Morning Read: Exemplary
We confine our attention today to the “epistolary novel” that takes up two-and-then-some chapters of Don Quixote, also known as the “Novela del curioso inpertinente,” or tale of the recklessly curious man. Because I was sure that I had read the story before, I was mad to find an earlier version; I remain unpersuaded that it might be Decameron, X, viii. As I continued reading Cervantes’s novella, however, the story became quite unfamiliar, and decidedly operatic. But I did note one thing: the happy ending of Boccaccio’s tale of switched husbands would probably have been intolerable in Golden Age Spain.
Boccaccio tells of two friends, one Greek and one Roman, from the time of Octavian (later Augustus), who are so close that, when Gisippus is betrothed to Sophronia, and his friend Titus actually falls in love with her, Gisippus hands her over, under cover of night, while continuing to be her daytime husband. This arrangement persists, with Sophronia none the wiser, until Titus is summoned back to Rome, and wants to take Sophronia with him. McWilliam’s note suggests that Boccaccio is indulging in over-the-top parody of rhetorical paeans to friendship; Titus’s arguments in defense of what he and Gisippus have done sound equally strange to his listeners and to us.
In Cervantes, Anselmo and Lotario are the friends. Anselmo’s delight in his new wife, Camila, takes a toxic turn when he becomes obsessed with testing her fidelity. He begs Lotario to try to seduce her. This is already very different from Boccaccio’s story in several important ways. First, and most objectionably, Anselmo continues to enjoy his marital rights. Second, Lotario, unlike Titus, is not interested in Camila until Anselmo begs his bizarre favor — which brings to mind, by the way, the shenanigans in Così fan tutte. The bulk of the tale is given over to the scrapes that Camila narrowly avoids once she has capitulated to Lotario. There is a wonderful scene involving a tapestry, behind which Anselmo hides, and overhears a carefully-rehearsed scene that is designed to put him off the scent. Of course, it all comes to grief in the end. Anselmo dies of wretchedness; Lotario is killed in the wars; and Camila withers away in a convent. “Éste fue el fin que tuvieron todos, nacido de un tan desatinado principio.”
Cervantes does not simply drop this novella — ostensibly discovered among some papers at the inn to which Quixote and his friends repair on the way to slay the giant who menaces the kingdom of Micomicón — into his principal narrative. He interrupts the story right before what turns out to be the dénouement.
Only a little more of the novel remained to be read when a distraught Sancho Panza rushed out of the garret where Don Quixote slept, shouting:
“Come, Señores, come quickly and help my master, who’s involved in the fiercest, most awful battle my eyes have ever seen!”
Sleepwalking, it seems, Quixote has mistaken some hanging wineskins for his giant, and, slashing at them wildly, has all but flooded to the garret. Dorotea calms everyone down, and the licentiate priest finishes reading the novella. The juxtaposition of sordid adultery and grotesque buffoonery must be intended to warn readers against taking potential opera plots as seriously as Quixote takes his knightly romances.