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Page 12
Don F�lix de Montemar is the typical Don Juan type, a libertine,
gambler, blasphemer, heartless seducer, but superhumanly brave. Yet the
plot of Espronceda's poem bears closer resemblance to the story told of
Miguel Ma�ara.
Miguel Ma�ara (often erroneously spelled Mara�a) Vicentelo de Leca
(1626-1679) was an alderman (_veintecuatro_) of Seville and a knight of
Calatrava. As a youth his character resembled that of Don Juan. One day
some hams sent to him from the country were intercepted by the customs.
He started out to punish the offending officers, but on the way repented
and thenceforth led a virtuous life. In 1661, after his wife's death,
he entered the Hermandad de la Caridad, later becoming superior of that
order. In his will he endowed the brotherhood with all his wealth and
requested that he be buried under the threshold of the chapel of San
Jorge. His sole epitaph was to be "Here repose the bones and ashes of
the worst man who ever existed in the world." Don Miguel's biography was
written by his friend the Jesuit Juan de Carde�as and was added to by
Diego L�pez de Haro, "Breve relaci�n de la muerte, de la vida y virtudes
de Don Miguel de Ma�ara," Seville, 1680.
There soon sprang up a legend around the name of Ma�ara. He is said
to have fallen in love with the statue on the Giralda tower. On one
occasion the devil gave him a light for his cigar, reaching across
the Guadalquivir to do so. Again, he pursued a woman into the very
cathedral, forcibly pulled aside her mantilla and discovered a skeleton.
Yet more surprising, he was present, when still alive, at his own
funeral in the Church of Santiago. But these stories associated with the
name of Ma�ara are much older than he. Antonio de Torquemada, "Jard�n de
Flores Curiosas," Salamanca, 1570, tells of an unnamed knight who fell
in love with a nun. He enters her convent with false keys only to find a
funeral in progress. On inquiring the name of the deceased, he is told
that it is himself. He then runs home pursued by two devils in the form
of dogs who tear him to pieces after he has made pious repentance.
Crist�bal Bravo turned this story into verse, Toledo, 1572. One or other
of these versions appears to have been the source of Zorrilla's "El
Capit�n Montoya." Gaspar Crist�bal Lozano, "Soledades de la Vida y
Desenga�os del Mundo" (Madrid, 1663), tells the same story, and is the
first to name hero and heroine, Lisardo and Teodora. Lozano, too, is the
first to make the male protagonist a Salamanca student. Lozano's version
inspired two ballads entitled "Lisardo el Estudiante de C�rdova." These
were reprinted by Dur�n, _Romancero general_, Vol. I, pp. 264-268, where
they are readily accessible.
This ballad of Lisardo the Student of Cordova was undoubtedly
Espronceda's main source in writing "The Student of Salamanca," and to
it he refers in line 2 with the words _antiguas historias cuentan_. Yet
the indebtedness was small. Espronceda took from the ballad merely the
idea of making the hero of the adventure a Salamanca student, and
the episode of a man witnessing his own funeral. Needless to say
Espronceda's finished versification owed nothing to the halting meter of
the original. Lisardo, a Salamanca student, though a native of Cordova,
falls in love with Teodora, sister of a friend, Claudio. Teodora is
soon to become a nun. One night he makes love to her and is only mildly
rebuked. But a ghostly swordsman warns him that he will be slain if he
does not desist. Nevertheless he continues his wooing in spite of the
fact that Teodora has become a nun. She agrees to elope. While on his
way to the convent to carry out this design, his attention is attracted
by a group of men attacking an individual. This individual proves to be
himself, Lisardo. Lisardo, then, witnesses his own murder and subsequent
funeral obsequies. This warning is too terrible not to heed. He gives
over his attempt at seduction and leads an exemplary life.
There are many other examples in the literature of Spain of the man who
sees his own funeral. Essentially the same story is told by Lope de
Vega, "El Vaso de Elecci�n. San Pablo." B�votte thinks that M�rim�e in
"Les Ames du purgatoire" was the first to combine the Don Juan and the
Miguel de Ma�ara legends, so closely alike in spirit, into a single
work. But Said Armesto finds this fusion already accomplished in a
seventeenth-century play, "El Ni�o Diablo." Dumas owed much to M�rim�e
in writing his allegorical play "Don Juan de Mara�a," first acted April
30, 1836. This became immediately popular in Spain. A mutilated Spanish
version appeared, Tarragona, 1838, Imprenta de Chuli�. It is doubtful
whether Espronceda owes anything to either of these French works,
although both works contain gambling scenes very similar to that in
which Don F�lix de Montemar intervened. In the Dumas play Don Juan
stakes his mistress in a game, as Don F�lix did his mistress's portrait.
It seems likely that Espronceda derived his whole inspiration for this
scene from Moreto's "San Franco de Sena," which he quotes.
The legend of the man who sees his own funeral belongs to the realm of
folk-lore. Like superstitions are to be found wherever the Celtic race
has settled. In Spain they are especially prevalent in Galicia and
Asturias. There the _estantigua_ or "ancient enemy" appears to those
soon to die. These spirits, or _almas en pena_, appear wearing
winding-sheets, bearing candles, a cross, and a bier on which a corpse
is lying. Don Quijote in attacking the funeral procession probably
thought he had to do with the _estantigua_. Furthermore, Said Armesto in
his illuminating study "La Leyenda de Don Juan" proves that the custom
of saying requiem masses for the living was very ancient in Spain. One
recalls, too, how Charles V in his retirement at Yuste rehearsed his own
funeral, actually entering the coffin while mass was being said.
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