality without which
man cannot attain to the stature of a complete person. The
rewards of wisdom, however, are seldom tangible, for fortune
does not smile on the wise. "Saber vivir" means avoiding
extremes and taking the prudent middle road. It requires
discernment, the ability to see beneath the surface, other
wise one will be led to judge by appearances. While Gracian
often exhorts the reader to valor, he recommends flexibility
in dealing with situations in which patience and humility
rather than a firm stand would be more appropriate.
Books are friends always at hand and permit friendship
with great men of the past as well as with contemporaries.
The use of books is the proper employment of "personas,"
whom they further perfect. A grateful user of Lastanosa1s
rich collection of books, Gracian delights in describing the
treasures of that library. Essential though books be, how
ever, more can be learned from direct study of the world
116
itself. The subject of books is related to that of friend
ship, for friends deserving of the name can be acquired when
one has in himself knowledge and wisdom, qualities which
must be shared to be useful and to give satisfaction.
Through noble conversation one may become learned and wise.
Conversation is food for the soul, solace for the heart, and
a bond between friends. It flourishes best in small groups
of three or four persons, which permit the intimacy not
possible in larger groups.
CHAPTER VI
WOMAN IN EL CRITICON
From time immemorial woman has provided a topic for
literature, and berating her has been a highly popular and
productive pastime. The theme runs from the legend of
Buddha through the Greek and Roman classics, the "de con-
temptu mundi" works of the Middle Ages, Jean de Meun,
Boccaccio, and other writers of the Renaissance and later
periods. Not ungifted in this field was Gracian, who be
sides his own views on the subject had inherited the pre
vious literature, of which he was an avid reader. In El
criticon he devotes generous passages to woman.
There were many writers in Spain who imitated the
classical writers on the subject of woman, or who presented
a typically Spanish point of view. One of these was the
moderate Juan Manuel (1282-1348),^ whose personal contact
^E1 conde Lucanor; prologo y notas de F. J. Sanchez
Canton (Madrid, 1920).
117
118
with the Arabs and knowledge of their literature suggested
some of his examples. In several of the apologues of El
conde Lucanor the author treats of the good and bad quali
ties of women, with somewhat more attention to the negative
aspects of their character. There is, for instance, the
incorrigibly contradictory wife of the emperor Fadrique
contrasted with the submissive spouse of Alvarhanez Minaya
(apologue 27)] the spoiled wife of the Arab king Abenabet,
Ramaiquia, whose whims were a problem to her husband (no.
30)] the famous shrew— the "mujer muy fuerte et muy brava"—
who was subdued without delay by her husband following their
marriage (no. 35)] the false "beguina" or "beata," who did
the work of the devil (no. 42)] the Moor's delicate sister
who pretended to be frightened at trivial things but who
could with no hesitation savagely despoil a corpse of its
valuable garments (no. 47). As might be expected, for Juan
Manuel the sexes were not equal and did not have equal
rights.
Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, Archpriest of Talavera
(13987-1470?), treats with realism of the "vicios, tachas e
malas condiciones de las malas e viciosas mugeres, las
buenas en sus virtudes aprobando" in the second part of his
famous Corbacho, or Reprobacion del amor mundano. In this
119
satire of women are united the influences of medieval and
contemporary works on that theme.
Of lesser literary merit is Pedro Torrellas, Catalan
poet at the court of Alfonso V of Aragon in Naples and au
thor of the Coplas de maldezir de mugeres included in the
Cancionero de Stuniga. Torrellas was much copied by a ser
ies of violent critics of women.
In the sixteenth century the humanist and physician
Juan Huarte de San Juan published his Examen de ingenios
para las ciencias (1575), in which he treats of the varie
ties of temperaments and intellectual aptitudes. He wrote
at a time when the theory of humors, which is his biological
basis, was accepted in medicine. About the intellectual
capabilities of women he is not sanguine. Addressing the
reader, he says at the beginning of his book:
Que segun la diferencia de ingenio que cada uno
tiene, se infunda una ciencia y no otra, o mas o menos
de cada cual de elles, es cosa que se deja entender en
el mismo ejemplo de nuestros primeros padres; porque
llenandolos Dios a ambos de sabiduria, es conclusion
averiguada que le cupo menos a Eva. Por la cual razon
dicen los teologos que se atrevio el demonio de enga-
narla, y no oso tentar al varon, temiendo su mucha
sabiduria. La razon de esto es ... que la compostura
natural que la mujer tiene en el cerebro, no es capaz
de mucho ingenio ni de mucha sabiduria.^
2
(Barcelona, 1884), pp. xv-xvi.
120
When on the subject of Greece and of its great philoso
phers, Huarte admits that there were also notable intellects
among the women of that country:
Pero lo que mas espanta de Grecia es, que siendo el
ingenio de las mujeres tan repugnante a las letras, ...
hubo tantas griegas y tan senaladas en ciencias, que
vinieron a competir con los hombres muy racionales.
(p. 289)
This excellence in Grecian women he attributes to the
fact that Greece is "la region mas templada que hay en el
mundo," for in distempered regions the phenomenon does not
occur. All forms of learning and wisdom, he reiterates
later in the book, are repugnant to woman's wit.
Huarte1s influence is visible in later Spanish writers,
among them Cervantes and Gracian.
Among Gracian's contemporaries there were a number whose
criticisms of women ranged from the burlesques of Gongora to
the violent satires of Quevedo. Probably the least severe
on the topic of women was Luis Velez de Guevara, several of
whose works, especially Reinar despues de morir, dealt sym
pathetically with women. In his satire of life, El diablo
cojuelo, the author does not overlook the defects of women,
such as their lavishness in spending, their lack of dis
cernment, and their trickery.
121
Interested chiefly in women's moral qualities, Gongora
in his early letrillas makes fun of women's artifice in
dress and adornment, satirizes the easy virtue of maidens,
matrons, and widows. He advises young men not to believe in
women, for their fidelity is feigned. Insofar as cultural
attainments are concerned, "no iba a satirizar a las cultas,"
remarks Maria del Pilar Onate, "el patriarca y jefe del
3
culteranismo en Espana."
Quevedo's acerbic satire on women is scattered
throughout his work. Like Gongora, he aims chiefly at the
moral faults of women, but adds also comments on their in
tellect. In La culta latiniparla he mocks those with in
tellectual and especially cultist pretensions. His realism,
often crude as well as witty, flays all of the stock faults
of women, with emphasis on conjugal infidelity. In El
buscon, the picaresque hero Pablos does not spare his own
mother.
Tirso de Molina, who created some delightful feminine
characters, also presented some with the classical faults
of women— such types as the "ramera," the woman who cannot
El feminismo en la literatura espanola (Madrid,
1938), p. 125.
122
keep a secret in La vida de Herodes, and the hypocrite in
Marta la piadosa.
Exactly how Gracian1s impression of women was formed
cannot be known with certainty, since few facts are avail
able about his life, especially his first eighteen years.
It is not surprising, however, that his gray view of life
tinged also his impression of women; or it may be that a
knowledge of women contributed to his disillusionment. No
letters or memoirs seem to have come down from Gracian's
family. His sister and his brothers entered religious
orders and the relative anonymity, escaped only by Baltasar,
of the cloistered life. Something that surprises the reader
is that Gracian never mentions his mother. In the Agudeza
he praises the wit and good sense of his father, of his
uncle, his brothers, and his sister, but on his mother he is
silent. His father was of the opinion that the intelligence
of the cleverest woman is no greater than that of any sen-
4
sible youth of fourteen, a judgment likely to impress an
admiring son, especially if relations at home were not of
4 . -
"Oile ponderar muchas veces a Francisco Gracian, mi
padre, hombre de profundo juicio, y muy noticioso, que la
mayor capacidad de la mas sabia mujer no pasa de la que
tiene cualquier hombre cuerdo a los catorce anos de su
edad." Hoyo, Agudeza, discurso XXIII, p. 343.
123
the best or if the mother had died early. At any rate,
before 1619, when he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Tarra
gona, Gracian would have had ample opportunity to form an
opinion of women. Later, as a priest, he came to know them
better as he heard their confessions and observed them in
various parts of Spain.
In El criticon, Andrenio is cautioned early about
women. As he is about to enter the world, Critilo warns him
about man, adding: "Pues advierte que aun son peores las
mugeres y mas de temer: imira tu cuales seran!" Amazed,
Andrenio asks: "— Pues dque seran?" "— Son, por aora,"
replies Critilo, "demonios, que despues te dire mas" (I, 4,
p. 154). On a later occasion the epithet is repeated:
"Donde ay juncos ... ay agua, donde humo fuego y donde
mugeres demonios." The only thing worse than a woman is two
women, for the evil is then doubled. "Basta," concludes
Critilo, "que no tiene ingenio sino para mal."
In a version of Hesiod's story of Pandora's box (I,
13), Gracian relates that it is woman who first brought
troubles into the world. The troubles had been sealed up
in a cave, but curiosity led woman— "que la muger primero
executa y despues piensa"— to unlock it, whereupon the
troubles emerged and took possession of the earth. As he
124
speaks of the capital sins and their allies which then
spread through the world, Gracian dwells on a favorite
topic, the psychology of peoples and nations, each of which
he finds tainted with a characteristic sin or two. Much
worse off morally is woman, however, for in her all evils
converge: "Como la muger fue la primera con quien embistie-
ron los males, todos hizieron presa en ella, quedando rebu-
tida de malicia de pies a cabega" (I, 13, p. 380).
Later in the same chapter Critilo and Andrenio come
upon "la feria de todo el mundo," where unusual merchandise
is sold and sometimes given free. Among the wares are
5
"esposas, " on which prospective buyers desire clarifica
tion— are they "de hierro o mugeres"? It is all the same,
they are told, for both mean imprisonment. As for the
price, women are given free or even for less; that is, the
purchaser is paid for taking them away. This makes at least
one man hesitate: "— Sospechosa mercaderia: £mugeres y
pregonadas?" he ponders. "Essa no llevare yo; la muger ni
vista ni conocida."
One who asks for the most beautiful woman to be had
C
A deliberate ambiguity, for the word can mean either
spouses or handcuffs, fetters.
125
receives her at the cost of a great headache and with the
warning: "El primer dia os parecera bien a vos; todos los
demas, a los otros." To avoid such difficulties, another
man asks for the plainest woman there, but he finds that
women do not come unaccompanied by troubles. "Vos," says
the match-maker, "la pagareis con un continuo enfado." The
wisest solutions are those found by a young man, who says
that it is too soon for him to marry; and by an old man, who
deems it too late to take a wife. A purchaser who requires
an "entendida" is presented with a woman who has that fine
quality, but with it the defect of being all bones, and all
of them creaking. Another man asks for a woman his equal in
everything,
... porque la muger me aseguran es la otra mitad del
hombre y que realmente antes eran una misma cosa entram-
bos, mas que Dios los separo porque no se acordavan de
su divina providencia; y que esta es la causa de aquella
tan vehemente propension que tiene el hombre a la muger,
buscando su otra mitad.
Those present find this request reasonable but observe that
it is difficult to find the right half for every one. Many
repent marrying, for phlegmatics are coupled with choleric
types, melancholy persons with gay ones, the beautiful with
the ugly, the young with the old. This last type of mis
match is explained by the fact that old men "se ciegan y lo
126
quieren assi," while the young women who marry them "son
ninas y desean ser mugeres, y si ellos caducan, ellas
ninean."
A man who complains that the woman he is considering is
somewhat shorter, younger, inferior, and poorer than he
desires is advised to take her, for with time she will ad
just to his requirements if he is careful not to give her
"todo lo necessario," otherwise she will demand the super
fluous .
Much praise is voiced by the assembled buyers for one
who, when asked if he wishes to see his wife-to-be, replies
that he is not marrying "por los ojos, sino por los oydos";
and thus the dowry that falls to him is the prized one of
good fame.
Besides the major fault of curiosity, women have an
other notable one, vanity. If men are "vanos, ellas desva-
necidas mas: siempre andan por estremos." The text of
Ecclesiasticus, which says that there is no ire like that
of a woman, is amended by Gracian:
... y podria anadirse "ni sobervia." Sola una tiene
desvanecimiento por diez hombres. Bien pueden ser ellos
camaleones del viento, pero a fe que son ellas piraustas
127
de la humareda.^
In the same chapter on aspects of pride in men and women
Critilo is moved to ridicule as he watches a group of women,
sitting haughtily on cushions filled with air, "mas huecas
que campanas, moviendo aprisa los avanicos, como fuelles de
su inchagon, papando aire, que no pueden vivir sin el."
Considering themselves aristocrats, they communicate only
with persons of their own class or a higher one. In this
throng of puffed-up men and women are also those afflicted
with intellectual pride, such as pedants and "las cultas
resabidas" (III, 7, pp. 233-234).
Women are also full of deceit. The chapter on "Los
prodigios de Salastano" (II, 2) tells of two rare objects
discovered in his museum: "un casamiento sin mentiras" and
"una muger sin enredo." Women in general find truth so
bitter that they will have none of it, for, as one of them
exclaims when invited to taste it: ";Anda alia!, que muger
sin enredo, bolsa sin dinero." When Momo, the destroyer of
reputations, is told that Critilo and Andrenio are seeking
the good queen Honoria, he exclaims: "C.
Ill, 7, p. 233 and n. 154. The pirausta is a kind of
firefly or butterfly fabled to live in fire and to die apart
from it.
128
esta era?: yo lo dudo." That wisest of men, Solomon, was
also the one most fooled by women:
... y con aver sido el que mas las amo, fue el que mas
mal dixo dellas: argumento de quan gran mal es del
hombre la muger mala, y su mayor enemigo. Mas fuerte
es que el vino, mas poderosa que el rey, y que compite
con la verdad, siendo toda mentira. Mas vale la maldad
del varon que el bien de la muger, dixo quien mas bien
dixo, porque menos mal te hara un hombre que te persiga
que una muger que te siga. (I, 12, p. 350)
Indeed, woman is not just one enemy, but all in one. Femi
nine are all the world's worst evils, "la hambre, la guerra,
■0
la peste, las arpias, las sirenas, las furias y las par-
7
cas." In this deceiving world, "solas las mugeres parecen
lo que son, y son lo que parecen." Some of these comments
and warnings begin to have an effect on the usually unre
flecting Andrenio. Observing the thoughtful, subdued men
emerging from the "aduana de la vida" of middle age, he
remarks: "— No es possible sino que aqui ai algun encanto
... aqui algun misterio hay, o essos hombres se han casado,
segun salen pensativos" (II, 1, p. 31).
Deceit is so ingrained in women that even modest-
•7
The same view finds ready agreement in the New World,
where forces that would seem to be of an essentially mascu
line violence, such as hurricanes, are given feminine names:
Delia, Jane, etc.
129
seeming ones are not to be trusted* an example being the
"tapadas*" who veil their faces against woman's natural
desire to be seen. As one man explains to another* the
bolder women are the more they hide their faces ("quando
mas descaradas esconden la cara").
In the chapter on "El mundo descifrado" (III* 4)*
Gracian presents a rare mixture of beings which he calls
"dipthongos*" consisting of such hybrids as "un hombre con
voz de muger* y una muger que habla como hombre; dipthongo
es un marido con melindres* y la muger con calgones .1 1 Dis
tasteful types* these* and to be avoided by the wise.
In the convent of Hipocrinda (II* 7)* women are present
and as much at home as the men. Having met the various
types of men in that establishment* Critilo asks if there
is not "clausura" also for women* "pues* de verdad* que
pueden professar de enredo." Indeed* there is a multitude
of them there* he is told* and he is shown some of them:
the restless* roving types; widows who modestly close their
front doors early and then have their adventures under cover
of darkness; women with permissive husbands; other women who
deceive their unsuspecting spouses. As in the case of the
men of Hipocrinda* the various types portrayed give Gracian
the opportunity to draw from his treasury a series of
130
sprightly puns and proverbs and acid comments.
Early in the novel Gracian surprises by a statement
that he makes concerning beauty. When Andrenio is telling
Critilo of his discovery of the world and its creatures,
and remarking on the beauty of birds, Critilo comments:
Y entre todas ... assi aves como fieras, notaras
siempre que es mas galan y mas vistoso el macho que la
hembra, apoyando lo mismo en el hombre, por mas que lo
desmienta la femenil inclinacion y lo dissimule la
cortesia. (I, 3, p. 134)
Gracian contradicts himself later when he tells of a
petition addressed to God by man and woman. In an interview
with God, man asked to be given wisdom, as befitting the
monarch of the world, and woman requested beauty. The
petitions were granted, but with a condition: man was to
return part of his gift in the form of tribute to God, and
woman's beauty was henceforth to be accompanied by the dis
advantage of frailty. Hearing about this request and vexed
that the couple had overlooked the importance of luck, For
tune decreed:
Dexadles y veremos que hara el con su sabiduria y ella
con su lindeza, si no tienen ventura. Sepa, sabio el
y linda ella, que de oi adelante me han de tener por
contraria: desde aqui me declaro contra el saber y la
belleza. Yo les he de malograr sus prendas: ni el sera
dichoso, ni ella venturosa.
131
And from that day, fortune has not been with the wise and
the learned, and people have had reason to repeat the adage,
"Ventura de fea, la bonita la desea." Wisdom, riches,
friends, and other benefits are of little avail without good
fortune; "y poco le importa ser un sol a la que no tiene
estrella" (II, 6, pp. 199-200).
As far as women are concerned, beautiful ones are often
either "necias" or "desgradiadas." Malice, who befriends
the unworthy and the wicked, is said to have given "a las
necias la hermosura," while Beauty complains:
Siempre ando entre locas y necias; las vanas me plazean,
me sacan a vistas; las cuerdas me encierran, me escon-
den, no se dexan ver. Y assi, siempre me topan con
gente ruin, a tontas y a locas. (II, 6, p. 214)
On the other hand, the "discretas" and the "resabidas" are
denied beauty. These "feas," however, are not harmless.
Pretty or plain, woman remains a menace, for "si es hermosa,
es buscada; si fea, ella busca." To foil her wiles, man
needs to be always alert:
Nunca esta seguro de ellas, ni mogo, ni varon, ni viejo,
ni sabio, ni valiente, ni aun santo; siempre esta to-
cando al arma este enemigo comun y tan casero, que los
mismos criados del alma la ayudan: los ojos franquean
la entrada a su belleza, los oydos escuchan su dulgura,
las manos la atraen, los labios la pronuncian, la lengua
la vozea, los pies la buscan, el pecho la suspira y el
coragon la abraga. (I, 12, p. 351)
132
When beautiful, woman is deadly. In a visit to Salas-
tano's museum (II* 2) and speaking of basilisks, which
Critilo considers an ingenious invention, the host asks:
"£No es basilisco mortal una belleza, que si la mirais, mal,
y si ella os mira, peor?" When the hundred-eyed Argus is
asked if he is still guarding beauties, as he once did the
priestess lo, he shrinks at the thought: "iQue vulgaridad
tan rancia! ... lY quien me mete a mi en impossibles? Antes
me guardo yo dellas y guardo a otros bien entendidos."
Critilo has the same view. Later in France (II, 3), when
he and Andrenio can discuss Spain's good and bad qualities
without danger of being overheard, he speaks of the circum
spection indicated, especially for foreigners, when going
about in Spain. They must guard themselves especially "de
sus vinos, que dementan; de sus soles, que abrasan; y de sus
femeniles lunas, que enloquezen." Happily, not all women
are beautiful, otherwise the ravages among men would be even
greater than they are. Fortune generally grants intelli
gence and discretion to the plain and beauty to the foolish.
When challenged about the distribution of her favors, she
replies, as regards women and beauty: "iQue avia de hazer
una muger, si fuera necia y fea y desdichada?: desesperarse.
cY quien se pudiera averiguar con una hermosa, si fuera
133
venturosa y ententida?" (II, 6, p. 217). This distribution
of gifts, then, is not only just as far as women are con
cerned, but it also safeguards men: " ... si el cielo no
huviera prevenido que la hermosura de ordinario fuera trono
de la necedad, no quedara hombre a vida, que la libertad lo
es" (I, 12, p. 351).
That beauty can be a perilous gift to the woman favored
with it is shown in the chapter on "La carcel de oro y
calabogos de plata" (II, 3), where a beautiful woman, per
suaded that she is being enriched and adorned, is in reality
entering a lifelong enslavement. Falsirena speaks the
truth when she tells Andrenio the story of his mother Feli-
sinda and her unhappy life. Beautiful and wise Felisinda
was, "Pero una fuga? dque Lucrecia de una violencia y que Europa de
un robo?"
With all her frailty woman is stronger than man, as
even the novice Andrenio perceives the moment he enters the
world and discovers gaps in Critilo's instruction:
£Tu no me dijiste, io Critilo!, que los hombres eran
los fuertes y las mugeres las flacas, ellos hablavan
recio y ellas delicado, ellos vestian calgon y capa,
y ellas basquinas? Yo hallo que todo es al contrario,
porque, o toaos son ya mugeres, o los hombres son los
flacos y afeminadosj ellas, las poderosas. Ellos tra-
gan saliva, sin osar hablar, y ellas hablan tan alto
134
q u e a u n l o s s o r d o s l a s o y e n ; e l l a s m a n d a n e l m u n d O j y
t o d o s s e l e s s u j e t a n . Tu m e h a s e n g a n a d o .
Sighing, Critilo acknowledges the justice of the reproach:
Tienes razon ... que ya los hombres son menos que muge
res . Mas puede una lagrimilla mugeril que toda la sangre
que derramo el valor; mas alcanga un favor de una muger
que todos los meritos del saber. No ay vivir con ellas,
ni sin ellas. (I, 6, pp. 194-195)
It requires very little indeed to subdue the lord of
creation— a little tear, or a single hair from a beautiful
head. No other bond than a hair is used by the woman in the
Cave of Nothingness to hold in subjection the men there.
Aware of these dangers, any man insistent in his pursuit of
women is mad, as Egenio diagnoses in the case of Andrenio:
"esta es locura sin cura."
In "La cueva de la nada," where the slothful and the
vice-ridden are buried, the advice given by a "bel poltrone"
reigning there to those who would live long and at ease is
to refrain from worrying about anything, not even— when
asked about certain calamities— to mourn the death of a
daughter or a sister; even less, that of a wife, nor that of
an aunt who leaves a legacy. "Aunque os muera un linaje
entero de madrastras, cunadas y suegras, hazed los insen-
sibles y dezid que es magnanimidad." If the men of early
times were long-lived it was partly because "no avia
135
entonces mentiras ni aun en los casamientos, ... no avia ...
mujeres tijeretas" (III, 8, pp. 254-255).
Though he likes to find fault with the French, Gracian
praises them in this chapter, saying that "no se topa un
cavallero frances sepultado en vida, aviendo tantos de otras
naciones." The reason for this, explains the guide Honroso
to Critilo, is that in that "belicoso reyno" no young lady
will consider marrying any man who has not taken part in a
military campaign, for Frenchwomen esteem Mars and scorn
Adonis. "jO que buen gusto de madamas!" exclaims Critilo,
adding that this same reputation was enjoyed by the young
ladies chosen to wait on Isabel la Catolica.
Observing some of the men fallen into the cave, Critilo
mourns the state to which they have been reduced by "la
misma deidad de Chipre," Lust— "esta inutil yedra, mas in-
fructifera quanto mas logana." Those whom it embraces and
seems to adorn it really imprisons, blinds, withers, de
spoils, deprives of life. ";0, a quantos que comengavan
con bravos azeros ablandaste los pechos!" he exclaims. "Tu
eres, al fin, la aniquiladora comun de sabios, santos y
valerosos."
Occasionally Gracian seems to notice his steady flow
of reproof and pauses to reassure the innocent that it
136
applies only to the deserving, as when through Egenio he
says: "El mal que yo tengo que dezir de la muger mala es
mucho" (I, 12, p. 374). At other times he likes to dwell on
the comic or ridiculous in women. Changing styles in dress
and headgear afford an opportunity to present amusing scenes
in the chapter on "La rueda del tiempo" (III, 10), where, it
must be said, he describes the faults and foibles of men
just as unsparingly as those of women, and at greater
length. In men Gracian sees many of the weaknesses of
women. As the wheel of Time turns and shows the men of
various periods, Gracian finds reason to ridicule their
vanity and pride, to flay their softness and ignorance and
their lack of integrity. In contrast to the sober men of
old whose chief array was the coat of mail, there is the new
breed: " ... otros, y muy otros, ricos, vizarros y sun-
tuosos, rozando sedas, arrastrando telas y gozando de lo que
sus antepassados les ganaron." What these lack in deeds
they make up for in ostentation; they are "faltos de noti-
cias y sobrados de delicias." To the frank, uncomplicated
men of other times the author opposes those who replace
them: smaller in body and also of soul, wordy but not
keepers of their word, full of compliments but untruthful,
"mucho de circunstancia y nada de sustancia, gente de poca
137
ciencia y menos conciencia.1 1 They are but shadows of the
ones who went before* "medio hombres* pues no tienen ente-
reza." As the wheel turns* bad times come to an end and
good ones return; "y con esta alternacion procedian las
cosas humanas* al fin temporales."
From the highest hill in Rome* toward the end of their
lives* the two pilgrims review the history of the world as
the wheel of Time revolves and they see all the things that
have been and how they come back with variations* age after
age. One of the most diverting sights is that of women in
their constantly-changing fashions and with customs and
mores generally worsening with time. Women were more labor
ious in the early ages* when even queens busied themselves
with distaff and spindle* sometimes even receiving ambassa
dors while so occupied. Always an admirer of the great
Isabel* Gracian asks: "iQuando bolvera la reyna dona Isabel
la Catolica a embiar recados: 'Dezidle a dona Fulana que
se venga esta tarde a passarla conmigo y que se traiga su
rueca* y a la condesa que venga con su almohadilla1?"
Women then were more modest:
Las damas* como tan recatadas* ni eran vistas ni oydas:
quando mucho* salian a alguna romeria* que no se nombra-
van las ramerias. Mas colorada se bolvia entonces una
muger de ver un hombre que agora de ver un exercito; y
es de advertir que entonces no avia otro color que el
138
de la vergiienga y el bianco de la inocencia. Parecian
de otra especie, porque eran muy calladas, no andarie-
gas, honestas, hazendosas; al fin, mugeres para todo y
no como agora para nada. (Ill, 10, pp. 311-312)
Women now scandalize with their low-necked dresses, whereas
formerly, "quando alii se les veia una muneca era ya per-
derse todo y ser ellas unas perdidas." There is hilarity
as short women appear on "chapines," four-inch cork soles,
in an attempt to look taller and are later copied in the
fashion by women as tall as the Giralda of Seville or the
Torre Nueva of Zaragoza. As for coiffures and hats, the
variety is endless and ludicrous. In fact, in matters of
array the situation becomes alarming,
Pues es cosa cierta que con lo que gasta hoy una muger,
se vestia antes todo un pueblo. Mas plata echa oy en
relumbrones una cortesana, que avia en toda Espana antes
que se descubrieran las Indias. (Ill, 10, p. 321)
In the descriptions of several allegorical characters
Gracian presents a more balanced portrayal of women than in
his diatribes. Critilo's account of his love for Felisinda
and of his exuberant early years is an example, as is also
the story of Andrenio's adventure with Falsirena.
Newly arrived with Critilo in Madrid, Andrenio is
approached by a page with a message from his "cousin"
139
Falsirena, represented as a modest, retiring lady, fond of
the simple pleasures of the country. He accepts the invi
tation and Falsirena greets Andrenio as her "primo mio sin
segundo," at the same time affectionately chiding him for
having exiled himself to an inn when he could have disposed
of "esta casa tan vuestra." She tells him the story of his
mother, which moves him very much and reveals to him what he
had already sensed, that Critilo is his father. She invites
him to dine upstairs, where he will see her "pobre y ya
dichoso alvergue." During his delightful repast, "le canta-
ron Gracias y le encantaron Circes." Then Falsirena sends
Andrenio to invite Critilo, saying: "Mirad, primo, que no
comere un solo bocado ni reposare un instante hasta bolver
a veros." Amid roses and carnations, father and son are
subsequently shown the beauties of Falsirena's home, from
which Andrenio will with difficulty escape. Undeceived
before long, Critilo is then informed about the one he calls
"senora principal," who is in reality not good, not a lady,
nor even a woman, for she is a harpy,
... una Cirge en el gurcir y una sirena en el encantar,
causa de tantas tempestades, tormentos y tormentas, por
que a mas de ser ruin, asseguran que es una famosa hechi-
zera, una celebre encantadora, pues convierte los hombres
en bestias. (I, 12, p. 362)
140
It takes the combined efforts of Critilo and Egenio, the man
of six senses, to rescue Andrenio eventually from the power
of Falsirena, who has left him "sin hazienda, sin salud, sin
honra y sin conciencia."
At the "Entrada del mundo" (I, 5) there is the episode
of the beautiful, wily woman who leads the "ninez inculta"
to destruction:
Ibalos primero recogiendo y despues acaudillando una
muger bien rara, de risueno aspecto, alegres ojos,
dulces labios y palabras blandas, piadosas manos, y
toda ella caricias, alhagos y carinos. Traia consigo
muchas criadas de su genio y de su empleo para que los
assistiessen y sirviessen; y assi, llevavan en bragos
los pequenuelos, otros de los andadores, y a los mayor-
cillos de la mano, procurando siempre passar adelante.
Era increible el agasajo con que a todos acariciava
aquella madre comun, atendiendo a su gusto y regalo,
y para esto llevava mil invenciones de juguetes con
que entretenerlos. Avia hecho tambien gran provision
de regalos, y en llorando alguno, al punto acudia
afectuosa haziendole fiestas y caricias, concedien-
dole quanto pedia a trueque de que no llorasse; con
especialidad cuydava de los que iban mejor vestidos,
que parecian hijos de gente principal, dexandoles sa-
lir con quanto querian. Era tal el carino y agasajo
que esta al parecer ama piadosa les hazia, que los
mismos padres la traian sus hijuelos y se los entre-
gavan, fiandolos mas della que de si mismos- (I, 5,
pp. 168-169)
Seeing "al hombre nino" for the first time, Andrenio
is charmed with the sight and with the woman. He says:
141
— Lo que mas me admira ... es el indecible afecto desta
rara mujer: ique madre como ella? ipuedese imaginar
tal fineza? Desta felicidad careci yo, que me crie
dentro de las entranas de un monte y entre fieras; ...
(I, 5, p. 169)
There is no need for regret, Critilo replies; and later, he
identifies for Andrenio the woman who led the children to
destruction: "Aquella ... tirana es nuestra mala inclina-
cion, la propension al mal." She is accompanied by her
retinue of vices and passions.
While the slaughter of the innocents is in progress
there appears on the scene a women who is the enemy of the
tyrant. Bright as the morning and sweetly grave, she comes
to rescue the children not yet devoured by the beasts lying
in wait for them:
... amanecio de la otra parte del valle, por lo mas alto
de los montes, con rumbos de aurora, una otra muger (y
con razon otra) que, tan cercada de luz como rodeada de
criadas, desalada quando mas volando, descendia a librar
tanto infante como perecia. Ostento su rostro muy se-
reno y grave: que de el y de la mucha pedreria de su
recamado ropaje despedia tal inundacion de luzes, que
pudieron muy bien suplir, y aun con ventajas, la ausen-
cia del rey del dia. Era hermosa por estremo y coronada
por reyna entre todas aquellas beldades sus ministras.
iO dicha rara!, al mismo punto que la descubrieron las
encarnizadas fieras, cessando de la matanga, se fueron
retirando a todo huir y, dando espantosos ahullidos, se
hundieron en sus cabernas. Llego piadosa ella y comengo
a recoger los pocos que avian quedado; y aun essos, muy
mal parados de aranos y de heridas. Ibanlos buscando
con gran solicitud aquellas hermosissimas donzellas, y
aun sacaron muchos de las oscuras cuevas y de las mismas
gargantas de los monstruos, recogiendo y amparando
142
quantos pudieron. Y noto Andrenio que eran estos de los
mas pobres y de los menos assistidos de aquella maldita
henibraj de modo que en los mas principales, como mas
lucidos, avian hecho las fieras mayor riza. Quando los
tuvo juntos, sacolos a toda priessa de aquella tan peli-
grosa estancia, guiandolos de la otra parte del valle el
monte arriba, no parando hasta llegar a lo mas alto, que
es lo mas seguro. Desde alii se pusieron a ver y con-
templar con la luz que su gran libertadora les comuni-
cava el gran peligro en que avian estado, y hasta en
tonces no conocido. Teniendolos ya en salvo, fue re-
partiendo preciosissimas piedras, una a cada uno, que,
sobre otras virtudes contra qualquier riesgo, arrojavan
de si una luz tan clara y apacible que hazian de la noche
dia; y lo que mas se estimava era el ser indefectible.
Fuelos encomendando a algunos sabios varones, que los
apadrinassen y guiassen siempre cuesta arriba hasta la
gran ciudad del mundo. (I, 5, pp. 171-172)
This second woman, explains Critilo, is Reason, the
dawn of life, "madre del desengano, con las virtudes sus
companeras"— man's most faithful friend. It is not easy for
her to rescue the captives of Evil Inclination, nor to start
them on the steep road to virtue. The shining precious
stone which Reason gives to those whom she saves will serve
to direct their judgment right, even in darkness.
In Salastano's home, "El museo del discreto," Critilo
and Andrenio are brought before
... la agradable presencia de un sol humano que parecia
muger divina. Estava animando un tan suave plectro, que
les asseguraron no solo hazia inmortales los vivos, pero
que dava vida a los muertos, componxa los animos, sosse-
gava los espiritus, aunque tal vez los encendia en el
furor belico, que no hiziera mas el mismo Homero. Lle-
garon ya a saludarla entre fruiciones de verla, pero mas
143
de oirla, y ella en honra de sus peregrinos huespedes
hizo alarde de armonia. (11, 4, p. 131)
This "concentuosa ninfa" is Poetry, "gran reina del Par-
naso."
Having introduced Poetry, Gracian takes the opportunity
to evaluate a number of Spanish and Italian poets, among
them Gongora, Guarini, the Argensolas, Ariosto, Lope de
Vega, Petrarch, Dante, Boscan, Marini, Tasso; and to comment
also on historians and other writers.
Another gracious and splendid woman is Sofisbella, who
personifies wisdom and whom Critilo asks to see before
leaving "El museo del discreto." At a sign from his guide
that it is time to go, Critilo interposes:
— Esso no ... sin ver primero en persona la hermosa
Sofisbella, que un tal cielo como este no puede dexar
de tener por dueno al mismo sol. Suplicote, io condutor
halado!, quieras introducirme ante su divina presencia,
que ya me la imagino idea de beldades, exemplar de per-
fecciones, ya me parece que admiro la serenidad de su
frente, la perspicacia de sus ojos, la sutileza de sus
cabellos, la dulgura de sus labios, la fragancia de su
aliento, lo divino de su mirar, lo humano de su reir,
el acierto con que discurre, la discrecion con que con-
versa, la sublimidad de su talle, el decoro de su per
sona, la gravedad de su trato, la magestad de su pre
sencia. Ea, acaba, £en que te detienes?; que cada in-
stante que tardas se me buelve eternidades de pena.
(II, 4, pp. 165-166)
Few seek Sofisbella and fewer still find her, the
winged guide tells Critilo and Andrenio. He himself had
144
sought her even in the most famous universities, without
success. The search is worth continuing, however, for he
who finds Sofisbella will find perfect liberty and all good
things in her. But the guide disappears without having
helped the pilgrims attain their desire. Later a dwarf
advises the melancholy Critilo to give up hope of seeing
Sofisbella in person. Did he expect to behold Wisdom itself
and to touch her with his hands? Long ago she had fled to
heaven with the other virtues. and all that remains of her
on earth are some "borrones" in a few imperishable writings.
"No ai otro saber," continues the dwarf, "sino el que se
halla en los inmortales caracteres de los libros: ai la has
de buscar y aprender" (II, 6, p. 200).
After the pilgrims part company with Artemia, in whose
company they have gone as far as Toledo, they set out for
Madrid. Near the city they come upon people who have been
assaulted and bound, but, strangely, the attackers are not
in sight. As Critilo and Andrenio are wondering at this, a
"gallarda hembra, entre muger y entre angel" appears, es
corted by other beautiful women. These are the attackers.
The leader is described as
145
g
... una bellisima muger, nada villana y toda cortesana:
hazia buena cara a todos y muy malas obras. Su frente
era mas rasa que serena; no mirava de mal ojo y a todos
hazia del; las narizes tenia blancas, serial de que no
se le subia el humo a ellas; sus mejillas eran rosas sin
espinas, ni mostrava los dientes, sino otros tantos aljo-
fares al reirse de todos. Tan agradable, que era ocioso
el atar, pues con sola su vista cautivava. Su lengua
era sin duda de agucar, porque sus palabras eran de nec
tar, y las dos manos hazian un bianco de los afectos, y
con tenerlas tan buenas, a nadie dava buena mano ni de
mano; y aunque tenia brago fuerte, de ordinario lo dava
a torcer, equivocando el abragar con el enlagar. De
suerte que de ningun modo parecia salteadora quien tan
buen parecer tenia. No estava sola, antes muy assistida
de un esquadron bolante de amagonas, igualmente agrada-
bles, gustosas y entretenidas, que no cessavan de atar
a unos y a otros, executando lo que su capitana les
mandava. (I, 10, pp. 303-304)
The victims are imprisoned by bonds of their own
choosing, which many bring themselves, asking to be tied by
them. Thus some have gold, some pearls, flowers, a string
(Hercules), hair (Samson), cords, or whatever befits their
chief vice. Andrenio chooses flowers; and Critilo, if tied
he must be, asks for strings of books.
The desire to meet the great Virtelia costs Critilo
and Andrenio many labors, for on the arduous uphill road to
her palace they are met by frightful monsters, enemies of
0
M. Romera-Navarro in El criticon, I, 10, p. 303, n.
94: "Equivoco entre cortes y ramera, pues 'las damas que
llaman cortesanas ... tenian mas de corteses que de sanas.1"
146
virtue. Finally they succeed in arriving at Virtelia's
palace, where they find her:
... en una magestuosa quadra, ocupando augusto trono,
descubrieron por gran dicha unica divina reina, mui
mas linda y agradable de lo que supieron pensar, dexan-
do mui atras su adelantada imaginacion: que si donde
quiera y siempre parecio bien, y su centro? Hazia a todos buena cara, aun a sus mayo-
res enemigos; mirava con buenos ojos, y aun divinos,
oia bien y hablava mejor; y aunque siempre con boca de
risa, jamas mostrava dientes; hablava por labios de
grana palabras de seda, nunca se le oyo echar mala voz.
Tenia lindas manos, y aun de reina en lo liberal, y en
quanto las ponia salia todo perfecto; dispuesto talle
y mui derecho, y todo su aspecto divinamente humano y
humanamente divino. Era su gala conforme a su belleza,
y ella era la gala de todo; vestia arminos, que es su
color la candidez, enlagava en sus cabellos otros tan-
tos rayos de la aurora con cinta de estrellas. Al fin,
ella era todo un cielo de beldades, retrato al vivo de
la hermosura de su celestial Padre, copiandole sus
muchas perfecciones. (II, 10, pp. 310-311)
As Critilo and Andrenio are about to take leave of
Virtelia, she presents to them four of her principal "mi-
nistras"— Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance— who
will help the pilgrims on their way to Felisinda.
Knowledge in its various forms is personified in the
character of "la sabia y discreta Artemia," a great queen,
renowned for the wonders she performs. She is a "valiente
maga, una grande hechizera, aunque mas admirable que espan-
tosa," an anti-Circe who transforms beasts into men, one
who does not enchant but rather frees men from enchantment.
147
Dava vida a las estatuas y alma a las pinturas: hazia
de todo genero de figuras y figurillas, personas de sub-
stancia. ... Convertia las monerias en madurecesj de un
hombre de burlas formava un Caton severo. ...
En las personas exercitava su saber y su poder con
mas admiracion quanto era mayor la dificultad, porque a
los mas incapazes infundia saber, ... Dava, no solo me-
moria a los entronizados, pero entendimiento a los in-
felizes; de un loco declarado hazia un Seneca, y de un
hijo de vezino un gran ministro ... de un pigmeo un gi-
ganton de las Indias; de unos horribles monstruos hazia
angeles, cosa que estimavan mucho las mugeres. (I, 8,
pp. 244-246)
On a visit of homage to Artemia, Critilo finds her
palace on an eminence, surrounded by gardens so fruitful
that even the elms produce pears and thorns bear grapes. A
tamed lion and tiger guard the palace entrance.
Critilo is received with "agradable vizarria" in the
"oficina" where Artemia is in the act of making "personas
de unos lenos." Of her appearance Gracian says:
Tenia un rostro muy compuesto, ojos penetrantes; su
hablar, aunque muy medido, muy gustoso; sobre todo,
tenia estremadas manos que davan vida a todo aquello
en que las ponia; todas sus facciones muy delicadas,
su talle muy ayroso y bien proporcionado, y en una pa-
labra, toda ella de muy buen arte. (I, 8, p. 249)
The visitor stays some days, watching with interest how
Artemia changes a "villano zafio" into a "cortesano ga-
lante," a man from the hills into a gentleman. Capes of
lowly material she turns into velvet,
148
... un manteo deslucido de un pobre estudiante en una
purpura eminente, y una gorra en una mitra. ... Mejorava
los rostros mismos, de modo que de la noche a la manana
se desconocian, mudando los pareceres de malos en bue-
nos, y estos en mejores. (I, 8, pp. 251-253)
Whatever she touches, Artemia improves and ennobles.
The foregoing descriptions show how well Gracian ob
served women and also which facets of their appearance and
personality he noticed particularly. Three of the charac
ters— Falsirena, Evil Inclination, and the bandit— who en
slave human beings have much in common in appearance and
manner. They are beautiful; with their smiling eyes, honied
speech, and captivating manner they deceive everyone. Andre
Rouveyre, who believes that Gracian was misogynistic by
conviction and experience, mentions the episode of "la belle
brigande" as an example of Gracian's ability to observe
9
women and their charms. That Gracian1s knowledge of women
was not derived solely from literature and the confessional
is also the opinion of Dario Fernandez, S.J., who comments
on the figures of Evil Inclination and Reason:
9
Gracian, Pages caracteristiques, pp. 94-95: "II est
misogyne; et semble l'etre par conviction et experience
personnelle plus encore que par traditionelle defiance
ecclesiastique. Neanmoins, il savait, a 1'occasion, re-
garder les femmes et detainer leurs agrements."
149
cHasta que punto hizo presa en el en sus anos infan-
tiles aquella matrona de "risueno aspecto," ... la mala
inclinacion? "de sereno rostro," ... la razon? ...
Pronto debio llegar, pues tengo para ml ... que Gra
cian en aquellos 18 anos vivio muchos anos. Lucharxan
la razon y la gracia contra las pasiones, que deberxan
ser pujantes en aquel grande hombre.^-*-*
It is evident, continues Fernandez, that he who so
vividly painted Critilo's stormy youth and Falsirena's vic
tory over Andrenio "habxa sentido hervir la sangre en su
mocedad y brotar afectos grandes y pujantes en su alma" (p.
207). In the Critilo whose disillusion leads him to seek
"sabidurxa," Fernandez sees a portrait of Gracian in the
years just before he turned to the religious life.
When describing the benign allegorical characters
Gracian often uses the word "divine," applying it to the
person, her eyes, or her aspect. A quality of most of these
figures is light, which emanates now from the person, now
from her garments or her hair. Beauty with serenity and
gravity characterizes several of these woiaen. Gracian notes
the delicate features of Artemiaj the graceful, erect figure
of several ("sublime talle" in Sofisbella); their beautiful
^^Baltasar Gracian, escritor aragones del siqlo XVII
(Biblioteca de escritores aragoneses, Seccion literaria, t.
87 (Zaragoza, 1926), p. 206.
150
or expressive hands; Reason's embroidered garment adorned
with gems; the wise conversation of Sofisbella and Artemia;
the fragrance of the former.
That Gracian had the occasion to know such women in
Lastanosa's salon is undoubted, for that home was a center
of attraction to persons of quality from other countries as
well as from Spain. The time spent in the service of the
Duke of Nocera and the sojourns in Madrid, Zaragoza, and
other cities would also have given Gracian an opportunity
to meet women in society.
Prom time to time Gracian pauses in his censure of the
present age to turn his attention to those who always hark
after the good old times:
Estavan unos viejos diziendo mucho mal de los tiempos
presentes y mucho bien de los passados, exagerando la
insolencia de los mogos, la libertad de las mugeres, el
estrago de las costumbres y la perdicion de todo. (El
criticon, II, 5, p. 176)
As he may be including himself among those he satirizes, his
strictures on women and on some other subjects need not,
perhaps, be taken entirely literally. Moreover, Gracian
exempts a number of women from his reproof, momentarily
interrupting his criticism to extol great or virtuous women.
In earlier works Gracian had praised some women for
their beauty, virtue., or other eminent qualities. His first
work, El heroe, presents Isabel la Catolica as a match for
famous women of other nations— "las Cenobias, Tomiris,
Semiramis, Pantasileas" (primor II). In El politico he
gives tribute to the "nunca bastantemente alabada reina dona
Isabel," wife of Fernando el Catolico, to whose greatness
she contributed. "Acarrea mucho bien la buena y prudente
mujer," continues Gracian, "asi como la imprudente mucho
mal. Las madres por respeto; las esposas, por amor, obran
mucho con los principes" (Hoyo, p. 64). As examples he
gives Mesa, who concealed the misdeeds of Heliogabalus while
she lived; Helen, the mother of Constantine; the mother of
the Emperor Frederick; Blanche of Castile, the mother of
Saint Louis; Isabel, queen of Portugal; Margarita of Aus
tria, wife of Felipe III; the first wife of Juan I of Ara
gon; Urraca, wife of Ramiro I of Castile; Juana, wife of
Juan II of Aragon. Continuing with other instances of good
influence, Gracian says that "una hermana prudente, cuerda
y sagaz bien puede entrar en lugar de esposa o madre" (Hoyo,
pp. 65-66). Such a one, in the life of Enrico I of Castile,
was the illustrious queen of Leon, Dona Berenguela, who
helped him maintain peace in his realm. In the Agudeza y
arte de inqenio (discurso XXI), Gracian speaks highly of
152
Arria, who preferred to die by her own hand rather than
witness the execution of her husband Peto.
There are a number of women in El criticon who have
Gracian's admiration, among them Danae, Helen, Lucrecia, and
Europa, famous for their beauty; the unfortunate Dido; the
wise Semiramis. Twice he mentions Marguerite de Valois,
qualifying her with the adjectives "preciosa" and "inesti
mable." He praises some of the noblewomen of his time, like
the Princesa de Rossano; the Marquesa de Valdueza, the
queen's chief lady-in-waiting, to whom he later dedicated
El comulgatorio; and Isabel de Borbon, the first wife of
Felipe XV. Others who have his esteem are the "amazonas"
Anne of Austria, queen of France (wife of Louis XIV), and
"todas las senoras Infantas de Espana que coronaron de
felicidades y de sucesion aquel reino" (II, 2, p. 82).
Isabel la Catolica is extolled as a sovereign, as a person
of superior qualities and a memorable example to other
women, and for her careful rearing of the infantas and other
young ladies of her court. As Salastano shows his guests
the treasures of his house, he calls their attention to a
box: "En esta caja conficionada de aromas, llegaos y per-
cibid su fragancia, han conservado siempre el buen nonibre
de su honestidad y recato las senoras reinas de Espana" (II,
153
2, p. 74) . The Duquesa de Cardona, the queen Dona Blanca,
and Queen Christina of Sweden have his admiration. When
celebrating deeds worthy of the Isle of Immortality he
applauds Galeazzo Sforza's daughter Caterina, whose high
courage and act of dramatic boldness in a perilous situation
won victory for herself and her adherents (III, 12, p. 384).
Lastly, Gracian praises the women of certain regions of
Spain: "las discretas" of Toledo, "las hermosas" of Gra
nada, and "las mugeres honestas y recatadas" of Catalonia
(II, 13, pp. 368-369).
In 1637 Gracian came to the attention of his superiors
by doing two things against regulations: publishing El
heroe, his first work, without permission and under a
pseudonym; and granting absolution in a case not within his
jurisdiction. In Huesca, where he had been assigned in 1636
to preach and hear confession, Gracian and two companions
had absolved a certain padre Tonda, who before being dis
missed from the order admitted having had "algunas fla-
quezas con mujeres." He also mentioned the names of the
three priests who had absolved him. This absolution had
been given in virtue of the Bull of the Crusade, which had
for centuries and still at that time permitted Spanish con
fessors to pardon certain grave sins (except open heresy)
154
otherwise reserved for higher authorities. Since, however,
the generals of the Jesuit Order, Aquaviva and later
Vitelleschi, had requested that these privileges not have
force in the Compania, the three priests had committed a
violation when they had absolved in this case without per
mission from the rector.
Informed of the matter, Vitelleschi wrote from Rome to
the provincial of Aragon, Luis de Ribas, in May 1637, con
cerning the matter and requesting details. A year later he
wrote again to censure, among other things, Gracian's action
in having
... Con poca prudencia tornado por su cuenta la crianga
de una criatura que se decia era de uno que avia salido
de la Compania, buscando dinero para este fin, etc., y
por aver estampado un libro suyo en nombre de su herma-
no. 11-
While it is not certain that the father of the child
in question was the separated member of the Order, the
dates of the letters lead one to suppose so. Gracian,
then, was humanely trying to help the child of a former
companion, showing in this also his compassion for the
mother, whose situation was probably difficult if her fault
H-Miguel Batllori, Gracian y el barroco (Roma, 1958),
pp. 184-185.
155
and her identity were known.
This incident presents a Gracian quite different from
the one usually portrayed, as Batllori remarks: "Notense y
subrayanse aqui estos dos rasgos tan humanos, amistad y
conmiseracion, en un hombre tildado siempre de deshumani-
zado" (p. 77) . Arturo del Hoyo grants that "lo que se
advierte en su favor es cierta valentia en acudir al ne-
cesitado de ayuda, aunque ello le perjudicara" (p. cix).
In a chapter entitled "Gracian., hombre de bien, " Correa
Calderon says regarding the absolution:
Se ve aqui ... como Gracian— al igual que otros dos
hermanos en religion— sabe perdonar, bueno, comprensivo,
las caidas del hombre, del companero, ... Lo que enton-
ces pudo juzgarse laxitud en la interpretacion de orde-
nes superiores, se nos aparece ahora como ejemplo de su
grandeza de alma, llena de piedad y conmiseracion.
(p. 42)
He believes that Gracian's superiors in Huesca understood
the good intentions of the three young priests, and of
Gracian's efforts to obtain alms for the child.
Various writers have dwelt on Gracian's careful ar
rangements for the publication and sale of his works as well
as on his concern for financial matters in general, an in
terest which some have judged inappropriate in a member of
a religious order vowed to poverty. Romera-Navarro, for
156
instance, says in one of his essays, "Interpretacion del
caracter de Gracian," that in this respect Gracian broke his
vow of poverty, although he grants that Gracian's desire to
purchase books and to defray the cost of publication of his
own works is understandable. In the same essay he declares:
"No hay dato alguno que nos muestre a Gracian poseido de un
impulso generoso y cordial, fuera del patriotico en su
12
epistola del 22 de noviembre de 1646. " It is true that
existing data on Gracian present him as an individual pre
eminently intellectual, but if there were no other indica
tion of Gracian's humanity, the episode connected with the
unfortunate padre Tonda should be sufficient to establish
the fact that he could be compassionate to the point of
imprudence, if one views the matter from Vitelleschi's
12
Miguel Romera-Navarro, Estudios sobre Gracian (His
panic Studies, Vol. II) (Austin, Texas, 1950), p. 6. Bat-
llori, pp. 117-122, reviews Romera-Navarro's book, and on
p. 118 objects to the passage quoted above and to severe
statements made by R.-N. concerning Gracian's observance of
the vows of poverty and obedience. Concerning the passage
above he says: "Bellamente prueba Romera-Navarro que 'Gra
cian era el tipo del intelectual puro,' pero de aqui a afir-
mar que 'no hay dato alguno que nos muestre a Gracian po
seido de un impulso generoso y cordial, fuera del patrio
tico' va gran distancia: <-,no es 'impulso generoso y cor
dial' hacerse cargo de la educacion del hijo natural de un
amigo suyo, arrostrando las prevenciones de los de su pro-
pio colegio?"
157
standpoint.
Our knowledge of Gracian's life and personality and of
the individuals and forces operating in his world is incom-
13
plete, with important periods undocumented, as Batllori
and others have shown. Wherever his work as preacher and
confessor took him, Gracian would have acquired personal
knowledge of needy cases in which he might most discreetly
be of help only by having at his disposal such funds as
might come from the sale of his books, from patrons like
Pablo de Parada, and from persons requesting the celebration
of special Masses. There are delicate cases, especially
13
References to missing documents which may have con
tained information on Gracian are given by Batllori, es
pecially in parts I ("La preparacion de Gracian, escritor,
1601-16 35") and II ("Vida alternante de Baltasar Gracian en
la Compania de Jesus") in his book, particularly from pp.
33 to 100. In n. 179, p. 100, he says: "No hallo la necro-
logia de Gracian ni en los fondos de Valencia y Madrid ni
en Araq. 20 y 21; ya dije que falta tambien el anua de
Tarazona de 1658. Sus papeles serian recogidos y destrui-
dos por el P. Provincial, al menos sus cartas, conforme a
la disposicion de Vitelleschi a todos los provinciales, 30
de agosto 1636: 'Quando uno muere, el superior de aquella
casa o collegio, por si o por medio de otra persona de con-
fianga, recoja todas las cartas escritas al difunto por el
general, padres assistentes y provincial, y, sin leerlas
ninguno, lo mas presto que puede las quemej las demas car
tas ... no se lean, pero conservelas el dicho superior
hasta que, viniendo el provincial a visitar, ordene lo que
fuere mas puesto en ragon.'" (Hisp. 86, 145v.)
158
when women are concerned, in which the only aid possible,
or deserving of the name, is that which is done in secret.
It seems therefore unwarranted to conclude that an interest
in profitable publication and in other money matters neces
sarily indicates the breaking of the vow of poverty. Con
sidering Gracian's subtle mind and casuistic leanings, one
may more reasonably assume that after due study and reflec
tion he followed the promptings of his conscience. The
impression left on the Lastanosa family by Gracian has been
recorded by one of Don Vincencio Juan's sons. In souvenirs
of his father's literary salon, Vincencio Antonio de Lasta
nosa tells of his father's interest in the writings of Gra
cian and says of the latter that he was not only "docto y
14
gran predicador," but also "hombre virtuosisimo."
A series of letters records an important event in the
Lastanosa family and some intimate friends who frequented
that family's gatherings. Besides Don Vincencio and Don
Orencio de Lastanosa and Gracian, the group included the
priest Manuel de Salinas, a cousin of the Lastanosas;
14
"Habitacion de las musas, recreo de los doctos,
asilo de los virtuosos," Revista de archivos, bibliotecas
V museos (Madrid), VII, No. 1 (January 5, 1877), 29-31.
159
Francisco Andres de Uztarroz, chronicler of Aragon; and Fray
Jeronimo de San Jose, author of the Genio de la historia
(1651). Letters written by Fray Jeronimo to Uztarroz be-
15
tween 16 38 and 1653 throw light on this Huesca group
(first mentioned in a letter of 1646) and tell of an occur
rence which divided it.
In 1651 Don Vincencio1s second daughter Catalina, then
twenty years old, decided to enter the Carmelite convent in
Zaragoza, much to the displeasure and despite the opposition
of her father and of her priest uncle Don Orencio, who lived
with the family. Fray Jeronimo, it seems, had aroused or
strengthened Catalina's interest in the religious life and
specifically in the Carmelite Order, and Salinas had helped
persuade her.
The role of Fray Jeronimo, "hombre vanidoso, entro-
16
metido," in the affairs of their family was deeply re
sented by Don Vincencio and Don Orencio, whose friendship
for Fray Jeronimo had already cooled by 1649. Two years
15
"Cartas de Fray Jeronimo de San Jose al cronista Juan
F. Andres de Uztarroz, edicion preparada por Jose M. Ble-
cua," Archivo de Filologia Aragonesa (Zaragoza), Serie B, I
(1945), 33-150.
•^Correa Calderon, p. 86. This episode is related on
pp. 86-89, 91.
160
later there was a real split in the once-cordial group, with
the Lastanosa brothers and Gracian continuing close friends
and the other three forming their own entente. In the
family dispute Gracian must have supported the Lastanosas,
as is indicated by the decided coolness which Salinas, Fray
Jeronimo, and Uztarroz came to have for him. Later attacks
on Gracian were to receive support from these three or their
friends.
If despite his ecclesiastical state Gracian opposed
Catalina's entry into a religious order, or into that of the
strict Carmelites— of which his own sister Magdalena and his
brother Raimundo were members— it may be supposed that there
was reason to doubt the genuineness of her vocation and,
therefore, to fear for her future happiness. If the facts
are accurate and their interpretation is correct, this would
be an instance of Gracian's consideration for women as well
as of his close ties with the Lastanosa family.
As just related, in several instances Gracian shows
concern for persons in trouble, even when some risk for him
self may be the result. This is certainly true in the case
of the erring companion and the abandoned or needy child.
Bound by the vow of obedience and commencing the life of a
fully-professed (16 35) member of the Compania, Gracian must
161
have known that any deviation from prescribed norms would
draw the attention of superiors. Insofar as the absolution
is concerned, there must have existed a sense of solidarity
in interpreting liberally, if not laxly, the regulations
respecting the Bull of the Crusade, since two other con
fessors besides Gracian saw the case in the same light.
However, in seeking money and assuming responsibility for
the care of the child (a delicate undertaking, especially if
the dismissed companion was the child's father), Gracian
stood to be reprimanded by his superiors and possibly criti
cized by others with a knowledge of the case. Complicating
the matter for Gracian was his having written a book, El
heroe, without obtaining permission for its publication, an
oversight which would strengthen in his superiors any sus-
17
picions that they might have of insubordination m him.
■*-^A. del Hoyo points out (p. cx) that Vitelleschi in
Rome would have judged Gracian in this light, as can be
inferred from the General's letter of May 1638 to the Pro
vincial in Aragon.
Insofar as El heroe is concerned, Gracian may have
reasoned that as it was not a work on a religious topic, he
might dispense with the required permission for writing or
publishing, and that by cloaking his ecclesiastical state
under a pseudonym he might escape censure for treating of
worldly matters. If this was his thinking, he was mistaken,
for members of the Lastanosa salon knew the identity of
Lorenzo Gracian and did not keep it secret.
162
Moreover, it is probable that at this time Gracian was be
coming a target for the envious and the critical. If some
were beginning to look askance at him for frequenting the
salon of the Lastanosas and winning distinction in that
intellectual milieu, their attitude may have prejudiced his
case.
This was a situation in which to proceed with caution,
but Gracian, whose sympathies were aroused, did not hesitate
to treat a companion with leniency and to act in favor of
the child, and probably also the child's mother. He re
sponded in the manner that to him seemed required by the
problem— with active and prompt help— attaching to other
considerations, such as prudence and self-interest, a sec
ondary importance.
It was not the last time that Gracian would show gen
erosity when he was not bound to speak, or in the face of
possible unfavorable consequences for himself. As told
above, he later supported the Duke of Nocera's recommenda
tions for forbearance toward the Catalans in their uprising
of 1640; and long after the Duke's disgrace and death (1642)
. . 18
he continued to praise him m his writings.
18
In El politico (dedicated to Nocera), in the Agudeza,
El discreto, and El criticon.
163
The foregoing pages contain a summary and examples of
Gracian1s utterances about women, whom he censures, as he
does all of humanity. But faced with a concrete situation
of a woman in need or with a problem, Gracian disregards his
own prejudices and acts with consideration. To be sure,
compassion is expected of all normal human beings, and par
ticularly of persons called to the religious life. Gracian,
however, responded to the needs mentioned with such decision
and courage as to cause difficulties to himself. The cold
intellectual, the follower of reason, is seen departing from
his own precautionary injunctions.
That Gracian should not practice everything he counsels
need not surprise, if one remembers the dualism, the con
tradictions and paradoxes in his writings and life. Ideal
istic teachings in his works are sometimes unaccountably
contradicted by worldly, even harsh, injunctions; advice for
succeeding on earth is corrected by a reminder that this
world is but a temporary lodging and that saintliness is
all. In his life Gracian did not, maybe could not, always
follow his own written precepts. At times the admirer of
discretion was indiscreet, the one who preached caution was
imprudent, he who deplored the benevolence that may cause
one to suffer for another disregarded his own interests.
CHAPTER VII
GRACIAN'S AMBIVALENCE:
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM
The contradictions mentioned in the preceding chapter
between Gracian's counsels and his practice invite one to
consider more closely Gracian's view of life and the nature
of his pessimism. On this subject, critics of Gracian have
various and even conflicting opinions.
Americo Castro finds his work "ayuno de amores," in
which emotion is never an essential theme: "El campo humano
es para nuestro aragones una comarca mas embestible que
cultivable."'*' Continuing Castro's thought, Jose Montesinos
sees in El criticon the characteristics of the picaresque
genre: a desolate view of life and its belittlementj the
cautious and rancorous attitude of the rogue. Preoccupied
as they are with the dangers attending human contact, the
^Santa Teresa, y otros ensayos (Madrid, 1929), pp. 256-
257.
164
165
characters of Gracian are seen as living in isolation, in
an atomized society. This defensive attitude is termed by
Montesinos a "moral picaresca— fuga que se disfraza de
2
embestida." For Guillermo Diaz-Plaja the doctrine of
Gracian is "la teoria del egoismo mas desenfrenado; his
Oraculo manual, "el vademecum de la doblez." Gracian's
attitude he considers one of sabotage] his distrust of the
senses and of appearances leads him to take refuge in the
3
intellect and to paint impossible worlds of pure reason.
That Gracian's defensive morality and pessimism ally him
with the picaresque mentality is also the opinion of Pedro
Gringoire, who finds the moralist's teaching pagan and one
in which the end justifies the means— a kind of "supervi-
4 v
vencia del mas vivo." Garcia Lopez is of the view that it
was literary vanity rather than altruism which led Gracian
to try to redirect the corrupt and failing society of his
2
"Gracian o la picaresca pura," Ensayos y estudios de
literatura espanola (Coleccion Studium, Vol. XXIII) (Mexico,
1959), pp. 132-145.
^"El caso Gracian," Ensayos elegidos (Madrid, 1965),
pp. 204-207.
^Baltasar Gracian y Morales, introduccion, seleccion
y notas de Pedro Gringoire (Biblioteca enciclopedica popu
lar, Vol. XXXV) (Mexico, 1944), p. xvii.
166
time. In spite of some negative elements in Gracian's work,
however, he does not classify as a "resentido" one who faces
life's battles with the enthusiasm characteristic of Gra
cian, nor does he apply the word "picaresque" to his work:
Su jubilosa exaltacion de la inteligencia, del valor,
de la voluntad y de la fama le alejan considerablemente
de la odiosa caterva de picaros, cuyo canallesco resen-
timiento inficiona nuestra novelistica barroca. Quien
quiera comprenderle habra de tener siempre en cuenta ese
aspecto altamente optimista, vital y afirmativo de su
produccion.^
The lesson given in El criticon, with its "amargo sabor
a ceniza," is for Correa Calderon better than that to be
derived from any other ascetical treatise. He believes that
the pessimism of this work may be in part due to the fact
that the author was feeling the effects of unfriendly in
fluences, which were active in Gracian's later years. On
the subject of the polemic with Salinas, Correa Calderon
says that Gracian was above the meanness of his antagonists;
"mas que un ataque concreto contra ellos, hemos de ver su
respuesta en esta amargura con que ve a los hombres, diluida
a lo largo y a lo hondo de su obra" (p. 98). In its struc
ture the novel may recall that of the picaresque novels,
^Jose Garcia Lopez, Baltasar Gracian (Barcelona, 1947),
p . 43.
167
but for Correa Calderon the two pilgrims have more in common
with the ideal-seeking protagonists of the novels of chiv
alry, or with mystics in search of perfection. Transferred
to the canvas, Gracian's chaotic world of grotesque figures
might have been best painted by Hieronymus Bosch— whom
Gracian admired— or by Valdes Leal or Goya.
"L'une des clefs de voute du patrimoine occidental,"
is Andre Rouveyre1s judgment of El criticon, "truculente
tragi-comedie morale," whose author, of hawk-like eye and
probing intelligence, analyzed society pitilessly. Rouveyre
considers Gracian "l'un des plus graves signaux du passe,
destine a une imperissable permanence."^
A. F. G. Bell recalls Gracian1s comments on a world
changing but ever the same, on the necessity of a "milicia
contra malicia," as evidence of his disbelief in progress,
the perfectibility of human nature, or in a millennium past
or to come. Gracian's pessimism was one which "answered to
a time of reaction after a period of great effort and
achievement, and thus corresponds to that of Leopardi and
Schopenhauer after the Napoleonic wars, and to that which
inspires brilliant treatises in the twentieth century."
^Pages caracteristiques, pp. 115-116.
168
Gracian's hope is one not for the human race but for the
individual, who can, by leading a life of virtue and valor,
aspire to greatness (pp. 10-11).
Julio Cejador sees in Gracian a successor of Seneca,
Mateo Aleman, and Quevedo, but one who goes deeper than they
into the study of man. For its conception, satire, scrutiny
of souls, and knowledge of the world, Cejador considers El
7
criticon one of the greatest works of literature.
It is Arturo del Hoyo's opinion that El criticon is
structured on irritation, for Gracian had not met with the
appreciation or success in the world, the court, or his
Order that he may have expected. "La vision de Gracian
ahora, en El Criticon, esta condicionada por un sentimiento
de exclusion," says Del Hoyo (p. clxxxvi). To that world
which excluded him Gracian responded by applying the Aris-
totelian-Thomistic doctrine of prudence in a work of "sabia
y profunda moralidad." This disillusioned Gracian is the
first modern Spanish intellectual, says Del Hoyo; he is the
first nonconformist, an uncompromising and insubornable
critic. The representation of life in his allegorical novel
7 . .
Baltasar Gracian, El criticon, ed. transcrita y rev.
por Julio Cejador (Madrid, 1913), I, xxiii.
169
inaugurated a European series of like works, such as Gulli
ver 's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and Candide.
Dario Fernandez is inclined to believe that the turbu
lent period of Critilo's life may portray, with heightened
colors, Gracian's own youth and the final disillusion which
led him to enter the religious life. He feels almost cer
tain that when in 1619 Gracian entered the novitiate in
Tarragona, "iba mas cargado de desenganos que inmune de los
8
dardos del mundo."
"Espxritu vasto y profundo" is Farinelli's judgment of
Gracian, the "sabio" whose study of the heart of man made
him not lachrymose but militant and even led him to propose
Mephistophelian expedients to those who would survive in
life's battles. In his humor, Gracian is brother to Cer
vantes in his vigorous temperament and his fight against
the ancient scholastic tradition, he is the successor of
Luis Vives and Huarte. He is the enemy of every form of
pedantry and obscurantism. For his psychological observa
tion and the independence and courage of his judgment,
Farinelli considers Gracian a precursor of modern science.
^Baltasar Gracian, escritor araqones del siglo XVII
(Biblioteca de escritores aragoneses; seccion literatura,
t. 8) (Zaragoza, 1926), p. 207.
170
Convinced though Gracian may he of the vanity of all human
things, Farinelli sees him as remaining nevertheless a firm
believer in man's individual power, the force to which
9
Gracian ascribes all human happenings.
Gabriel Julia Andreu believes that the hermetic char
acter of Gracian's works, and especially of El criticon,
have caused him to be misunderstood, among others, by
Azorin. "En modo alguno," says Julia Andreu, "es Gracian
un pensador para uso de bienhallados y poderososj antes bien
al contrario, para uso de esforzados y heroicos luchadores.1 1
Like the founder of the Compania de Jesus, Gracian knows
the value of "ideas hincadas en los cerebros a golpes repe-
tidos con santa insistencia"; the primoses of El heroe are
10
the "spiritual exercises" of the good statesman.
In Werner Krauss1 opinion, the picaresque mentality,
for which the world's evils are incurable, can hardly be
said to belong to Gracian, who urges opposition to evil and
Q
Critical study in El heroe, El discreto (Madrid,
1900) . The study ("Gracian y la literatura aulica en Ale-
mania") is also in Farinelli's Divagaciones hispanicas;
discursos v estudios crxticos (Barcelona, 1936), II, 97-159.
-^Baltasar Gracian, Tratados politicos . .. texto
establecido, prologo y notas por Gabriel Julia Andreu (Co-
leccion politica de autores espanoles) (Barcelona, 1941),
pp. 8-9.
171
recommends the maximum development of the individual.
Krauss does not believe that Gracian's teachings were meant
for a restricted public: "Gracian dirige su doctrina a
personas de todas las clases sociales. ... Cada uno ha sido
llamado a perfeccionar su trabajo. Perfection, in Gre
cian1 s view, must be sought through experience; "el espiritu
tiene que chocar con el mundo, ser objeto de contradiccion"
(p. 179) . A defender of the personality, Gracian opposes
attitudes, such as the stoic-ascetic one, that would reduce
or destroy it.
Ovejero y Maury places Gracian at a prudent distance
from both mysticism and "picardia." Morality was understood
by Gracian not so much as the obligatory imitation of a
model as the study of the psychological laws which determine
morality:
[Gracian] en Espana, y La Rochefoucauld en Francia
son verdaderos precursores, en cuanto emancipan la moral
de mil prejuicios acumulados por las falsas concepciones
religiosas y metafisicas, y estudian los verdaderos re-
sortes que mueven nuestra conducta y determinan nuestros
actos y afectos.-*-^
^ La doctrina de la vida segun Baltasar Gracian (Bib-
lioteca del pensamiento actual, 112) (Madrid, 1962), p. 135.
12Baltasar Gracian, Agudeza y arte de ingenio (Bib-
lioteca de filosofos espanoles) (Madrid, 1929), p. xxii.
172
El criticon is for Karl Vossler "la primera creacion
literaria de la Ilustracion, concebida bajo signo anti-
13
poetico, en realidad un gran 'poeme en prose.1" It is a
harmonious whole, with the two pilgrims, dissimilar but not
in conflict, aspiring to a twofold perfection— uprightness
on earth and blessedness in God. Together, they seek a
spiritual kind of reality, the assertion of the spiritual
self amid obstacles. Insisting on high intellectual levels
for the personality, Gracian shows impatience with every
form of quietism or mysticism. "Lo que queda al cabo de
todas las depuraciones es la humana criatura que a si misma
se supera y sobre si misma asciende en demanda de la per-
sonalidad" (p. 316). Basically, says Vossler, Gracian is
in the Averroist Spanish tradition of the two truthsj two
juxtaposed sets of concepts, one temporal and the other
eternal, which can fuse only in the next life.
Ludwig Pfandl sees Gracian's pessimism as in part a
consequence of his time, one of a national decadence treated
also by other writers, notably Quevedo. It can only be
conjectured to what extent inheritance may also have
13 —
La poesia de la soledad en Espana (Estudios litera-
rios), (Buenos Aires, 1946), p. 311.
173
contributed to Gracian's pessimism. Factors to consider are
the misogynistic temperament of his father, the lack of
information about his mother, and the fact that he was
reared far from home. Comparing Schopenhauer's and Gra
cian 's pessimism, Pfandl points out that the former's is
guided by abstract ideas] the latter's, solely by concrete
ones. For Schopenhauer, life's only refuge is in the con
templation of ideas. For Gracian, on the other hand,
earthly happiness, insofar as obtainable, consists in the
perfecting of the personality and in companionship with a
small circle of kindred spirits :
... la segura perfeccion del mas alia constituye el
contrapeso de la insuficencia terrena. Este considerar
las cosas sub specie aeternitatis y la perspectiva de
ver desatadas en la otra vida todas las ligaduras de
esta, ahorran a la filosofia de Gracian el conflicto
con la etica, que tan fatal habia de ser para los sis-
temas de Schopenhauer y Hartmann.^
In his study of Gracian, M. Z. Hafter notes the "ap
parent decrease in stature" of the reader to whom the moral
ist addresses his more mature works. Whereas the early ones
were meant for heroes, the later ones, especially El
•^Historia de la literatura nacional espanola en la
edad de oro, traduccion del aleman por el Dr. Jorge Rubio
Balaguer, 2a ed. (Barcelona, 1952), p. 613.
174
criticon, are intended for the ordinary man. The new note
that Hafter finds in these works is sensibility. In El
criticon, for instance* Gracian
disposes language . . . to undo every creature who is
insensitive to his humanity* a constant play of ser-
parecer. When the individual becomes conscious of his
native weakness, he can be entrusted with the subsequent
step of acquiring personality.
The critical man has acquired compassion* as Gracian shows
on occasion when he makes Andrenio* or the reader* identify
himself with some unfortunate individual who is the object
of ridicule. Through the problems and incidents presented*
the author attempts to make the reader think* to shape his
judgment.
From Gracian's sharp satire of humanity (especially of
the "necios")* "no se desprende," says Coster* "una leccion
de pesimismo." Critilo's gloomy exclamations to Andrenio
may be cited to affirm the contrary* but for Coster such
warnings "son imitaciones literarias donde la exageracion
del sentimiento va acompanada de una sonrisa apenas disimu-
lada" (p. 180). The somber pessimism of Solomon's
15 ^
Gracian and Perfection: Spanish Moralists of the
Seventeenth Century (Harvard Studies in Romance Languages*
Vol. XXX) (Cambridge* Mass.* 1966)* pp. 113-114.
175
utterances on the vanity of all things is softened by Gre
cian's addition of the Christian conception of the next life
or the pagan complement of immortality in the memory of men.
"Esto es," continues Coster, "lo que impide al Criticon ser
leccion de desaliento, y se convierte, por el contrario, en
leccion de energia, perseverancia y virtud" (p. 181).
Gracian, says Romera-Navarro, wrote for people of flesh
and blood engaged in the battle for existence, offering them
a doctrine that is Christian (but not exclusively Chris
tian), universal, and modern. The essence of Gracian's
teaching is
... cultivar el intelecto, educar y templar la volun-
tad, regir la conducta con discrecion y prudencia en
el trato social. Su leccion es de energia y perseve
rancia, de discrecion y virtud. ... No es dado a las
utopias, sino a la observacion fria de las realidades,
al juicio crxtico y a la deduccion intrepida. ... Gra
cian jamas se indigna, lo que no quiere decir precisa-
mente que sea insensible.
Da el reglas para triunfar en el mundo. ... No as-
pira al imposible de cambiar la naturaleza de cada uno
de sus lectores. No es idealista, no es sentimenta-
lista. ... Aspira a dar consejos practicos del vivir
como padre experimentado, no como ideal evangelista. ...
(El criticon. I, pp. 22-23)
Y lo que muestra el autor en cada pagina de ese
gran libro es el desengano y la correccion: grande
ensenanza cristiana. (I, p. 25)
As is shown by the opinions summarized above, Gracian
is for some readers so confirmed a pessimist as to be
176
neither Christian nor moral; for others he is a sage who
administers strong but salutary and highly Christian reme
dies for the evils of life on earth. The little that is
known about Gracian is not sufficient to correct or complete
the impression to be had from his writings. Until more
documents (if they exist) come to light that might bring
Gracian's person and personality into clear relief, one must
continue to interpret Gracian from his works and from what
may reasonably be read between the lines. As far as El
criticon is concerned, its moralizing content needs to be
balanced by the artistic, the jubilant, and the playful
elements of the work, otherwise the general impression pro
duced by the novel will be darker than may have been in
tended by the author.
• When the nature of Gracian's pessimism and optimism
are considered, the former seems outweighed by the latter.
Especially in El criticon, Gracian's doctrine is essentially
affirmative, one which urges man to strive for full rational
development so that he may attain a moderate, an intelligent
happiness on earth. Precepts that would otherwise be hard
are softened by this basic optimism and, in El criticon, by
the literary and festive qualities which accompany Gra
cian's "filosofia cortesana." The author's intention and
177
hope are expressed in his foreword "a quien leyere":
He procurado juntar lo seco de la filosofia con lo
entretenido de la invencion, lo picante de la satira
con lo dulce de la epica. ... En cada uno de los auto-
res de buen genio he atendido a imitar lo que siempre
me agrado: las alegorias de Homero, las ficciones de
Esopo, lo doctrinal de Seneca, lo juicioso de Luciano,
las descripciones de Apuleyo, las moralidades de Plu-
tarco, los empenos de Eliodoro, las suspensiones del
Ariosto, las crisis del Boquelino y las mordacidades
de Barclayo. Si lo avre conseguido, siquiera en som-
bras, tu lo has de juzgar. (I, pp. 97-98)
Many readers will find in El criticon a happy combina
tion of amenity and utility. For them the pervading flavor
of the novel will probably be not bitter, nor sour, but like
that of Spain as described by Critilo— "agridulce," with
emphasis on the first part of the word for Gracian (II, 3,
p. 100).
Upon opening El criticon the unprepared reader finds
himself plunged in the anxieties of the shipwrecked Critilo,
and his interest mounts as Andrenio comes promptly to the
rescue of Critilo. Soon the reader is learning the history
of the pair and simultaneously entering into the magnificent
natural setting of the story. Thereafter he joins the pro
tagonists on their life's journey and in a wealth of situa
tions sad or comic, unworthy or creditable. There are
lyrical descriptions of nature, reflections on Providence,
178
sharply-etched scenes of life, sparkling dialogues, short
orations unimpeachably argued, ironic or desolate comments
on men and life, caustic denunciations, and much humor
throughout. The characters are many, ranging from ordinary
human beings to the mythological and the fantastic allegor
ical figures. All is told in matchless prose, with con
cision and controlled power.
The allegory contains the essence of a lifetime of
reading of the classics by one who had a retentive memory.
The tracing, were it possible, of all of the novel's allu
sions and sources would be a liberal education in itself.
In addition to mythological and classical references, the
work has the interest of a roman-a-clef, for it contains
numerous allusions to contemporary persons and events.
Repeatedly, when praising heroes of the past, Gracian adds
to the group an eminent contemporary figure or two as
equally worthy of applause.
As the story moves and Gracian's thoughts develop, he
reveals himself a very human person, with prejudices bal
anced by instances of unexpected tolerance, persistent
antagonisms by amiable partialities, explicitness as a rule
and surprising silence or reticence (as on the subject of
Cervantes) at other times.
179
Gracian, who in his previous works had dealt with
heroes, rulers, and courtiers, now has a less intellectual
and more universal theme— Everyman. "En El criticon, final-
mente, interviene tambien el alma" (Pfandl, p. 609) . Here,
Gracian continues to treat of man's life on earth and to
give rules for its successful living. While real happiness
on earth is an illusion, man may— guided by truth and the
rays of reason, and corrected by the inevitable encounters
with "el noble desengano"— attain a moderate degree of
happiness in his pilgrim state. The ethical and moral norms
presented derive from the Bible and Christian sources, but
it is the natural religion and wisdom of the Greek and Roman
classical writers, particularly those of Rome, that pre
dominate throughout the work.
Had El criticon been planned to include any demons
(aside from women) of the Christian world, Gracian would
here have had an opportunity to include his letter from hell
of unhappy memory. Three hundred years after that unful
filled promise in Valencia, in an age less credulous— and
less believing— than his, not one but thirty-one letters
from hell were to attract a wide and devoted following.
These were The Screwtape Letters, by the British humanist
180
16
C. S. Lewis. The series appeared in The Manchester
Guardian in 1941 and was soon afterward printed in book form
in England and the United States. Gracian's idea had merits
but was somewhat advanced for his time.
Since self-knowledge is the first step to self-healing,
Gracian holds up a mirror in El criticon to help man to know
himself. The author has looked unflinchingly into man's
heart and now brings up to the light what he has found,
naming in precise terms what he sees. Rouveyre describes
that examination:
Tous les reptiles du fond de l'Sme de l'homme, dans
le commerce de ses semblables, sont la, grouillants et
entrelaces. Gracian pose sa patte sur un paquet vivant
de deux ou trois et les arrete ainsi, au plein de leur
debat; sa griffe entre; on les voit au net et sifflants,
et on tremble: voici une verite morale circonscrite.
II retire ensuite sa patte et les isoles reprennent leur
invisibilite dans la confusion de 1'enchevdtrement ondu-
leux et sinistre que sont les hommes meles. (p. 108)
In spite of his findings, however, Gracian is confident
that by dominating the lower instincts and by using the
will, men can perform good deeds, becoming "hombres de bien"
who will deserve to live eternally. Before the crumbling
values of society, says Castro, Gracian's aim is to remake
1 f i
(London, 1942), and The Screwtape Letters and Screw-
tape Proposes a Toast (London, 1961).
181
the inner person, that which is unalienable: "De ahi la
modernidad, la honda simpatia que hoy proyectamos sobre este
aragones de animo acerado" (p. 264).
In common with other writers of the baroque age, Gra-
17
cian looks warily not only at men but also at nature, who
in some ways is a stepmother. Nevertheless, the first three
chapters of El criticon are a remarkable paean to nature.
This "arrebato de lirismo teologico," these lauds to nature
and the world do not seem to Ovejero y Maury the expression
of a confirmed pessimist:
El que, sin haber leido otra obra de Gracian, abre
El Criticon, no pensara haberselas con ningun descon-
tento del mundo en que vive, al leer la narracion de .
Andrenio, prosado himno a las magnificencias del uni-
verso, espectaculo de prodigios que bastaria a suspen
der y maravillar el animo mas templado, si la costumbre
no apagase el asombro.-*-^
Of nature in El criticon, Garcia Gomez says: "Las
descripciones de los astros, de las plantas, del mar, son
17
On the post-Tridentine and baroque view of man and
the world in Spain, see Stephen Gilman, "An Introduction to
the Ideology of the Baroque in Spain," Symposium: A Journal
Devoted to Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, I, No.
1 (November 1946), 82-107.
■'■^Baltasar Gracian, El politico don Fernando el Catoli-
co, seguido de las Meditaciones varias, para antes y despues
de la sagrada comunion, y de las Selvas del ano (Biblioteca
de filosofos espanoles) (Madrid, 1934), p. 212.
182
acabadas. Los animales se dibujan con un primor de estili-
zacion casi heraldico" (p. 46). As quoted above, Vossler
considers El criticon a great prose poem.
Occasionally, Gracian is obscure in El criticon; he
requires the reader's collaboration, for his tersely-
expressed meaning is not to be seized by the skimming eye.
Master though he is of his art, Gracian associates one idea
with another so rapidly that at times veritable fireworks,
cascades of double-entendres, paradoxes, antitheses, paral
lelisms, and other rhetorical figures result. Clearly, he
relishes his art and permits himself to be carried away by
the suggestions of the moment. Coster describes the ap
plause and laughter that must have greeted each crisi of
the novel as its author presented it to be read by Lastanosa
to members of his household and friends, who in turn would
have contributed puns, allusions, and other matter to be
included, if the author thought fit. The finished work,
suggests Coster, was not meant to be read rapidly but little
by little, the reader taking time to enjoy its literary
qualities and to laugh over the jokes and wicked allusions
as well as to meditate over the moral to be derived. Gra-
cian's dexterity in playing with the vocabulary, his neo
logisms, and his enumerations remind Coster of Rabelais,
183
with the difference that in the French novelist the thought
is not cloaked as it is in Gracian.
It seems safe* then, not to take seriously all of Gre
cian' s criticisms, for a part of his pessimism may be more
literary than literal. To achieve literary effects he is
likely to deepen his colors. Pruning would have bettered
19
his prose in many instances, but the verbal exuberance
denotes a gay element in Gracian's writing. It is the same
gaiety that one finds among wits stimulated by the sallies
of equally gifted companions.
Whatever Gracian may say against women, one notes that
Critilo, while uttering imprecations against them, never
slackens in his search for Felisinda. As for Andrenio,
though reduced to a sorry state while under the spell of
Falsirena, he still cannot bear to listen to the hard words
being directed at her and at women in general by his rescu
ers . "Callad," he interrupts,
19
Dario P. Hernandez, S.J., mentions deletions which he
believes would have been made in El criticon had Gracian
asked the Compania for the required permission before pub
lishing the work. See Baltasar Gracian, escritor aragones
del siglo XVII. p. 218. Presumably, some of the conceptist
elements of the work would have been eliminated inasmuch as
the Order preferred a simpler style.
184
que con todo el mal que me ha causado, confiesso que no
las puedo aborrecer, ni aun olvidar. Y os asseguro que
de todo quanto en el mundo he visto, oro, plata, perlas,
piedras, palacios, edificios, jardines, flores, aves^
astros, luna y el sol mismo, lo que mas me ha contentado
es la muger. (I* 12, p. 374)
When Andrenio first discovered the universe, what im
pressed him most of all was man as observed in himself.
Now, with more experience and despite the experience, it is
woman who pleases him most. This shows, undoubtedly, the
extent of Andrenio's folly— "locura sin cura"— and probably
also, on Gracian's part the acknowledgment if not approval
of a widely-shared propensity.
CONCLUSION
This study begins with a brief biography of Gracian,
followed by a discussion of his works and his influence.
The possible sources of El criticon are discussed next.
These are Ibn Tufail1s brief novel Hayy ben Yacdan and the
Arabic tale whose manuscript was discovered by Emilio Garcia
Gomez in 1926. It seems demonstrated in Garcia Gomez'
article on the Cuento del idolo, del rey y su hija that the
ancient story served as a source for both Ibn Tufail and
Gracian.
The next chapter deals with a Latin translation of
Hayy ben Yacdan made before 1489 by Pico della Mirandola
from an anonymous Hebrew translation. No mention of Pico's
translation as one that might have been known to Gracian
has been found by the author of this study in works avail
able to her. Close political and cultural ties existed
between Spain and Italy during the Renaissance and in Gra
cian 's time. Whether as a result of such ties Gracian
185
186
might have come to know of Pico's unpublished translation
is not established* but the question arises whether because
of Pico's importance and fame there may have been some
knowledge in Spain of Ibn Tufail's risala before the middle
of the seventeenth century.
In Chapter V some aspects of life in El criticon are
studied which are central in Gracian's total conception of
life and related to his opinion of women. The subject of
woman weaves through Gracian's comments on nature* man*
life, and good and evil.
Gracian joins a long and distinguished line of writers
who have eyed woman critically and detailed her faults. In
the three volumes of El criticon, Gracian has ample space to
dwell on the defects of women. He finds them curious*
thoughtless* vain* and deceitful; he criticizes their moral
faults and* like Quevedo* satirizes their intellectual pre
tensions . How closely Gracian observed women is shown in
his portraits of a number of allegorical characters* whose
physique* dress* adornment* manner* bearing* speech* and
deeds are described. Eight such portraits are presented in
this study for their detail and the social importance of
the personages treated.
Praise of woman is also voiced by Gracian as he
187
presents for emulation some notable women of his own and
former times and gives general approval to the women of
several regions of Spain.
As a contrast to Gracian's generally unfavorable opin
ion of woman, several instances are next presented which
show him considerate to an unexpected degree with women in
difficult circumstances. On these few occasions at least,
Gracian disregarded his prejudices and acted with under
standing and charity. Like his general pessimism, his
misogyny would seem to be to some extent a literary one.
A review of writings on Gracian by a number of scholars
shows great disparity in their appraisals of the man, his
view of life, and his teaching. To obtain from El criticon
an impression close to that which the author meant to con
vey, the reader must balance the literary and humorous ele
ments of the work against the doctrinal content, keeping in
mind that the author's intention was to please while in
structing .
In his concern for stylistic effects, Gracian uses
hyperboles, antitheses, parallelisms, and other literary
devices, all of which give his prose a force that at times
probably exceeds that of his real beliefs or feelings.
Paradoxes, rhyming words and phrases, puns and jokes,
188
proverbs and variations on them, the example of classical
models, all contribute to produce a positive, oftentimes
emphatic tone. In Gracian the literary intent is always
present and to be borne in mind when examining his ideas and
pronouncements. It is in part this stylistic element, this
striving for effect, which makes Gracian appear more som
berly pessimistic than he may have been in reality.
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
189
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Baltasar Gracian y Morales
AGVDEZA / Y / ARTE DE INGENIO, / EN QVE SE EXPLICAN TODOS
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casa de Geronymo y Iuanbaut. Verdussen. 1669.
Agudeza y arte de inqenio, en que se explican todos los
modos y diferencias de concetos, con exemplares esco
gidos de todo lo mas bien dicho, assi sacro como hu-
mano, por Lorenzo Gracian. ... 4th impression.
Amberes: I. B. Verdussen, 1702.
Agudeza v arte de inqenio. Madrid: Imprenta La Rafa, 1929.
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Agudeza y arte de inqenio. Buenos Aires-Mexico: Espasa-
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Algo del Criticon: Critilo y Andrenio ... Barcelona:
J. Roura-A. del Castillo, 1893. (Biblioteca ilustrada,
2. seccion, no. 3.)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom, trans. Joseph Jacobs. New York:
F. Ungar, 1960.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom; 300 precepts for success based
on the original work of Baltasar Gracian, by Otto
Eisenschiml. New York: Essential Books, 1947.
Baltasar Gracian v Morales; introduccion, seleccion y notas
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190
191
Balthazar Gracians Hand-Orakel und Kunst der Weltklugheit,
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The Compleat Gentleman: or, A description of the several
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El criticon ... ed. transcrita y rev. por Julio Cejador.
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El criticon, edicion al cuidado del P. Ismael Quiles, S.I.
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El discreto, texto critico por Miguel Romera-Navarro y Jorge
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The hero, of Lorenzo, or The way to eminencie and perfec
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192
Skeffington. London: Printed for John Martin and
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El Heroe; reimpresion de la edicion de 1639 publicada con
las variantes del codice inedito de Madrid y el retrato
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Form As Theme: A Study Of Andre Gide

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Creator Fabilli, Josephine Caroline (author)

Core Title A Study Of Baltasar Gracian'S 'El Criticon': Sources And Selected Themes

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Spanish

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, General,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format dissertations (aat)

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Sender, Ramon Jose (committee chair), B (committee member), Belle, Rene F. (committee member), Curtis, Robert E. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-386856

Unique identifier UC11362089

Identifier 7008523.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-386856 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7008523.pdf

Dmrecord 386856

Document Type Dissertation

Format dissertations (aat)

Rights Fabilli, Josephine Caroline

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA