La Machabea and the First Portuguese of the Northern Netherlands*

La Machabea & the 1st Portuguese of the Northern Netherlands 303 Chapter 14 La Machabea & the 1st Portuguese of the Northern Netherlands La Machabea and the First Portuguese of the Northern Netherlands* Harm den Boer This chapter deals with a lengthy printed poem in Spanish entitled La Machabea, published according to its title page by a certain “Pedro Geverdo” in Lyons (“León”) in 1604.1 It was written by an anonymous Portuguese who called himself “Estrella Lusitano” (“Lusitan Star”).2 The poem, celebrating the deeds of the Maccabees, is written in the style of epic or heroic poetry. Epic poetry arose in the Renaissance context of the recovery of the classics and was fashioned according to the models provided by Homer and Virgil, but it also reflected contemporary interests. Particularly in Iberian society, with its history of discoveries, expansion and conquests, this narrative poetry in elevated style was the medium adopted to remember and celebrate the military and spiritual enterprises undertaken by both the Spanish and the Portuguese. Nowadays, perhaps only Os Lusiadas (1572) by Camões and La Araucana (1569-78) by Alonso de Ercilla still enjoy popularity, but in the Golden Age period, epic poetry was the most prestigious of all poetical forms, with a significant presence in Hispanic literature.3 Within the religious branch of epic poetry, poems dealing with Biblical heroes occupy a special place. As several scholars have observed, this particular subgenre was apparently reserved for authors of Jewish descent, the so-called conversos, whether they professed Christianity in the Peninsula or Judaism * Many thanks to my friend and colleague Herman Prins Salomon for copy-editing this study. I have also received helpful information from Carsten Wilke and Fernando Bouza Álvarez. 1 A short description: Estrella Lusitano, La Machabea dividida en dose cantos (Leon: Pedro Geverdo, 1604). In-quarto. π4 A-B4 ($4) C-E4 ($3) F4($4) G4($3) H-O4 ($4-H4, M2) P4($3) Q4($4) R-V4($3) X-2V4($4) 2X2($2); 178 leaves; ff. [4] 1-174. Note: the gatherings in bold are set in small- er font, although this does not affect the amount of text on each page. The paper used in all gatherings has the same water-mark (a vase with flowers). π1r: title-page; π1v: blank; π2r- π4v: preliminary poems; A1r-2X2v: text. 2 “Lusitan Star.” From the lack of gender agreement I infer that the author suggested a fictitious combination of name (“Estrella”) and surname (“Lusitano”). 3 Frank Pierce, La poesía épica del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Gredos, 1961), 213-214; see also Rodrigo Cacho Casal, La poesia épica en el Siglo de Oro (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail- Toulouse, 2012). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004364974_015 304 Den Boer outside of Spain and Portugal. Its best-known examples are David (1624) by Jacobo Uziel, El Macabeo (1638) by Miguel de Silveira, Sansón nazareno (1656) by Antonio Enríquez Gómez, as well as several longer poems by João Pinto Delgado, glorifying Esther, Ruth and the prophet Jeremiah.4 Díaz Esteban con- siders this variety of biblical epic poetry as “Jewish,” summing up the features that classify it as such: their Old Testament protagonists; their lack of any reference to Christ and the Virgin; their eulogy of the God of Israel and the Jewish people; their evocation of the punishments that befall the latter’s enemies.5 I shall not discuss here the degree to which the poems by Silveira, Enríquez Gómez and Delgado adopt “Jewish” as opposed to “Christian” scriptural inter- pretation.6 Apparently, such an opposition was not obvious to Golden Age readers. Although all the mentioned works were printed outside of the Iberian Peninsula, they were never included among the forbidden books in the Indexes of Spain and Portugal. Silveira’s Macabeo was even reprinted in Spain during the eighteenth century (1731): not surprisingly perhaps, as the Books of the Maccabees were included in the Old Testament canon of the Catholic Church, in opposition to the Protestant and Jewish biblical canon.7 What can be claimed without fear of contradiction is that biblical epics written by converso authors provide vindictive exploits of the Hebrews, reshaping the image of a despised minority, and are therefore significant and distinctive for Iberian literature during its “conflictive age.”8 In studies of Iberian biblical epic poetry, Lusitano’s La Machabea has received scant, if any attention.9 This can be explained by the extreme rarity of 4 Fernando Díaz Esteban, “La poesía épica de Miguel de Silveira” in Los judaizantes en Europa y la literatura castellana del Siglo de Oro, edited by Fernando Díaz Esteban (Madrid: Letrúmero, 1994), 103-129 and Harm den Boer, “Hacia un canon de la poesía religiosa judeo-conversa,” Calíope 17 (2011): 19-42. 5 Fernando Díaz Esteban, “La poesía épica,” 107. 6 I have commented this question in “Hacia un canon de la poesía.” 7 In 1546, at the Council of Trent, I and II Maccabees (among other “apocryphal” books) were explicitly included in the Old Testament canon of the Catholic Church, in opposition to the canon of the Protestant and Jewish Bibles. See Catholic Encyclopedia at <http:// newadvent.org s.v>. “Canon of the Old Testament.” 8 See Harm den Boer, “Hacia un canon de la poesía.” My use of the expression “conflictive age” is, of course, a reference to La edad conflictiva, by Américo Castro (Madrid, 1961), a work that analyses Spanish Golden Age culture as largely determined by the conflict between Old and New Christians. Although Castro’s thesis is clearly too reductive, the opposition is still highly relevant for some particular periods, as, for instance, c. 1632. 9 Fernando Díaz Esteban, “La poesía épica,” 105-106. Timothy Oelman makes only a reference to the title in his article, “Tres poetas Marranos.” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 30-1 (1981): 185. It is briefly mentioned by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. From Spanish Court to .

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