«Celestina» de Palacio: Rojas's holograph manuscript?

Charles B. Faulhaber

University of California, Berkeley

  —3→  

After seeing the facsimile of MS 1520 of the Biblioteca de Palacio, Madrid (Mp),¹ the distinguished Celestina scholar Dorothy Severin stated, «It's obviously a borrador for the entire Comedia in Rojas' notarial hand, with more corrections to the first Act.» I cannot confirm this suggestion unequivocally, since I am aware of no printed facsimiles of holograph documents. Those published in Serrano y Sanz are taken from inquisition documents of 1525, while the testamento of 1541 (Valle Lersundi, «El testamento») is also scribal.² Nevertheless, the hypothesis is very attractive -to say the least- and of the possible explanations for the textual state of Mp, it is in fact the most straightforward and congruent with our present knowledge of the development of the text.

I will argue that the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea found in MS 1520 is Rojas's transcription of the papeles (P) mentioned in his introductory Carta (C.4) with authorial revisions which move it in the direction of the printed text of CCM.³ If this is so, it thus represents a textual state prior to that of any of the printed editions. Here I offer a reading edition of Mp with substantive variants   —4→   from the three editions of CCM and of the early editions of TCM, preceded by some of the evidence in support of my hypothesis, chiefly a detailed analysis of the cases in which Mp agrees with CCM against TCM and vice versa, and of the marginal and interlinear additions in Mp. I will also note some of the revisions between Mp, CCM, and TCM which illustrate most clearly the priority of the first.

This is not a full and detailed study, which Mp plainly merits, but rather a stopgap measure designed to get the text into the hands of Celestina scholars as expeditiously as possible and with at least a minimal discussion of the questions it poses for Celestina scholarship.

There are, I think, five possible explanations for the genesis of Mp, each of which has its problems:

1. The antiguo auctor's original, i.e., P, with his own corrections and emendations. The major argument en contra is the presence of so many uncorrected errors.

2. Rojas's transcription of P with his revisions. However, if this is an authorial transcription, how are we to explain the same uncorrected errors in the text; and how do we account for its occasional agreements with TCM against CCM?

3. A scribal draft of P with Rojas's revisions. This allows us to explain the errors, but runs up against the ineluctable fact that the revisions and corrections are patently in the same hand as the text itself.

4. A later copy of P with revisions made on the basis of a printed text. This presupposes that at some point after the circulation of the printed texts someone made a copy of P (or one of its descendents) and then decided to check it against a printed text of CCM. This explains both the errors and the identity of the hand, but not the sporadic nature of the «corrections,» which are in fact quite minor in view of the massive divergences between Mp and CCM. Moreover, it is hard to envision a context after the very first years of the 16th century in which the CCM text would be preferred to that of TCM; just as it is hard to imagine the purpose behind such an exercise.

  —5→  

5. A refundición of CCM, starting from the printed text. One can envision someone wishing to play with CCM as the starting point for a new version, a Segunda Celestina. Mp would thus represent a fairly late stage in the process, where thorough-going revisions have been made and a reasonably fair copy has been produced. But then we must explain the scribal additions and corrections. Why do they, inevitably, return to the printed text?

Of all these explanations the one which least offends against common sense is the second. While it does not jibe entirely with Rojas's statement that he found Act I and (by implication), left it alone when he wrote the continuación, it does fall into line with the sorts of revisions made between CCM and TCM. The process would have gone something like this: Rojas found P and was taken with «su primor, su sotil artificio, su fuerte y claro mmetal, su modo y manera de lavor, su estilo elegante» (C.5). He made a copy of it (Mp) and then started to add his revisions to that copy after having corrected some, but not all, of his own errors of transcription. Thus the text of Mp is basically that of P, while the additions and corrections represent the first stage of the process which led to the text of CCM.

Why was it left in this state? Why did Rojas not continue to work on it as the base text for his changes in Act I? Conjecture is all that is possible, but the presence of the romance «Rey que no hace justicia,» found on f. 93r with the Comedia beginning immediately overleaf on f. 93v, may provide a clue. It suggests a commonplace book, in which Rojas was wont to copy texts which captured his fancy. When he decided to write the continuación, he would have needed to start with a fresh copy, given the difficulty of indicating changes in a small-format MS like Mp.

The text corresponds more closely to that of CCM than to that of TCM. In the first place, P, added in TCM, is missing from the preliminary materials in Mp. In the second, Mp explicitly calls the work the «Comedia de Calisto y Melibea» against TCM's «Comedia o Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea» (In). When there are textual divergences between the two, Mp usually sides with CCM:

	MP CCM	TCM
In	CD Comedia	Comedia o Tragicomedia   —6→
AG	CD los ministraron	les ministraron
2	ni otro poder ... conplir	om.
6	Calisto	om.
13	desaventura	desventura
15	ver a	ver
18	lo	om.
51	Cosa	Cosas
52	son aparejadas	aparejadas son
63	podra	podria
78	ella es liviana	es liviana
82	dezirte	dezir
83	Y quiero	Quiero
94	vejez	vieja
95	conviene a	conviene
100	cortezas	corteza
101	aguas	agua

Of these variants the most telling are the change in the title and the omission of «ni otro poder ... conplir» (2) from TCM. Once the latter had been deleted, it could not have been restored independently. Consequently Mp cannot have been copied from an edition of TCM. Why was it omitted? Marciales states (1:109) that it occupies exactly one line in A, thus implying that it could have been omitted as a case of eye skip; but in fact it begins at 1. a1v 15 and finishes at 1. a1v 16. As it stands in CCM the phrase is a sentence fragment which has lost the connection with the previous sentence that it originally had in Mp. Rojas probably deleted it from TCM on the grounds of unintelligibility. Similarly, once «Calisto» (6) had been lost in TCM, it is unlikely that any text based on that tradition could replace it. The other variants are less significant precisely because they do lend themselves to independent restoration. Thus, it would be easy to restore the personal a to «ver mi Alicia» (15) or to change Cosa to Cosas (51) by understanding it as the dir. obj. of entendellas, with a pleonastic obj. pronoun. Similar explanations could be offered for most of the other cases as well.

In one of the few cases where CCM and TCM differ in word order, we can observe Rojas at work as he twice tinkers with the text:

  —7→  

Mp	CCM	TCM
2 que por este lugar alcançar a Dios tengo yo ofresçido	que por este lugar alcan- çar tengo yo a Dios ofrescido (A f. a1v)	que por este lugar alcan- çar yo tengo a Dios offre- cido (F f. a5r)

In CCM the prepositional phrase a Dios is moved after the verb, while in TCM the subject-verb inversion is removed: yo tengo a Dios. The effect is to simplify the structure syntactically as well as to topicalize the subject pronoun, thereby focusing attention on Calisto and his sacrifices. More importantly, it is perfectly clear that the text of CCM mediates between those of Mp and TCM.

There are only six cases where Mp agrees with TCM against CCM:

	Mp TCM	CCM
6	qual	qual la
22	en quien	a quien
49	om.	las mugeres ... dize
83	sey atenta	se atenta
98	de todas	de todos
105	unas agujas	agujas

None of these is significant except the omission of «las mugeres y el vino hazen los hombres renegar, do dize» (49), which is most likely an independent haplography in both Mp and TCM due to the repetition of do dize ... do dize; although Marciales (1:109) explains it as a conscious suppression of a phrase repeated from 43 («Oye a Salamon que dize las mugeres y el vino hazen alos onbres rrenegar»). The deletion of the redundant la (6) is unexceptionable and could also occur independently in both Mp and TCM.⁴ Marciales (1:109) supposes that it was suppressed to avoid confusion with dialectal cuala. «Aquel en quien la voluntad ala rrazon no obedeçe» (22) is preferable both grammatically and stylistically (cf. Marciales 1:109) to «aquel a quien.» The vacillation in the form of the imperative («sey atenta» vs. «se atenta» [83]), in a period when usage was undergoing rapid change (cf. Lloyd 359), is explicable without recourse to   —8→   the influence of Mp on TCM, or vice versa.⁵ De todos (98) is easily corrected in light of the entire passage: «Las unas: ¡madre aca!, las otras: ¡madre aculla!; ¡cata la vieja!, ¡ya viene el ama! de todas muy conosçida.» Marciales calls it a «corrección del desliz de ACD» (1:110). Both the deletion and insertion of unas (105 «Tenia en un tabladillo una caxuela pintada, unas agujas delgadas») can be justified and could occur independently.

Two other variants confirm the relationship of Mp and CCM:

	Mp CCM F	JM GHK ILN
63	rredondeza	rredondez
81	ni la quiero ver	ni quiero ver

In these two cases F (Zaragoza, 1507), the earliest extant edition of TCM, has copied the readings of CCM, which are those of Mp, while J (Valencia, 1514), has introduced a change and been followed in it by succeeding editions.

Of all of the features of Mp, it is its rather large collection of errors which casts the most doubt upon its status as a holograph manuscript. The following list is representative rather than complete:

	Mp	LC
1	que tan perfeta	que de tan perfeta
8	Senbronio	Sempronio
9	commo dizes verdad	om.
18	me dare	me quedare
19	esperar	esperar salud   —9→
23	Torpeo	Tarpeya
26	ex sentençia	existencia
42	Pasipa	Pasife
	Mireva	Minerva
48	Desvare	om.
49	rrezado	rezado en
50	Despues	Di, pues
	mira que rremidases	querria que remedasses
51	Guarda sus engaños	Huye de sus engaños
53	sino	om.
54	que rreputas	que te reputas
55	bien	que tuvo
56	calidades	quantidad
	ellos	conlos de fuera
57	proposicion	proporcion
62	calçadas	alçadas
64	de carne las tres	de dulce carne las tres deesas
79	el ministro	el ministro, el gordo
83	ninguna	ninguno
85	Quieres asi	Assi es
88	a indignacion	cai en indignacion
96	Asaz era muy amiga	Asaz era amiga
100	taraguntia	de taraguntia
104	benjuy	de menjuy
105	balsamo que tenia	balsamo tenia
	una caxuela	en una caxuela
	ençerrados	encerados

How could Rojas have committed such mistakes? More importantly, how   —10→   could he have recovered from them? As to the first question, the appearance of Mp lends credence to the view that it was copied in some haste, and very likely on the basis of an original which was itself difficult to read, «lleno de tachaduras, intercaladuras, frases en las márgenes e incluso deterioros materiales» (Marciales 1:112). As to the second, Rojas may have had continued access to the original, against which the text of Mp could be checked. Much more likely, however, is that in reworking the text of Mp he simply changed passages which did not make sense, emending or suppressing as necessary. Minor syntactic errors are easy to commit but just as easy to correct on the basis of context. Thus «En dar poder a natura que tan perfeta hermosura to dotase» (2) betrays the need for the preposition de, governed by dotar; while ex sentençia (26), as part of the binomial «dela aparençia ala existencia» is also obvious. Similar cases are those listed above in 18, 49, 53, 54, 57, 62 64 («las tres»), 83, 88, 96, 100 (both cases), 104, and 105 («balsamo que tenia,» «una caxuela»).

More disturbing are the misreadings of and changes in names. What are we to make of the switch in the initial vowel between Melibea's mother (Elisa in Mp; Alisa in LC) and Sempronio's disreputable girlfriend (Alicia in Mp; Elicia in LC)? Or the fact that, except in one instance (86), Sempronio's name is rendered as Senbronio (8, 21, 87)? Torpeo for Tarpeya (23), Pasipa for Pasife, and Mireva for Minerva (42) are also difficult to explain except in terms of an inattentive copyist and a difficult exemplar. Nevertheless, the first two are almost self-correcting, given the well-known romance itself and the currency of the Theseus tale in such compendia as Boccaccio's De genealogia deorum (Bk. 4.10). «Mireva conel can» is a tougher nut to crack, as generations of scholars who have fruitlessly sought the source of the passage can attest; yet even here we can see how it would be possible to arrive at Minerva -even supposing that that were not the reading of P- as a classical counterpart to Pasife.

Some of these errors are simply unintelligible, and were therefore either suppressed («Desvare» [48], «bien» [55]) or totally rewritten, as in the case of «commo dizes verdad» [9], where the entire passage is affected:

  —11→  

Mp	LC
9 ¡Asi los diablos te lieven! ¡Asi muerte desastrada mueras! ¡Asi per- petuo tengas el tormento que yo traigo, qu'es peor †commo dizes ver- dad†!	¡Assi los diablos te ganen! ¡Assi por infortunio arrebatado perezcas o perpetuo intollerable tormento consi- gas; el qual en grado incomparable ala penosa y desastrada muerte que espero traspassa! (A f. a2r)

The antiguo auctor structured Calisto's reply as three parallel exclamations, each beginning with Asi, with the third marking the end of the speech through its length. Note the use of the polyptoton muerte/mueras in the second and the adjective/noun hyperbaton in the third («perpetuo tengas el tormento»). Rojas sweeps all of this away in favor of hyperbole more in consonance with Calisto's emotional state. He has also picked up arrebatado and que espero from Calisto's speech following the apostrophe to Erasistratus: «No me hables; si no, quiça antes que venga la muerte qu'espero, mis manos cabsaran tu arrebatada fin» (12).

Other errors make sense but offend against grammar. Thus «mira que rremidases» (50) has an imperative followed by a past subjunctive. Rojas corrects it by changing the imperative to the conditional querria. «Guarda sus engaños» (51) ought to be «Guardate de sus engaños,» but Rojas has chosen «Huye de sus engaños.» Sometimes a word is missing: «Aunque malo es esperar enla muerte agena» (19) becomes «Aunque malo es esperar salud en muerte agena»; while «aconpañadas de carne» (64) clearly needs an adjective to modify carne. Here Rojas supplies dulce and, using a Latinate construction, postpones the adjective governing the prepositional phrase: «de dulce carne acompañadas.»

What comes across clearly in these cases is that, despite the opinions of most Celestina scholars (e.g., Riquer 392-93, Lida de Malkiel 200, Stamm, Estructura 40, 195n), Rojas felt no compunction about modifying P to suit his own needs. Where it could not be corrected on the basis of sense, he had the option of simply eliminating or emending the offending passages. Even where it did make sense he intervened vigorously, as we shall below, to move the text toward his own conception of the work. Thus the «respect» with which Rojas treats Act I in turning CCM into TCM -as evidenced by the small number of changes introduced in it in comparison to the rest of the work- is not due to any reverence for the antiguo auctor but rather to the fact that he had already revised it extensively in the process of turning P into CCM. It is a pity that   —12→   Stephen Gilman is not alive to see his intuition of Rojas's interventions in Act I confirmed (Art 210-11).

That the state of the text is prior to that of any printed edition of CCM is suggested in the first place by the elements contained in it: In («Siguese la Comedia de Calisto y Melibea ... malos y lisongeros servientes»), AG («Calisto fue de noble linaje ... ala presençia de Calisto se presento la deseada Melibea»), and the text itself. Signally lacking is AI («Entrando Calisto una huerta ... induziendole a amor y concordia de Sempronio» [A: a1r-v]).⁶ As Rojas himself says, «aun los impressores an dado sus punturas, poniendo rubrícas [sic] o sumarios al principio de cada auto, narrando en breve lo que dentro contenía» (P.24). Now, since AI is present in all extant editions of CCM (indeed, in all known printed editions except F [Zaragoza, 1507]), it is more than likely that any text copied from a printed edition would contain it as well as In and AG. Since Mp does not contain it, we may be virtually certain that it was not copied from a printed edition. Corollary to this is the inference that In and AG were most likely present in the MS (P?) from which Mp was copied, contrary to Marciales's supposition (1:24). Rojas provides indirect support for the presence of In in his statement that «el primer autor quiso darle denominación del principio, que fue plazer, y llamola comedia» (P.25). And the presence of the name of Melibea's father (AG: «una sola heredera a su padre Pleberio») obviates the need to speculate upon the problem of the «plebérico coraçón» (11), despite Ruiz Ramón, Whinnom, Stamm («Plebérico»), and Garci-Gómez. The essential plot of the work was already part of the literary legacy bequeathed to Rojas, as both Gilman (Spain 334n) and Stamm (Estructura 28) surmise.

Corrections of errors Scribal additions and suppressions in Mp offer crucial evidence for the text that Rojas had before him as well as for its relation to CCM. They can be divided into two types, those which correct misreadings or   —13→   omissions from P and those which represent conscious revisions. Some of the former are of little interest beyond confirming that Rojas did sometimes catch and correct his own errors. Of this type are «[^in]merito» (1), «[^lugar]» (2), «inten(^dimiento)[^to]» (6), «(^tocas) y delgadas to(^d)[^c]as» (48), «[^a] Adan» (49).

More interesting are cases where Rojas corrected an error and then decided to make a revision:

-«(^mayor) [^menor] es la que se apaga que la que no se puede apagar» (26). Rojas caught the incorrect repetition of mayor from the previous phrase, but then, in revising the CCM text, suppressed the entire sentence. The original conception of a balanced tripartite comparison contrasting mayor to menor has been replaced with a simpler parallel construction contrasting the emotional fire which burns Calisto to those physical ones which pass away. Conversely, in the set of three similes which follow («dela aparençia ... alo real»), the rigidly parallel structure of Mp is destroyed through the simple inversion of «delo pintado alo bivo» to «de lo bivo a lo pintado» in CCM, giving, as Stamm points out «un indicio estructurado de su condición, no sólo con analogías y metáforas, sino con un vivo ejemplo de lógica trastornada» (Estructura 42).

-«se sometieron alos pechos y rresollos de viles y (^tan prestes) [^canpestres] azemileros» (41). Here the resemblance of t and c has led Rojas astray initially. Later he deleted canpestres in order to avoid the singsong repetition of two succeeding binomials, both with the same accentual pattern («pechos y resollos,» «viles y canpestres»).

-«sin los bienes de fuera ... a ninguno conteçe en su vida ser bienaventurado y mas, a costelaçion, de to[^dos amado]» (56). The past pt. amado is syntactically parallel to bienaventurado and, like it, refers to ninguno. After making the correction, Rojas added «[^Pero no de Melibea]» (57) at the beginning of Calisto's next speech in order to contrast the enviable position of him who possesses bienes de fuera with Calisto's own state, bereft of Melibea's love. Then, in a second revision, the contrast was heightened even more by the addition of eres («de todos eres amado»), so that, in LC, amado refers explicitly to Calisto.

-«post[^re]mero» (61), revised to postrero in CCM. The simple omission of a syllable drew Rojas's attention to an old-fashioned word which was fast losing ground to more modish «postrero» (first recorded in Alfonso de Palencia's Vocabulario universal [1490]; cf. Corominas, s.v. postrimero).

  —14→  

Rojas's Revisions in Mp Conscious revisions added marginally or interlinearly in Mp, unprompted by errors, reveal even more about the evolution of the text. In every case, they substitute the reading of CCM for that of P. Of these perhaps the most striking is the first, since the MS gives both the original and the revision:

-«si Dios me diese enel çielo la silla (^cabe su hijo a su derecha mano) [^sobre sus santos]» (5). As Severin notes, the substitution tones down one of the antiguo auctor's «grosser impieties» while at the same highlighting the phrase through alliteration.

-«[^¿sentirias mi mal? ¡O piedad de Seleuco ...]» (11) provides the first concrete evidence for the resolution of one of the classic cruces in LC textual scholarship, although Marciales (1:328-29) proposes in all essential aspects the correct solution, the misreading of Erasistrato as Eras y Crato. He errs only in supposing the existence of de after sentirias and of seleucial for Seleuco. While the name of the physician has been trimmed by the binder, the ending of sentirias is quite clear, as is the name of Seleuco. Thus the addition must have read: «¡O! Si viviesses agora Erasistrato, medico, ¿sentirias mi mal? ¡O piedad de Seleuco» as opposed to CCM's «¡O! Si vinissedes agora Eras y Crato, medicos, ¿sentiriades mi mal? ¡O piedad de silencio.» Lida de Malkiel (17-18, n. 7) traces the key steps in the editorial reconstruction, starting with the Celeuco of J (Valencia, 1514; restored to Seleuco in Valencia, 1529); the identification of Erasistratus in Sal.1570 (probably edited by El Brocense); the acceptance of both by Menéndez Pidal in his Antología de prosistas castellanos (1917); and her own observation that, if only one physician were involved, the verb must have been in the 2d pers. sing.

This addition, like that of «pero lo dicho y lo que dellas dixere, no te ...» (44-45), bears out Herriott's suggestion (283) that in making his revisions Rojas probably added passages in the margins of his working copy, as is the case here, which then became the copy text for the princeps. It is worth stressing that this passage was added by Rojas, against the almost unanimous opinion of the critics, who see it as one of the unintelligible passages in P which Rojas left alone rather than modify (cf., e.g., Bataillon 63, Whinnom 197, Stamm Estructura 40, Gilman Spain 334n). It is far too long to see it as a simple omission, especially since it interrupts a perfectly acceptable transition from Calisto's melodramatic «¡O bienaventurada muerte aquella que, deseada, alos aflitos viene!» to Sempronio's querulous «¿Que cosa es?» (12). Rather, Rojas has added two classical exempla which serve to heighten the artificial nature of Calisto's passion. The first of these was corrupted beyond recognition by the   —15→   printers. The question one must ask, with Marciales, is «¿por qué Rojas, si vio aquellas malcorrecciones, no movió un dedo?» (1:329). The question is all the more pointed if Rojas himself inserted the original, correct version. I can only surmise that the serendipitous bifurcation of Erasistrato into Eras y Crato (CCM) and their further metamorphosis into Crato y Galieno (TCM) actually furthered Rojas's conception of Calisto: not only does he cite the classics inopportunely, he gets the citations wrong.

-«[^¿Que estas murmurando?]» (24) has been added to focus attention on Sempronio's aparte. In CCM Rojas goes one step farther, inserting Sempronio after murmurando and a protest by the servant, No digo nada. The exchange, merely adumbrated by the antiguo auctor, has now turned into a device to highlight Sempronio's lack of sympathy for his master -as well as his duplicity.

-«[^Pero lo dicho y lo que dellas dixere no te ...]» (44-45). This passage, added in the lower margin, breaks too precisely the misogynistic train of Sempronio's speech to be an inadvertent admission. What needs to be explained is why Rojas felt the need to insert a palinode here, when the antiguo auctor was doing his best to paint Sempronio as an unrelieved misogynist.

-«[^so aquel fausto]» (48) Whether this is Rojas's addition or not, it was initially inserted for the play on falsedades, but, in so doing, it destroyed the bipartite structure of the sentence. Thus in CCM Rojas suppressed que falsedades, leaving Que pensamientos followed by three anaphoric prepositional phrases, each beginning so aquellas/aquel.

-«[^la tez, lisa, lustrosa]» (63) again may be an omission from P, but I am inclined to see it as an addition inspired in the following el cuero suyo.

In all of these cases, with the possible exception of the palinode inserted into Sempronio's misogynistic diatribe, the motivations for Rojas's changes are transparent: They are inspired by stylistic concerns or the desire to sharpen characterization or motivation.

Rojas's Revisions between Mp and the Comedia This is not the place for a full-scale study of the transformations wrought by Rojas on the papeles of the antiguo auctor. They were substantial, contrary to what Rojas leads us to believe: «E porque conozcais donde comiençan mis mal doladas razones y acaban las del antiguo auctor» (C.12). In fact, there are almost 350 substantive differences between Mp and LC. While many of them are insertions, deletions, or substitutions of one or two words, others involve the complete rewriting of   —16→   entire sentences or passages. If we look at those which illustrate most clearly the directionality of the change, we shall see exactly the same processes at work.

Perhaps most telling is a revision at the end of Pármeno's puta vieja speech, where we can surprise Rojas in medias res:

Mp	LC
92 toda cosa que son haze, adoquiera que ella esta, el tal nombre rrepre- senta	todas cosas que son fazen, adoquiera que ella esta, el tal nombre representa (A f. b1v)

Rojas intended to change the entire sentence from the singular to the plural in order to bring it into line with the rest of the passage but simply forgot to pluralize the final verb, representa. The corrector of CCM edition D (Sevilla, 1501) makes the correction, to representan, and is followed by TCM Seville editions ILN, as frequently happens.

There are a number of changes from Mp to LC which affect Sempronio and his relationship to Celestina. For example, at two points in Sempronio's first meeting with the bawd, Rojas suppressed passages which show Calisto's servant as too eager and willing a disciple. The first occurs when Sempronio wants to know the source of the pasos he has heard overhead, those of Elicia's client, Crito. In Mp Celestina, before tricking him into believing that it is another prostitute, asks him to swear to keep the secret, and Sempronio eagerly complies: «Çe: ¿La fe que guardes secreto? S. Yo la do» (79). The second is found when Celestina tells Sempronio how she plans to fleece Calisto:

Mp	LC
86 commo dizen, el esperança larga aflige el coraçon; y quanto el la per- diere, tu tanto gela promete si me pro- mete. ¡Bien me entiendes! Sempronio: Contigo esto. La obra mostrara si entendi bien la liçion. Callemos, que ala puerta estamos	como dizen, el esperança luenga aflige el coraçon; y quanto el la perdiere, tanto gela promete. ¡Bien me entien- des! Sem. Callemos, que ala puerta esta- mos (A f. b1r)

The omission of si me promete may be a haplography in LC, but, taken in conjunction with the deletion of Sempronio's Contigo ... liçion, it points rather   —17→   to a conscious desire to distance Celestina and Sempronio in order better to prepare their eventual falling out in Act XII.

Rojas was obviously a well-trained rhetorician, and we can observe the effects of that training in a number of minor changes. Thus «grandes miembros» (55) is changed to «grandeza de miembros» in accordance with the other abstract nouns in the list of Calisto's virtues: «fermosura, gracia, grandeza de miembros, fuerça, ligereza» (A f. a5v). Similarly, «amor o themor o fidelidad» (88) is changed to «amor o fidelidad o temor» in order to achieve a semantic gradatio from positive to negative.

In two instances Rojas intervened to create or to emphasize parallelisms:

Mp	CCM	TCM
6 ha sido de onbre de tal ingenio commo tu, mas no para se perder enla vertud de tal muger commo yo	ha seido: de ingenio de tal hombre como tu, haver de salir para se perder enla virtud de tal muger como yo (A f. a2r)	ha seido: como de inge- nio de tal hombre como tu, avie7 de salir para se perder en la virtud de tal mujer como yo (F f. a5v)

In Mp the opposition between Calisto's ingenio and Melibea's vertud is structured chiastically: «onbre de tal ingenio» vs. «vertud de tal muger,» using a device particularly favored by the antiguo auctor, as Mrs. Malkiel notes (18n). CCM replaces the chiasmus with a perfectly parallel construction and emphasizes the certainty of failure with haver de. In TCM the sentence is further revised to raise its import from the particular case to the general rule.

In the second case Pármeno responds to Calisto's wrath at his reference to Celestina as a «puta vieja alcoholada» (87):

Mp	LC
89 ¿Por que, señor, te matas? ¿Por que te congoxas ni atormentas?	¿Por que, señor, te matas? ¿Por que, señor, te congoxas? (A f. b1v)

At the same time that Rojas added the second señor he also suppressed ni atormentas in order to achieve a perfectly balanced parallel construction.

  —18→  

Rojas has also intervened vigorously in the antiguo auctor's long enumerative descriptions: Sempronio's diatribe against women (45-47), Calisto's description of Melibea (62-63), and Pármeno's puta vieja speech (89-92) as well as his description of the contents of her botica (99-105). The first will serve as an example:

Mp

LC

[45] ¿quien te contaria sus mentiras, sus cambios, sus trafagos, sus hurtos, su liviandad, sus lagrimillas, sus altercaçiones, sus osadias -que todo lo que piensan osan, si pueden-, [46] sus simulaçiones, su lengua, sus engaños, su olvido, su desamor, su ingratitud, su movilidad, su testimoniar, su negar, su rrebolver, su parlar, su golosina, su luxuriar, su presunçion, su vanidad, su vanagloria, su abatimiento, su locura, su desden, su guerrear, [47] su miedo, sus lisonjas, sus cabtelas, sus hechizerias, sus invençiones, sus escarnios, su deslenguamiento, su desvergonçamiento, sus alcaueterias, su suziedad?

¿quien te contaria sus mentiras, sus trafagos, sus cambios, su liviandad, sus lagrimillas, sus alteraciones, sus osadias -que todo lo que piensan osan, sin deliberar-, [46] sus dissimulaciones, su lengua, su engaño, su olvido, su desamor, su ingratitud, su inconstancia, su testimoniar, su negar, su rebolver, su presuncion, su vanagloria, su abatimiento, su locura, su desden, su sobervia, su subjecion, [47] su parleria, su golosina, su luxuria y suziedad, su miedo, su atrevemiento, sus hechizerias, sus embaimientos, sus escarnios, su deslenguamiento, su desverguença, su alcahueteria? (A ff. a4v-a5r)

Rojas has shortened the passage slightly, but that is not his primary intent. Most of his alterations are clearly motivated by stylistic or semantic considerations: altercaciones to alteraciones and si pueden to sin deliberar in consonance with the previous examples of female flightiness; engaños to engaño and alcaueterias to alcahueteria to bring these qualities into line with the other singulars; ingratitud to echo the initial syllable of inconstancia; vanidad deleted as a repetition of vanagloria; sobervia ... subjecion added to create another pair of antonyms; sus lisonjas, sus cabtelas suppressed in favor of su atrevemiento in order to set up the contrast with su miedo immediately preceding; desvergonçamiento to desverguença to avoid the rhyme of -miento; neutral or even   —19→   positive invenciones replaced with the pejorative embaimientos. Others, however, lend themselves to no such easy characterization. Why does Rojas invert the order of sus cambios, sus trafagos and suppress the following hurtos? Why combine parlar... luxuriar with suziedad and replace guerrear with the new set?

Another long passage, Sempronio's initial soliloquy, is basically preserved untouched, but Rojas does rework the final sentences for reasons both of rhetorical efficacy and characterization:

Mp	LC
20 Y enestos estremos estoy prepelixo. Lo mas umano es entrar y sofrir y consolarle. Porque si posible es sanar sin arte nin aparejo, mas posible es sanar por arte y por cura.	Pues enestos estremos en que estoy perplexo, lo mas sano es entrar y sofrirle y consolarle. Porque si possible es sanar sin arte ni aparejo, mas ligero es guarescer por arte y por cura. (A f. a3r)

The starting point of the revision was the desire to subordinate the first sentence to the second in order to link Sempronio's actions and motive and to achieve a structural parallel (subord. clause/main clause) with the final sentence. Then umano is changed to the more self-serving sano, which also plays on sanar in the next sentence; and lexical variety is obtained by substituting ligero for posible and guarescer for the second sanar.

If this hypothesis is correct, that Mp is Roja's transcription of P with some of his initial revisions, we would have to place MS 1520 at the very top of Marciales's stemma (1:268), before his «Ms Cota + Rojas,» as an intermediary between the MS of the antiguo auctor and that of the revision carried out by Rojas. The sporadic agreements of Mp with each of the three editions of CCM⁸ also lends support to Marciales's thesis that each was based on a separate MS as copytext (1:42).

  —20→  

Despite the plausibility of these arguments, there remains a good deal of work to be done in order to prove definitively that Mp is a holograph manuscript and that it does precede the printed editions. Obviously, the single most important test would be a comparison of the hand in Mp with that of authentic holograph documents, if such exist.

A second avenue is a classic source study. If we can show that one state of the text follows a source faithfully while another diverges from it, we may presume that the first state is logically prior. For example, the Corbacho's description of cosmetics was followed by the antiguo auctor but changed by Rojas:

Corbacho	Mp	LC
aguas para afeitar, unas para estirar el cuero, otras destiladas para relumbrar; tuétanos de ciervo o de vaca e de carnero (158)	100 Adelgazava los cueros □ çumo de limones, con turbino, con tuetano de çiervo y de garça y otras confaçiones	Adelgazava los cueros con çumos de limones, con turvino, con tuetano de corço y de garça y otras confaciones (A f. b2v)

The substitution of corço for çiervo is a minor detail, but it illustrates both the direction of the change and Rojas's ear for sound play, with the partial alliteration of the velar occlusives /kg/ and the echo of the -rç- cluster in garça. A thoroughgoing study of Act I's sources and the variants between Mp and LC would undoubtedly reveal further such cases.⁹

A linguistic study would, I think, also demonstrate clear differences between the language of Mp and that of LC, with the former being discernibly more archaic, confirming what many previous studies have suggested. Mp contains, e.g., nine examples of the 1st pers. sg. pres. ind. of the verbs ser, ir, estar, dar.

  —21→  

	Mp	LC
8	Aqui esto, señor	ACD estoy FLN stoy
		JM GHKI soy
20	estoy prepelixo	estoy (F stoy) perplexo
43	No se si so neçio	om.
50	Soy yo mas	Soy mas
77	Do yo vo	Do yo vo
78	S.: Vo	Sem.: Voy
79	Yo la do	om.
80	Dexa si soy burlador	Dexa si soy burlador
85	al cabo esto	al cabo estoy
85	Contigo esto	om.

In all but two cases the older forms without -y are used. In LC three of these passages are omitted, but forms with -y are found in five of the remaining six.

Even more striking is the presence of three examples of the archaic 2d and 3d conjugation imperf. in -ié (against 24 of -ía), all found in Pármeno's description of Celestina's oficios:

	Mp	LC
94	Tinie esta buena dueña	Tiene esta buena dueña10
95	Ella tinie seis ofiçios	Ella tenia seis oficios
96	ninguna vinie	ninguna venia

The use of this form is remarkable, for «in the early sixteenth century it was a relic of the past. In 1516, Francisco López de Vilalobos, in his Diálogo sobre las fiebres interpoladas, remarks in his criticism of Toledans who believe that their language is superior to that of other Castilians that "en Castilla los curiales no dicen hacién por hacían, ni comién por comían, y así en todos los verbos   —22→   que son desta conjugación"» (Lloyd 363-64). Might we then also see it as an indication of a non-Castilian origin for P?

Finally, a detailed analysis of the textual differences between Mp and CCM would also help to establish priority. Even the cursory study presented above shows that Rojas's stylistic and rhetorical habits differed from those of his predecessor and that he was concerned to conciliate the original conception of the work's characters with their ulterior development in the continuación.

In the last analysis, what, I think, is important about Mp is not its contribution to the resolution of the authorship question but rather the insights it offers into the artistic designs of Fernando de Rojas as he turned the papeles of the antiguo auctor into the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea. I hope that the edition here presented will facilitate the study of that process.

  —23→  

I present here a regularized reading text of the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea from Mp, along with substantive variants from the three printed editions of CCM as well as selected variants from TCM. The latter are taken from the Marciales edition, although I have been able to check his readings of F, H, and N against photocopies and of L against the facsimile. Endnote commentary is intended to propose explanations for the changes between the text of Mp and that of CCM (and, infrequently, to correct errors in the paleographical transcription presented in Celestinesca 14.2 [1990]: 3-39), while footnotes are used to record the variants themselves. My intent is to produce a text faithful to Mp but which at the same time highlights divergences between the MS and CCM through various typographical devices.

1. [ ] Editorial addition.

2. ( ) Editorial suppression.

3. [^ ] Scribal addition.

4. (^ ) Scribal suppression.

5. [* ] Editorial reconstruction of illegible or missing text.

6. [...] Lacuna in the manuscript.

7. † † Corrupt passage.

8. □ Omission with regard to CCM.

9. Substantive or significant orthographic variants (additions or changes) with regard to CCM are italicized in the text.

10. | Folio division (within a word) in the text.

11. || Separates loci variorum in the apparatus.

12. Both the nota tironiana and the ampersand have been rendered as y.

13. Abbreviations have been resolved silently; otiose tildes have been suppressed. For precise readings see the paleographical transcription mentioned above.

14. Punctuation has been regularized, usually on the basis of the Marciales edition.

15. Capitalization is editorial.

16. Textual divisions, in boldface, are taken from the Marciales edition.

17. Word separation is editorial, although on the basis of normal medieval practice (e.g., preposition and article are joined together: enla, dela).

18. Orthography has been regularized only insofar as the phonology of the text is not affected: The i/j/y and u/v distinctions are regularized. Capital R   —24→   (when not used at the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun) has been transcribed as rr- both word initially and medially. The same distinctions are observed in the apparatus.

19. Sigmatic s and z are regularized to their normal forms.

20. Substantive variants are recorded in a positive apparatus (i.e., readings of all witnesses are provided). Orthographic variants are not noted unless they bear on the accuracy of Mp or on its textual filiation. I omit obvious typographical errors in CCM (listed by Marciales, 1:49-53) and TCM, and even substantive variants in the latter which have no bearing on the textual relation with Mp or CCM, i.e., which are specific to TCM. I have corrected Marciales's readings silently, where necessary. I omit his conjectures unless they are born out by Mp.

21. The readings in the apparatus are those of A, regularized as indicated above, or, in its absence, of C for CCM; and of F, for TCM.

For the various printed editions I follow Marciales's sigla (1:5-8).

CCM Comedia de Calisto y Melibea.

TCM Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea.

LC La Celestina. The agreement of CCM and TCM.

a Agreement of CCM editions ACD.

b Agreement of TCM editions FJM GHK ILN, as given in Marciales.

g Agreement of CCM editions ACD and TCM editions FJM GHK ILN.

A Comedia de Calisto y Melibea. Burgos: Fadrique de Basilea, ca. 1499. Facsm. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1970 (repr. of the 1909 ed.).

C Comedia de Calisto & Melibea. Toledo: Pedro Hagenbach, 1500. Facsm. ed. Daniel Poyán Díaz. Cologny-Geneva: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1961.

D Comedia de: calisto & melibea. Seville: Estanislao Polono, 1501. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, Res. Yg.63 (olim Y.6310). I am indebted to my friend and colleague Jerry R. Rank for the loan of his photocopy.

F Zaragoza: Jorge Coci, 1507. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2-7-2/3566. (Marciales's shelfmark 2/7-2/566 is wrong, as is Berndt-Kelley's 3-7-2/3566 [«Algunas observaciones» 9].)

  —25→  

G Toledo, 1502 = [Toledo: Successor to Pedro Hagenbach, 1510.] London: British Library, C.20.b.9.

H Tragicomedia de Calisto y melibea. Seville, 1502 = [Seville: Jacobo Cromberger, 1511.] London: British Library, C.20.c.17 (olim C.57.d.10).

I Seville, 1502 = [Seville: Jacobo Cromberger, 1513]. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan. Rare Book Room, PQ 6426.A1 1502? (shelfmark from Berndt-Kelley «Elenco» 10).

J Valencia: Juan Jofré, 21 February 1514. Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional, R 4870.

K Seville, 1502 = [Rome: Marcelo Silber, 1516.] London: British Library, C.20.b.15; Boston: Public Library, *XD.170B.9 (shelfmark from Berndt- Kelley «Elenco» 10).

L Libro de Calixto y Melibea y dela puta vieja Celestina. Seville, 1502 = [Seville: Jacobo Cromberger, 1518]. Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional, R 26.575. Facsm. ed. by Antonio Pérez y Gómez. Valencia: «...la fonte que mana y corre...,» 1958.

M Valencia: Juan Jofré, 27 March 1518. London: British Library, C.64.d.4. Line for line reprint of J.

Mp Comedia de Calisto y Melibea. Madrid: Biblioteca de Palacio, MS 1520, ff. 93v-100v.

N Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. Salamanca, 1502 = [Rome: Antonio de Blado for Antonio de Salamanca, 1520]. New York: Hispanic Society of America; London: British Library, G.10224 (Marciales's shelfmark G.110224 is wrong).

P Papeles mentioned as Rojas's source in the Carta. El autor a un su amigo. Sal.1570 Salamanca: Matías Gast, 1570.

  —26→  

Bataillon, Marcel. La Célestine selon Fernando de Rojas. Paris: Didier, 1961.

Berndt-Kelley, Erna. «Algunas observaciones sobre la edición de Zaragoza de 1507 de la Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea.» La Celestina y su contorno social. Actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre La Celestina, ed. Manuel Criado de Val, 7-28. Colección Summa, 2. Barcelona: Hispam, 1977.

_____. «Elenco de ejemplares de ediciones tempranas del texto original y de traducciones de la obra de Fernando de Rojas en Canada, Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico.» Celestinesca 12.1 (1988): 9-34.

_____. «Popularidad del romance Mira Nero de Tarpeya.» Estudios dedicados a James Homer Herriott, 117-26. Madison: Universidad de Wisconsin, 1966.

Corominas, Joan, and José A. Pascual. Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. 5 vols. (to date). Madrid: Gredos, 1980-.

Garci-Gómez, Miguel. «Sobre el "plebérico coraçón" de Calisto y la razón de Pleberio.» Hispania 66 (1983): 202-8.

García de Enterría, María Cruz, ed. Pliegos poéticos españoles de la Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa. Facsm. Madrid: Joyas Bibliográficas, 1975.

Gillet, Joseph E. «"Comedor de huevos" (?) (Celestina, Aucto I).» Hispanic Review 24 (1956): 144-47.

Gilman, Stephen. The Art of La Celestina. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956.

_____. The Spain of Fernando de Rojas. The Intellectual and Social Landscape of La Celestina. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Herriott, J. Homer. Towards a Critical Edition of the Celestina. A Filiation of Early Editions. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.

Lida de Malkiel, María Rosa. La originalidad artística de La Celestina. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1962.

Lloyd, Paul M. From Latin to Spanish. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 173. Vol. I. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1987.

Martínez de Toledo, Alfonso. Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho. Ed. Michael Gerli. Madrid: Cátedra, 1979.

Martorell, Joanot, and Martí Joan de Galba. Tirant lo Blanc. Ed. Martí de Riquer. Biblioteca Breve de Bolsillo, 50-51. 2 vols. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1970.

  —27→  

Menéndez Pidal, R[amón], ed. Cancionero de romances impreso en Amberes sin año. Facsm. of Antwerp: Martín Nucio, n.d. Madrid: CSIC, 1945 (repr. of 1914 ed.).

Pliegos poéticos españoles en la Universidad de Praga. Colección Joyas Bibliográficas. Serie Conmemorativa, 7-8. 2 vols. Facsm. Madrid, 1960.

Pliegos poéticos góticos de la Biblioteca Nacional. Vol. 5. Colección Joyas Bibliográficas. Serie Conmemorativa, 9. Facsm. Madrid, 1961.

Riquer, Martín de. «Fernando de Rojas y el primer acto de "La Celestina"». Revista de Filología Española 41 (1957): 373-95.

Rojas, Fernando de. Celestina. Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. Ed. Miguel Marciales. Illinois Medieval Monographs, 1. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Rodríguez-Moñino, Antonio, ed. Cancionero de romances (Anvers, 1550). Madrid: Castalia, 1967.

_____. Cancionero gótico de Velázquez de Avila. Valencia: Castalia, 1951.

_____. Diccionario bibliográfico de pliegos sueltos poéticos (siglo XVI). Madrid: Castalia, 1970.

_____. Espejo de enamorados. Cancionero gótico. Valencia: Castalia, 1951.

_____. Manual bibliográfico de cancioneros y romanceros. Ed. Arthur L-F. Askins. 4 vols. Madrid: Castalia, 1973-78.

_____. Silva de romances (Zaragoza, 1550-1551). Zaragoza: Publicaciones de la Cátedra Zaragoza, 1970.

Ruiz Ramón, Francisco. «Nota sobre la autoría del Acto I de La Celestina.» Hispanic Review 42 (1974): 431-35.

Serrano y Sanz, M[anuel]. «Noticias biográficas de Fernando de Rojas autor de La Celestina y del impresor Juan de Lucena.» Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 6 (1902): 245-99.

Severin, Dorothy. Letter to Joseph Snow. Liverpool, 19 March 1991. 1 p.

Stamm, James R. La estructura de La Celestina. Una lectura analítica. Acta Salmanticensia. Estudios Filológicos, 204. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1988.

_____. «El plebérico coraçon: Melibea's Heart?» Celestinesca 3.2 (1979): 3-6.

Timoneda, Juan. Rosas de romances (Valencia, 1573). Ed. Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino and Daniel Devoto. Floresta. Joyas Poéticas Españolas, 8. Valencia: Castalia, 1963.

  —28→  

Valle Lersundi, Fernando del. «Documentos referentes a Fernando de Rojas.» Revista de Filología Española 12 (1925): 385-96.

_____. «Testamento de Fernando de Rojas, autor de "La Celestina" otorgado en la villa de Talavera, el 3 de abril de 1541.» Revista de Filología Española 16 (1929): 366-88.

Whinnom, Keith. «"El plebérico corazón" and the Authorship of Act I of Celestina.» Hispanic Review 45 (1977): 195-99.

  —29→  

[fol. 93v]

Ihesus

[In]¹¹ Siguese la Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, conpuesta en rreprehension delos locos enamorados que, vençidos en su deshordenado apetito, a sus amigas llaman y dizen ser su dios. Asi mesmo fecha en aviso delos engaños delas alcauetes y malos y lisongeros servientes.

[AG]¹² El argumento

Calisto fue de noble linaje y de claro ingenio, de gentil dispusiçion, de linda criança, dotado de muchas gracias, de estado mediano. Fue preso enel amor de Melibea, muger moça, muy generosa, de alta y serenisima sangre, sublimada en prospero estado, una sola heredera a su padre Pleberio, y de su madre Elisa muy amada. Por soliçitud del pungido Calisto, vencido el casto proposito della, -interviniendo Çelestina, mala y astuta muger, con dos servientes del vençido Calisto, engañados y por esta tornados desleales, presa su fidelidad con anzuelo de cobdiçia y □ deleite- vinieron los amantes y los que los ministraron, en amargo y desastrado fin. Para comienço delo qual dispuso el adversa fortuna lugar oportuno, donde ala presençia de Calisto se presento la deseada Melibea.

[A1]¹³

□

  —30→  

[I.¹⁴ Primer Auto. Cena 1ª]

Calisto y Melibea. Comiença Calisto.

[fol. 94r] [1]¹⁵ Calisto: Enesto veo, Melibea, la grandeza de Dios.

M[*elibea]: ¿En que, Calisto?

C.: En dar poder a natura que □ tan p[*erfe]ta hermosura te dotase, e fazer a mi, [^in]merito, tanta merced que verte alcançase, y en tan conveniente lu[*gar], do mi secreto dolor magnifestarte pudiese. [2]¹⁶ Sin [*du]da inconparablemente es mayor tal galardo[*n qu'el] serviçio, sacrifiçio, devoçion y obras pias, que por e[*ste] [^lugar] alcançar a Dios tengo yo ofresçido, ni otro p[*oder] nin voluntad umana puede conplir. [3]¹⁷ ¿Quien vido [*enesta] vida cuerpo glorificado de ningund ombre, comm[*o] □ el mio? Por çierto los gloriosos santos, que se deleit[*an] enla vision divina, no gozan tanto commo yo [... *enel] acatamiento tuyo. [4]¹⁸ Mas, ¡o triste! que enesto dif[*eri]mos: que ellos puramente se glorifican sin te[*mor] de caer de tal bienaventurança, y yo, misto □, con [*re]çelo del □ tormento que tu absençia me a de cabsar.

M.: [5]¹⁹ ¿Por grand premio tienes esto, Calisto?

C.: Ten[*golo], en verdad, en tanto que, si Dios me diese enel çiel[*o la] silla (^cabe su hijo a su derecha mano) [^sobre sus santos], creo no me s[...] mayor feliçidad.

M.: Pues aun mas igual ga[*lar]don te dare □, si perseveras.

  —31→  

C.: [6]²⁰ ¡O bienaventurada[*s] orejas mias, que indignamente tan grand pa[*labra] aveis oido!

M.: Mas desaventuradas de que m[*e a]cabeis de oir, porque la paga sera tan fiera qual □ mereçe tu loco atrevimiento; y el inten(^dimiento)[^to] de tus [*pa]|labras, [fol. 94v] Calisto, ha sido de onbre de tal ingenio commo tu, mas no para se perder enla vertud de tal muger commo yo. [7]²¹ Vete, vete de ai, torpe: que no puede mi paçiençia tolerar que aya subido en coraçon umano comigo enel iliçito amor comunicar su deleite.

C.: Ire commo aquel contra quien solamente la adversa fortuna pone su estudio con odio cruel.

[Cena 2ª]

[8]²² C.: ¡Senbronio, Senbronio, Senbronio! ¿donde esta este maldito?

S.: Aqui esto, señor, curando delos cavallos.

C.: Mientes. Pues, ¿commo sales dela sala?

S.: Debatiose el girifalte, qu'estava colgado dell alcandara, y vinele a endereçar □.

C.: [9]²³ ¡Asi los diablos te lieven! ¡Asi muerte desastrada mueras! ¡Asi perpetuo tengas el tormento que yo traigo, qu'es peor †commo dines verdad†! ¡Anda, anda, malvado, abre la camara, □ endereça la cama!

S.: [10]²⁴ Señor, luego fecho es.

  —32→  

C.: Saca la vela y dexa la tiniebra aconpañar al triste, y al desdichado la ceguedad. Mis tristes pensamientos non son dignos de luz. ¡O bienaventurada muerte aquella que, desead(j)a, alos aflitos viene! [11]²⁵ [...] [^¿sentirias mi mal? ¡O piedad de Seleuco] [...]

S.: [12]²⁶ ¿Que cosa es?

C.: ¡Vete de ai! No me hables; si no, quiça antes que venga la muerte qu'espero, mis manos cabsaran tu arrebatada fin.

S.: Ire, pues solo quieres padesçer tu mal.

C.: ¡Ve conel diablo!

[Cena 3ª. Soliloquio de Sempronio]

S.: [13]²⁷ No puede ser, segund pienso, ir conmigo el que contigo queda. - ¡O desaventura, o supito mal! ¿Qual fue tan contrario conteçimiento, que asi tan presto rrobo ell alegria deste onbre y lo qu'es peor, junto conella el seso? [14]²⁸ ¿Dexarle e solo o entrare alla? Si le dexo, matarse a; si entro □, matarme a. Quedese; [fol. 95r] no me curo; mas vale que muera aquel a quien es eno[*josa] la vida, que □ yo, que (yo que) huelgo conella. [15]²⁹ Aunque por al [*no] desease bevir sino por ver a mi Alicia, me devria g[*uar]dar de peligros.- Pero si se mata sin otro testigo, y[*o que]do obligado a dar cuenta de su vida. Quiero entr[*ar]; mas, puesto que entre, no quiere consolacion nin consej[*o]. [16]³⁰ Asaz es señal mortal non querer sanar. Con todo, qu[*iero]le   —33→   dexar un poco; desbrave, madure, que oido he dezir q[*ue] es peligro abrir o apremiar las apostemas dura[*s], porque mas se ensañan. [17]³¹ Este un poco; dexemos llora[*r] al que dolor tiene. □ Las lagrimas □ mucho desencona[*n] el coraçon dolorido. Y aun, si se ve comigo, mas se [*en]cendera si alli delante me tiene, qu'el sol mas and[*e] donde puede rreberverar, [18]³² y la vista, a quien objebto [*no] se antepone, ca(b)[n]sa; □ quando aquel es çerca, aguzase. [*Por] eso quierome agora estar un poco. Si entre tanto s[*e] muere, muera. Quiça con algo me dare que otro no l[*o] [...], con que mude el pelo malo. [19]³³ Aunque malo es esperar □ enla muerte agena, □ quiça m'engaña el diablo. Y si [*m]uere, matarme an, y ira alla la soga tras el cal[*deron]. Por otra part, los sabios dizen qu'es grand descanso a los [*afli]gidos tener con quien puedan sus cuitas llorar, [...] la llaga interior mas enpeçe. [20]³⁴ Y enestos estremos □ estoy prepelixo. Lo mas umano es entrar y sof[*rir] □ y consolarle. Porque si posible es sanar sin arte nin a[*pa]rejo, mas posible es sanar por arte y por cura.

[*C.:] [21]³⁵ ¡Senbronio!

S.: ¿Señor?

C.: Dame aca el laud.

S.: Señor, [fol. 95v] veislo aqui.

C.: ¿Qual dolor puede ser tal,
que se iguale conel mio?

S.: Destenplado esta este laud.

  —34→  

C.: [22]³⁶ ¡O triste! (^quien) ¿Commo tenplara el destenplado? ¿Commo sentira ell armonia aquel que consigo esta tan discorde; aquel en quien la volu[n]tad ala rrazon no obedeçe? Quien tiene dentro del pecho injurias, pecados, sospechas, aguijones, paz, guerra, tregua, amor y enemistad, □ todo en una cabsa. [23]³⁷ Tañe tu y llorare yo. Pero tañe y canta la mas triste cançion que sepas.

S.: Mira Nero de Torpeo
a Roma commo se ardia,
gritos dan niños y viejos,
y el manzilla no avia.

C.: [24]³⁸ Mayor es mi fuego y menor la piedad de quien yo agora digo.

S.: No m'engaño yo, que loco esta agora este □.

C.: (^q) [^¿Que estas murmurando?] □ [25]³⁹ Di lo que dizes, no temas.

S.: Digo que ¿como puede ser mayor el fuego que atormenta un onbre [^bivo], qu'el que quemo tanta çibdad y tal multitud de gente?

C.: [26]⁴⁰ ¿Commo? Yo telo dire. Mayor es la llama que tura ochenta años, que no la que en un dia pasa; y (^mayor) [^menor] es la que se apaga que la que no se puede apagar, y mayor es la que mata un alma, que la que mata çient mill cuerpos. Commo dela aparençia ala ex sentençia, commo delo pintado alo bivo, commo dela sonbra alo rreal, tanta diferençia ay del fuego que dizes al que me quema. [27]⁴¹ Por çierto, si el del purgatorio es tal, mas querria que mi espiritu fuese conlo[s] delos brutos animales, que por medio de aquel ir ala gloria delos santos.

  —35→  

S.: Algo es lo que digo; a mas ha de ir este fecho. ¿No basta loco, sino erege?

C.: [28]⁴² - ⁴³ ¿No te digo que hables alto quando hablares? ¿Que dizes?

S.: Digo que nunca Dios quiera tal; que es espeçi(a)[e] de eregia lo que [...]

[Cena 4ª]

[fol. 96r] [41]⁴⁴ [...] constituidas, se sometieron alos pechos y rresoll[*os] de viles y (^tan prestes) [^canpestres] azemileros y algunas, alas brutas animalias. [42]⁴⁵ ¿No as leido de Pasipa conel to[*ro] y Mireva conel can?

(^S). C.: No lo creo, hablillas so[*n].

S.: Lo de tu aguela conel ximio, ¿fue hablilla? Tes[*tigo] es el cuchillo de tu aguelo, Calisto.

C.: ¡Maldito [*sea] este neçio, □ que porradas dize!

S.: [43]⁴⁶ No se si so neçio n[...]. ¿Escoziote? Lee, lee los estoriales, estudia los filo[*sofos], mira los poetas. Llenos estan los libros de sus viles (^p) □ enxenplos y delas caidas que llevaron los [*que] en algo, commo tu, las rreputaron. Oye a Salam[*on] que dize □ las mugeres y el vino hazen alos onbr[*es] rrenegar. [44]⁴⁷ - ⁴⁸ Consejate con Seneca y veras en que las tiene y escucha all Aristotil, mira al Bernaldo. Gentiles, judios, xianos, □ moros, todos enesta [*con]cordia estan. [^Pero lo dicho y lo que dellas dixere, no te] [...] [45]⁴⁹ ¿quien te contaria sus mentiras, su[*s cam]bios, sus trafagos,   —36→   sus hurtos, su liviandad, s[*us] lagrimillas, sus altercaçiones, sus osadias -que [*todo] lo que piensan osan, si pueden-, [46]⁵⁰ - ⁵¹ sus simulaçiones, su lengua, sus engaños, su olvido, su desa[*mor], su ingratitud, su movilidad, su testimun[*iar], su negar, su rrebolver, su parlar, su golosi[*na], su lux[ur]iar, su presunç[^i]on, su vanidad, su va[*na]gloria, su abatimiento, su locura, su desden, su g[*ue]rrear, [47]⁵² su miedo, sus lisonjas, sus cabtelas, su[*s] hechizerias, sus invençiones, sus escarn[*ios], su deslenguamiento, (^de) su desvergonçamiento, sus a[*lcaue]|terias, [fol. 96v] su suziedad? [48]⁵³ ¡Considera que sesito esta debaxo de aquellas luengas (^tocas) y delgadas to(^d)[^c]as! ¡Que pensamientos so aquellas gorgueras, que falsedades [^so aquel fa[*usto]], so aquellas largas y abtorizadas rropas! ¡Que inperfiçion, que alvañares debaxo que tenplos pintados! †Desvare.† Por ellas es dicho: «arma del diablo, cabeça de pecado, destruiçion de paraiso». [49]⁵⁴ ¿No as rrezado □ la festividad de sant Johan, donde dize: □ «es la muger antigua maliçia que [^a] Adan echo delos deleites de paraiso; esta es (^de) la qu'el linaje umano metio enel infierno; a esta menospreçio Elias profecta» □?

  —37→  

C.: [50]⁵⁵ †Despues† Ese Adan, ese Salamon, ese David, ese Aristotil, ese Vergilio □ que dizes, ¿commo se sometieron aellas? ¿So yo mas que ellos?

S.: Alos que las vençieron mira que rremidases, que no alos que dellas fueron vençidos. [51]⁵⁶ Guarda sus engaños. ¿Sabes que hazen? Cosa □ es difiçil entendellas: no tienen modo ni rrazon nin intençion. Por rrigores comiençan el ofreçimiento que de si quieren hazer. Alos que quieren meter por □ agujeros denuestan enla calle. [52]⁵⁷ Conbidan, despiden, llaman, niegan, señalan amor, pronunçian enemiga, ensañanse presto, apaziguanse luego. Quieren que adevinen lo que quieren. ¡O que plaga! ¡O que enojo! ¡O que hastio es conversar conellas mas de aquel breve tienpo que son aparejadas al deleite!

C.: [53]⁵⁸ ¿Ves? Quanto mas me dizes y mas inconvenientes me pones, mas la quiero. No se qu'es.

S.: No es ese juizio, segund veo, sino para moços. Qu(^e)ien no se sabe a la rrazon [fol. 97r] someter, no (^A) □ sabe administrar. Miserable cosa es □ ser maestro el que nunca se vio diçipulo.

C.: [54]⁵⁹ ¿Y tu que sabes? ¿Quien te mostro esto?

S.: ¿Quien? Ellas; que desque se h[*an] de descubrir, asi pierden la verguença, que todo esto y au[*n] mas alos onbres manifiestan. Ponte pues enla medid[*a] de onbre; que deves pensar ser mas digno delo que □ rreput[*as].   —38→   [55]⁶⁰ Que çierto, peor estremo es dexarse onbre caer de su meres[*çimiento], que ponerse en mas alto lugar que deve.

C.: Pues yo ¿quien s[*o] para eso?

S.: ¿Quien? Lo primero, eres onbre y despues de claro i[*ngenio]; y mas, a quien la natura doto delos mijores bienes, †bien† [*con]viene a saber: fermosura, gracia, grandes mienbros, fuer[*ça], ligereza. [56]⁶¹ Y allende desto, fortuna medianamente parti[*o] suyos en tal calidades, que los bienes que tienes de dentro ellos rrespland[^eçe](se)n. Porque sin los bienes de fuera, [*delos] quales la fortuna es señora, a ninguno conteçe en su vida s[*er] bienaventurado y mas, a costelaçion, de to[^dos □ amado].

C.: [57]⁶² [^Pero no de Melibea]. □ En todo lo que me as gl[*oriado], □ sin proposiçion nin conparaçion se aventaja Melibea. [*Miras] la nobleza y antiguedad de su linaje, el grandisimo copa[...], el exçelentisimo ingenio, las rresplandeçientes virtudes, la a[*ltitud], la inefable gracia, la soberana fermosura, dela qual te [*ruego] me dexes hablar un poco, por que aya algund rrefrigerio. [58]⁶³ [*Y] lo que te dixere sera delo descubierto, que si delo otro oculto [*yo] hablar □ sopiera, no nos fuera nesçesario tan miserab[*le]mente altercar estas rrazones.

S.: ¿Que mentiras y que locura[*s] dira agora este [^cativo de] mi amo?

C.: [59]⁶⁴ ¿Commo es eso? (^d??)

S.: Dixe [*que] digas, que muy grand plazer avre delo oir. ¡Asi te medre [*Dios], commo me sera agradable ese sermon!

C.: ¿Que?

S.: Que ansi me [*medre] [fol. 97v] Dios, que me sera graçioso de oir.

  —39→  

C.: [60]⁶⁵ Pues, por que ayas plazer, yo telo figurare por partes mucho por istenso.

S.: ¡Duelos tenemos! Eso es tras lo que yo andaba. Ya de pasarse ha esta inportunidad.

C.: [61]⁶⁶ Comienço por los cabellos. ¿Ves tu las madexas de oro delgado que hilan en Arabia? Mas lindos son y mas rresplandesçen □. Su longura hasta el post[^re]mero asiento de sus pies; y despues, incrinados y atados con la delgada cuerda, commo ella(^s) □ los pone, no ha menester mas para [c]onvertir los onbres en piedra.

S.: [62]⁶⁷ ¡Mas en asnos!

C.: ¿Que dizes?

S.: □ Que esos tales non serian çerdas de asno.

C.: ¡Ves que torpe, y que conparaçion!

S.: ¿Tu cuerdo?

C.: Los ojos verdes, rrasgados; las pestañas, luengas; las çejas, delgadas y (c)alçadas; las narizes, medianas; la boca, pequeña; los dientes, menudos y blancos; los labrios, colorados y grosesuelos; [63]⁶⁸ el torno del rrostro, pequeño, mas largo que rredondo; el cuello, largo y delgado; el pecho, alto; la rredondeza y forma delas pequeñas tetas, ¿quien telo podra figurar? ¡que se despereza el onbre quando las mira!; [^la tez, lisa, lustrosa]; el cuero suyo escureçe la nieve; la color, mezclada, qual ella □ escojio para si.

S.: ¡En sus treze esta este neçio!

C.: [64]⁶⁹ Las manos, pequeñas en mediana manera, aconpañadas de □ carne; los dedos, largos y las uñas enellos, largas, □ coloradas. □ Paresçen rrubis   —40→   entre perlas. Aquella p(er)[r]opo[*r]çion que ver yo no pude, no, sin duda por el bulto de fuera juzgo inconparablemente ser mejor (^qual) qu'el [^que] Paris juzgo entre las tres □.

S.: [65]⁷⁰ - ⁷¹ ¿As dicho?

C.: Quan brevemente pude.

S.: Puesto que sea todo □ verdad, por ser (^??) tu onbre eres mas digno.

C.: ¿En que?

S.: En que ella es inperfeta [...]

[Cena 5ª]

[fol. 98r] [76] [...] en ti tiene su esperança y el fin de todo su bien!

S.: [77]⁷² ¡Calla, señora mia! ¿Tu piensas que la distançia del lugar es poderosa de apartar el entrañable amor, el fuego que esta en mi coraçon? Do yo vo, comigo va, comigo esta. No te afligas ni me atormentes mas de lo que yo he padescido. (^me) Mas, di, ¿que pasos suenan arriba?

A.: [78]⁷³ ¿Quien? Un mi enamorado.

S.: Pues creolo.

A.: ¡Alahe, verdad es! Sube □ y velle as.

S.. Vo.

Ce.: ¡Anda aca! Dexa esa loca, qu'ella es liviana, y turbada de tu absençia, y sacasla de seso agora. Dira mill locuras. Ven y hablaremos; no dexemos pasar el tiempo vazio.

S.: [79]⁷⁴ Pues, ¿quien esta arriba?

Ce.: ¿Quiereslo saber?

S.: Quiero.

  —41→  

Ce.: ¿La fe que guardes secreto?

S.: Yo la do.

Çe.: Una moça que me encomendo aqui un fraile.

S.: ¿Que fraile?

Çe.: (^el ministro) Non lo procures.

S.: Por mi vida, madre, ¿quien?

Çe.: ¿Porfias? El ministro, □.

S.: ¡O desventurada, □ que carga espera!

Çe.: Todo lo llevamos. Pocas mataduras has tu visto enla barriga.

S.: [80]⁷⁵ Mataduras, no; mas petreras si.

Çe.: ¡Ay, burlador!

S.: Dexa si soy burlador, mas muestramela.

A.: ¡Ha, don malvado! ¿Vella querias? ¡Los ojos □ te salten, que no te basta □ una ni otra! ¡Anda, anda, veyla y dexa a mi para sienpre!

S.: [81]⁷⁶ ¡Calla, Dios mio! ¿□ Enojaste? Que ni la quiero ver a ella ni a muger naçida. A mi madre quiero hablar, y quedate a Dios.

A.: ¡Anda, anda! ¡Vete, desconoçido, y esta otros tres años que no □ buelvas aca!

S.: [82]⁷⁷ Madre mia, bien ternas confiança □ que no te burlo. Toma el manto y vamos, que por el camino sabras lo que, si aqui me tardase en dezirte, inpediria tu provecho y el mio.

Ce.: Vamos.- Aliçia, quedate a Dios. Çierra la puerta. ¡Adios, paredes!

  —42→  

[Cena 6ª]

S.: [83]⁷⁸ O madre mia, todas las cosas dexadas aparte, solamente sey atenta. Imagina en lo que te dixere y no de|rrames [fol. 98v] tu pensamiento en muchas partes; que quien junto en diversos lugares le pone, en ninguna □, si no por caso, determina lo çierto. Y quiero que sepas de mi lo que por ventura no as oido; y es que jamas pude, despues que mi fe puse contigo, desear bien de que non te cupiese parte.

Ce.: [84]⁷⁹ Parta Dios, hijo, contigo delos suyos, que no sin meritos lo hara, siquiera porque as piedad desta pecadora de vieja. Pero di, no te detengas, que la amistad que entre ti y mi se afirma no ha menester preanbulos ni correlarios ni aparejos para ganar voluntad. Abrevia y ven al hecho, que vanamente se dize por muchas palabras lo que por pocas se puede entender.

S.: [85]⁸⁰ Quieres asi. Calisto arde en amores de Melibea. De ti y de mi esta neçesitado. Pues juntos nos ha menester, juntos nos aprovechemos; que conosçer el tienpo y usar □ dela oportunidad haze los onbres prosperos.

Ce.: Bien as dicho; al cabo esto. Basta para mi meçer el ojo. Digote que me alegro desta nueva, commo los çirujanos, delos descalabrados. [86]⁸¹ Y commo aquellos dañan enlos prinçipios las llagas y encareçen el prometimiento dela salud, asi entiendo yo □ a Calisto alexar la çertenidad del rremedio, porque, commo dizen, el esperança larga aflige el coraçon; y quanto el la perdiere, tu tanto gela promete si me promete. ¡Bien me entiendes!

Senpronio: Contigo esto. La obra mostrara si entendi bien la liçion. Callemos, que ala puerta estamos y, commo dizen, las paredes oyen.

Ce.: Llama.

S.: ¡Tha, tha, tha!

  —43→  

[Cena 7ª]

(S)[C].: [87]⁸² ¡Parmeno!

P.: ¿Señor?

C.: ¿No oyes, sordo maldito?

P.: ¿Que □, señor?

C.: Ala puerta llaman; corre.

P.: ¿Quien es?

S.: Abre a mi y aesta dueña. (^p sera ?? señor Parmeno)

P.: Señor, Senbronio y una puta vieja alcoholada davan [fol. 99r] aquellas porradas.

C.: [88]⁸³ [??] Calla, □ malvado; qu'es mi tia. Corre, corre, abre. †P. torna [??] V[??] es esta ya va [??] a que me sigas la fortuna† Sienpre lo vi, que por huir onbre de un peligro, cae en otro mayor. Por encobrir □ este fecho de Parmeno, al qual amor o themor o fidelidad (^s) pusieran freno, □ a indignaçion desta, que no tiene en mi vida menor poderio que Dios.

P.: [89]⁸⁴ ¿Por que, señor, te matas? ¿Por que □ te congoxas ni atormentas? ¿□ Tu piensas qu'es vituperio enlas orejas desta, el nonbre que la llame? Non lo creas; que asi se glorifica enle oir commo qualquier buen maestro en su arte o commo tu quando oyes: «diestro cavallero es Calisto». Y demas, desto en toda esta cibdad es nonbrada y por este titulo conosçida. [90]⁸⁵ Si entre çient mugeres va y alguna dize: ¡puta vieja!, luego sin ningun enpacho buelve la cabeça [^a ??] y rresponde con alegre cara. Enlos conbites, enlas fiestas, enlas bodas, enlas   —44→   cofraidias, enlos mortuorios, entodos los ayuntamientos de gentes, con ella pasan tienpo. Si esta entre los onbres, no pueden al dezir; si pasa por los perros, aquello suena su ladrido; si esta çerca las aves, otra cosa no cantan; si cerca las bestias, rrebuznando dizen: ¡puta vieja!; si çerca los ganados, balando la pregonan. Quando camina, los grillos la sigen. [91]⁸⁶ Las rranas delos charcos otra cosa non suelen mentar. Si va entre los herreros, aquello sigen sus martillos; carpenteros y armeros, ferradores, caldereros, arcadores; todo ofiçio d'estruendo forma enel aire su nonbre. Cantan □ los çapateros y peinadores, texedores; labradores enlas viñas, enlas huertas, enlas aradas □ y segadas, conella(s) pasan el afan cotidiano. [fol. 99v] [92]⁸⁷ Al perder enlos tableros, luego suenan sus loores; toda cosa que son haze, adoquiera que ella esta, el tal nonbre rrepresenta. ¡□ Que encomendador su marido de huevos asados! ¿Que quieres mas? Sino que si una piedra topa con otra, luego suena: ¡puta vieja!

C.: Y tu, ¿commo □ la conoçes?

P.: [93]⁸⁸ Saberlo as. Dias grandes son pasados que mi madre, muger pobre, morava en su vezindad; la qual, rrogada por esta Çelestina, me dio aella seyendo niño por serviente; aunque ella no me conosçe, por lo poco que la servi y por la mudança que la hedad en mi ha fecho.

C.: ¿De que la servias?

P.: [94]⁸⁹ □ Iva ala plaça; □ traiala de comer; □ aconpañavala; suplia en aquellos menesteres que mi tierna fuerça bastava. Pero de aquel poco tienpo □, rrecogio la nueva memoria lo que la vejez no ha podido quitar. Tinie esta buena dueña al cabo desta çibdad, alla cerca □ las tenerias, enla cuesta del rrio, una   —45→   casa apartada, medio caida, poco conpuesta y menos abastada. [95]⁹⁰ Ella tinie seis ofiçios, conviene a saber. labrandera, perfumera, maestra de □ afeites y de hazer virgos, alcahueta y un poquillo hechizera. Era el primero ofiçio cobertura delos otros, so color del qual muchas moças, destas servientas, entravan en su casa a labrarse y a labrar camisas, □ gorgeras y otras muchas cosas. [96]⁹¹ Y ninguna vinie aella sin torrezno, trigo, harina, □ jarro de vino y delas otras provisiones que podian hurtar a sus amas. Y de aun otros hurtillos de mas calidad alli se encubrian. Asaz era muy amiga de estudiantes y despenseros y moços de abades. Aestos vendia □ aquella sangre inoçente delas cuitadillas, la qual [fol. 100r] ligeramente aventuravan en esfuerço dela rrestituçion que ella les prometia. [97]⁹² Subio su fecho a mas: que por medio destas moças comunicava conlas mas ençerradas, fasta traer a execuçion su proposito. Destas en tienpos onestos, commo estaçiones, proçesiones de noche, misas del gallo, misas del alva y otras □ debuçiones, muchas encubiertas vi entrar en su casa. [98]⁹³ Tras ellas, onbres descalços, contritos, □ rreboçados y desatacados, que entravan alli a llorar sus pecados. ¡Que trafagos traia, si piensas! Haziase fisica de niños, tomava estanbre de unas casas, dava □ a hilar en otras, por achaque de entrar en todas. Las unas: ¡madre aca!, las otras: ¡madre aculla!; ¡cata la vieja!, ¡ya viene el ama! de todas muy conosçida. [99]⁹⁴ Con todos estos afanes, nunca paso dia sin misa ni bisperas, ni dexava monesterio de frailes ni de monjas sin vesitar. Esto (^hazi) porque alli hazia □ sus aleluias □. Hazia en su casa perfumes comunes; falsava estoraques, menjui, animes, algalia, ambra, polvillos,   —46→   almizques, mosquetes. Tenia una camara llena de alanbiques □ de vidrio, de aranbre, d'estaño, fechos de mill façiones. [100]⁹⁵ Hazia solimanes, afeite cozido, argentadas, bugeladas, çerillas, lanillas, unturillas, lustres, lugentores, clarimentos, albalinos, y otras aguas de rrostro, de rrasuras de gamones, de cortezas d'espantalobos, □ taraguntia, de fieles, de agraz, de mosto, destiladas, □ açucaradas. Adelgazava los cueros □ çumo de limones, con turbino, con (^tu) tuetano de çiervo y de garça y otras confaçiones.

[101]⁹⁶ Sacava aguas para oler, de rrosas, de azaar, de jazmin, de trebol, de madreselva y clavellinas, mosquetadas, □ almizcladas, polvorizadas con vino. [fol. 100v] Hazia lexias para enrrubiar, de sarmientos, de carrasca de çenteno, de marrubios; con salitre, con alunbre y milifoliun y otras diversas cosas. [102]⁹⁷ Ya los untos y mantecas que tenia, es hastidio de dezir: de vacas, de oso, de cavallo, □ de camello, de culebra, □ de conejo, de anguilla, de vallena, de garça, □ de alcaravan, □ de lavanco, de gamo, de texon y □ gato montes, □ harda y □ erizo □. [103]⁹⁸ Aparejos para vaños, esto es una maravilla, delas yervas y rraizes que □ enel techo de su casa tenia(n) colgadas: mançanilla y rromeros, arzollas, malvaviscos, culantrillos, coronillas, flor de sauze y de   —47→   mostajo, espliges y laurel blanco, vistorta rrosa y gamonilla, flor salvaje, □ figeruela, pico d'oro, □ foja tinta. [104]⁹⁹ Los azeites que sacava para el rrostro, no es cosa de creer: de estoraque, □ de jazmin, □ de violetas, □ benjui, de pepitas, de limon, de alfostigos, de piñones □, de açufaifas, de neguilla, de altarmuzes, de arvejas □ y de xerva paxarera. [105]¹⁰⁰ Y un poquillo de balsamo que tenia □ en una rredomilla, que guardava ella para aquel rrascuño que tenia por las narizes. Pero esto delos (^p) virgos, unos curava de puntos, otros hazia de lexia. Tenia en un tabladillo □ una caxuela pintada, unas agujas delgadas de pellegero y filos de seda ençerrados, y colgados alli rraizes de foja plasma y fuste sanguino, çebolla alvarrana y çepacavallo. [106]¹⁰¹ Fazia conesto maravillas, que quando aqui vino el enbaxador françes, tres vezes vendio por virgen una criada que tenia. (^y)

[C.:] [^L.O.] ¡Asi la pudiera vender çiento!

P.: ¡Si, santo Dios! □ Remediava por caridad muchas huerfanas y erradas que se encomendavan a ella(^s). [107]¹⁰² Y en otro apartado □ para rremediar [...].

  —48→  

Passages discussed in the introduction are cross-referenced.

AG Pleberio See p. 12.

Elisa Mp systematically switches the initial vowels of the names of Melibea's mother (Alisa → Elisa) and the whore (Elicia → Alicia).

y deleite The addition of de reinforces the parallelism.

los ministraron In the paleographic transcr. (f. 93v21) I misread this as «les ministraron.»

1 que tan perfeta See p. 10.

do The parallelism of the two subordinate clauses is reinforced by the change of do to que.

2 a Dios tengo yo See p. 7.

ni otro poder ... conplir See p. 6.

3 commo1 The addition of agora stresses the fact that Calisto speaks of his present state of beatitude.

4 misto The addition of me alegro strengthens the parallelism. Note also the assonance with reçelo, tormento.

5 silla ... sobre sus santos See p. 14.

6 de onbre de tal ingenio See p. 17.

8 Debatiose ... endereçar Rojas removes the subordinate clause in order to provide a bipartite structure contrasting the bating of the gyrfalcon and Sempronio's own action.

9 commo dizes verdad The text makes no sense as it stands. Punctuate: «¿Commo? Dizes verdad.»? See pp. 10-11.

11 ... sentirias ... Seleuco ... The binder has trimmed the text added in the lower margin before sentirias and after Seleuco. See pp. 14-15.

14 si entro The addition of alla echoes the previous entrare alla.

18 cabsa implies cansa in the model, read as causa; cf. the causa of C.

19 Aunque ... agena See p. 11.

20 Y enestos ... cura See p. 19.

23 Tañe tu y llorare yo The presence of the adversative Pero in LC betrays the suppression.

Torpeo See p. 10.

  —49→  

y el manzilla no avia For the romance's later fortuna see Berndt-Kelley «Popularidad.» For the Golden Age printed versions see Rodríguez-Moñino Manual 2:592 and Diccionario, nos. 629, 870, 1077. Of the 20 16th-c. printings, I have been able to consult seven, all of which give the 4th line as «y el de nada se dolia»: Rodríguez-Moñino Cancionero gótico 99 (= Pliegos poéticos góticos 5:271 [no. 180]), Espejo 85 (= García de Enterría no. XIV), Silva 1550-51 200, Cancionero de romances 1550 271, Menéndez Pidal Cancionero sin año 213v, Pliegos de Praga 2: no. LXXVII, Timoneda Rosa gentil 23.

24 [^¿Que estas murmurando?] See p. 15.

26 y (^mayor) ... apagar See p. 13.

dela aparençia ... rreal See p. 13.

41 canpestres See p. 13.

Pasipa ... Mireva See p. 10.

44 [^Pero lo dicho ... dixere, no te ...] The rest of the addition would have followed on the next line(s). See p. 15.

45-47 ¿quien te contaria ... su suziedad See pp. 18-19.

48 luengas y delgadas tocas Mp originally had luengas tocas y delgadas todas before the correction.

[^so aquel fausto] See p. 15.

49 dize The omission of las mugeres y el vino hazen los hombres renegar: do dize is probably an independent haplography in Mp and IMAGEN. See p. 7.

50 mira que rremidases See p. 11.

51 Guarda sus engaños See p. 11.

52 conversar The change to conferir raises the rhetorical register through the use of a Latinism.

55 despues The primero immediately preceding makes despues very plausible. In Mp these are two separate considerations; Rojas has fused them into one.

grandes mienbros See p. 17.

56 de todos amado See p. 13.

57 In the transcr. (f. 97r18) I misread copa[...] as apa[...].

59 que me ... de oir The change to como echoes the same word in Sempronio's aparte, heightening the latter's effectiveness.

61 mas rresplandesçen The facile parallelism mas ... mas of Mp has been replaced with a contrastive construction based on litotes.

  —50→  

post[^re]mero See p. 13.

63 rredondeza See p. 8.

[^la tez, lisa, lustrosa] See p. 15.

64 aconpañadas de carne See p. 11.

largos Changed in LC to luengos to avoid unmotivated repetition after uñas enellos.

77 comigo va, comigo esta changes the sense of the passage. Here it is Sempronio's «entrañable amor» and «el fuego que esta en mi coraçon» which accompany him, rather than Elicia. Mp allegorizes love; Rojas focuses on the relation between Sempronio and Elicia.

79 ¿La fe ... la do See p. 16.

El ministro P must have contained el gordo, since the following reply, «¡O desventurada, que carga espera!» makes no sense without it. Error in Mp.

81 ni la quiero ver See p. 8.

no buelvas aca Rojas focuses on the relationship between Sempronio and Elicia rather than on the action itself.

83 sey See pp. 7-8.

84 contigo delos suyos Alteration in word order to avoid assonance between immediately adjacent hijo and contigo.

85 usar dela oportunidad The insertion of el hombre destroys the grammatical precision of the phrase by contrasting the singular to the plural. If Rojas added it, his usual rhetorical skill has deserted him.

Digote Rojas has suppressed an indication of the dialogic yo/tú relationship in favor of euphony, avoiding the sequence of three unstressed monosyllabic words ending in -e: te que me.

86 larga Changed to luenga to avoid polyptoton, after the previous substitution of alargar for alexar.

tu ... promete1 Marciales wishes to make Celestina the subject of promete and therefore must emend to prometeré. In fact the promete of LC makes sense as an imperative, although it makes better sense in Mp: Celestina at first takes hope away from Calisto while Sempronio holds it out to him, provided that in turn Calisto makes promises to Celestina, as, indeed, he does not very long afterward (124). The complicity between the two is perfect, as Sempronio points out immediately following. See pp. 16-17.

Contigo ... liçion See pp. 16-17.

  —51→  

las paredes oyen The interjection of commo dizen argues the use of a refrán. Despite Ruiz de Alarcón's Las paredes oyen, was las paredes han oídos more popular? Cf. Tirant lo Blanc: «a vegades les parets tenen orelles» (ed. Riquer 1:351); «¿No sabeu que moltes voltes les parets tenen orelles?» (ibid. 1:563).

88 P. torna ... fortuna This is illegible, but it appears to be a speech belonging to Pármeno which then motivates Calisto's aparte.

carpi[??]dimo in the gloss seems to be a more accurate reading than the «carip[??]dimo» of the paleographic transcr. (f. 99r5); but the passage is very difficult to read.

amor ... fidelidad See p. 17.

89 ¿Por que te congoxas ni atormentas? See p. 17.

qualquier buen maestro en su arte Rojas sharpens the comparison by focusing on Calisto himself.

oyes Changed to dizen in order to avoid the repetition of the verb in enle oir.

en toda esta cibdad The suppression of the phrase leaves desto isolated.

90 Si esta ... al dezir Rojas eliminates the reference in order to move from gatherings to animals to artisans.

las bestias ... pregonan The order of the two sentences is inverted to achieve a rhetorical climax with «¡Puta vieja!»

91 Cantan los çapateros ... cotidiano Marciales notes the corrupt nature of the passage, which is also evident here. The original text must have been very difficult to read, possibly with marginal insertions. Jerry Rank (personal communication) notes that carpinteros is the only oficio which is repeated in LC. Thus he sees it as an error for the original çapateros.

91 enlas viñas ... segadas Rojas revises the phrase to achieve a bipartite rhythmical effect and to place the rhyme words aradas/segadas at the end of each period.

92 toda cosa que son haze ... rrepresenta See p. 16.

encomendador Marciales notes that all of the «ediciones priores» (to Medina del Campo, 1541?) read comedor, whereas the «posteriores» (Salamanca, 1543, to Rouen, 1633-34) offer «comedor, comendador, comandador, encomendador» (2:35n). Significantly, the 1506 Italian translation offers comandatore; and Sal.1570, whose corrector appears to have had access to a good early text, now lost (possibly B [Salamanca, 1500] or E [Toledo, 1504]) (Marciales 1:251), gives «encomendador,» which Gillet also supports. Moreover, the Celestina   —52→   comentada (Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional, MS 17631, f. 36r) glosses the passage: «116 o que comedor de huevos. [Glosa] alius a de dezir o que commendador de huevos. para dar a entender que era cornudo.» I am indebted to Ivy Corfis for the citation.

94 tienpo The addition of que la servi echoes the same phrase immediately preceding in 93.

desta çibdad Changed to dela cibdad to avoid the repetition of the demonstrative from immediately preceding esta buena dueña.

Tinie Is the change to the present here an actualizing device or simply the beginning of a process of recasting the entire narrative in the present, a process which was not finished? For the form see pp. 21-22.

96 hurtar a sus amas The postposition of the verb in LC, because of its Latinate resonances, raises the stylistic level away from the colloquial.

98 traia, si piensas Again, Rojas postpones the verb for stylistic reasons. Note also the balancing effect of tr at the beginning and end of the sentence.

de todas See p. 8.

paso dia The phrase is ambiguous in Mp. Rojas suppresses dia and makes Celestina unequivocally the subject of pasava, which both contrasts semantically to and rhymes with dexava.

monesterio Rojas fairly consistently prefers the plural to the generic singular.

100 çiervo See p. 20.

105 por las narizes In the paleographic transcr. (f. 100v19) I misread por as para

unas agujas See p. 8.