Kitabı oxu: «Los Amantes de Teruel»
Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch
Los Amantes de Teruel
Drama en cuatro actos en verso y prosa
Publicado por Good Press, 2022
EAN 4057664107909
Índice
PREFACE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
SCHEME OF VERSIFICATION
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
LOS AMANTES DE TERUEL,
ACTO PRIMERO
ESCENA PRIMERA
ESCENA II
ESCENA III
ESCENA IV
ESCENA V
ESCENA VI
ACTO SEGUNDO
ESCENA PRIMERA
ESCENA II
ESCENA III
ESCENA IV
ESCENA V
ESCENA VI
ESCENA VII
ESCENA VIII
ESCENA IX
ESCENA X
ESCENA XI
ESCENA XII
ESCENA XIII
ACTO TERCERO
ESCENA PRIMERA
ESCENA II
ESCENA III
ESCENA IV
ESCENA V
ESCENA VI
ESCENA VII
ESCENA VIII
ESCENA IX
ESCENA X
ESCENA XI
ACTO CUATRO
ESCENA PRIMERA
ESCENA II
ESCENA III
ESCENA IV
ESCENA V
ESCENA VI
ESCENA VII
ESCENA VIII
ESCENA IX
ESCENA X
ESCENA XI
Nota
VOCABULARY
#A#
PREFACE
Índice
The importance of Hartzenbusch in the history of the Spanish drama and the enduring popularity in Spain of Los Amantes de Teruel, his masterpiece, have assured this play a definite place in the work of advanced students of Spanish literature in our universities. For such students the many editions published in Spain and elsewhere have been perhaps sufficient, but for the much larger number who never reach the advanced literary classes an annotated edition is needed. That this play offers excellent material for the work of more elementary courses in the schools and colleges has long been the opinion of the present editor; and that it has not already found a place among the Spanish texts published in this country is difficult to understand. The old legend of Teruel, the embodiment of pure and constant love, is one that might well be expected to make a strong appeal to the youth of any country; the simple and direct presentation given to the legend by Hartzenbusch and the comparative freedom from textual difficulties, as the result of the careful revisions of the play by its scholarly author, bring it within the range of the understanding and appreciation of students who have studied Spanish one year in college or two years in high school, if it is put before them in a properly prepared edition.
The editor has kept in mind this class of students in the preparation of the Introduction, Notes, and Vocabulary. To those who consider the Introduction disproportionately long, the excuse is given that this will be the first Romantic play read by many students, and that if they are to understand it and appreciate its fine literary qualities, they must be enabled to view it in its proper historical perspective. It is to be hoped that this edition may serve as a safe approach to the systematic study, of the Romantic Movement in Spanish literature.
The text of the play is that of the annotated edition of Dr. Adolf Kressner, Leipsic, 1887 (Bibliothek Spanischer Schriftsteller), and is the same as the one contained in the definitive collection of the plays of Hartzenbusch, Teatro, Madrid, 1888-1892, Vol. I, pages 7-130 (Colección de Escritores Castellanos).
The indebtedness of the editor to Professor E.C. Hills of Indiana
University for many helpful suggestions is gratefully acknowledged.
G.W. UMPHREY
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Índice
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
I. The Legend
II. Authenticity of the Legend
III. The Legend in Spanish Literature
IV. Life of Hartzenbusch
V. Hartzenbusch's Treatment of the Legend
VI. Romanticism
VII. Romanticism in Los Amantes
VIII. Versification
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
TEXT
Nota
VOCABULARY
INTRODUCTION
Índice
#I. The Legend#. Constancy in love has inspired many writers and has given undying fame to many legends and traditions. Among the famous lovers that have passed into legend and that stand as the embodiment of constant love in different ages and in different countries,—Pyramus and Thisbe, Hero and Leander, Tristam and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet,—are to be found Marsilla and Isabel. These Lovers of Teruel, as constant as any of the others, are especially notable because of the purity of their love and because of the absence of violence in their sudden departure from this life. Disappointed love, desperate grief at separation, was the only cause of their death.
The old city of Teruel, founded by the Aragonese in the latter half of the twelfth century at the junction of the Guadalaviar and the Alfambra as a stronghold in the territory recently recovered from the Moors, was the fitting scene for the action of the legend…. The pioneer life of the city, the depth of sentiment and singleness of purpose of its Aragonese inhabitants, the crusading spirit that carried to victory the armies of Peter II of Aragón and his more famous son, James the Conqueror, lend probability to a legend that would ordinarily be considered highly improbable from the point of view of historical authenticity. Stripped of the fantastic details that have gathered about it in the many literary treatments given to it by Spanish writers, the legend may be briefly told. In Teruel, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, lived Juan Diego Martínez Garcés de Marsilla and Isabel de Segura. They had loved each other from childhood, but when it became a question of marriage, Isabel's father opposed the union because of the young man's lack of material resources and because a wealthy suitor, Rodrigo de Azagra, had presented himself for the hand of his daughter. All that the entreaties of the lovers could gain from him was the promise that if Marsilla went to the wars, gained fame and riches, and returned before a certain day, he would receive Isabel in marriage. This Marsilla did; but unfortunately he was unable to return until just after the expiration of the time set. When he reached Teruel, he found Isabel married to the wealthy rival. Disappointed in their hopes after so many years of constant love and continual struggle against adversity, Marsilla died of grief, and Isabel soon followed him; separated in life by cruel fate, they were united in death. Buried in the same tomb, they were later disinterred, and their mummified remains may now be seen in the old church of San Pedro in Teruel.
#II. Authenticity of the Legend#. The earliest references that have yet been found to the legend belong to the middle of the sixteenth century, that is, more than three centuries after the supposed death of the lovers. In 1555, when the church of San Pedro in Teruel was undergoing some repairs, two bodies, supposedly those of Marsilla and Isabel, were discovered in one tomb in a remarkably good state of preservation. They were reburied at the foot of the altar in the chapel of Saints Cosme and Damian, and the story of the unfortunate lovers began to spread far and wide. By the end of the century it was apparently widely known and attracted considerable attention to the old city of Teruel. When Philip III of Spain was journeying to Valencia in 1599 he was induced to turn aside to visit the church of San Pedro. In the official account of his journey, "Jornada de Su Majestad Felipe III y Alteza la Infanta Doña Isabel, desde Madrid, a casarse el Rey con la Reyna Doña Margarita, y su Alteza con el Archiduque Alberto," the story of the legend as then generally accepted is related so succinctly that it may well be quoted here: "En la iglesia de San Pedro, en la capilla de San Cosme y San Damián, de la dicha ciudad, está la sepultura de los Amantes que llaman de Teruel; y dicen eran un mancebo y una doncella que se querían mucho, ella rica y él al contrario; y como él pidiese por mujer la doncella y por ser pobre no se la diesen, se determinó a ir por el mundo a adquerir hacienda y ella aguardarle ciertos años, al cabo de los cuales y dos o tres días más, volvió rico y halló que aquella noche se casaba la doncella. Tuvo trazas de meterse debajo de su cama y a media noche le pidió un abrazo, dándose a conocer; ella le dijo que no podía por no ser ya suya, y él murió luego al punto. Lleváronle a enterrar, y ella fué al entierro, y cuando le querían echar en la sepultura, se arrimó a la ataúd y quedó allí muerta; y así los enterraron juntos en una sepultura, sabido el caso."
Seventeen years later a long epic poem by the secretary of the city council of Teruel, Juan Yagüe de Salas, aroused much discussion as to the authenticity of the legend. In 1619 the bodies were again exhumed and in the coffin of one of them were found written the words "Éste es Don Diego Juan Martínez de Marsilla"; also a document, "papel de letra muy antigua," giving the story in detail. This document disappeared, but the copy that Juan Yagüe claimed to have made may be seen in the archives of the church of San Pedro or in the transcription published in the Semanario Pintoresco for the week ending Feb. 5, 1837 (Vol. II, pages 45-47). The genuineness of the document and its copy is very doubtful. The first paragraph shows some linguistic peculiarities of old Aragonese; but these gradually disappear, until there is little left in the language to differentiate it from that of the good notary public and poet, Juan Yagüe, who was so anxious to prove authenticity for the legend treated in his poem. Although there is no reliable evidence that the bodies exhumed in 1555 and again in 1619 were those of Marsilla and Isabel, the church of San Pedro has held them in special reverence. They attract many admirers to the old city on the Guadalaviar and the tourist who expresses incredulity when shown the remains of the lovers becomes thereby persona non grata in Teruel.
For three centuries the controversy has continued and has resulted in the spilling of much ink. The most complete and authoritative study of the sources and growth of the legend is that of the eminent scholar Cotarelo y Mori (Sobre el origen y desarrollo de la leyenda de Los Amantes de Teruel, 2d edition, 1907). His conclusions support the theory that the legend is the result of the localization in Teruel of the story of the unfortunate Florentine lovers, Girolamo and Salvestra, as related by Boccaccio in his Decameron, Book IV, Novel 8. He refutes the arguments advanced by the supporters of the authenticity of the legend, calls attention to the suspicious nature of all the documents, and maintains the thesis that Boccaccio's story found its way into Spain toward the end of the fourteenth century and took the form of the legend of the Lovers of Teruel about the middle of the sixteenth century, at which time it first appeared definitely in Spanish literature. The majority of literary critics and historians accept Cotarelo y Mori's conclusions; others, however, refuse to give up the historic basis of the legend. They cannot deny, of course, the evident similarity of the stories; they explain it by saying that the story of the constant lovers who died in Teruel in 1217 was carried to Italy by Aragonese soldiers or merchants, was heard by the Italian novelist, and used by him as the basis for his story of Girolamo and Salvestra.
#III. The Legend in Spanish Literature.# Very few of the famous legends of the world rest upon documentary evidence, and the fact that the legend of the Lovers of Teruel lacks historic proof has had little influence upon its popularity. It has been productive of much literature, the extent of which is indicated by the two hundred or more titles contained in the bibliography[l] published by Domingo Gascón y Guimbao in 1907. Of the many poems, plays, and novels inspired by the legend only the most noteworthy can be mentioned here. The oldest literary treatment is apparently that of Pedro de Alventosa, written about the middle of the sixteenth century, Historia lastimosa y sentida de los tiernos amantes Marcilla y Segura. This was followed in 1566 by a Latin poem of about five hundred lines by Antonio de Serón, published in 1907 by Gascón y Guimbao, with a Spanish translation and an excellent bibliography. In 1581 the legend was given dramatic treatment by Rey de Artieda, who followed the story in its essential elements but modernized the action by placing it in the time of Charles V, only forty-six years earlier than the publication of the play. It has little literary value, but is important because of its influence on later dramatists. Passing over various treatments of the theme that serve merely to indicate its growing popularity, we come to the pretentious epic poem of Juan Yagüe de Salas in twenty-six cantos, Los Amantes de Teruel, Epopeya trágica, in which, besides adding many fantastic details to the legend, the author presented much extraneous matter bearing upon the general history of Teruel. Because of this widely known poem and the growing popularity of the Lovers, two dramatists of the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina and Pérez de Montalbán, gave it their attention. Los Amantes de Teruel of the great Tirso de Molina, published in 1635, is disappointing, considering the dramatic ability of the author; it contains passages of dramatic effectiveness but is weak in construction. As in Rey de Artieda's play, the action is placed in the sixteenth century; Marsilla takes part in the famous expedition of Charles V against the Moors in Tunis, saves the Emperor's life, and, richly rewarded, returns, too late, to claim the promised bride. It is a better play than that of Artieda, but is itself surpassed by Montalbán's play of three years later. Although he was far from possessing the dramatic genius of Tirso, Montalbán succeeded in giving the story the form that it was to maintain on the stage for two centuries. Frequent performances and many editions of his play, as well as many other literary treatments and references that might be cited, attest the continued popularity of the legend.
[Footnote 1: Los Amantes de Teruel, Bibliografía de los Amantes. Domingo Gascón y Guimbao, Madrid, 1907.]
Finally, in the early days of Romanticism, it assumed the dramatic form that has remained most popular down to the present day. On the nineteenth of January of the year 1837 the theatergoing people of Madrid were moved to vociferous applause by a new treatment of the old theme, and a new star of the literary firmament was recognized in the person of Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. In his dramatic masterpiece Hartzenbusch eclipsed all the other plays that have dealt with the legend, and more than twenty editions stand as proof of its continued popularity. Besides these many editions of the play, numerous novels, poems, and operas have appeared from time to time. For the most complete bibliography down to 1907 the reader is again referred to that of the official historian of Teruel, Gascón y Guimbao. We must now turn our attention to the author of the best dramatic treatment of the legend.
#IV. Life of Hartzenbusch#. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, born in 1806, was the only son of a German cabinet-maker who had wandered to Spain from his home near Cologne, married a Spanish girl, and opened up a shop in Madrid. The son inherited from his German father and Spanish mother traits of character that were exemplified later in his life and writings. From his father he received a fondness for meditation, conscientious industry in acquiring sound scholarship, and the patience needed for the continual revision of his plays; from his mother came his ardent imagination and love of literature. Childhood and youth were for him a period of disappointment and struggle against adversity. Less than two years old when his mother died after a short period of insanity caused by the sight of bloodshed in the turbulent streets of Madrid in 1808, he was left to the care of a brooding father who had little sympathy with his literary aspirations, but who did wish to give him the best education he could afford. He received a common school education and was permitted to spend the four years from 1818 to 1822 in the College of San Isidro. As a result of the political troubles in Spain in 1823, the father's business, never very prosperous, fell away and the son had to leave college to help in the workshop. He was thus compelled to spend a large part of his time in making furniture, although his inclination was toward literature.
His leisure was given to study and to the acquirement of a practical knowledge of the dramatic art, gained for the most part from books, because of his father's dislike of the theater and because of the lack of money for any unnecessary expenditure. He translated several French and Italian plays, adapted others to Spanish conditions, and recast various comedias of the Siglo de Oro, with a view to making them more suitable for presentation. He tried his hand also at original production and succeeded in getting some of his plays on the stage, only to have them withdrawn almost immediately. Undiscouraged by repeated failure, he continued studying and writing, more determined than ever to become a successful dramatist and thus realize the ambition that was kindled in him by the first dramatic performance that he had witnessed when he had already reached manhood.
At the time of his marriage in 1830 he was still helping his ailing and despondent father in the workshop; more interested undoubtedly in his literary pursuits, but ever faithful to the call of duty. Until success as a dramatist made it possible for him to gain a living for his family by literature, he continued patiently his manual labor. At his father's death he closed the workshop and for a short time became dependent for a livelihood on stenography, with which he had already eked out the slender returns from the labor of his hands.
Meanwhile, during these last years of apprenticeship in which Hartzenbusch was gaining complete mastery of his art by continual study and practice, the literary revolution known as Romanticism was making rapid progress. The death of the despotic Ferdinand VII in 1833 removed the restraint that had been imposed upon literature as well as upon political ideas. The theories of the French and English Romanticists were penetrating Spanish literary circles, to be taken up eagerly by the younger dramatists; political exiles of high social and literary prestige, such as Martínez de la Rosa and the Duque de Rivas, were returning to Spain with plays and poems composed according to the new theories; the natural reaction from the logical, unemotional ideals of the Classicists was developing conditions favorable to the revolution. The first year of the struggle between the two schools of literature, 1834, gave the Romanticists two important victories in the Conjuración de Venecia of Martinez de la Rosa, and the Macías of José de Larra, two plays that show clearly Romantic tendencies but that avoid an abrupt break with the Classical theories. They served to prepare the way for the thoroughly Romantic play of the Duque de Rivas, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, a magnificent, though disordered, drama that gained for the Romanticists a decisive victory in 1835, a victory over Classicism in Spain similar to that gained in Paris five years earlier by the famous Hernani of Victor Hugo, leader of the French Romanticists. In 1836 the equally successful performance of El Trovador, the Romantic play of García Gutiérrez, confirmed the victory gained by the Romanticists with Don Álvaro, and gave clear indication that the literary revolution was complete. The temper of the time was decidedly Romantic, and the wholehearted applause that resounded through the Teatro del Príncipe on the night of Jan. 19, 1837, at the first performance of Los Amantes de Teruel put an end to the long and laborious apprenticeship of Hartzenbusch.
A few days later the warm reception given the play and its continued popularity were justified in a remarkable piece of dramatic criticism by the rival playwright and keen literary critic, José de Larra, known better by his journalistic pen-name, Fígaro, and greatly feared by his contemporaries for his mordant criticism and stinging satire. In the opening words of his review of the play, we may see the highly favorable attitude of the critic and realize the suddenness of the fame that came to Hartzenbusch. "Venir a aumentar el número de los vivientes, ser un hombre más donde hay tantos hombres, oír decir de sí: 'Es un tal fulano,' es ser un árbol más en una alameda. Pero pasar cinco o seis lustros oscuro y desconocido, y llegar una noche entre otras, convocar a un pueblo, hacer tributaria su curiosidad, alzar una cortina, conmover el corazón, subyugar el juicio, hacerse aplaudir y aclamar, y oír al día siguiente de sí mismo al pasar por una calle o por el Prado: 'Aquél es el escritor de la comedia aplaudida,' eso es algo; es nacer; es devolver al autor de nuestros días por un apellido oscuro un nombre claro; es dar alcurnia a sus ascendientes en vez de recibirla de ellos."[2] Other contemporary reviews were just as favorable, and all expressed with Fígaro great hopes in the career of a dramatist that had thus begun with an acknowledged masterpiece. The Semanario Pintoresco, for example, a literary magazine in its second year of publication, ended its review of the play with these words: "El joven que, saliendo de la oscuridad del taller de un artesano, se presenta en el mundo literario con los Amantes de Teruel por primera prueba de su talento, hace concebir al teatro español la fundada esperanza de futuros días de gloria, y de verse elevado a la altura que un día ocupó en la admiración del mundo civilizado." (Feb. 5, 1837.)
[Footnote 2: Obras completas de Fígaro. Paris, 1889. Vol. III, page 187.]
Thus encouraged by popular applause and by the enthusiastic praise of literary critics, Hartzenbusch produced at varying intervals many excellent plays, but none of them surpassed or even equaled his Amantes de Teruel. Many of them, characterized by careful workmanship, dramatic effectiveness, and fine literary finish, are well worth studying, and deserve more attention than can be given them here. They offer all kinds of drama: tragedies such as Doña Mencía, in which the exaggerations of Romanticism are given free rein; historical plays, in which striking incidents in Spanish history or legend are given dramatic treatment; fantastic plays, such as La redoma encantada, in which magic plays an important part; comedies of character and manners, such as La coja y el encogido, in which contemporary life found humorous presentation. The best of them may be read in the three volumes published in the well-known series Colección de Escritores Castellanos. For literary criticism the student is referred to the books mentioned later in the bibliography.
The love of study grew stronger in Hartzenbusch as the opportunity to devote himself to it became greater, so that after he had had several plays presented with considerable success, scholarship began to absorb more and more of his time and the intervals between plays began to lengthen. Literary criticism, editorial work in connection with new editions of the Spanish classics, his duties as assistant and, later, chief librarian of the Biblioteca Nacional, these, with the production from time to time of a new play, made him a well-known figure in the literary life of Madrid. His was the quiet life of the modern man of letters, to whom the incidents of greatest interest are of the intellectual order: the production of a new play, the publication of a new book of literary or scholarly value, the discovery of an old manuscript or the announcement of a new theory, the admission of a new member to the Spanish Academy. Serenely tolerant in his outlook upon life, of gentle disposition and ready sympathy, unaffectedly modest, indifferent to the accumulation of property beyond the needs of his simple mode of living, conscientious in the performance of all his duties, he retained to the end of his life the personal esteem of his many friends. When death put an end in 1880 to the long illness that saddened the last years of his life, his mortal remains were conducted to the tomb with all due ceremony by the Spanish Academy, to which membership had been granted him in 1847 as a recognition of his excellent work as dramatist and scholar.
The productivity of Hartzenbusch, as well as his versatility, would be remarkable in any country but Spain. The Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch, prepared by his son and published in 1900,[3] stands as proof of the great extent and diversity of his productions; four hundred pages are needed for the bibliographical data connected with his many publications and for a few extracts from his unpublished writings. Hundreds of titles of dramas, poems, addresses, essays, literary criticism, scholarly commentaries, indicate the versatility of his talent and his tireless industry.
[Footnote 3: Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch. Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Madrid, 1900.]
#V. Hartzenbusch's Treatment of the Legend.# Apparently Hartzenbusch had given much study and thought to the famous legend of the Lovers of Teruel. At first it was his intention to use it in an historical novel, but only the first few pages of this have been preserved (Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch). Believing that the legend could be better treated in dramatic form, he applied himself enthusiastically to the construction of the play in accordance with the new theories that were becoming popular, and had it ready for production when a copy of José de Larra's Macías came into his hands. What was his astonishment to find that the plot of his play was so similar to that of Macías that no one would be likely to accept the similarity as a mere coincidence. Patiently he reconstructed it and had it published in 1836, if the date on the title page of the oldest edition is to be accepted as accurate.[4] If published in 1836, the author remained in obscurity until the first performance of the play, January 19 of the following year, made him famous.
[Footnote 4: Los Amantes de Teruel, drama en cinco actos en prosa y verso por Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Madrid. Imprenta de D. José María Repullés. 1836.]
Many difficulties beset the dramatist in the construction of the play. The legend that served as plot was already known to all, so that the element of suspense could not be used to any great extent. Moreover, the climax was not in itself dramatic; the death of two lovers through grief at separation, pathetic though it be, lacked the tragic element of other similar stories in which death resulted from violence. The dénouement, the probability of which would not be generally accepted, had to be retained in the treatment of a legend so widely known, a legend in which the essential originality consisted in this very improbability. Careful preparation throughout the whole play was needed, then, for this improbable dénouement, pathetic, rather than tragic; dramatic incidents had to be supplied by the author's own inventiveness, the characters had to be carefully delineated, the motivation carefully considered. How successfully the author was able to overcome these difficulties, with what dramatic skill he was able to succeed where dramatists such as Tirso de Molina and Montalbán were only partially successful, careful study of the play will reveal.
The play as given in this edition differs in many ways from the play as first presented in 1837. More than once the author returned to it, and the numerous editions needed to supply the popular and continuous demand gave him the opportunity to revise it and give it the most artistic finish of which he was capable. Changed literary conditions after Romanticism had run its course are reflected in the more sober dress of the revised play; there are reflected in it, too, the greater restraint, the more scholarly and critical attention to character delineation and literary finish befitting a man who had passed from the warm impulsiveness of youth to the calm rationality of middle age. The student who takes the trouble to compare the text of this edition with that of the first will see many changes: the five acts are reduced to four; some of the prose scenes are now in poetic form; the diction is much improved generally and obscure passages are made clear; some changes in motivation are to be noted, especially in the scenes leading up to the voluntary marriage of Isabel with Azagra; the mother's character is notably ennobled. On the whole, the play has gained by these revisions; what it has lost in freshness and spontaneity has been more than counterbalanced by the more careful delineation of character, improved motivation of action, correctness of diction, and literary finish. The play in its first form is undoubtedly a better example of Romanticism in all its phases, its tendencies toward exaggeration, its crudities of thought and expression, combined with qualities unsurpassed in any other period of literature; in its revised form it is a more artistic production, is still a Romantic play, and one of the best in Spanish literature.
