IV Cervantes 1547–1616
Leisure, an agreeable residence, pleasant fields, serene skies, murmuring streams, and tranquillity of mind—by these the most barren muse may become fruitful and produce that which will delight and astonish the world.
It is not often that great men are recognized in their lifetime. They may have a few admirers, but their work is probably the subject of dispute and disagreement, and not till years have passed, and the smaller men who attracted momentary attention have been forgotten, are they valued at last at their true worth. Thus it may happen that men who are talked about a great deal, and rather noisily praised by their contemporaries, disappear almost entirely from the memory of man in succeeding generations, while men who in their day have despaired of success, have been neglected, and have sometimes felt the humiliation of failure, live on in their work long after their death and exercise an influence more far-reaching than they themselves ever dreamed of.
Of course you have heard of Don Quixote, and you have probably read some of his amusing adventures—how he went about with his funny little squire, Sancho Panza, and gave proof of his heroism in many diverting ways. But the book in which his adventures are written is not only an entertaining story—it is a wonderfully accurate picture of Spanish life in the sixteenth century, and is a record of many interesting events that took place outside Spain as well. When it was published in 1605, the book was very popular in Spain, but nobody thought it was going to become one of the world’s greatest books, no one guessed that it would be translated into more foreign languages than any other book in the world except the Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” No one, therefore, paid much attention to the author, and his very birthplace was not even remembered after he died. But when the Spaniards found that Cervantes had become famous throughout the world, then they took the trouble to unearth something about his history, and it was found that he had a claim to fame as a man, apart from his renown as an author.
Cervantes was a soldier. It is not usual for a soldier to write imaginative books. But he was not a soldier in a regular army, drilling every day in a barrack square, but a soldier who went out and fought, endured fearful hardships, and had the most terrible adventures. He gained in this way a very wide knowledge of the world, which, combined with his powerful imagination, made him into one of the world’s great geniuses.
Let us try and follow him through the main events of his crowded life. Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. Alcala de Henares in New Castille was his birthplace, but very little is known of his childhood. As a boy he used to watch the strolling players in the town, and he relates details of his recollection of them which remained stamped on his memory. They would come round and give performances in the market square. Their properties consisted of a sack which held four white sheepskin dresses trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, wigs, and crooks. The decoration of the theater was an old blanket hung on two ropes. One can well imagine that their performances and the verses of the comedies remained with him vividly when he was grown up. His education was supposed to have been neglected because he never went to a university. But if he made mistakes in his writings which a man who had passed examinations would have avoided, he managed to obtain a knowledge of men and life—a more important knowledge, which many a ripe scholar might envy. At an early age he tried his hand at writing, and at twenty-one his poems, on the death of the Queen of Spain, were especially praised by his tutor.
Years were destined to pass before Cervantes settled down to any literary work. I expect he knew he had the talent, but there was very little chance for him to test it. He liked adventure and wanted to be up and doing, so he seized the first opportunity he could of gaining some experience of the world outside his own country. He went to Rome and became a page in the household of an envoy of the Pope whose acquaintance he had made in Madrid. But this did not suit him, because the life of a page or chamberlain was intolerably slow and uneventful. Bowing and scraping, entertaining and intriguing, was not in his line at all. He resigned his post and enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish regiment in Italy. Pope Pius V was organizing at that time a Holy League against the Turks, whose great conquests were alarming the States of Europe. But there was some difficulty in getting European nations to agree to any plan for attacking Turkey. They were jealous of one another and would not all act together. At last, after a long delay, which was spent by Cervantes in Naples, the League, consisting of the Pope, Venice, and Spain, was organized under the command of the famous Don John of Austria, a brilliant general, who was half-brother of King Philip II of Spain. The fleet of these three States was the largest that had ever sailed under a Christian flag. It consisted of galleys rowed by a large number of oarsmen, who were all criminals under sentence. In the Turkish fleet the oarsmen were Christian slaves. The object of the allies was to recover Cyprus from the Turks. But before they could reach so far a great naval engagement took place in the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. After some hard fighting the allied fleets were victorious.
Miguel de Cervantes, though he was acting only as a common soldier, behaved with conspicuous heroism. Weak with fever which he had caught at Naples, he insisted, in spite of protests, on obtaining the command of a dozen men, and stood with them in a position exposed to the hottest fire of the enemy. From his ship he boarded one of the Turkish galleys and received three gunshot wounds—two in the breast and one shattering his left hand, which was maimed for the rest of his life. His conduct won for him the applause of all his comrades, and he always looked back on this episode as the most glorious in his career.
Twenty thousand Turks perished, and a hundred and seventy of their galleys were captured in this memorable fight at Lepanto, which, if it did not destroy, anyhow arrested the power of Turkey. A great storm followed the victory, and Don John sailed away to Messina with his wounded men, whom he landed there. Cervantes, whose wounds were very severe, was among them. He received a special grant of money for his distinguished service. But so eager was he to be at the front again that it was not long before he had joined Don John in his second attempt to overcome the Turkish fleet, which, however, was unsuccessful.
A campaign in Africa followed and Tunis was captured, soon, however, to be recaptured by the Turks, whose power remained unbroken. These expeditions occupied nearly four years, and Cervantes went through the experience of the hardships of war, the joy of victory, and the despair of defeat. He was now a sick and maimed soldier who had witnessed deeds of knightly valor, but had also known the wearisome delays, the failures, and the disappointments of a soldier’s life.
Having been away for six years, he asked leave to return to his native land. This was granted, and he left Naples in a galley called El Sol with letters from Don John to the King, in which he was strongly recommended as “a man of valor, of merit, and of many signal services.” But on the voyage a terrible calamity befell him, which was to be the greatest of all his adventures and the severest of all his trials. Just as he was rejoicing at the sight of the Spanish coast, a squadron of corsairs, or pirates, under a redoubtable captain who was the terror of the Mediterranean, bore down on El Sol. A desperate fight followed, but the pirate galleys were too strong. A number of Spaniards were captured, and Cervantes found himself carried off to Africa and placed at the mercy of a savage Greek who was noted for his wild ferocity. As letters were found on him from Don John of Austria, he was considered a prize of considerable value, for whom a large ransom might be demanded. Accordingly he was sent to Algiers heavily chained, and was treated there with the greatest severity.
During his captivity, which lasted as long as five years, Cervantes showed the most splendid courage; adversity, indeed, brought out the finest qualities in his character. He persistently organized plans of escape, the failure of one never deterring him from preparing another. On the first occasion his project was defeated by a Moor, who was engaged as a guide but deserted at the last moment, and the party of fugitives were obliged to return to Algiers, where Cervantes was severely punished. The next year a sum of money was sent over by his parents, but was not sufficient for his ransom. His brother Rodrigo, who was one of the prisoners, was, however, set free, and went home to Spain with a request that a war vessel should be despatched to Algiers to rescue the others. Cervantes in the meantime made all the necessary arrangements for escape. He concealed about fifty of the Spanish fugitives in a cave outside the town, and actually managed to have them supplied with food for six months. It was a long time to wait, but at last the day came when the ship was expected, and he and his comrades were in readiness. But, as bad luck would have it, a traitor betrayed them at the critical moment and their secret got out. A force of armed Turks discovered and captured them. Cervantes immediately took upon himself the whole blame and declared that he alone was responsible. Though threatened with torture and even death, he refused to implicate any one of his companions in the scheme of flight. The cruel Turkish Governor, Hassan Pasha, before whom he was brought did not as a rule hesitate to hang, impale, or mutilate his prisoners. But in this case he appears to have been overawed by the astounding fearlessness of the remarkable Spaniard who was brought before him.
While in captivity Cervantes addressed a rhymed letter to the King’s secretary describing the sufferings of himself and his companions and appealing for help from Spain. Although nothing came of this, the undaunted hero set about devising a new plan of escape, which yet again was destined to be frustrated. This time his messenger was caught and ordered to be impaled, while he himself was condemned to receive two thousand blows with a stick; this latter sentence, fortunately, was never carried out. Notwithstanding repeated failure and the dangerous risks he ran, Cervantes on the first opportunity hatched another plot.
Two merchants agreed to provide an armed vessel in which sixty of the principal captives were to embark. A Spanish monk called Blanco de Paz, who seems for some unknown motive to have conceived a deadly hatred for Cervantes, revealed the scheme before it could be carried out. In spite of this, however, the adventurous captive might easily have escaped from the terrible life to which he was doomed had he consented to the proposal of the merchants to go away alone. But he firmly refused to abandon his companions in their distress, and in order that none of his friends might suffer, he came forward once more and gave himself up to the Governor. He was bound and led with a rope round his neck before Hassan. As usual, he displayed no fear, although this time he fully expected that he would be hanged or impaled, or at least have his nose and ears cut off by the Governor’s orders. But for some mysterious reason—probably the hope that a very high price would be offered for so remarkable a man—nothing worse than five months’ close confinement in chains was meted out to him. Hassan declared that so long as he had the maimed Spaniard in safe keeping his Christians, ships, and city were secure.
Meanwhile, in Spain more active steps were taken to collect sufficient money for his ransom. His father had died, but his mother and sister managed to raise a considerable sum, and money came in from other sources. Messengers were despatched to Africa, and after a long dispute over the bargain with the Turkish Pasha, Cervantes, who had actually embarked on a ship bound for Constantinople, was at last set at liberty.
It is not from the boasting of Cervantes himself that we have the particulars of his behavior during these five years of captivity. Blanco de Paz circulated malicious reports about him, and this led to an investigation. It is, therefore, on the authority of his fellow-captives that the story comes down to us. They witnessed to his good-temper and cheerfulness, for he had an overpowering sense of humor which must have saved his companions from depression and despair; they tell of his courage in danger, his resolution under suffering, his patience in trouble, and his daring and cleverness in action.
Had he lived in the days of newspapers, the fame of his exploits would have been proclaimed to all the world. He would have been petted and spoilt as a hero, and all the empty flattery and cheap advertisement which is heaped on any one in our day who appeals for the moment to the popular imagination would have been loaded upon him without stint. As it was, he arrived to find his family impoverished and in trouble, his patron, Don John of Austria, dead, and no one to say a good word for him in high quarters. He had been away ten years and was now only thirty-three.
In 1580, the year of Cervantes’ return to his native land, Spain was at the very height of her power. Philip II ruled not only over Spain but over Portugal and the Netherlands: more than half Italy belonged to him, as well as Oran and a considerable territory on the African shore of the Mediterranean, and in addition all that was European in Southern Asia. In the New World, from Chile to Florida, three-quarters of the known continent came under his rule.
By sea and by land Spain was predominant and was the envy and admiration of her neighbors. But with all this greatness, which was only the greatness of size, decay was present in the heart of the Empire. Under Philip, the rot spread further.
Lust for gold, which poured into the country from her rich colonies, and rage for dominion absorbed every wholesome passion in Spain, and gradually she fell away from her position of domination. It is one of the many instances which show how Imperial ambition and the worship of force can bring about a country’s ruin. Men begin to boast about the number of square miles and the number of million souls that come under their flag. Their minds become occupied with material ends: the Government pursues a policy of aggression and aggrandizement: and the urgent needs of improvement in the social and economic condition of the common people are neglected. To wring as much as possible from the people at home and to acquire as much secret influence as possible in the affairs of other nations was the rule of Philip’s conduct and the object of his life.
There were wars without number, and Cervantes seems to have found a fresh opportunity of serving his country as a soldier in Portugal, but the evidence for this is doubtful. But, what is more important, he now became more active with his pen, and wrote a number of poems and plays. The most famous of these was “Galatea,” a poetical romance which brought him to the front. Nevertheless, he found he could not get enough money by writing to keep his home—in fact, to the end, his life was a perpetual struggle with poverty.
At the age of thirty-seven he married a lady who rejoiced in the high-sounding name of Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazan y Vezmediano. Hardly anything is known of her, except the dowry which she brought with her, which consisted amongst other things of plantations of vines, household furniture, two linen sheets, three of cotton, a cushion stuffed with wool, one good blanket and one worn, garments, four beehives, forty-live hens and pullets and one cock. Her neighbors considered that so rich a young woman was throwing herself away on the obscure maimed soldier who was many years her senior. She survived her husband by ten years.
Cervantes began now to work at his writing very seriously, but he was quite unable to compete with the principal Spanish dramatist of the time, Lope de Vega, who was a great popular favorite, and, though the younger of the two, outstripped his rival easily in his powers of production, which were prodigious. But he was known as “the universal envier” of the applause given to others. In his lifetime Lope is said to have written one thousand eight hundred plays, not to mention innumerable poems and stories. He was a dissolute character, with great energy, boundless invention, and considerable wit. But few of his plays have survived, and outside Spain the name of Lope de Vega is but little known to-day. The Spanish drama of this period was the model copied by other countries. The bustling farce originated in Spain, and Elizabethan and Jacobean writers took many of the plots for their plays from Spanish dramatists.
But Cervantes could not make a living out of writing; unlike Lope, he had no powerful and influential friends. He had therefore to look for other employment. The Invincible Armada was just then being fitted up, and he got a post as agent for collecting provisions, and afterwards he was appointed to the very humble position of tax-collector—an occupation he must have hated, as he got into trouble more than once, having to pay the debts of people whom he had trusted too much. He applied for a higher post in the Government service, but his petition was dismissed and he was forced to continue the distasteful work at a reduced salary, falling into such extreme poverty at one time that he actually was in need of common cloth to cover his nakedness. His unbusinesslike habits made people suspect his honesty. He drifted lower and lower, until at last he was imprisoned in Seville for mistakes in his accounts. From the court he could expect nothing. Philip was not likely to be sympathetic to a struggling writer or even grateful to an old soldier, and prayers from Cervantes were set aside unanswered. Nor when Philip’s son, Philip III, succeeded to the throne did any crumb of royal favor fall his way.
In the face of all these disadvantages and troubles the great work of his genius was being conceived and written, and in 1605 the first part of “Don Quixote” appeared. Although it was an immediate success with the people, the Church of course expressed strong disapproval, and literary men criticized it, Lope de Vega wrote: “No poet is as bad as Cervantes nor so foolish as to praise ‘Don Quixote.’”
The books people read most of all in those days were romances of chivalry, recording absurd adventures of wonderful knights-errant who wandered about capturing princesses from castles and performing great deeds of prowess—all written quite seriously. Cervantes wanted to ridicule this sort of literature and show up its absurdity. But so fertile was his imagination and so varied had been his own experiences that at the same time, as I have already said, he succeeded in giving a wonderfully graphic picture of Spanish life, bringing in all classes of society and also recording many of his own adventures as a soldier.
Don Quixote himself, though a ridiculous figure in a way, is depicted as a delightful gentleman filled with generous and high-minded sentiments, courteous and kindly, a champion of the downtrodden, and a protector of the weak. The word “quixotic,” which is used in every language in the civilized world, conveys precisely the knight’s character. It means a man with impossibly extravagant romantic and chivalrous notions, but a man with high ambitions who is a champion and reformer at heart. The book was not the work of a learned scholar or professor; it was the outcome of natural genius which appealed directly to all classes and all ages. The saying at the time was that “Children turn its leaves, young people read it, grown men understand it, old folks praise it.” The English were among the first to appreciate the wonderful book of adventures and it was translated in 1612.
About the second part of “Don Quixote” there is a curious story. While Cervantes was at work at it, some one who called himself Avellaneda (some think it was his old enemy, Blanco de Paz) wrote and published a second part, which was a sort of imitation rather cleverly done, but, of course, without any of the merits of the original. It contains an ill-natured prologue referring to the author of the first part as a cripple, a backbiter, a malefactor, and a jailbird, and reproaching him for having more tongue than hands (a reference to his maimed left hand). Cervantes was naturally indignant at this attempt to spoil his book. He hastened to issue his own second part, and thus completed his great work, which, throughout, is of the same high quality. It is possible that had it not been for the intrusion of this impertinent interloper the second part of “Don Quixote” might never have been finished.
The whole book was written at a time when the poor unfortunate author was struggling sometimes actually for bread. But nowhere in it can be found any trace of malice or bitterness. The second part was finished as he was approaching the seventieth year of a life of toil, privation, and disappointment. But his unfailing cheerfulness and good-humor never left him. This is very remarkable, because so many authors who have written satire have been unable to resist spiteful digs at other people.
It is a great pity there is no proper portrait of Cervantes. Velasquez, the greatest Spanish painter, lived just a little too late, but his master and father-in-law, Pacheco, painted a picture representing the release of captives from Algiers, and a boatman in that picture is supposed to represent Cervantes. There is also a doubtful portrait by a painter called Jaurequi. But many portraits came out, one of which is reproduced here, which were made up from his own description of himself:
He whom you see here of aquiline features with chestnut hair, a smooth, unruffled forehead, with sparkling eyes and a nose arched though well proportioned—a beard of silver which not twenty years since was of gold—great mustaches, a small mouth, the teeth of no account, for he has but six of them, and they in bad condition and worse arranged, for they do not hold correspondence with one another; the body between two extremes, neither great nor little; the complexion bright, rather white than brown; somewhat heavy in the shoulders—this, I say, is the aspect of the author of “Don Quixote de la Mancha.”
He also tells us he had an infirmity of speech and was nearsighted.
The Archbishop of Toledo, who was one of the few people who befriended him, was once questioned by some French visitors about him. “I found myself compelled to say,” he confesses, “that he was an old man, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor.” “If it is necessity that compels him to write,” replied one of the strangers, “may God send he may never have abundance, so that, poor himself, he may make the whole world rich.”
Cervantes lived for some years in a very poor part of Valladolid. The family, consisting of his wife, his daughter, his sister, a niece, and a cousin, were more or less dependent on him, though the women by their needlework helped to keep the household going. The sidelights cast by scraps of evidence which have been collected about members of his family do not give at all an attractive impression of his domestic life. It was altogether rather squalid and wretched: he lived cooped up in hugger-mugger fashion, doing odds and ends of work for business men into whose characters he could not afford to pry too curiously. But Cervantes’ mind was in no way poisoned by his surroundings.
Even if “Don Quixote” had never been written, the stories called “Novelas Examplares” would have entitled Cervantes to the foremost place among Spanish novelists.
Sir Walter Scott admired them greatly, and declared that they had first inspired him with the ambition of excelling in fiction. Cervantes went on writing to the very end of his life. An anecdote he tells in one of his last writings shows the sort of cheerful way in which he looked upon failing health, old age, and death. He relates how a student overtook him as a companion on the road one day, and hearing the name of Miguel de Cervantes, at once alighted from his ass and (to put it in his own words)—
made for me and hastily seized me by the left hand, cried “Yes, yes; it is he of the crippled hand, sure enough, the all-famous, the merry writer, and indeed the joy of the Muses!” To me, who in these brief terms saw of my praises the grand compass, it seemed to be discourteous not to respond to them, so, embracing him round the neck, whereby I made entire havoc of his collar, I said: “This is a mistake in which many friends from ignorance have fallen. I, sir, am Cervantes; but not the joy of the Muses, nor any of the fine things your worship has said. Regain your ass and mount, and let us travel together in pleasant talk for the rest of our short journey.” The polite student did so, we reduced our speed a little, and at a leisurely pace pursued our journey, in the course of which my infirmity was touched upon. The good student checked my mirth in a moment: “This malady is the dropsy, which not all the water of the ocean, let it be ever so sweet drinking, can cure. Let your worship set bounds to your drink, not forgetting to eat, for so without other medicine you will do well.” “That many have told me,” answered I. “but I can no more give up drinking for pleasure than I had been born for nothing else. My life is slipping away, and by the diary my pulse is keeping, which at the latest will end its reckoning this coming Sunday, I have to close my life’s account. Your worship has come to know me in a rude moment, since there is no time for me to show my gratitude for the good-will you have shown me.”
He ends his narrative with the words:
Good-by, humors; good-by, pleasant fancies; good-by, merry friends; for I perceive I am dying, in the wish to see you happy in the other life.
Cervantes died on April 19, 1616, at Madrid, and was buried without any ceremony. No stone or inscription even marked his grave. When, thirty years later, Lope de Vega died, grandees bore his coffin and bishops officiated at the funeral ceremonies, which lasted nine days.
Look out for people about whom a tremendous fuss is made, and remember that loud applause is not necessarily the accompaniment of real merit.
No wise man expects to get immediate credit for his achievements. He does not work for personal renown, but for the love of his art or the attainment of his ideals. Fame is cheaply won by many who little deserve it. But to leave so rich a legacy to mankind as Cervantes did, and a name so highly honored for all time, is the privilege of very few.
A. P.