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2014-09-25 The Music in Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poetry and his Poetry in Music: A Musico-Poetic Interchange Between Sixteenth-Century Spain and Italy
Oss-Cech Chiacchia, Maria Carolina
Oss-Cech Chiacchia, M. C. (2014). The Music in Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poetry and his Poetry in Music: A Musico-Poetic Interchange Between Sixteenth-Century Spain and Italy (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28252 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1819 doctoral thesis
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The Music in Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poetry and his Poetry in Music: A Musico-Poetic
Interchange Between Sixteenth-Century Spain and Italy
by
Maria Carolina Oss-Cech Chiacchia
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY
INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE PROGRAM
CALGARY, ALBERTA
September, 2014
© Maria Carolina Oss-Cech Chiacchia 2014 ABSTRACT
This dissertation, about the music of Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry and his poetry in music, draws from the fields of philology, linguistics, and musicology to provide an interdisciplinary perspective of the topic embedded in two interrelated contexts: Hispanic/Neapolitan Renaissance poetry and music. Garcilaso, a sixteenth-century courtier and soldier, travelled extensively to serve in war especially in Italy. This cross-cultural contact led to the adaptation of Italian poetic forms and meters. Garcilaso fused imitated forms with the lyricism of his Spanish language. Scholars repeatedly praised his poetry for mastery of form and style, and a finest sense of musicality. And thus the question: What do critics mean by musicality? And how does musicality serve the literary medium in the construct of meaning? Few scholars have investigated Garcilaso’s lyric expression. Moreover, considering that humanist imitation of the classics extended to their theories of language as a means to convey their ideology, and given that Renaissance composers sought the finest vernacular poetry for their musical settings, in the second part I pose the question: To what extent did Garcilaso’s poetry and the sixteenth-century musico-poetic context intersect? For the first argument, I construe musicality, in Bakhtinian terms, as the means by which the poetic voice conveys meaning and establishes a dialogue with the listener and other texts. I thus examine the tapestry of poetic linguistic elements that heightens the etymological meaning of words. For the next section, I survey the complex tapestry of Hispanic/Neapolitan dialogic genres to understand how Garcilaso’s poetry intersected with the musico-poetic landscape. My findings reveal that the epithet ‘musical’ in Garcilaso’s poetry, is substantiated by a linguistic soundscape consisting of tangible elements embedded in every fibre of the poetic structures herein analyzed. In the second part of the study, Garcilaso’s poetry emerges in the music collections by Alonso Mudarra, Diego Pisador, Esteban Daza, Pere Alberch Vila, Pedro and Francisco Guerrero, Juan Vásquez, the Italian composer Giulio Severino, and in Italian anonymous manuscripts, such as Magliabechiano XIX (Florence, Italy). This dissertation includes a CD containing Renaissance musical settings of Garcilaso’s poetry, including a new transcription of the Magliabechiano musical setting.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While I take full responsibility for the shortcomings of this work, my gratitude to the many people that contributed directly or indirectly is without measure.
Years ago, I was inspired by the work of Dr. Rachel Schmidt. I was fortunate that she accepted to support me through what began as a haphazard project driven more by a sense of delight and wonder for Garcilaso’s poetry than an understanding of the academic challenges ahead. To say that I am grateful for her Virgilian mentorship, intellectual stimulation, the research assistantship, the generosity of time, the ample sharing of critical insight and unyielding quest for precision and clarity in writing, is an understatement. I also owe to Dr. Schmidt my love for Dámaso Alonso, San Juan de la Cruz, Góngora and Cervantes, whose Licenciado wandered the world with no other reading than Unas Horas de Nuestra Señora y un Garcilaso sin comento.
I aknowledge Dr. John Archibald for accepting to serve on my committee at a time of his professional transfer and for continuing a long-distance mentorship. Whereas linguistics was a foreign context before I begun this research, the new insights gained under his guidance broaden the field of understanding considerably. In the field of linguistics, I also recognize Dr. Carter who, along with Dr. Archibald, provided constructive insight and support in the development of my argument on the Ode ad Florem Gnidi.
I thank Dr. Francesca Cadel for emphasizing the significant role of women poetess in the
Hispanic/Neapolitan context. I gained new appreciation for the poetry of Vittoria Colonna and her Neapolitan humanistic circle of women poets-musicians whose works and influence proved to be significant in the life and works of Garcilaso de la Vega.
iii Dr. Susan Lewis Hammond must be recognized for offering me a research assistantship during which time I gained invaluable understanding of the musicological world I was about to enter. The long-distance discussions, critical input, and suggestions for the improvement of my writing were appreciated beyond measure.
I aknowledge Dr. Kenneth Brown, for providing me a copy of Morros’s edition of
Garcilaso’s works, a book I carry with me at all times. Dr. Brown offered many invaluable insights on Naples and Garcilaso. He gave me several of his articles for this research project and his discovery of Reggio 55 inspired me to consider further the influence of Garcilaso in Italy.
I am grateful to Dr. Patricia Hrynkiw, whose academic mentorship began ten years ago.
Our lengthy discussions shaped my pedagogical approach greatly and the way I attend to my students. Her gift, a book written by Maxine Greene: Releasing the Imagination, is always at my side reminding me that imagination is a means of decentering oneself into students’ spaces
(1995). Since this work is ultimately designed for my students, and since my graduate studies would not have materialized without her unyielding support, I will always be in her debt.
When I think of academic and personal mentorship, one person in particular comes to mind: Margaret Ramsey. I thank Margie for her unyielding interest for my studies, and her unconditional sisterhood so often found in poetry but seldom in real life. The kind of support
Margie provided me, ranged from personal care packages to the most stimulating academic insight. Her notes throughout the most difficult times were rays of light in often obscure places.
Her encouragement during this journey meant a great deal to me, for her advice came from a place of knowing and most of all from true friendship.
I acknowledge those researchers who took the time to send me free information from far away universities or libraries. Their responses were always surprisingly generous and most
iv appreciated. I also include those who contributed to this work, directly or indirectly, in so many ways. They are: William Anselmi, Robinson Ayala Mejía, Reyes Bertolin-Cebrian, Lorenzo
Bianconi, María Teresa Cacho, Elvezio Canonica, Diana Carter, Francesco Ciabattoni, Victor
Coelho, Juan José Pastor Comín, Jean Auger-Crow, Marcel Danesi, Aaron Dalton, Jerald Fast,
Dinko Fabris, Carlos Foggins, Elizabeth Montes Garcés, Stefano Giannini, Emily Gillen, Edwin
Gnandt, John Griffiths, James Haar, Julie Harris, Brita Heimarck, Robert Hollander, Janos
Horvath, Noreen Humble, Silvana Iervella, Amelia Labbé, Matteo Lefèvre, Mary Jane Leeder,
Ralph Maier, John Malanoski, Timothy McGee, Sal Mendaglio, Francine Michaud, Juan
Montero, Ignacio Navarrete, Monique Oliver, Fiona Pinell, Franco Piperno, Angelo Pompilio,
Maria Grazia Profeti, John and Margie Ramsey, Susanna Singer, Simone Sorini, Julie Freedman
Smith, Louise Stein, Ferdinando Luigi Tagliavini, Tobia Toscano, Massimo Verdicchio, Joelle
Welling, Laura Zerilli, and Daniel Zuluaga.
I am most indebted to each and every staff member at the Taylor Library at the
University of Calgary, including the interlibrary loan crew. In Spain, I recognize the care of the staff at the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha in the sala de manuscritos y raros, the Biblioteca Histórica (Universitat de València), and, in Italy, the Palazzo
Ducale di Modena, the Biblioteca di Trento, the Biblioteca di Cortona, the staff at the sala manoscritti at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze and the staff at the Florence Uffizi for providing me a private viewing of the Vasari Corridors so that I could transmit direct images of portraits of historical figures to my students.
Finally, a research project of this scope comes to fruition thanks to the multifaceted support of a remarkably efficient and supportive academic environment. I recognize Dr. Thomas
Patrick Keenan, Dr. Valerie Haines and Pauline Fisk, of the Interdisciplinary Program at the
v University of Calgary, for their unwavering support, not only for myself but also for other students. Each of us, producing daring interdisciplinary works, breaking grounds in often obscure places, are indebted to the openness, forward vision and uniqueness of this department.
The completion of this study has been made possible by the financial support the
Interdisciplinary Graduate Program provided, the Queen Elizabeth II and the Eyes High
Research Excellence Doctoral Award Programs.
I am grateful to Melania Pascual-Salcedo and the Instituto Cervantes for supporting the presentation of “The Music in Garcilaso’s Poetry and his Poetry in Music,” in collaboration with
Dr. Ralph Maier, Julie Harris and Robinson Ayala Mejía, to the students of the University of
Calgary. This work is for with every single student with whom I had the privilege of sharing learning spaces. It is my hope that this work will benefit ‘you’.
Above all, I am grateful to my parents Ludwig and Edvige Oss-Cech, to my husband
Franco, to Matthew, Fabrizio and Alex, Leila and Kirk, and their families. I dedicate this work to them. Words do not suffice to express my gratitude for their love and support, their readings their feedback and for keeping me grounded. All along, I found mental repose with their little ones, whose innocent spirits and immense sense of wonder fills our spirits everyday.
‘Gracias al cielo doy’ (Garcilaso, Son. XXXIV)
vi DEDICATION
To Dr. Rachel Schmidt
To my husband, our family and our grandchildren
To the memory of Aurelia Cellar
vii TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... III
DEDICATION ...... VII
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... VIII
LIST OF FIGURES ...... X
LIST OF TABLES ...... XI
INTRODUCTION ...... 1
CHAPTER I: GARCILASO AND THE SOUND OF RENAISSANCE LYRICS ...... 10 The Sounds of Tradition and the Seeds of Spanish Humanism ...... 13 The Sounds of Petrarchism: ...... 21 The sounds of Naples and the Accademia Pontoniana ...... 39 Summary ...... 52
CHAPTER II: MUSICAL REPRESENTATIONS IN GARCILASO’S POETRY ...... 54 Musical Instruments: Al son de las zampoñas escuchavan ...... 56 Singing: Con acordado canto ...... 71 Dance: Con gracioso movimiento ...... 76 Sound Images of Wind and Water: Una agua clara con sonido ...... 81 Verbal Musicality: Hinchen el aire de dulce armonía ...... 84 Summary ...... 101
CHAPTER III: THE MUSICO-POETIC TAPESTRY IN GARCILASO’S ODE AD FLOREM GNIDI ...... 103 What Do We Mean by Music of Poetry and Musicality of Verses? ...... 106 Music of Poetry: an Instrument of Purpose ...... 109 Ode ad Florem Gnidi: the Musical Exterior Form ...... 112 Ode ad Florem Gnidi: the Musical Interior Form ...... 119 Summary ...... 140
CHAPTER IV: GARCILASO AND THE MUSIC OF HIS OWN TIME AND PLACE144 Hispanic/Neapolitan Sixteenth-Century Musico-Poetic Practices ...... 145 Points of Contact: Garcilaso’s Poetry and the Solo Improvisatory Tradition .155 Points of Contact: Garcilaso’s Poetry and the Spanish Adaptation of the Italian Madrigal ...... 161 Summary ...... 166
viii CHAPTER V: UT MUSICA POESIS. GARCILASO’S POETRY SET TO MUSIC ....168 Garcilaso’s Poetry in the Vihuela Repertoire in Spain and in Italy ...... 173 Garcilaso’s Poetry in Collections of Madrigals for Solo Voices ...... 193 Summary ...... 226
CONCLUSION ...... 228
WORKS CITED ...... 235 Manuscript Sources ...... 235 Printed Sources: ...... 235
APPENDIX I: SI DE MI BAJA LIRA (TRANSCRIPTION) ...... 282
APPENDIX II: MUSIC INSPIRED BY GARCILASO DE LA VEGA ...... 284
APPENDIX III: PERMISSIONS FOR COPYRIGHT ...... 286
ix LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1. Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, De Principe De Obediencia………………...…………….42
Fig. 2. “El Grande Orfeo.” In Luis de Milán, El Maestro……………………………………...113
Fig. 3. Don Pedro de Toledo……………………………………………………………………150
Fig. 4. Si de mi baja lira, in Magliabechiano XIX 109 folio 7v ..…..………………………….176
Fig. 5. Pere Albrech Vila’s Odarum (1561)……………………………….………………..….177
Fig. 6. Diego Pisador: “Flérida para mi dulce y sabrosa,” Libro de música de vihuela………..189
x LIST OF TABLES
Table I. Early Spanish Vihuela Collections…………………………………………………….174
Table II. Garcilaso’s Poetry in Vihuela Collections……………………………………………177
Table III. Garcilaso’s Poetry in Madrigal Collections ……………………..………………...... 194
xi
INTRODUCTION
This study deals with two interrelated topics: the music and musicality in the poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish humanist Garcilaso de la Vega and, in the second part, Garcilaso’s poetry in the canon of Renaissance musical settings.
Garcilaso (ca.1501-1536), a courtier, soldier, and poet, lived at a time of great political expansion that led to vast cross-cultural and humanistic interchanges between Spain and its dominated territories. Garcilaso’s lyrics resonate with the influence of classical antiquity and the traditions of Spanish literature, as well as Provençal and Italian verse. His imitation of Italianate forms, in particular, has been at the centre of literary criticism (Schmidt 1995:12). Yet Garcilaso forged his own poetic style by fusing imitated forms with the lyricism of his Spanish language.
Indeed, critics have praised Garcilaso’s poetry for his perfection of form, style, and plasticity.
Even before its first publication in 1543, his work was noted for its musicality of verse. Keniston writes: “nowhere in Castilian can there be found such music, such variety of tone and color, such appealing melody” (1922:264). Dent-Young observes that Garcilaso’s musicality “has been admired in all ages and is agreed to be an important contribution to Spanish literature” (23). The first question arising is, thus: What do critics mean by musicality? And, furthermore, how does musicality serve the literary medium in the construct of meaning? Hitherto, a small group of scholars has investigated this re-enactment of Garcilaso’s lyrical expression. The problem lies in that musicality of verses is very difficult to define (Frye 1941/1942; Navarro Tomás 1969; Wood
1996).
The question of musicality is inherent to how an art form is critiqued in a meaningful manner, constructive, lucid, and based on empirical observation (Frye 1941/42; Navarro Tómas
1969). In his essay on Music in Poetry, Northrop Frye observes that, in the history of poetic
1
criticism, the description of music in poetry has been at the centre of crude misinterpretation. Yet
Frye asserts that the term “musical” in poetry “deserves to be treated with respect, for it belongs to an equally distinguished art” (167). Poetry may suggest images like painting or reveal a clear sense of movement and patterns of sound to heighten meaning (167). The poet may conceive a poetic work as a painting, a film, a theatrical performance, or as music. Indeed, Frye continues, a poet may choose to “emphasize one quality and minimize the other, [perhaps revealing] some technical knowledge” (167). Frye examines all those elements that contribute to the musical qualities of several poetic extracts from English literature. His definition of the musical includes the cacophonous, the dissonant diction and driving accents that provide an appropriate balance between tension and resolution in poetry.
Similarly, in his seminal article, La musicalidad de Garcilaso, Navarro Tomás asserts that the least effort to investigate musicality in an objective manner must begin with an empirical study of rhythm and harmony of the work (418). His study deals with the rhythmical characteristics of Garcilaso’s hendecasyllabic verses and those of Petrarch. NavarroTómas investigated the extrarythmical accents in the poets’s verses or those prosodic accents that do not fall on the stressed points of the hendecasyllabic line. He compared Petrarch’s Canzone XXIII,
“Del dolce tempo de la prima etade,” with Garcilaso’s Canción IV, “El Aspereza des mis males quiero,” written in a form that clearly imitates his predecessor. It is important to bear in mind, though, that, as Ghertman writes, “a knowledge of the rules for composing the canzone, or the sonnet, or the ballad does not automatically produce the poem itself” (1). Greene implicitly concurs when he asserts that, as Petrarch created a lyric based on his own historical and cultural contexts, resolving to fictitiously recreate the classical past, post-Petrarchists create lyrics that
“represent specific solutions to local cultural and aesthetic problems” (1991:3). Certainly,
2
Navarro Tomás discerned that Garcilaso’s verses include fewer extrarrhythmical accents than
Petrarch, reflecting the meaning of his text and the spirit of his Spanish language (423). The hendecasyllabic verse in the Castillian language does not tolerate more than one or two extrarrhythmical accents without considerable violence to the natural flow (423). Ultimately, this study positions Garcilaso as an exemplary musical poet of Spanish verses and forms the basis for my argument that musicality of verse implicitly proceeds from the concrete to the aesthetic.
In this first part of the investigation, in an attempt to unearth those elements that, in the poetic text, contribute to Garcilaso’ lyrical expression, I also draw from Dámaso Alonso’s
Poesía española: Ensayo de métodos y límites estilísticos (1971). Fundamental to Dámaso’s approach is the ethical responsiveness of the reader whose intuitive appreciation of the work simulates, in some ways, the initial intuition that provided the impetus for the poetic creation itself (38). In his deliberations on poetry, he considers language and linguistics to be inextricable from the study of literature. Consequently, Rivers observes, for Dámaso “every aspect of the language deserves the closest attention, from phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax to the Weltanschauung implicit in a phrase, in a poem, in a style” (1974:241). Indeed the Spanish writer, as a critic, immerses the reader in the text and awakens the reader’s interest with tangible insightful discernment of phonetic, rhythmical, structural, and aesthetic realities that enhance the meaning of the text. According to his approach, the smallest strand of the poetic tapestry contributes significantly to the harmonization of the whole. In other words, Dámaso perceives a symphony in the sound of a single vowel (50). Musicality is thus understood as a sensorial effect, one that is produced by the intimate tangible network of interdependent elements that prove to be integral to the form and meaning.
3
In his investigation on How Meaningful is ‘Musical’ in Literary Criticism, Scher questions the method of literary criticism for the study of musicality in poetry (1972). He notes that whereas several writers devoted serious research to the understanding of the complex correlation between poetry and music, for example, Ezra Pound, its meaning remaines vague and ill defined (53). Scher’s study led the way in terms of methodology. His analysis of Verbal Music in German Literature (1968) exposes the structural linguistic elements that contribute to the expression of verbal music (11). Scher draws from previous research on word music by T.S.
Eliot, Northrop Frye, Calvin Brown, and John Hollander but, above all, from Erich Auerbach, who asserted that in textual analysis the critic must “find what he claims in the text” (Auerbach in Scher 12). Certainly, the perception of musicality in Garcilaso’s verse is substantiated by the
Spanish poet’s serious study of music (Herrera 1580:14; Tamayo de Vargas 1622:4). This learning undoubtedly heightened Garcilaso’s sensitivity to sound, one that translated in a complex linguistic soundscape of his poetry.
Garcilaso was also a reader of ancient Gree and Roman literature and often alludes to the musico-poetic practices of the classical masters: “Iam iam sonatem Delius” [Now, now Apollo sound the lyre] (Ad Antonium Thylesium Ode, v. 13; transl. mine). Indeed, the relationship between poetry and music abides since classical antiquity. In ancient Greece, oral poetics led to the ethical praxis of attentive listening and sharp discerning that spilled over from the sphere of performance to socio-political and cultural arenas of human interchanges. Babich, who investigated Greek philosophical practice of music, observes that the term musikē, translated as music, is inaccurate, for in antiquity it implied a praxis of music and poetry inextricable from one another (2002: 6). She observes that a rhythm of long and short sounds formed the Greek language; the speaker was thus, first and foremost, engaged as an attuned listener (173).
4
Ultimately, Babich underlines the Greek fundamental ethic of responsibility between speakers and listeners (173). Similarly, Amittai Aviram, in his article that examines the meaning and the aesthetics of rhythm in Greek language and poetry, emphasizes that the rhythm of poetry rests as a sign of subjectivity that needs to resonate in today’s classroom of poetry, so as to discover the
“ubiquitous, and potentially deeply political role of poetry in [students’] lives” (165). Indeed, as
Northrop Frye observes, persuasive speech leads the hearer towards action (Anatomy 245).
In the Renaissance, humanists looked to ancient Greece for the revival of drama as well as a model for persuasive vernacular expression. The imitation of antiquity permeated every facet of life, from politics to philosophy, to the letters and the arts. Humanists questioned the interrelation between words and music and, parenthetically, also the interrelation between music, the other liberal arts and architecture (Griffiths 2013). The Renaissance was a time of pervasive debates, exchanges and treatises on literary matters, and the use of the vernacular. In the
Cinquecento, de Sanctis observes that the musical element, in the form of sound and melody so perceptible already in the lyrics of Petrarch and Boccacccio, became the primary constituent of verse and prose: “la parola non era piú un’idea era un suono” [the word was no longer an idea, it was a sound] (1965:590; transl. mine). According to de Sanctis, the Renaissance was a new world, one in which poets such as Gabriello Chiarera, for instance, aspired to create a new musical language that could imitate the ancient rhythms and structures of the classical verse.
This is the world that would later inspire Camoens, Cervantes, Montaigne, Shakeaspeare and
Milton (575), and eventually lead to the development of the first musical melodrama (591). The spread of the new literature in the vernacular was intimately connected to the development of the musical Italian madrigal, a precursor of the Italian opera (Haar 1986).
5
This Cinquecento world, the site of a complex multilayered tapestry of literary and musico-poetic encounters, or dialogic genres, in Bakhtinian terms, thus formed the landscape from which Garcilaso’s poetry emerged. Consequently, as a corollary to the first question, this study extends in a broader context to ask the following: To what extent did Garcilaso’s poetry and the sixteenth-century musico-poetic context intersect? Did composers set the Castilian verses to music? Was there a direct interchange between poet and composer? What do musical settings reveal in terms social, cultural, and historical contexts from which the music and the poetry arose? To answer these questions, I have adopted an interdisciplinary lens, drawing from philological, musicological, and linguistic angles so as to investigate Garcilaso’s poetry within the Hispanic/ Neapolitan, literary and musical contexts and interchanges.
From a theoretical perspective, this is an eclectic study that draws form various sources.
There is no single theory pervading the critical approach other than those that elucidate the understanding of the poetry and the way in which the work transcends the precincts of its own discipline into the musical tradition. In the first part, I have anchored the argument to the idea of dialogicity and Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony, to underscore the multiple representations of language. Accordingly, musicality is a conduit of literary polyphony, or that dialogical continuum between the poetic voice, the listeners and other works. In this sense, Bakhtin’s theories and Dámaso’s practical approach to the investigation of poetic elements as signs that convey meaning to the listener are compatible. For the second part of this study, dealing with
Garcilaso’s poetry in music, I draw, once more, from Bakhtin, who writes: “from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning verses enter into the discourse of social life”
(Dialogic Imagination, 259). Richard Sell reminds his readers that for Bakhtin,
“interdisciplinarity takes the form of a sociolinguistic poetics that is fully attuned to literary
6
‘texts’ single - or many - voicedness as recognizable within real historical contexts”(132).
Indeed, Renaissance scholars would be hard pressed to justify a strict solipsistic approach to the study of disciplines, for humanist imitation of the ancient classics extended to every facet of life.
In the field of musicology, for example, Susan McClary, who investigated the Renaissance
Italian Madrigal from an interdisciplinary perspective, discerns that sixteenth-century musical representations were tightly interwoven with cultural issues, such as genre and self-fashioning and other artistic practices as modes of expression (2004). Similarly, this dissertation will reveal close interrelations between Garcilaso’s poetry and the musico-poetic context.
The chapters will unfold as follows: Chapters One to Three examine the music in
Garcilaso’s poetry. Chapter One treats some of the most salient Renaissance theories of sound and how they may have impacted Garcilaso’s lyrical expression. I unpack various literary fragments, such as letters, encomia, dedications and treatises, that provide the background from which Garcilaso’s poetry emerged. Chapter Two investigates direct analogies to music and musical practices and, finally, focuses on verbal musicality. Keeping in mind that Garcilaso was a skilled musician, and therefore sensitive to sound and aware of musical practices, the aesthetic aspect of music in Garcilaso’s poetry is thus considered from a hermeneutical perspective that considers context and the work in all its multivalent dimensions. Certainly, as Northrop Frye observes, the work of literature may convey not necessarily reality but what resides in the poet’s imagination (Anatomy 94). Nevertheless, I so conjecture the formal structure uses language to convey meaning, and language as a tool for communication with its patterns and its ‘musicality” arises from a history, a culture, and a context that is recognizable to both the poet and the listener. It is reasonable to assume that Garcilaso’s knowledge of music may have deliberately or spontaneously impacted the musical design of his verses. Jackobson, speculating if the poet
7
rationally planned a certain linguistic structure, argues that whether it is conscious or unconscious, “any significant poetic composition implies a goal-oriented choice of verbal material” (Verbal Art 59). Indeed, in the investigation of direct analogies to musical practices, such as singing or dancing and musical instruments, the poetry reveals, as Frye observes in his discussion of music in poetry, “technical knowledge on the part of the poet” (167). In the same
Chapter Two, the discussion continues with a consideration of verbal musicality produced by rhythm, the sound of the vowels, consonants, the disposition of words and/or silence, and various other linguistic and para-linguistic elements that contribute significantly to the enhancement of the lyrical expression. Chapter Three investigates the musico-poetic tapestry of Garcilaso’s fifth
Canción: Ode ad Florem Gnidi.
The second part, comprising Chapters Four and Five, extends an area of research that was begun in 1974 by Don M. Randel: the poetry of Garcilaso set to music. Whereas Randel’s investigation was limited to the analysis of three works nested in the Cancionero musical de la
Casa de Medinaceli (Querol 1949/50), this section extends beyond the Medinaceli, to include poetry in vihuela tablatures in Spain and Italy. The fourth chapter closely examines the sixteenth- century musico-poetic landscape of Spain and most of all Naples, the last city, the one that hosted Garcilaso in the latter part of his life. Chapter Five comprises the musico-poetic analysis of a selected number of works, chosen to be representative of the musical genre in which they are found and the least treated in the canon of literature. This final chapter includes a discussion of the musical setting Si de mi baja lira, found in a manuscript housed in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence (Italy): the Magliabechiano CL XIX 109. The Spanish philologist María Teresa
Cacho brought this source to my attention. To my knowledge, the musical score has not been
8
published. A copy of the score and a transcription by Ralph Maier, are herein included with permission by the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze (Italy).
Regarding the organization of citations in a foreign language in this dissertation, the reader may find them in the footnotes in the original language, with appropriate credit to the translator. The citation and its translation will remain embedded in the text if it is very brief or when the original is integral to the point being made.
In brief, the aim of the first part of this dissertation is to contribute to a more precise understanding of the music in Garcilaso’s poetry. Perhaps, too, this study will also reveal
Garcilaso’s deep sense of harmony that precludes the critic from simply stringing together a series of intertextual influences in his verses, for the lyrical expression holds the ultimate resolution of the inherent inner tensions. The sound of Garcilaso’s lyrics bear the mark of his genius in his language and his music. The second half of the dissertation brings together extant
Renaissance musical settings of Garcilaso’s poetry, and provides a critical deliberation on the interrelationship between poetry and music. Finally, this dissertation exposes another facet of
Garcilaso’s complex artistry revealed in the multidimensional mode of expressions shaped by his complex identity as poet, soldier, courtier and musician who lived in Spain and Italy while experiencing interrelated cultures rooted in Renaissance humanism.
9
CHAPTER I: GARCILASO AND THE SOUND OF RENAISSANCE LYRICS
Movióla el sitio umbroso, el manso viento, El suave olor d’aquel florido suelo; Las aves en el fresco apartamento Vio descansar del trabajoso vuelo; […] En el silencio solo se escuchaba Un susurro de abejas que sonaba (Ecl. III, vv.73 -75 and vv.79-80)
She was delighted by the shady pasture, / the gentle breeze of that elusive fragrance / of the flowering meadow; birds in that fresh place / she saw them resting after their struggling flights […] / In the sounds of silence the only thing she hears / is the soft whispering of susurrating bees (Rivers 2011:212; transl. mine).
Garcilaso’s eclogue echoes Virgil’s poetic tradition formally, thematically and, in the pure musicality of verse.1 His synesthetic representation of the Arcadian landscape entices readers to listen attentively to the sound and acoustic imagery of the verses. Alonso (1971) theorizes that, in matters of verbal expressivity, these may represent some of the most resonant verses of Spanish literature (79). He observes that in this stanza the poetic voice conveys silence by articulating recurring whispering fricatives in /s/, thus imitating the sound of softly susurrating bees: “silencio / solo / se escuchaba / susurro abejas / sonaba” (Alonso 79). In these verses by Garcilaso, the philologist discerns a direct imitation of Virgil’s expressiveness: “often
[the light humming of the bees] takes you in deep sleep.”2 Alonso further asserts that in the sound of a single phoneme one may perceive an entire orchestral symphony (50-51). His
1 See, for example, Virgil Bucolic VIII: “Forte su arguta consederat ilice Daphnis” (v. 1) or Daphnis had sat down beneath the melodious holm oak (transl. mine). The word “Melodious” (Arguta) draws the reader’s attention to the sounds of the pastoral landscape. Vélez-Sainz observes: “The greatest poet of the sixteenth-century, Garcilaso de la Vega, who openly understood the ambition of his Italian precursors [to conceive a literary hat would create an Italian Parnassus and the Muses], set out in his poetry to emulate and, possibly, to outdo his canonical predecessors. Garcilaso had clearly two poets in mind: Virgil for the epic and Petrarch for the lyric” (In Dawson 580). Vélez-Sainz thus writes: “Petrarca, [en su] lírica […] buscaba la autorización personal del poeta” (71) - Petrarch, [in his] lyric […] sought a personal connection with the old master (transl. mine). 2 “Saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susuro” (Virgil Buc. I, v. 55; transl. mine). 10
discernment brings to mind Virgil’s exhortation: “we are not singing for the deaf; the woods respond to everything.”3
Undoubtedly, Garcilaso’s verses echo across the centuries with considerable response.
Dent-Young observes that Garcilaso aimed to naturalize imitated forms in Spanish, “and his success in doing so is confirmed by generations of readers and scholars who have delighted in the musicality of his verses” (3; emphasis mine). Dent-Young admits that the challenge of translating Garcilaso lies not so much in the vocabulary or syntax but, rather, in attempting to
“convey something of the music of his verse, which […] is agreed to be his important contribution to Spanish literature” (23). Hence, the epithet attributed to him in 1622 by Tamayo de Vargas: “Príncipe de los poetas castellanos” [Garcilaso, prince of Castilian poets] (transl. mine).
Before one can attempt a study of the music in Garcilaso’s verses in its form, rhythm, resonance of the words and verses, conceptual representation, and meaningful signs of musical representation (herein discussed in Chapters Two and Three), one must gain some understanding of sixteenth-century literary theories and relevant discourses on sound. Vega and Esteve (2004), in their study of the Renaissance lyric, affirm that “the fusion of word and harmony represented also a social and cultural practice, common to the court that was certainly inspired by, but also particularly referring to, the singing of lyrical verses in the vernacular.”4
In this chapter I shall attempt to elucidate some of the theories that might have influenced
Garcilaso’s notion of lyrical sound, both in its thematic and formal constructs. I also plan to draw
3 “Non Canimus surdis; respondent omnia silvae” (Virgil Ecl. X, v. 8; transl. mine). 4 “[L]a unión de palabra y armoniía era también la representación de una práctica social y cultural cortesana, que se inspira, ciertamente, en modelos clásicos, pero que se refiere sobre todo al canto del verso lírico vernacular” (Vega and Esteve, 31; transl. mine). 11
from coeval literary, linguistic, and rhetorical models as well as underpinning discourses on language, by referring to discrete texts in the forms of treatises, poetry, letters, prologues, and other interchanges, such as encomia and dedications pertaining to Garcilaso. These literary fragments, positioned in the context of Renaissance discourses, yield an organic understanding of the implicit or explicit basis for Garcilaso’s critical re-enactment of lyrical expression in his verses.
I borrow the term “dialogic genres” from Martha Feldman grounded in the theories of
Mikhail Bakhtin (Dialogic Imagination 1934/1935). For Bakhtin, language in the novel and in the midst of heteroglossia (multiple voices) is constantly stratified (272). In other words, language is continuously shaped by the different social parlances. Likewise, in her investigation of the development of the literary and musico-poetic currents in Venice, Feldman considers the various social discourses that influence the artistic works. She writes:
I coin this term [dialogic genres] principally to interrelate the great variety of writing that fashioned transactions in the form of letters, poetic addresses, and counteraddresses, that fictionalized the interchange of salons, academies, and schoolrooms, or constructed discourses of address in dedications, dedicatory prefaces, letters, and occasional or economiastic poems (48).
In Renaissance Venice, as well as Florence, Rome, Naples, and other major European cities, new technological advances, such as the printing press, stimulated the dissemination of various vernacular expressions in prose and poetry. Ideas of sound from antiquity quickly infiltrated the tapestry of Renaissance discourses on poetry, inextricably connected to linguistic and literary interchanges. Therefore, this chapter will consider the discursive space, or the
“cultural heteroglossia or that undergrowth of untangled meaning” (49) as Feldman defines it, to understand with precision the context that fostered Garcilaso’s process of imitation, his self-
12
fashioning and expressive invention fundamental to the sound of lyric.5
My claim, as I plan to demonstrate, is that Garcilaso was a central figure in the process of poetic transposition and transformation, precisely because he was politically and socio-culturally attuned to the most pressing issues and disputes of the cultural Renaissance. Undeniably, and as
Azorín writes, “the first trait one recognizes in the Toledoean poet, is his Europeanism. Rarely does one find a Spanish artist that is truly European.”6 Indeed, Garcilaso forged his own lyric by reformulating both old and new ideologies and by then positioning them in dialogue with only the most current Renaissance literary voices. The sound and musicality of his verses, investigated in my Chapters Two and Three, will prove to be more than an instrument for the indulgent exhibition of poetic power. It serves as a means to interlace the poetry of antiquity, the
Spanish tradition, with humanistic trends, with the poet’s orphic lyrical voice. This is precisely the organization for this theoretical review. First, I will examine the Spanish tradition in its trajectory from antiquity to Renaissance humanism. This will inevitably take the argument to
Italy, with the poetry of Petrarch as the fulcrum of humanistic thought. The Hispanic/Neapolitan context will provide a final perspective.
The Sounds of Tradition and the Seeds of Spanish Humanism
In her interpretation of the extensive intertextual Orpheic tapestry in Garcilaso’s third
5 Keith Michael Charles Green asserts that “the world of lyric poetry is primarily created through the mobilization of deixis” (369) or the extra-linguistic contextualization. If one considers the interconnection between lyrical expression and the experience, as advocated also by Theodor W. Adorno in his On Lyric Poetry and Society, the attentive attunement to the linguistic event and its lyric music is a stretch toward critique and understanding (see Kaufman 2005). 6 Azorín (Pseudonym for José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz) writes: “El primer rasgo que podremos notar en el poeta toledano es su europeísmo. Son pocos, rarísimos, los artistas españoles realmente europeos […]” (Rivers 1974:35; transl. mine. 13
eclogue, Mary E. Barnard reveals Garcilaso’s “complex strategy of voices […] in an act of self- creation” (323). For example, Barnard observes the conscious switching between the divine language of Apollo as “puro ingenio” [pure inspiration], through speaking and singing, and the pastoral “lengua muda” [silent tongue] (317). Similarly, E. C. Graf, in his analysis of sonnet
XXIX, describes “Garcilaso as a poet highly conscious of the aesthetic” (166). In this work, the lyric poetic voice, the boz cansada [tired voice] (v.9), emerges in counterpoint to the fierce sound of the sea: “mas nunca fue la boz dellas oída” [but never was the voice [of the waves] heard] (v.11). As Graf points out, the poetic voice struggles to surface above the sound of ancient and coeval poetic voices intertextually linked to the myth of Hero and Leander, the feminine and the masculine, (183), and mortality vs. poetic immortality. If this be the case, the formal conduit of poetic self-fashioning lies in the resonance of the lyric voice.7 This is precisely the ‘Spanish’ voice, the poetic construct with which the poet transforms and subverts the archetypal poetic myth. Likewise, Margot Arce de Vázquez writes: “Garcilaso incorporates, assimilates and establishes a lyrical way of thinking and speaking.”8 Before we can investigate the lyrical design for Garcilaso’s expression, however, it is essential to delineate the roots from which his poetry and lyricism emerged.
Emilio García Gómez, who investigated the Hebrew and Arabic-Andalusian roots of
Spanish poetry (1964), reminds his readers that: “poets, before they even consider composing,
7 An essay on Renaissance Self-Fashioning by Stephen Greenblatt provides an understanding of the concept of self- fashioning at the time of Garcilaso and its historical implications. Greenblatt’s research ultimately led him to believe that “the ragged forces standing up to raw military power would ultimately triumph” (1). This “Renaissance heightened awareness,” as Greenblatt describes it (2), is certainly perceivable in Garcilaso’s verses, whose lyricism invites the listener to partake in his resistance to physical loss of self-control. See my discussion of sonnet XXX and Canción III in Chapter Two. 8 “Garcilaso incorpora, asimila y establece una manera de ser, de pensar y de hablar líricamente”(Arce de Vázquez 2001:25; transl. mine). 14
are already enslaved by the symbols and topics of their predecessors.”9 Thus, we must consider
Antonio de Nebrija (1441-1522), author of the first Spanish Grammar, Gramática de la lengua castellana (1492). He traces the origins of his native language to antiquity as well as to Arabic and Jewish ancestry, observing that the Greek language began to show its might shortly before the war of Troy: at a time when music and poetry thrived with Orpheus and others. He upholds
Tullius, Julius Caesar, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Livy as the Latin exegetes of an ancient tradition. Nebrija explains that the Castilian language flourished at the time of King
Alphonse the Wise (el Sabio) of Castille (1221-1224), whose mandate to translate ancient texts remains critical for the transmission of ancient literature to Medieval Europe (14).
Nebrija asserts that, while prosody for the Greeks refers to the scansion of words, and in
Latin the accents, in the Castilian language it is “cuasi canto” [almost melody] (Bk. II, Ch. II).
In fact, Nebrija cites Boethius, who sustained that reciting verses like poets, or singing like musicians, are basically different means of singing.10 To support his claim, Nebrija reminds the reader that Virgil upholds music as the soul of his poetic art. He recalls that Virgil’s opening verses of the Aeneid: “Of arms and the man I sing” are similar to those of Juan de Mena’s
Labirinto de Fortuna: “Sing you Oh Christian Muse.”11 Similarly, Garcilaso’s poetic voice declaims: “Nymphs, I invoke you / [...] Sweet from my lips let each clear accent part, / Since
9 “Los poetas, desde antes de empezar a componer, son ya esclavos de los símbolos y tópicos creados por sus predecesores […]” (In Alonso and Blecua xxxv; transl. mine). 10 “Prosodia, en griego, sacando palabra de palabra, quiere decir en latín acento; en castellano, casi canto. Porque, como dice Boecio en la Música, el que habla, que es oficio propio del hombre, y el que reza versos, que llamamos poeta, y el que canta, que decimos músico, todos cantan en su manera” (Nebrija Bk. II, Ch. II). 11 “Canta el poeta, no como el que habla, ni menos como el que canta, mas en una media manera; et assí dixo Virgilio en el principio de su Eneida: Canto las armas et el varón; et nuestro […] Juan de Mena […] Canta, tú, cristiana Musa” (Nebrija Bk. II, Ch. II). 15
neither pastoral pipe, Arcadian quill, / Nor syrinx sound in concord with my will.”12
Significantly however, Nebrija’s concept of music of verses, as I understand it, does not refer to the euphonic sound effect produced by the recurring rima consonante (rhyming verses) of the earlier cancionero poetry. On the contrary, Nebrija reminds his readers that “as Aristotle explains, we must avoid consonantes for many reasons, […] word disposition must enhance meaning: and not the contrary.”13 Nebrija also notes: “this error and vice is accepted and well received by all our people.”14 Francisco Abad, in his study on Spanish Rhythm and Rhyme:
Music and Poetry, remarks that Nebrija’s study, including his observations on the rima consonante embedded in the short octosyllabic verse of the poetry of the cancionero, led the way for a new meter as well as for Garcilaso’s poetic revolution (2013:29). Abad cites Lapesa, who discerned that, contrary to the poetry of the cancioneros, the new poetry by Boscán and
Garcilaso is characterized by meters that are “relaxed and not governed by the intense rhyme of the octosyllabic verse.”15 Certainly, a close reading of Garcilaso’s poetry in the following chapters will reveal that musicality is manifested in the artistic disposition of words, accents and rhyme in relation to all other linguistic and para linguistic elements. In Garcilaso, each part contributes intrinsically to the enhancement the meaning of text, as Nebrija proposed earlier.
Antonio Gargano conjectured that Nebrija’s Gramática foregrounded the humanistic, Petrarchan and classical assimilation in the Spanish language (2005:xii). Nebrija thus provided the essential
12 “Ninfas, a vos invoco / […] soltá todos / mi lengua en dulces modos y sotiles, / que ni los pastoriles ni el avena / ni la zamoña suena como quiero” (Ecl. II, vv. 1156-1159; transl. Wiffen 243). 13 “Porque como dize Aristóteles por muchas razones avemos de huir las consonantes […] las palabras fueron halladas para decir lo que sentimos: e no por el contrario (Gramática Libro II- Cap. VI; transl. mine). 14 […] este error e vicio ya está consentido e recibido de todos los nuestros (Gramática Libro II- Cap. VI; transl. mine). 15 Los metros que Boscán y Garcilaso introducían “eran lentos, reposados, menos pendientes que el octosílabo de la rima acuciadora” (Lapesa 1947:6; transl. mine). 16
language tools with which Garcilaso could forge his own lyrical poetic voice (Abad 30; Gargano xii).
Nebrija’s student and friend, the poet - musician Juan del Encina (1468-1529), saw published the Arte de poesía Castellana in 1496.16 It is a remarkable treatise written by an eminent composer and poet of Castilian poetry, in which the close interrelationship between poetry and music is asserted. In his Arte, Encina recognizes Orpheus’s power over poetry and music and therefore, the poets of ancient Greece, Virgil and other Latin poets, plus the Trecento
Italian poets, Dante and Petrarch (Ch. I; 14-15). Similar to Nebrija, Encina cites Boethius’s deliberation on the difference between musician and singer in the same way that he perceives distinctions between draftsman and stonecutter, poet and troubadour.17 Encina, González observes, draws from the cancioneril tradition to advance theories of sound in poetry:
All the power of the composition of verse is in knowing how to make and to understand feet, because from these coplas are made, and with these they are measured. And thus we must understand what a foot is. In the composition of verse, a foot is nothing more than the joining of a certain number of syllables. It is called a foot because with it we measure everything that we compose, and the sound of the copla runs and rolls forth with such feet (transl. González 2011:134).
Referring to his own Spanish literary pedigree, in particular that of the orator Quintillian, Encina encourages poets to foster their art by reading ‘first and foremost’ their native verse. After all, he concludes, Horace writes accordingly: “all new clay vessels acquire the permanent odour of their first filling soon after casting.”18 Encina’s remarks resonate with the ideas of Jakobson and
16 See, González 2011:126. 17 “Toda la fuerça del trobar está en saber hazer y conocer los pies porque dellos se hazen las coplas y por ellos se miden. Y pues assí es sepamos qué cosa es pie. Pie no es otra cosa en el trobar sino vn yuntamiento de cierto número de sílabas. y llamase pie por que por el se mide todo lo que trobamos, y sobre los tales pies corre y roda el sonido de la copla” (Arte de poesia castellana 18). 18 Encina writes: “Mas, cuanto a la elocución, mucho aprovecha, según es doctrina de Quintiliano, criarse desde la tierra niñez adonde hablen muy bien, porque como nos enseña Oracio, cualquiera vasija de barro guarda para siempre aquel olor que recibió cuando nueva” (Ch. IV:18; transl. mine). 17
Waugh (1987) who assert that it is precisely in the sound of one’s own language that one models speech and linguistic creative activities (73).
Garcilaso’s poetic convention is undeniably embedded in tradition. It echoes the musicality of the Spanish cancionero poets and those of the Neapolitan Aragonese Court
(Gargano 2005:142; Lapesa 1985:70; Navarrete 1994:73). One must remember, for example, that one of his Coplas, the Canción, Habiéndose casado su dama, is a Castilian form. It echoes the works in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio (1335) in the form of the old canción and villancico. González discerns that the cancionero was copied extensively until the early part of the sixteenth-century, and that troubadours and poets facilitated the wide dissemination of the octosyllabic canción (126). Peter Cocozzella, who investigates the lyrical element in Garcilaso’s
Eclogue II, observes an extensive intertextual tapestry echoing the poetic virtuosity of the
Catalan-Valencian poet Ausiàs March (1397-1459). Undoubtedly, as Cocozzella purports, a study of Garcilaso’s lyricism will lead scholars to better insight into the “Hispanic quality” of his poetry (201).
Garcilaso draws from a tapestry of plurilingual intersections that can be traced back to the thirteenth-century court of Alphonse X (the Wise), where the first Castilian prose and poetry was significantly interconnected to the works of Catalan poets as well as Arabic and Jewish writing
(Gargano 1994; Gies 48; Rodríguez Llòpis 29; Terracini 1964:14).19 Garcilaso’s encounter with both the Spanish and the Italian medieval literary cultures may have its genesis in the works of
19 Rodríguez Llòpis observes that by the twelfth century the city of Toledo was considered the “European capital of the occult,” where many Arabic and Jewish texts were translated. In addition Rodríguez Llòpis writes that “[i]t was in this context that Alfonso X the Wise undertook his task of compiling and translating the texts on Arab and Jewish astral magic. The ‘translatio studii’ was assumed by Alfonso as a moral obligation of the king associated with the ‘translatio imperii’” (29). Gies writes that the court of Alfonso X was a centre of poetic activity, hosting, for example, Occitan and Jewish poets such as Giraut Riquier and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia (49). 18
Juan de Mena (1411-1456) and Iñigo López de Mendoza y de la Vega, the Marquis of Santillana
(1398 – 1458), a distant relative of Garcilaso and “chief literary figure of the fifteenth-century
(Keniston 8). In fact, Juan de Mena’s Laberinto de Fortuna (1444) shares an affinity of form with the medieval poetic genre of Dante’s Divina Commedia, translated into Catalan and
Castilian by Enrique de Villena (1384–1434). Santillana is credited with the first Sonetos al itálico modo and, presumably, one of the first Renaissance treatises on the “theory of poetry”
(Bosch 194). The Marquis de Santillana influenced leading writers and philosophers such as
Nebrija and the Valencian humanist Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540), and Renaissance poets, in particular Garcilaso and his friend Juan Boscán
In his concept of language, Vives, as Nebrija and Santillana, champions the study of the vernacular, including Arabic and even its dialects. In 1532, Vives publishes De Ratione Dicendi.
In this treatise, Vives underscores the effect of the sound of the words on the listener as a micro- conduit of meaning in form. He abhors the usage of artificial languages for a select group of interlocutors. Speech, he posits, “is given to satisfy a need […] not for display of erudition” (On
Education cxxvii). To this point he writes: “[…] the fourth function of the oratio, is that of the orator who keeps in mind the listener/public when he speaks […]. This oration affects the hearer who is left at times sad, at times plaintive and at other times timorous […]” (Vives II-XV:169).20
Indeed, Vega Ramos observes that, in line with Renaissance poetic theories reminiscent of those espoused by Quintillian, Aristotle, Homer, and Virgil, Vives recognises the descriptive possibilities of sound as a tool to enhance the aesthetic experience of the listener. Vives as Vega
20 “Se sigue la cuarta función de la oración, mas bien del orador, por la cual desea retener las mentes de los oyentes cuando habla [...] Esta oración deja a los oyentes unas veces tristes, otras llorosos, otra temerosos” (transl. from the Latin by Ana Isabel Camacho, in Vives 169). Peter Mack provides a translation and critical analysis of De ratione dicendi (2005). 19
Ramos continues, synthesizes previous poetic theories that emphasize the energy released by selected poetry (namely by Homer and Virgil) in which the sound and the number project the verses such that they may be clearly perceived and visualized (cit. from Tasso, in Vega Ramos
312). Vives, thus, accentuates the virtues of sound to excite the hearer’s imagination and enhance signification in poetry (315).
It is edifying however, to read Picatoste y Rodríguez (1887). In his study of the Spaniards in Italy, this historian observes that whereas the Renaissance development of Italian and
Castilian vernacular literary traditions draws from similar ancient sources, namely those of the ancient Greeks and Virgil, their development does not unfold on a similar trajectory. For instance, referring to elements of sound, in the Italian poetic language sound is of utmost importance, superseding all other elements. On the other hand, the primary focus for the poets in the Castilian language is not so much the sound of the verse per se, or musical harmony, but the richness of the language, the variety of expression and the magnificence of form. In the
Renaissance they achieve perfection of form and content, exceeding the Italian poetic style.21 In fact, Terracini asserts that the expressiveness of the Spanish poetic language, laden as it is with elements of folklore, realism and contrasts far more associated with the Provençal rhetoric than the dolce stil nuovo (1964:34), contributes to a style strikingly opposite to that of the Italian classicism (43).
21 “La lengua castellana no cuidó tanto del oído. Conservó la rotundidad del periodo latino sin su concisión, y buscó más bien que la armonía musical, la riqueza en las expresiones, la variedad en los giros, la grandiosidad en todas sus formas, en cuyas condiciones fue muy superior á la lengua italiana” (Picatoste y Rodríguez 172). Likewise, Girolamo Ruscelli, in his Del modo di comporre in versi della lingua italiana (1558), acclaims the ingegni of the Spanish language who adapted “con tanta felicitaà” (so successfully) new poetic forms to the style of their own language (xvi). In fact, Ruscelli upholds “bellezza della lingua” (beauty of language), from the medieval Spanish literary tradition onward referring, specifically, to Rabbi Moisé (Rabbi Moïse) and the Catalan poet and writer Ramon Llull (XXIX). 20
In her study of the complex relationship between lyric and sound, Susan Stewart asserts that a poem is a rhythm construction with the power to link the past with the listener’s own experience and knowledge of language (33). She asserts that poetry, that “produces effects of transformation in sound […] becomes in itself a living, breathing thing” (41). Indeed, Navarrete also perceives that in Sonnet XXXVIII Estoy contino en lágrimas bañado, Garcilaso alludes to the Ovidian and Petrarchan tradition of “silent speech” but “slyly” communicates that which he pretends to keep hidden – his suffering – through tears and sighs (1994:102). This open manifestation of inner sentiments is typical of the Cancionero tradition (Lapesa 54). In this act of communication, the poet subverts the imitated model with verses infused with the sound and expressivity of his Spanish tradition. It is precisely the ‘sound’ of the poetic voice, as it utters
“rompiendo siempre el aire con sospiros” [piercing the air with sighs] (Sonnet XXXVIII, v. 2), the medium through which Garcilaso forges poetic modernity and expressiveness. This is the sound of a new lyrical voice that links ancient models with the autochthonous tradition.
The Sounds of Petrarchism:
The least effort to explain Garcilaso’s musicality of verse through its larger cultural meanings will lead one to consider the literary and musico-poetic phenomenon known as
Petrarchism with its intricate web of discourses and exchanges between Renaissance Italy and its geo-politically dominating power: Spain. The Petrarchan musico-poetic currents will be discussed in Chapter Four. In this subsection of Chapter One, however, I review the basic premises that a deliberation on the sound of Renaissance poetry is inextricable from contemporary philosophical disputes on language, Petrarchism, and the desire to link coeval literary trends to the classical tradition. Similar to Petrarch, who upholds the sound of his verses
21
for their redemptive and transformative power, Garcilaso’s orpheic voice provides a means by which to express his poetic genius and thereby locate his own voice amidst the chorus of
Renaissance voices. But which voices? In terms of Petrarchism, they are the voices which deal with the vernacular as the language of poetry and the lyric as genre.
The sixteenth century was a period of time beset by a pervasive chorus of language disputes. At the centre of the language debate in Italy was the unification of a language.22
Leonardo Bruni (1369–1444), who translated classical authors such as Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch,
Demosthenes and Eschines, wrote the lives of Cicero and Aristotle in Latin, and those of Dante and Petrarch in Italian.23 In his Vite, Bruni upholds the inspiration that arose from reading
Boccaccio’s biography of Dante (Bruni 7). According to Bruni, the reading of literature in the vernacular, referring specifically to the poetry of Dante and Petrarch, sustains and nourishes one’s journey to erudition.24 His writing suggests that matters of language and the lyric as genre are already at the core of literary discourses in the Quattrocento.
22 On matters of language, see Carlo Dionisotti, Gli Umanisti e il volgare fra Quattro e Cinquecento. Dionisotti highlights the unfolding debate in Rome and the triumph of Ciceronianism. Many literary figures wrote on the questione della lingua (Richardson 181–185). One of the key proponents of the use of ‘Trecento Tuscan” was Pietro Bembo. On the different perspectives concerning the debates on language, see Piero Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione (1976). Language disputes are an ongoing trend and Renaissance questioning still resonates in today’s multiple discourses. In Italy, for example, Costanza Orlandi (2007) traces a critical trajectory on the persisting 20th-century debate on orality and the written language between Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, Meyer-Lübke, Matteo Bartoli, Benedetto Croce, Michel Bréal and Antonio Gramsci. She observes that whereas the cited authors proposed different perspectives, they prove to be significant sources in the formulation of Gramsci’s idea of language as a viable representation of everyday interchanges (see note 16 in Antonio Gramsci 1917). 23 Burke, Edmund. "Leonardo Bruni.” In, The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 19 May 2013
In the Italian Cinquecento, writers anxiously sought to sow a poetic genre in the vernacular that could effortlessly imitate the classical perfection and posed as a social cultural model for contemporary literature (Ferroni 13). After achieving a successful prose work in the vernacular Gli Asolani (1504), Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) wrestled with the question of language in his Prose della vulgar lingua (1525). He upholds the magnificence of the Tuscan language of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio (Prose 23). It is perhaps useful to remember that in a socio-political climate charged by foreign tensions, Renaissance Italy was a soil of language and literary contention. Fittingly, and in view of the Italian political instability, one may conjecture
Bembo’s focus on language to have provided a critical design for the political vindication of
Italy. The idea, hardly an innovation, echoes Horace’s Ars Poetica, where he theorized that Italy would not be glorified for its valor and feats of arms, but rather by its language (Horace Ars
275). Likewise, Bembo’s models and principles underline Italy’s distinct ingenio and superior literary tradition.25
In the lyric, Petrarch stood as the poetic model whose language and style were worthy of imitation already for some time, but finally codified by Bembo. On the other hand, Giorgio
Trissino (1478–1550), in his treatise Castellano (1529), challenges Bembo’s exclusive use of the
Petrarchan model for the establishment of the vernacular. Trissino, citing often from Dante’s De eloquentia, which he himself discovered and translated, asserts that Dante had set the authoritative standard for the Italian language. The interlocutors in the dialogue of Trissino’s
Castellano are Filippo Strozzi, a significant Florentine political figure Jacopo Sannazaro, the
25 See Kidwell on Bembo (2004: 218–237). For a comprehensive first historical account of Italy, see Gucciardini’s La Historia d’Italia (1568). Gucciardini includes reference to Bembo in his political role as secretary to Pope Leo X and as a Cardinal (334). 23
Neapolitan poet Antonio Lelio, a Roman humanist, and Giovanni Rucellai, a poet known as the
Castellano of Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo.26 Trissino observes that Dante supports an eclectic language divested of dialectic nuances, naming it neither Tuscan nor Florentine but rather Italica
(Castellano 51). In the dialogue, one of the interlocutors, Castellano, underscores that Petrarch, in a way similar to Dante, refers to the ‘vulgar’ language as ‘italiana,’ writing: “May that beautiful country of the Apennines be divided and may the Alps and sea surrounding them hear my song.”27 In this manner, Castellano continues, Petrarch implicitly suggests that his song is written in a language spoken and understood in every corner of Italy (51).
This is a sentiment that Baldassare Castiglione echoes in his Cortegiano.28 Rebhorn, who synthesizes Castiglione’s position on the questione della lingua, asserts the following:
Castiglione’s prescriptions for language replicate those for the general social behaviour of his ideal courtier. Thus, in order to avoid the vice of affectation, the courtier is instructed to adopt and adapt himself to the uses and customs of contemporary social reality (Rebhorn, in Hanning & Rosand 71).
Certainly, Count Lodovico, one of the interlocutors in the Cortegiano’s dialogue, stresses a language “that is understood by all […] it would yet be Italian, universal, rich and varied, like a delightful garden full of all kinds of flowers and fruits” (The Book of the Courtier 79). Strikingly, this organic view of language echoes Seneca’s metaphor of the bees gathering pollen from various flowers (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium 84) with allusion to imitative practices.29
26 According to Enciclopedia Treccani.it, a Castellano was the military governor of a castellany and a castle. 27 “Udrallo il bel paese, Che apennin parte, e il mar circonda, e l’alpe” (Petrarch, Sonnet 146, vv. 13-14; transl. mine) 28 Count Lodovico, one of the interlocutors in the Courtier, upholds the language of Boccaccio and Petrarch yet affirms: “[T]oday there are certain pedants who make such an ineffable mystery and cult of this Tuscan language of theirs that they frighten those who hear them and thereby make even many noble and learned men nervous of opening their mouths and ready to confess that they do not understand the language they learned from their nurse- maids”(83). 29 The Hispanic Roman philosopher Seneca the younger (first century AD) writes: “Apes, ut aiunt, debemus imitari, quae vagantur et flores ad mel faciendum idoneos carpunt, deinde quidquid attulere disponunt ac per favos digerunt et, ut Vergilius noster ait “liquentia mella / stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas.” 24
Whereas characterizations of the various forms of imitation vary widely among literary critics throughout the centuries, Seneca’s metaphor was appropriated extensively from the Roman
Macrobius in his Saturnalia to Petrarch in his Bucolicum Carmen VIII (123–128) as well as several other Italian Renaissance poets. Pigman recognizes three types of imitation: the transformative, the dissimulative and the eristic, in which a “certain amount of transforming occurs by virtue of inclusion in a new context” (32). Indeed, Castilgione’s Count reminds his audience that the Greeks constructed a new language by gathering from all five of their existing major dialects (79).
Trissino and Castiglione’s language theories resonate in Juan de Valdés’s Diálogo de la
Lengua (1535), written in Naples in the early part of the third decade of the Cinquecento. The
Castilian Valdés (1509–1541) situates his Diálogo within the current Italian language discourse, questioning directly the merit of Bembo’s writing. Marcio, one of the interlocutors, poses the critical question: “And do you estimate that Bembo wasted his his time with the book he wrote concerning the Tuscan language?” (Diálogo 5).30 Ultimately, Valdés subverts Bembo’s unilateral model of imitation with unmistakable disdain for affectation and favouring the spoken language.31 Incidentally, in this language discourse, Valdés presents Garcilaso de la Vega as a person whose opinion he values (51).
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0080%3Aletter%3D84%3Asection%3 D3. [We must imitate, it is said, the bees that wandering here and there, suckle from those flowers the nectar of which produces honey; they deposit their gatherings in their honeycomb, and, as Virgil posits: “they succeed to produce pure honey and fill the cells with sweet nectar] (transl. mine). 30 ¿Y paréceos a vos que el Bembo perdió su tiempo en el libro que hizo sobre la lengua Toscana? (transl. mine). 31 Valdés writes: “Para deziros la verdad, muy pocas cosas observo, porque el estilo que tengo me es natural, y sin afetación ninguna escrivo como hablo […]”[In truth I tell you, very few things I observe, for my style is natural, and without affectation I write as I speak] (107; transl. mine). 25
Clearly then, the Renaissance questione della lingua was not exclusive to Italy. In Spain, the critical debates on the vernacular and on topics of imitation were fraught with the “anxiety of influence” (Bloom 1973) and a sense of belatedness (Fuchs 322). Navarrete describes the situation thus:
Although Spain was the first powerful and unified nation-state in Europe and had the first self-conscious national literature, its poets spent more than a century trying to create a body of literature that befitted its imperial stature, and in particular that matched the cultural achievements already attained in Italy (2).
Certainly “language can solace and relieve to a degree the solace of a belated culture,” writes
Greene, and “poetry can heighten this function of language” (191).
Garcilaso and his poet friend Juan Boscán set out to renew the poetic course for Spain.
The preface to their posthumous edition of poetry (1543) includes a reference to the 1526 legendary encounter with Andrea Navagero (1483–1529) in Granada. The latter encouraged
Boscán to attempt the adaptation of Italian forms in the Castillian language.32 “Not only did he ask me this light-heartedly” Boscán writes, “he begged me to do so” (transl. Cruz and Rivers
241).33 Boscán proposed this idea to his friend Garcilaso, whose judgement he considered
“impeccable” (241). The new poetry, observe Cruz and Rivers (233), citing Richard Helgerson
(2007), “provided the [Spanish] culture with a way of expressing its highest ambitions and its
Navarrete (2004) provides an extensive argument on the linguistic theories of Juan Valdés in the context of the existing imperial culture. 32 This encounter has been immortalized and reiterated innumerable times in literary writings, prologues and encyclopaedias (Rico 229). Andrea Navagero was the ambassador of the Republic of Venice in Madrid. He was in Granada for the 1526 wedding celebrations of Charles V to Isabel of Portugal. Navagero was also an architect with deep interest in the multifaceted aspects of Classic, Italian, Spanish, and Moorish architecture, landscape designs, and gardens. His receptiveness towards an eclectic architectural approach bears ideological underpinning. For example, it is reasonable to conceive the amalgamation of Italian forms and the Castilian language as another creative possibility whereby two superior elements are fused together for the betterment of the art. In the gardens of his Venetian residences, Navagero took great pride in displaying a wide variety of flora imported from Spain (Brothers 1994:80). On this topic of expanding architectural ideas in Navagero, also see Pastore (2003). 33 “Porque estando un día en Granada con el Navagero […] tratando con él en cosas de ingenio y de letras, y especíalmente en las variedades de muchas lenguas, me dixo: por qué no probava en lengua Castellana Sonetos y otras artes de trovas usadas por los buenos authores de Italía: y no solamente me lo dixo así livianamente, mas aún me rogó, que lo hiciese” (Las Obras (1554) - Libro Segundo (Prólogo) Fol. xli). 26
sharpest self-doubts” (xi).34 While Spain was empowered by its political dominance, the need for translatio studii resonated strongly in Boscán. His preface to Las Obras de Boscán y algunas de
Garcilasso de la Vega (1543) reads as follows: Italy is “a land flourishing with intelligence, letters, good judgement, and great authors” (transl. Cruz and Rivers 241).35 Likewise, in his preface to Boscán’s translation of Il Cortgiano, Garcilaso remarks: “I do not know what misfortune has befallen us that only a few people have written anything worthwhile in our language.”36 While scholars have speculated on the possible meaning of such scorn for certain aspects of previous Spanish literature (Alvar 219; Fernández-Morera 61), Garcilaso’s discernement may be interpreted as a justification for new aesthetic principles for prose and his poetry (Cruz and Rivers 234; Navarrete 1994:57; Terracini 1979:150). After all Garcilaso’s poetry is deeply rooted in his Spanish tradition (Lapesa 1985).
Boscán and Garcilaso, however, were not the first imitators of the new Italianate style.
Rico provides evidence that the poets of the Cancionero general (1511) were already skilled imitators of Petrarch and petrarchists. The second edition (1514), for example, includes Bembo’s poetry. Rico detects Bembo’s influence in Jorge Manrique’s Es amor fuerça and Juan Álvarez
Gato’s Llore que nunca me vio. Similar to Bembo, both coplas exhibit the stylistic polyptoton
(231). Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that poetry in Spain reached a new apogee with
34 Relevant to this topic is the chapter on “Instinct and Object: Subjectivity and Speech-Act in Garcilaso de la Vega” [in Cascardi (2010): 247–287]. Cascardi leads readers to consider Garcilaso’s questioning the power of the poetic voice through lyric self-creation. 35 For more on the trope of translatio studii, see Navarrete’s Orphans of Petrarch. Navarrete includes an incisive analysis of the poetic theories in the Reign of Charles V (38–72). Lore Terracini (1979) provides insight into the crisis and quandaries that afflicted the sixteenth-century Spanish language. Terracini places Spanish language disputes within the wider context of Renaissance language discourse, particularly those of Italy. 36 “[...] porque yo no sé qué desventura ha sido siempre la nuestra, que apenas ha nadie escrito en nuestra lengua sino lo que se pudiera muy bien escusar.” (El Cortesano 1574:5; transl. Cruz and Rivers 238). 27
Boscán and Garcilaso. Margaret King (2003), Cruz and Rivers (2011) synthesize the poets’ ambition:
Reflecting the country’s global expansion, Spanish culture moved beyond medieval belatedness to compete with Renaissance Italian culture, whose superiority was based on the humanist rebirth of ancient values. Through these poet’s efforts [Boscán and Garcilaso] Spain became the first European nation-state not only to appropriate Italian versification and prose style but also to displace Italy from the political and literary spheres of power (233).
The vernacular theories for language were thus inextricable from the socio-political discourses from which they rose, and inseparable from the poetry. This brings to mind an article by Robert Kaufman, who draws from Theodor Adorno (1903–1969), to dig deeper into the subject of lyrical expression. He reminds his readers that Adorno viewed “the struggle for expression in art [as] the struggle to express historical experience, which is, above all, the historical experience of human suffering” (201). Navarrete (1994) observes that Petrarchism in
Italy was clearly a phenomenon of suffering for a national identity, and that is one of the reasons for which Petrarch came to represent the “model for the vernacular lyric”(1). Furthermore, in his study of the Locuzione artificiosa, Ferroni discerns that for Cinquecento humanists the
Petrarchan model, as mediated by Bembo, represented not only the perfect prototype for poetic imitation, but also a moral code for expressing love. The Petrarchan lyric thus provided a means of acceptable social transmission, with its stereotypical code of tenets widely disseminated in privileged circles (Ferroni 15).
In Spain, Petrarchism had different implications, since it was intrinsic to the broad spectrum of imitation of Italian life and culture: from architecture and the arts to literature. Lyric poetry for Spain, Navarrete asserts, “became the arena of the struggle for a modern cultural legitimacy” that went beyond its social dimension and form of expression, for it paralleled the vocation of arms (2). In the Hispanic/Neapolitan arena, be it humanistic circles or the courts,
28
Lefèvre remarks that Petrarchism often served as a means of encomiastic poetry for the privileged class as a “refined game of society” (2005:51). Already in the late Quattrocento poets, such as the Catalan Benedetto Gareth, known as Il Cariteo, wrote in Italian in order to strengthen the court’s affinity with existing Neapolitan culture. Kennedy remarks that:
Cariteo’s] Petrarchism performs a facilitating role […], which enables the Spanish viceregal government to insert itself into a new vernacular environment by absorbing what it can from a northern Italian court culture (68)
Beginning with the publication of their works in 1543, Boscán and Garcilaso’s imitation of the Petrarchan sonnet and other Italian forms for Spain met its share of resistance and criticism (Schmidt 1995:12).37 The point is best illustrated by a poem by Cristóbal Castillejo (c.
1491–1556 ca): “Reprensión contra los poetas españoles que escriben en versos italiano”
[Reproaches to Spanish poets who adopt Italianate meters for their verses] (2.226; transl. mine).
His sonnet reproaches Garcilaso and Boscán for writing in a new language and unfamiliar sounding verse, such that their own people consider them foreign.38 Paradoxically, as Navarrete observes, by pointing to Garcilaso and Boscán for the reform of Spanish lyrics, Castillejo
“advanced the canonization” (127) of their works. Incidentally, Castillejo situates his critical verses in the sonnet form, thus demonstrating in his mastery an affinity for the Italianate form and a quintessential moment of nonchalant manner: descuido, in Boscán’s terms, or sprezzatura, as articulated by Baldassare Castiglione (Gies 162). Bocchetta discerns that the interest shown by
Boscán and Garcilaso towards Castiglione’s Courtier attests to the idea of a free spirit and a free
37 In her article on “Herrera's Concept of Imitation as the Taking of Spoils,” Rachel Schmidt draws to the core of the language debates in sixteenth-century Spain. She underscores the overtly sense of “identity crisis” in an empire, as perceived by Herrera, whose dominated territory threatened (or so it was perceived) to subvert with a superior culture and literary tradition. 38 Castillejo writes: “Paresciéndonles ser, como debía, / Gentiles españoles caballeros; / Y oyéndoles hablar Nuevo lenguaje / Mezclado de estranjera poesía, / con ojos los miraban de estranjeros” [Castillejo vv. 204–208 (229)]. 29
soul as postulated by Castiglione and Erasmus (22).39 Therefore, Castillejo indirectly endorses that which he claims to criticize. On the other hand, other critics rapidly and openly recognize
Garcilaso’s poetry in its own light. For example, Navarrete observes that Gonzalo Argote de
Molina (1549 ca.-1596) writes that Garcilaso “in his art and elegance […] owes nothing to
Petrarch.”40 Castillejo, in an effort to establish the legitimacy of a Spanish hendecasyllable, implicitly affirmed Garcilaso as national counter-model to Petrarch (128).
Similar sentiments of unease for the disproportionate imitation of Petrarch’s language and style, and the Petrarchan model as “Specchio di vita” (a code for life’s expressions), as
Baldacci defines it (49), also surfaced in Italy. For example, the Neapolitan poet Ludovico
Paterno (1533–1575), in his Nuovo Petrarca (1560) advocates for an eclectic style, one that with all due reverence to the lauro of Petrarch, allows latitude for new poets to construct their own space. He laments the “perpetual imprisonment and tyrannical poverty”41 dictated by a narrow prescription of the Petrarchan model. On the contrary, he purports overtly de-emphasizing the narrow scope and overuse of Petrarch’s linguistic and lexical repertoire. Paterno endeavoured to return Petrarch’s voice back to its author. Furthermore as Milburn observes, Paterno defended the legitimacy of contemporary linguistic innovation, particularly for pastoral verse (125).
Gerbino (2009) observes that Paterno posits the pastoral genre as “an alternative idea of poetry [and that] it could become the voice of a more inclusive, modern, and eclectic generation of successors of Petrarch”(72). Interestingly, Paterno recognizes “the noble and elegant Spanish
39 This concept of the “free soul” is also manifested by Juan Valdés, in his Diálogo de la lengua. For more on the affinities between Valdes and Garcilaso pertinent to this topic, see Cascardi (2012:189). 40 “en el arte y elegancia no deve nada al Petrarcha” (Gonzalo Argote de Molina, in Navarrete (1994:128); transl. mine). 41 Paterno: “prigionia perpetua e povertà troppo dura” (Nuovo Petrarca 20; transl. mine) 30
language.”42 He dedicates the Fiamme to Charles V so that he may delight in this collection of poetry written with such ingegno and laudable artifice, such that one is enticed to fine attunement. In this he concurs with Plato, who upholds the delightful harmony and sensible imitation of divine poets (6).43 Significantly, in this collection Paterno includes his own translation of a fragment of Garcilaso’s Eclogue III, Il Lamento al cavalier Frigio (331–336).
It is fascinating to observe that Garcilaso’s poetry reached the ears of one of Venice’s most eclectic and perhaps ambitious writers, critics, and self acclaimed amateur composers,
Antoniofrancesco Doni (1513–1574) (Feldman 19). His anti-Petrarchan style is revealed in a collection of Madrigali satirici, which includes a letter with remarks such as the following:
I composed this poetry to mock the whole world and to poke fun at some love poets, who cannot compose anything different from Madonna I love you and I say nothing - and - if I had thought – and other similar silly things that nowadays are as worn out as the poet’s cloaks.44
Bettella (2005) underscores that recent scholarship posits Doni’s role as an “intellectual working outside the tradition” epitomized in his anti-Petrarchan sonnet La mia donna ha capei corti e d’argento [My lady has short and silver hair] (117; transl. mine).
Doni’s Dialogo della musica (1544), Feldman asserts, sets the stage as “a dynamic space for arbitrating different styles [and of course] self-fashioning” (21). Haar (1996) suggests that
Doni’s Dialogo attests to the significance and extent of musico-poetic practices in courts and humanistic circles. A penchant for eclectic style is perhaps revealed in Doni’s Pistolotti amorosi
(1554), an eclectic collection of discrete love compositions, such as unedited letters, canzoni,
42 Paterno writes: “nobile e elegante lingua Spagnola” (Nuove Fiamme 7; transl. mine) 43 “In questo mi accorderò con Platone, il quale fù di parere, che quella celeste musica,[…]ma per quella più tosto vera e divina armonia, con più grace giudicio da coloro imitate che divini poeti vengono detti” (6). 44 Doni writes: “Ho poetato per burlarmi del mondo, e per farmi beffe d’alcuni scatolini d’amore, I quali non sanno uscire di – Madonna io v’amo e taccio - e- S’io avessi pensato – e simili ciabatterie, oggimai così fruste come le cappe de’ poeti” (117; transl. Bettella). 31
epigrams, madrigals, and sonnets. One of his works is a translation of Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX,
Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso, translated as Passando il mar Leandro il coraggioso (Doni
1552; C iii). Garcilaso’s inclusion and translation in this collection bespeaks of how he served as an inspiring example of the eclectic poet.
Returning to the phenomenon known as Petrarchism in Italy, one might question what could have been more bourgeois and opportune for Bembo, attending in the erudite court of
Urbino, than to endorse a treatise dealing with the most pressing linguistic issues? Certainly, as
Floriani asserts, behind Bembo’s choices in his Prose lies not only a stylistic ideal, but also undeniably a “guaranteed social identity” (17).45 Bembo earned distinction in religious circles with his Latin works and in vernacular prose with his Asolani, but his voice needed to penetrate further the dense tapestry of literary discourse in humanistic circles. The courts provided fertile ground for his works in the vernacular (Floriani 18–19). Furthermore, the appropriation of the
Petrachan model for lyric poetry reflects the idea of decadence, imitation, and rebirth, all of which characteristic to Renaissance humanistic ideals (Navarrete 7).
In this attempt to codify the Italian language, Pietro Bembo postulates that the poetry of
Petrarch represents the perfect blend of sound, harmony, and the vernacular model of the
Virgilian poetic language. Vega Ramos, who situates matters of sound at the core of the
Renaissance poetic tradition and the role of verbal sonority as the sensible conduit of meaning in the work, writes thus:
The question of sound presents differentiating characteristics in vernacular treatises whose origin is the debate on language. On one hand, there are aspects that are not directly translatable from Latin doctrine; on the other, and much more pertinent, vernacular poetics must address the basic question of
45 Extend discourse on the political circumstances that shaped the emerging vernaculars remains beyond the scope of this dissertation. For further insight into the figures of Bembo and Castiglione and the socio-political context from which their work arose, see Floriani (1976). On Bembo’s Petrarchism, see the section p.75–98. 32
the euphonic possibilities of the vulgar language and propose a new body of imitative models of adequate sonority.46
Bembo’s practical approach to verbal sonority is rooted in ancient treatises, in particular
Cicero’s principles of decorum and persuasion (Prose 2. XIX). To persuade his audiences and make his points, Bembo adopts Horace’s idea of poetry as a kind of “stage performance” in his Ars Poetica, written in the form of a Socratic dialogue (Feldman 1995:24).
The focus of the treatise is not so much on matter, but rather on form and the disposition and resonance of words produced for maximum expressiveness. Whereas some literary critics, such as Bernard Weinberg (1961), scorned the persistent reverting to rhetoric undertaken by
Renaissance poets, Feldman aptly observes:
The rhetorical vision that led the Venetians to read in universally Ciceronian-Horatian terms also prompted them to innovative mediations on rhythmic and musical properties of verse. In searching for listener’s appeal, Venetians hoped to convey meaning through sound and awaken readers to interaction between sound and meaning (145).
Vallone obliquely concurs; he discerns that Bembo’s focus is “distinctively the eloquence, elegance and the expressive power of the word, its diaphanous and malleable transparency, figurative and melodic, together with its expressive nexus.”47
Bembo reiterates the concept of the charm and beauty of language expressed by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his treatise On Literary Composition (1508).48 Dionysius, a
46“[…] la cuestión del sonido presenta características diferenciales en los tratados vernaculares que se derivan de la polémica sobre la lengua. Por una parte, hay aspectos en los que no es posible una translación directa de la doctrina latina; por otra, y de manera más relevante aún, las poéticas vulgares deben plantearse la cuestión de base de la capacidad eufónica del vulgar y levantar un nuevo cuerpo de ejemplos y de modelos de sonoridad adecuada” (1992:174; transl. mine).
47 “La sua [di Bembo] attenzione è rivolta unicamente all’eloquenza ed eleganza, alla capacità di presa della parola, alla traslucida e sciolta trasparenza, figurativa e melodica insieme, del nesso espressivo” (357; transl. mine). 48 See Heiple 78–101 for a discussion on the close correlation between Bembo’s theories, Dionysius’s and Herrera’s understanding of Garcilaso’s poetry. Chapter XI of On Literary Composition by Dionysius deals with “charm and beauty in composition” (121). 33
Graeco-Roman teacher, writer, literary critic and rhetorician who lived in Rome in the fourth- century BC, asserts that the elements of good style in poetry are melody, rhythm, variety, and appropriateness. He conceives charm, or what Bembo defines as piacevolezza, as “grace, euphony, sweetness and persuasiveness” and beauty or gravità as “grandeur [and] dignity”
(Dionysius 121). Bembo elucidates further:
Referring to the three elements that constitute the two parts is the sound of this harmonious accord, that is generated by the disposition of voices in prose, and in the poetry by the disposition of words and rhyme.49
But the history of Italian literature does not begin with Bembo for, as Dionisotti observes (1968:42), it does with Dante. In De Vulgari Eloquentia, Dante interpreted musica rhythmica as verbal music in which words and music resonate in counterpoint to one another. Dante approached the subject of verbal music in his “Convivio” in this manner:
Music is entirely a matter of relationships, as is evident in speech, in respect of poetry, and in song, for the sweetness of the harmony created by anyone of these works in proportion to the beauty of the relationship within it.50
Dante, thus, perceives that the proportion and the disposition of the words contribute to harmonious effects in poetry. Likewise, Bembo envisions concento as the harmonious relationship of voices (Prose 2. X). Yet Bembo, in his pursuit for aesthetic style, faults Dante in part for breaking the rules of decorum in his proclivity for gravity without piacevolezza
[grandeur without good grace] (Prose 2. IX). On the other hand, Bembo alleges that “two are the
49 “Ma venendo alle tre cose generanti, queste due parti che io dissi, è suono quell concento e quella armonia, che nelle prose dal componimento si genera delle voci, nel verso oltre acciò dal componimento eziando delle rime” (Prose 2. IX; transl. mine). 50 “Musica, la quale è tutta relativa, sì come si vede ne le parole armonizzate e ne li canti de‘ quali tanto piú dolce armonia resulta, quanto più la relazione è bella [...]”[Dante Convivio II, 201-4] (transl.Verdicchio 2010:77). 34
parts that contribute to beautiful writing, gravity and pleasingness […] Petrarch fulfills one and the other eloquently.”51
There is a remarkable correlation between Dionysius’s discourse and Bembo’s aesthetic ideas of prose and poetry, as well as the ideas on poetry expressed by the ancient Greek
Longinus in On the Sublime. In fact, Caroline van Eck et al observe that there existed an insightful understanding of matters regarding “rhetoric and poetics, including the sublime” amidst Florentine scholars. Bembo’s Prose, van Eck et al suggest, stands as a nexus for the dissemination of Dionysius’s theories (6). In a treatise written in the first century c.e. On the
Sublime, Longinus investigates the shaping of poetic expression through rhetorical devices. He upholds great writers who gained immortality, not so much on persuasion but on “excellence in expression” (Longinus, in Adams 95). Indeed, Greek poetry was meant to be sung and accompanied by the lyre (Babich 173). In his Poetics, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) deliberates on the various manifestations of Greek poetry, such as recitation of song and dance:
Epic and tragic composition, and indeed comedy, dithyrambic compositions, and most sort of music for [aulos and lyre] are all considered as a whole, representations (Norton 88).52
In her article, Between Philosophy and Music, Babich cites from Thrasybulous Georgiades’s
Music and Language to emphasize that the word musike in Greek serves as an adjective that pertains to the Muses, thus referring to an active dimensionality characteristic of the Greek language (179). Likewise, Dionysius draws a connection between music and language. He stresses the likenesses between music and oratory, and their affect on the listener. He writes:
51 “Due parti sono quelle che fanno bella ogni scrittura, la gravità e la piacevolezza [...] il Petrarca l'una e l'altra di queste parti empié maravigliosamente” (Prose 147; transl. mine). 52 “ἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητικὴ καὶ τῆς [15] αὐλητικῆς ἡ πλείστη καὶ κιθαριστικῆς πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον.” http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg034.perseus-grc1:1447a. 35
“[t]he words involve melody, rhythm, variety, and appropriateness; so that, in this case also, the ear delights in the melodies […].” The distinction between oratory and music, he posits, “is simply one of degree” (125–127). Dionysius thus conceives language in terms of its musicality and its rhythm.
The question remains how Garcilaso may have come in contact with the aforementioned theories of musicality and language. Indeed, in a letter written to Onorato Fascitelli on the 10th of
August 1535, Bembo praises one of Garcilaso's Odes for its uniquely sweet and sonorous sound.
Whereas Bembo’s letter may have been politically motivated (Kidwell 253), his remarks remain as historical evidence in the canon of dialogical exchanges between Garcilaso, Bembo and other
Italian humanists. The letter to Fascitelli reads as follows:
The third thing is about the ode that S. Garcilasso sent to me [...] that gentleman is also a magnificent and delightful poet; and these [verses] of his are most pleasing to me; they are distinctly deserving of praise and honour. Moreover he, of honoured spirit, has far surpassed, it will be upheld, his entire nation; and it will be possible that, if he does not tire of his diligent study, he may surpass those of other nations who consider themselves masters in their art […]. Above all, I discern the following accomplishment: it is my opinion that the Ode that he writes, for me, is the most inventive and graceful in the world, and sonorous and sweet, above all others.53
Given this exchange, and that Garcilaso attended the Accademia Pontoniana’s gatherings, it is reasonable to believe that Bembo’s theories of sound may have reached his ears and that he may have considered them for his own Spanish verse (Heiple 101).
Herrera, in his Annotaciones (1580), certainly links Garcilaso’s sound of verses, albeit unsystematically, to Bembo’s theories. For example, he comments on Garcilaso’s opening verse
53 “La terza cosa è delle ode del S. Garcilasso, che egli gli manda[…]quell gentil huomo è anche un bello et gentil poeta; et queste sue tutte mi sono sommamente piaciute; et meritano singular commendation et laude. Et ha quello honorato spirito superato diran lunga tutta la nation sua; et potrà avenire, se egli non si stancherà nello studio et nella diligenza, che egli superera ancho dell’altrem che si tengono maestre della poesia [...] Ma io sopratutto ho con lui questo vantaggio: che é me pare, l'Oda che egli a me scrive, sia etiando piu vaga e piu elegante et mondo et sonora et dolce, che le altre tutte non sono." Carta del Cardenal Pietro Bembo a Don Honorato Fascitelli. In, Gallego Morell 1976:167; transl. mine). 36
of the sonnet Cuando me paro a contemplar mi ‘stado. Herrera writes: “This verse with repeated vowels on the first and the fourth [accented syllable], is solemn for it is striking, full, and sonorous; and because of it they [the vowels] fill the voice with dignity.”54 Similarly, Bembo perceives great effect emanating from the spirit of the open vowels ‘a’ and ‘o’ (Prose 2. X). In line with Bembo’s theories, Herrera places Garcilaso in the Petrarchan tradition: “we owe
Francesco Petrarca the delight and elegance of the sonnets.”55 The vast intertextual connection with the Italian master is certainly an indication that the use of the Petrarchan exemplum in
Garcilaso is more than purely casual. The relationship with Petrarch is made tangible in
Garcilaso’s Epístola a Boscán, in which the poet describes his trip to the land where Petrarch’s fire was born and the land where the ashes of this fire lay buried (vv. 83-85).
Heiple points to Herrera for recognizing remarkable sound patterns in Garcilaso’s sonnets,56 and posits that Bembo’s theories and those of Dionysius would certainly provide new insight for the study of Spanish Golden Age poetry (101). By extension, Heiple underscores the significance of sound patterning or musicality of verses in the reading of and listening to
Garcilaso’s poetry. On this topic, Morros asserts: “Garcilaso accommodated the sound of his verses to the genius of [his] language.”57 Indeed, in the course of this dissertation it will be shown that the sound of Garcilaso’s verse is an intertextual means to enter into dialogue with humanistic literary aesthetics and to subvert the imitated model. Certainly Garcilaso’s sound,
54 “Este verso por las vocales primera y cuarta, que tiene tan repetidadas, es muy grave, porque son grandes y llenas y sonoras; por así hacen la voz numerosa con gravedad” (Herrera Comentarios in Gallego Morell (1972): 315; transl. mine). 55 Herrera writes: “debemos a Francisco Petrarca el resplandor y elegancia de los sonetos.” Herrera in Gallego Morell 1972:309 (transl. mine). 56 For further discussion on Garcilaso’s sound patterns, see chapter II. 57 “Garcilaso acomodó el sonido de sus versos al genio de la lengua” (Morros xc; transl. and emphasis mine). 37
further discussed in chapter III, is one of many signifiers inextricable from the complex stratification of meaning and subversive possibilities of language.
Garcilaso’s imitation undoubtly includes the Petrarchan model yet his canon of imitation is eclectic: one that includes omnes bonos.58 In fact, Navarrete observes that Herrera also links
Garcilaso’s works to Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Bernardo Tasso and Diego de Hurtado de Mendoza
(1994:140). Garcilaso, in a vein similar to Dante and contrary to Bembo’s principles of decorum, freely articulates his thoughts regarding the different kinds of speech. In his preface to Boscán’s
Cortesano, Garcilaso writes:
Whenever we read a variety of graceful and witty sayings that are intended to make us laugh with their subtlety, we find in other passages examples that are not so clever or well crafted. Those readers [whose ear is so sensitive and delicate that despite the thousand good things contained in this book, are offended by the one or two that are not so good] might then suspect that the author is not as reasonable or refined as we assume. To this we can answer that the author meant to include different sorts of graceful and witty saying and so that we may distinguish the differences and similarities between them, he put forth examples of all kinds, listening to so many different ways of speaking that not all can be judged equally good and some inferior to others (transl. Cruz and Rivers 239).
Garcilaso cautions his readers that, whilst the different ways of speaking may disturb “those whose ear is so sensitive and delicate,” the poetic voice intentionally switches from one way of speaking to another, as to emphasize different meanings. Garcilaso thus invites readers to redirect their focus away from the literary form toward meaning. In practice, I so construe, the form is simply a conduit for signification. The sound and music of language, its rhythm and its silences transcend formal confines or rules of decorum to ultimately convey meaning. Certainly,
58 Pico della Mirandola, in his epistle of 1512 De imitatione writes: “Imitandū inquā bonos omnes, non unum aliqué, nec omnibus etiā in rebus [...]” (54). I posit that one must imitate from all good writers, and not only one and not in all things (transl. mine). 38
the poet declaims: “the birds that listen to me, when they sing, [modify] their voice to express their sympathy.”59
Garcilaso’s remarks on the various modes of speaking exhibit a critical awareness of the sixteenth-century’s preoccupation with language and the parallel obsession for the aesthetic that affected matters of identity in every facet of life. Reyes Cano (2002) synthesizes it best when he writes: “Never before had we witnessed so much reflection on political, scientific, social, linguistic, moral and philosophic order.”60 In addition, Cano emphasizes that Boscán and
Garcilaso “forge verses that are filled with musicality and harmony, expressiveness and spontaneity, lyricism and proportion that introduce in Spain new ways in which to imagine love, poetry.”61 Finally, in this new poetic model for early modern Spain, Petrarch emerges as a light but not the only light.
The sounds of Naples and the Accademia Pontoniana
Reflecting on the ancient meaning of music as well as drawing from Nietzsche’s contention that his writing should be read as music, Babich appeals to “the ethical praxis of music in philosophy [that] teaches the heart to listen […] both in the words and between the lines in the style of expression” (180).62 In ancient Greece, speakers and readers shared a basic ethic of
59 “Las aves que me escuchan, cuando cantan, con differente boz se condolecen” (Garcilaso, Ecl. I v. 200–201; transl. and emphasis mine). 60 “Nunca hasta este momento habíamos asistido a tanta reflexión en el orden político, científico, social, lingüistíco, moral o filosófico” (9; transl. mine). 61 “unos versos que, plenos de musicalidad y armonía, de sentimiento y naturalidad, de liricismo y equilibrio, imponen en España esa nueva manera de entender el amor y la poesía” (Reyes Cano18; transl. mine). 62 Babich extends Nietzsche’s ideas on the philosophy of music. She conjectures that the discrimination and resonance of text or the “musicality of expression” is integral to meaning (175). 39
responsibility in the realization of meaning. This deliberate attunement to the ‘music of thought,’ as Babich defines it, is as critical today as it did in ancient times (173).
Interestingly, in John Freccero’s attempt to reflect on the ways in which Petrarch’s lyrics endure as revolutionary writing and a model of literary self-creation, he posits that “the extraordinary innovation in the Canzoniere is rather to be found in what the verses leave unsaid”
(34). Freccero concludes that language is desire, fraught with signs of referentiality (38). Hence, the listener ought to discern that which is in the lines and in-between the lines in the literary structures, in the acoustic images, in the rhythm, and in the silences. This referentiality of signs may thus lead one to uncover the underpinning signification of Petrarch’s lauro, St. Augustine’s fig tree (Freccero 35) or, in this case, Garcilaso’s ascent to the cumbre difícil d’Elicona – the difficult summit of Elicone (Sonnet XXIV, v.8).
Heiple contends that an academic study of Garcilaso’s poetry requires knowledge of not only its contemporary poetic tradition, but also the broader artistic interdisciplinary milieu.
Indeed Heiple, who investigated the interrelationship between some of Garcilaso’s works and the visual arts, concludes his extensive study with the contention that Garcilaso emerges as a “strong intellectual figure capable of understanding and utilizing the many aspects of Renaissance artistic traditions” (395). So far, in this investigation of the intertextual relations between Garcilaso’s poetic style and the sound of his verses in the context of current aesthetic theories of language, we have discerned a confluence of the Hispanic cancionero style, the Petrarchan, and the neoclassical style (Garcilaso, Ed. Morros 1995; Heiple 1994; Keniston 1922; Lapesa 1985:
Rivers 1974). Yet an intellectual deliberation of Garcilaso’s ascent to Mount Helicon (the Greek mythical summit in Turkey Ἑλικών where the muses of poetry and music reside) must include a
40
consideration of the influences and interchanges experienced during his sojourn in Naples, where he spent the last seven years of his brief life.
Naples presented an interesting dichotomy for the young soldier. It was a place of military service and thriving center of humanistic culture. The two-way cultural influx between
Spain and Italy was continuous during the time that Naples was the capital of the Spanish Empire in Italy (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). The city exemplified the most remarkable paradigm of cross-cultural fertilization, one in which writers, poets, and musicians, obsessed with the humanistic ideals of style, exchanged literary and linguistic theories. Garcilaso, as a soldier, served in the military campaign of Charles the V. Since he exhibited the audacity to disregard the king’s orders, which prohibited the betrothal of his nephew to Doña Isabel de la
Cueva, he was exiled first to an island near Ratisbonne on the Danube and then to Naples.
While serving at the court of the Viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo, Garcilaso found favour at the Accademia Pontaniana. The city provided him access to the most current humanistic and literary discourses in Renaissance circles. The Accademia was founded in 1447 and named after the Umbrian humanist Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), who served as orator at the court of
Alfonso Duke of Calabria. Pontano was arguably the finest Renaissance Latin poet (Bentley
127–137). Barreto, who examined the following Valencian frontispiece, asserts that the portrait depicts Pontano closely linked with his Duke and as the embodiment of the state (2).
41
Fig. 1. Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, De Principe De Obediencia. Ms. 52 (Biblioteca Històrica. Universitat de València), v. 1475, by Cristoforo Maiorana fol. 26r. By permission.
Long before the De Compositione Verborum by Dionysius of Halicarnassus was printed in 1508, and prior to the time that Bembo’s influences penetrated the literary circles of Naples,
Giovanni Pontano ideated one of the most critical texts dealing with Virgilian verbal sonority: the Actius (Vega Ramos 25). For his commentary on Garcilaso, Herrera draws on Pontano’s
Actius and Antonio Minturno’s De Poetica Thoscana (Vega Ramos 207). Written at the end of the fifteenth-century, Actius was one of five dialogues bearing the academic name of Jacopo
Sannazaro. Part of the dialogue, in Pontano’s Actius, is dedicated to the analysis of Virgil’s poetry. It considers its sonorous qualities that arouse pleasure in the listener.63
Pontano’s theories echo in the work of Antonio Sebastiani, known as Minturno (1500-
1574). His Arte Poetica Thoscana (1564) deals with the analysis of poetry in the vernacular.
Minturno’s De Poeta, published in 1559, includes a lengthy dedication to Sannazaro and
Pontano. Similar to Pontano’s Actius, the sixth book of De Poeta posits a lengthy consideration of the role of verbal sonority in poetry. Vega Ramos explains that, for Minturno, verbal sonority
63 Vega Ramos provides an in-depth synthesis of Pontano’s theories construed to unearth those practical elements yielding to a Virgilian sonority and possible imitation (El secreto artificio 1992). 42
is not only an element of auditory delight but it also plays a significant role as expressive constituents of the lyric (60).64 Minturno’s Arte Poetica Thoscana, along with Herrera’s
Annotaciones (1580) for Spain, stands as the most comprehensive treatise on the doctrines of verbal sonority for the vernacular (Vega Ramos 211). It is precisely Minturno who compares the poet to an orator, one who judiciously select his words, the voices, attuned to the sound and rhythm of the words, their dignity, and the heightening of style.65 Minturno reached Naples in
1526, and participated in the activities of the local academies, where he would have met
Garcilaso (Keniston 118). Great enough was the poet’s influence to merit mention in Garcilaso’s
Sonnet XXIV, examined at the end of this chapter.
After Pontano’s death, Pietro Summonte, Jacopo Sannazaro, and subsequently Scipione
Capece headed the Accademia Pontaniana. Scipione Capece’s meetings are well documented by
Minturno in his De Poeta (Brundin 42). Keniston posits that Garcilaso may have been admitted to the academy because of his acquaintance with Scipione Capece (1480–1551), a poet and a professor at the University of Naples. Capece dedicated his edition of commentaries on Virgil’s
Aenead to the Spanish poet whom he considered “illustris atque doctossimo” [a gentleman and a scholar] (Keniston 118).
In the course of his sojourn in Naples, Garcilaso came in contact with other influential humanists. A few are mentioned in his works, namely, Mario Galeota, Alfonso d’Avalos, Luigi
Tansillo, Antonio Epicuro, Giulio Cesare Caracciolo, Girolamo Seripando, and María de
64 Vega Ramos deals with the imitative or descriptive possibilities of the vernacular language in Minturno’s De Poeta and Herrera’s Annotaciones a la obra poética de Garcilaso in context of the Pontonian influence (58–64). See “Substitution of Virgil for Petrarch” (Vega Ramos 217–219). 65 Minturno writes: “Ben vi so dire, che io non una volta ho letto, il Poeta essere confine, anzi uguale all’Oratore nel giudicio, e nella elezione delle parole; e nella grandezza, e nell’ornamento dell stile; ma più al suono delle parole, per piacere agli orecchi, che di servire alle cose” (Arte 321; transl. and emphasis mine). 43
Cardona, Marquess of Padua. But more than passing connections were those with Juan de Valdés and the circle of erudite women such as Laura Terracina and Vittoria Colonna (Croce 1894;
Gonzales Miguel 1979; Keniston 1922).
Colonna’s early influences include the literary circle of the Accademia Pontaniana, in particular Sannazaro and the spiritual ideas of Juan Valdés (Brundin 42). Once established as a poetess, Colonna and her circle of erudite women, which included Giovanna d’Aragona, who was the estranged wife of her own brother Ascanio Colonna, hosted a cenacle for the enhancement of poetry, music, and the arts on the island of Ischia.66 Their idyllic villa became a nexus for “the golden age of Neapolitan musical life” (Wistreich 138). Renowned and glorified by several humanists, such as Sannazaro, Chariteo, Anisio, Paolo Giovio, Marcantonio
Minturno, Flaminio, Bernardo Tasso, Tansillo, Angelo Costanzo, and Bernardino Rota, the cenacle embodied the literary Helicon (Castagna 2007; Giordano 122; Therault 201–202). After centuries of misogynistic assumptions and the marginalization of women intellectuals, the literary movement of the women of Naples stood as a progressive affirmation of female dignity.
It came at a time when a number of humanist treatises supported a movement towards a new perspective on women (Brundin xxiii).67 In 1533 Colonna appears to be actively involved with the most important humanists and men of letters in Naples (Giordano 133). Anne-Marie Lievens
66 The circle of women also includes Costanza d’Avalos, Isabella d’Aragona, Isabella del Balzo, Maria d’Aragona and Beatrice d’Aragona. See Castagna (2007). 67 Indeed, Toscano asserts that Colonna was considered a model for Neapolitan poets (257). Poetry aside, Colonna and Gonzaga were deeply drawn to the spiritual journey of Juan de Valdés who, we have established, knew and held Garcilaso in high regard (Diálogo 51). Colonna’s social circle included Jacopo Sannazaro and Bernardo Tasso, well known to Garcilaso. Vittoria Colonna tutored her husband’s cousin, Alfonso D’Avalos, Marquis of Vasto (Toscano 1988). For an account of Garcilaso’s friendships and literary connections see Croce 1894:5; Keniston 118 and Morros LIII. For more insight intoTansillo and Garcilaso’s network at the Accademia Pontaniana, see González Miguel 1979 and Milburn 2006:6. It is crucial to note that Audrey Lumsden (1947), similar to Milburn, laments the scarcity of research on Neapolitan literature (Milburn1). Lumsden conjectures that further research may lead to undiscovered Latin Odes by Garcilaso since the extant ones were found amidst collections of other poets. (341). 44
writes that the Colonna’s palace was a site of gathering for poets such as Tansillo, d’Avalos and
Garcilaso. Lievens cites Giordano who asserts that Colonna and her husband Francesco Ferrante d’Avalos delighted in Garcilaso’s Castilian poetry (48).68
Whereas no extant evidence reveals a direct contact between Garcilaso and the poetess, it is possible to assume an indirect influence of the Spanish poet through mutual acquaintances namely, with Alfonso d’Avalos, Luigi Tansillo, Juan de Valdés, María de Cardona and Laura
Terracini, to name a few. In fact, Toscano observes that both the poetry of Avalos, Tansillo, and
Sannazaro appeared next to Colonna’s in Fabricio Luna’s Vocabulario (1536). Tansillo’s contribution, comprised of a sonnet on the topos of jealousy (O d’Invidia e d’Amor figlia sì ria) and on the same topic the one by Sannazaro (O gelosia d’amanti orribil freno). Toscano links the two sonnets to Garcilaso’s ¡O celos, de amor terrible freno! (Sonnet 39), possibly created in the same months (Tra corti […] 3).
It is precisely in this circle of humanists that Girolamo Ruscelli ( ?- d.1566) compiled two anthologies that serve as some of the most prestigious encomia of the sixteenth-century. One is
Del tempio all divina signora donna Giovanna d’Aragona […] (1555). The other, a collection of
Rime et versi is dedicated to Giovanna Castriota Carafa (1585). The Rime includes a selection of
Castilian lyrics dedicated to the memory of noble captains and erudite Spanish women (Lefèvre
160).69 Notably, Ruscelli includes Petrarch and Bembo as Italian models, but Garcilaso and
Boscán both appear as exemplars of the Spanish Petrarchan style (Lefèvre 69). Two of those
68 Lievens cites Giordano (1906:147) to observe that “[Garcilaso], da essi tanto amato che dolcissimi versi componeva nell’idioma che Francesco Ferrante [consorte di Vittoria Colonna] preferiva agli altri” [Garcilaso, loved by them for his delightful verses written in Francesco Ferrante’s preferred language (Ferrante d’Avalos was Vittoria Colonna’s husband) (48; transl. mine)]. 69 For further insight, see ch. IV of Matteo Lefèvre, Una poesia per l’impero. Roma: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2006. I am indebted to Dr. Lefèvre for personally securing this text for this research. 45
compositions by Scipione de Monti and Jerónimo Contreras are dedicated to the memory of
Garcilaso’s verses (69). The collection provides an outstanding sample of the cross-cultural fertilization in Naples, one that transcended political and linguistic boundaries. Granted, the undercurrent of Petrarchism may have been energized by the forces of “social games,” as
Lefèvre observes (51). Nonetheless, that Italian poets exercised their poetic abilities in the
Castilian language, corroborates the interrelationship between the two cultures (51). And, finally,
Scipione de Monti’s verses and Ruscelli’s choices bespeak of the great esteem for Garcilaso’s verses granted in this complex tapestry of the Neapolitan literary world. What emerges from the study of the literary and linguistic reality in the Hispanic/Neapolitan context, notwithstanding obvious political underpinnings, is a remarkable interchange based on “a principle of tolerance”
(Lefèvre 2005:71; Lievens 2013:113).
There is perhaps no greater example of Garcilaso’s esteemed reputation as a friend and a poet than Tansillo’s imitations of his poetry.70 Luigi Tansillo (1510–1568), accomplished poet and soldier served Don Pedro de Toledo as a member of his contini, as well as official court poet with Garcilaso (Sánchez 31). At the court of Don Pedro de Toledo, Tansillo in his poetry, by way of dedications to the Viceroy and Garcilaso, attempts a nexus between the Spanish cultural world and Italian humanism. Tansillo’s manneristic poetic style plus the acclamation of the viceroy’s personal virtues in his verses reflect the humanistic evolution of the court as it emulates those ideals expressed earlier by the Florentine Vasari and Varchi, as Sánchez discerns (32)71. Pedro de
Toledo’s court housed a rich library, suggesting the viceroy was a highly cultured man.
70 On Garcilaso’s friendship with Tansillo, see González Miguel (Chapter II) and Milburn 29 n.8. 71 Sanchéz cites La Clorida, dedicated to Don Pedro de Toledo, in which the poet extols the virtues of the viceroy (32). 46
According to Croce, the court provided “vere accademie e le sue scuole” for Tansillo as well as for the Spanish poet Garcilaso (Sánchez 32). Tansillo was the great lover of all arts and a musician (Milburn 138). He dedicated several sonnets to Garcilaso (Cammarata 21) and indirectly canonized his Spanish friend not only as noble spirit and man of arms but also as poet musicus. His verses read: “oh noble spirit, with the cither around his neck / the sword at his side, and forever the pen in his hand.”72
On the topic of the musicality in Garcilaso’s poetry, it is worth noting that Raffaele
Brandolini, in his De musica poetica (1513), provides a rationale for the need to privilege musico-poetic performances by pointing to a list of distinguished humanists who declaimed their own verses. Poliziano’s ‘Orpheus’, for example, was an extemporaneous song often dramatized in Mantua at the court of Francesco Gonzaga. In Naples, continues Brandolini, the musico-poetic practice was exercised by “Pontano’s circle that included Jacopo Sannazaro (1458 –1530) and
Benedetto Gareth of Barcelona known as Chariteo (1450–1514)” (Brandolini xxxviii). This practical knowledge of music may explain Sannazaro’s emphasis on woodland gods and their musical instruments in his Arcadia: “There is Uranus, whose sweet harmony / in his lyre, and his enchanting declaiming / resembles the sounds of this pipe of mine.”73
Sannazaro’s influence in literature was vast. The popularity of his works in Latin and vernacular abides as proof. Sannazaro’s Arcadia (1502), a non-dramatic and lyrical Renaissance pastoral, was widely disseminated throughout Europe: Lewis Hammond affirms that it appeared in print 66 times between 1504 and 1600. This literary work that evoked the lyricism of
72 “Spirit gentil, che con la cetra al collo / la spade al fianco, ogn’or la penna in mano” (Tansillo’s Sonnet 33, vv. 1-2 in Milburn 36; transl. mine). 73 “Egli è Uranio, il qual tanta armonia / ha ne la lira, et un dir sì leggiadro, / che ben s'agguaglia a la sampogna mi.” (Sannazaro’s Arcadia Ecl. II, vv.16-18; transl. mine). 47
Theocritus and Virgil also inspired innumerable musical settings (2007:72). Such penchant for the pastoral with its idyllic settings, melancholy, and allusions to musical enactments influenced several Italian and Spanish poets, namely Benedetto Varchi, Annibale Caro, Girolamo Muzio,
Antonio Minturno, Bernardo Tasso, Bernardino Rota, Luigi Tansillo, Juan Encina, and finally,
Garcilaso himself.74
Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Sora conjectures, inspired the spirit of desire and passion for the dawning humanist age. Moreover, Sora writes
Sannazaro incorporated into Arcadia a theme that was woven into the academies of Italy, that of the “underground stream” of knowledge – blending Pythagorean, Gnostic, Hermetic, and Kabbalistic teachings into the idea of a higher secret knowledge accessible only to the initiate (2004:202).
Soranzo (2009) obliquely concurs, writing that Sannazaro’s Arcadia “constantly [referring] to historical characters and events […] is rich in extra-textual references” (52). Soranzo underscores the dialogical properties of the poetry, and he posits the following:
Intellectual communities such as those gathering in [early Renaissance] Florence and Naples, that produced dialogues and commonly interacted in a dialogical fashion, were keen to produce texts that had a close relationship with their audience” (51).
Indeed, Soranzo observes that Marsilio Ficino’s commentaries on Plato’s Symposium refer to the practice of reading in circle, and underscore the prevailing convention among scholars at the time (50, emphasis mine). Soranzo further observes that the Arcadia has been interpreted from a historical, literary, and linguistic aspect, and shows the way in which the text’s meaning underlines the dialogical nature of the work (51).
74 See Kidwell 1993:189. For more on Garcilaso and Sannazaro, see Darío Fernández Morera’s The Lyre and the Oaten Flute: Garcilaso and the Pastoral, and also Bocchetta’s Sannazaro en Garcilaso. Finally, as Rivers (2011) observes, Keniston considers Garcilaso’s “tender melancholy” analogous to that of Virgil and Sannazaro. Keniston writes: “It is, then, as a revelation of the poet’s own experience, admirable in its sincerity and touching in its emotion, that the first of the Eclogues stands as a true poem. In an age of artificial imitation, it is eminent for its depth of real feeling and its wistful tenderness. Nowhere in the works of Garcilaso, rarely in the poems of the Renaissance, can we find a song which comes closer to our hearts than this cry of the poet’s heart; disappointment and death have rarely received a more moving portrayal.” (Rivers 391, and Keniston 1922: 244–45). 48
Giuseppe Gerbino, in Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy, contends that the renewed interest in the pastoral reflected the archetypal desire for a literary world that could inspire the possibility of a return to the tranquil life,as epitomized in Virgil’s Bucolics or the
Golden Age on earth (25). Yet the shepherd’s stories had the amazing power to baffle the imagination of the listener, for hidden between and among verses lay a thick web of cryptic underlying discourses. Humanists borrowed various signs and conventions from classical antiquity, and music, Gerbino advances, became one of these codes (25). Gerbino relates the content of a 1349 document discovered by Gherardo Petrarch in which his brother urges readers of his Bucolicum Carmen to distinguish between quid dicam and quid intendam. Gerbino thus concludes that “the main function of the fictional figure of the shepherd was to trigger an interpretive process by inviting the reader to search meaning between the lines of the literal narrative” (30).
If Sora’s, Soranzo’s and Gerbino’s conjectures are deemed the least possible, then we may return to the article by Babich, on the philosophy of music of thought. It invites students of poetry to assume a careful attunement to the music of thought, for poetry may yield the values and precepts of a culture, as was the case in ancient Greece (172). This is also congruent with
Bakhtin’s idea of stratification of language, that he terms “heteroglossia” in that it ensures that
“the uninterrupted processes of decentralization and disunification go forward” (Clark and
Holquist 13). It also includes Scanlon’s position on the dialogical possibilities of poetry (2007).
Keeping these theories in mind, we may draw a perspicacious trajectory between Naples,
Sannazaro, and Garcilaso. This argument is aptly used for a final connection between Naples and the sound of Garcilaso’s poetry.
In one of his odes, Sannazaro invites readers into the world of his Villa Mergellina, a
49
place bequeathed to him by the King of Naples, Frederick of Aragon. His ode pays homage to the idyllic residence, but most of all it allows his spirit to contemplate momentarily the world as it could and should be. The poet’s peaceful serenity, short lived as Mergellina, is eventually destroyed by the French, but it expresses with musicality of verse a harmonious landscape resonant of Virgil’s representation of the locus amoenus in his Bucolics. It is at the villa that the poet finds his poetic crown and his Parnassus in the music of the woods, amid the gushing waters and floating in their pleasant-sounding grove. The poet unites his song with the full choir of the harmonious nine muses on mount Helicon:
I venerate the Powers that haunt thy woods:- Straight, o’er the rocks in gushing floods Effus’d, - Pegasea waters flow. Then, in full choir, the harmonious nine, To aid my rapturous song combine; Phoebus himself sublimest themes Inspires, and as its current full and strong
The rill miraculous pours along, Strives to deduce a thousand streams. Be then our Helicon! Be thine As his prophetic spring, divine; And let thy shady summits wave As those Parnassian regions far renown’d, Whose airy heights, with ivy crown’d, To son its rapturous impulse gave. (Sannazarius – Villa Mergillina, st. 4 -5–6; transl. Greswell 378–9)
This ode by Sannazaro brings to mind Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIV, in which the poet aspires to take the sweet sound of his verses to the difficult height of the Helicon, promising, along the way, to take the spirit of Italian poets to his celebrated River Tagus. Water in this work is emblematic of the poetic transformation. The poet draws intertextually from various poetic models celebrated in his verses. He thus pays tribute, but ultimately wishes to return to the waters of the River Tagus. With its compelling rhythm and forward movement, the fluvium stands as the conduit of sound for his orphic, poetic verses:
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Illustre honor del nombre de Cardona, décima moradora de Parnaso, a Tansillo, a Minturno, al culto Taso sujeto noble de immortal corona: si en medio del camino no abandona la fuerza y el espíritu a vuestro Laso, por vos me llevará mi osado paso a la cumbre difícil d’Elicona. Podré llevar entonces sin trabajo, Con dulce son qu’el curso al agua enfrena, Por un camino hasta agora enjunto, El patrio, celebrado y rico Tajo, Que el valor de su luciente arena A vuestro nombre pague el gran tributo. (Soneto XXIV; in Rivers 2011:66)
Illustrious honor to the name of Cardona, / tenth muse of Parnassus, / you who for Tansillo, Minturno, and learned Tasso / were a noble subject, immortally crowned: / if in the middle of my journey, / strength and spirit do not abandon your Laso, / through you my daring steps will take me / to the difficult summit of Helicon. / From there, using the sweet song that controls the flow of water, / I will easily be able to channel, / by a course which had until now been dry, / my native, celebrated and rich Tagus, / so that the richness of its sparkling sand / will pay great tribute to your name (Helgerson 44). Excerpted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Garcilaso chooses a celebrated woman poetess and musician as the dedicatee for this sonnet: María de Cardona, Marquise of Padua. The male poetic voice praises the poetess as the tenth muse on Mount Parnassus, an epithet first bestowed by Plato to Sappho. Albeit inspired - in
Bakhtin’s terms – by the various social parlances or, in this case, by the thick web of dedications to the poetess, the encomium speaks of Garcilaso’s “regard for women not solely as patrons but also as intellectuals in their own right [and ultimately] as equal partners in the development of early modern culture” (Cruz and Rivers 235).75 Moreover, since María de Cardona “was unsurpassed in poetry and music” (Fenlon 1999:36), Garcilaso’s verses act as a celebration of current musico-poetic practices. Indeed, women poets and musicians, such as María de Cardona, were listed as notable erudite Hispanic/Neapolitan women and performers for the emperor
75 It is not coincidental that one of Laura Terracina’s epitaphs, based on a canto from Ariosto’s Orlando Furisoso, is dedicated to Garcilaso (Gallego Morell 1978:281). Terracina’s verses embody the concept of Garcilaso poet musicus: “Un giovinetto che col dolce canto / concorde al suon de la cornuta cetra” (vv. 1–2) [the young lad who with delightful songs tunes the sound of the rounded cither] (Gallego 281; transl. mine). For an account of Laura Terracina’s role as a poetess in Naples, read Benedetto Croce Storie e leggende napoletane. Bari: Laterza, 1923:275–289. 51
(Wistreich 13).
In this ascent to Mount Helicon through poetry and the sound of his orpheic verses, the poet places his voice in company of an esteemed cohort of Neapolitan humanists who also glorified María de Cardona in their poems, namely Luigi Tansillo, Bernardo Tasso, and Antonio
Minturno, who all shared a close relationship with her (Greco 1995).76 Grateful as he may be, the poet desires to leave the legacy behind and longs for the water to return the sound of his verses to his beloved River Tagus. Ultimately, the “dulce son qu’el curso al agua enfrena” [the sweet song that controls the flow of water] (v. 10), provides the final catharsis in this lyrical exegesis of the self-conscious struggle to assert the Spanish poetic voice amidst the Arcadian spirits of Helicon.
The sentiment echoes in his Eclogue III, as Leo Spitzer observes:
Far from the war in which the poet finds himself engaged, he evokes a lovely spot of nature, a grove on the bank of the Tajo […]. The Arcadian spot in nature elicits […] the nymphs who create or enjoy art (visual – acoustic) art in which love appears sublimated (1952:247).
Clearly Garcilaso’s voice is heard, and eventually his song travels home. Tansillo writes:
per voi, Signor, non per l’arene d’oro, mille et mille anni andran l’onde del Tago
For you, o noble one, not for arenas of gold, / a thousand and thousand years the waters of the Tagus onward will flow.77
Summary
This chapter provided a synthesis of some of the key figures and most basic tenets of the theories on verbal sonorities: not a small feat, considering the dense tapestry of discourses on the matter. If the earlier Spanish roots provided the basis for his humanistic learning and a spirit of traditional awareness, the Accademia Pontaniana and the various humanistic circles in Naples
76 For further insight on Garcilaso and the Renassance topos of the Parnaso, read Julio Vélez-Sainz (2006). 77 Luigi Tansillo, in Gallego Morell 1978:280 (transl. mine). 52
provided a forum as well as the fulcrum of multiple forms of artistic Renaissance exchanges for the young Garcilaso. It also provided him the opportunity to eschew the violence of military duties and political distresses to which he was subjected, such as his exile and the battle of the
Goleta (Sonnet XXXIII). Hence, the poet juxtaposes his obligations of war with poetic inspiration “shifting now and then from the sword to the pen” (transl. mine).78 Half a century later Cervantes concurs with his old master in Don Quixote: “arms must be sustained by the spirit of letters” (transl. mine).79
In the course of this discussion, it became evident that, from a literary and linguistic perspective, Garcilaso’s poetic voice stands convincingly at the threshold of Hispanic Neapolitan literary discourses (and parallel musico-poetic currents as it will be further demonstrated in chapter IV). I trust to have demonstrated that if we speak of the musicality of verse in terms of verbal sonority, it is a referential sign with meaning inextricable from coeval language theories and declamatory practices fostered, to be sure, by underlying complex social underpinnings. A poet of rare sensitivity such as Garcilaso, whose musical skills are also well documented, would have drawn from existing theories so as to forge his lyrical expression of the Spanish word. In the course of this discussion, it became evident that the interlacing stream of cultural, sociopolitical, and literary discourses between Italy and Spain situate Garcilaso’s lyrical voice as an instrument of intercultural dialogue. This is perhaps the reason for which his poetry remains a nexus between two cultures and his poetry resonates not only universally, but also as a perpetual and sublime Spanish voice. The next few chapters are devoted to this phenomenon.
78 “Tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma” (Garcilaso Ecl. III, v.40). 79 “Las armas requieren espíritu como las letras” (DQ I - Ch. XXXVII). For more on the role of Garcilaso’s voice in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, see Cascardi’s chapter on “Orphic Fictions”: Poiesis in Cervantes” (2012). 53
CHAPTER II: MUSICAL REPRESENTATIONS IN GARCILASO’S POETRY
The fifth-century philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, echoing Plato’s ideas of world harmony, wrote De Institutione Musica, a treatise that became an essential text for music and part of the quadrivium studies, at medieval universities. Accordingly, the concept of music was divided into three categories: musica mundana, musica humana and musica instrumentalis. Boethius postulated that musica mundana pertains to the music of the spheres, with its rhythmic alternation of day and night, the days, the weeks, the months, and the seasons.
Musica humana, on the other hand, is created by the harmonious concurrences between body and soul. Finally, musica instrumentalis pertains to all the music produced by instruments or voices
(Boethius 44). The concept of cosmic harmony and proportions remained at the core of medieval and Renaissance aesthetics, and was embedded in an intertextual tapestry of heuristic imitation traceable in many aspects of culture.
The Florentine humanist Leon Alberti (1404–1472), drawing from ancient classics, defined beauty in architecture in his De re aedificatoria as “the harmony of all parts in relation to one another.”80 For this notion of harmony, Renaissance humanists looked to Roman antiquity in an attempt to reconstruct their fragmented past. As Greene observes, “one first stoops, digs, gropes downward into the disorder of the past and then one rises and constructs upward by imitation” (235). Concepts of proportions, harmony and grace were propagated by the figura of
Castiglione’s Courtier whose arms/culture ideology was possibly inspired by the humanistic
80 Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria. (transl. Joseph Ryckwert 1988). 54
ideals circulating at the Urbino court where Castiglione lived.81 Furthermore, Castiglione draws from ancient and contemporary ideas on music as a basis for the humanistic formation of his courtier. The Book of the Courtier reads as follows: “I believe that music is not only an ornament but a necessity for the courtier” (96). In other words, music was considered integral to the socio- cultural and political formation of the model courtier. The Courtier’s aesthetic formation echoes
Plato’s recommendation for education articulated in his Laws: “the educated man must be able to dance and sing well, and he will be trained in the art of ‘noble’ dances, which are ‘proper and suitable’ for the enjoyment and education of the citizens” (translated and paraphrased by
Berghaus 47). Similarly, Garcilaso, in a self-conscious attempt to forge his vision of language and poetry, constructs his own idea of harmony, grounded in poetic lyricism and inherent musicality. He does so, through eclectic imitation of ancient and coeval forms.
In this chapter I will explore the musicality in Garcilaso’s poetry and those elements embedded organically in the poetic structure that contribute to the lyricism of Garcilaso’s verses.
This general overview of musical constructs serves to prepare us for a close reading of one of
Garcilaso’s most musical works, the Ode ad florem Gnidi undertaken in Chapter Three. The investigation unfolds into five sections: 1) musical instruments; 2) singing; 3) dancing; 4) sound images of wind and water, and 5) verbal music as consonantia vocum (consonant voices), cacophaton (cacophony) or simply vox silentii (lengua muda), and mere silence. This interpretation of the music in Garcilaso’s poetry, in its various forms and all its aesthetic effects, reveals that music or musicality of verses ultimately remains integral to the form as a conduit of
81 Marianna Villa investigates the underpinning ideologies supporting the practice of music as exposed in Castiglione’s Cortegiano, in relation to the culture of the court of Urbino and the revival of Greek’s philosophy of music (2009: 53–63). 55
meaning. This will be further confirmed in subsequent chapters. My approach is based on
Bakhtin’s principle of dialogism, which inherently connotes the active attunement of the reader/listener.
Musical Instruments: Al son de las zampoñas escuchavan
Garcilaso’s earliest biographies provide tangible signs of the poet’s relationship with music. Herrera (1580) observes that Garcilaso was a skillfull player of the harp and vihuela
(Anotaciones14). The historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478–1557) describes Garcilaso in the service of the Emperor as “muy gentil músico de la harpa” or a delightful player of the harp (Batallas y Quinquagenas 229; transl. mine). Keniston asserts that Garcilaso “besides his formal studies was taught to hunt, and above all, to sing and to play upon various instruments, organ, the clavichord, the viola and the guitar” (1922:20; emphasis mine). Randel, in his article on Sixteenth-Century Spanish Polyphony and Garcilaso’s Poetry, posits that Garcilaso was
“known and admired by musicians” (66).82 Therefore, Garcilaso’s numerous references to musical performances and instruments rest on practical knowledge that is, in my opinion, inextricable from the sense of musicality perceived in the verses.
The instruments identified in Garcilaso’s poetry are the avena (the oaten flute), the zampoña (the shepherd’s pipe), and three string instruments: the cithera (the cittern), the lira (the lyre) and the viola (the viol). In the next few pages I will, albeit briefly, historically contextualize
82 Whereas a discourse on the overlapping realities between the poet and the poetic speaker is not herein intended, and I do not intend to problematize the interrelation, or its absence, between poetry and real-life experience, the aforementioned information suffices to convince readers that my claim for music in Garcilaso’s poetry and the musicality of verse is sustained by his practical knowledge of music and musical practices. For further inquiry on language and the representation of reality, one may consult Charles Shepherdson, in particular the section on “Reality and the Real” (2008:32–33). 56
the instruments but also consider their presence in the canon of literature intertextually connected with Garcilaso’s poetic landscape.
The avena (oaten flute), described in the Diccionario técnico de la música, by Felipe
Pedrell, as the primitive pipe of the god Pan, is an instrument made from a species of wild oats
(1894:34). Mariano Pérez, in his Diccionario de la música y los músicos, defines avena as a kind of caramillo, or Roman pipe (2000:100). The Grove Music Online thus reads: “traditionally, reed instruments often have a rustic or pastoral connotation [and that] Milton evoked ‘the sound of pastoral reeds with oaten stops,’ and Shakespeare referred to those occasions ‘when shepherds pipe on oaten straws […].”83 The Neapolitan poet Giambattista Marino (1569-1625)84 refers to
Sannazaro (Sincerus) as the idyllic player of the oaten flute:
Accompagna costor soavemente Il Sonator dela Sincera avena, Che le Muse calar fece sovente Di Mergellina alla nativa arena… (Marino, Adone, Canto IX, vv.180–184)
He accompanies them with delight / the Player of the [Sincere]85 oaten flute; / in this way he entices the Muses / to visit his native Mergellina (transl. mine).
Certainly Sannazaro delighted in the sound of the oaten flute. In his Arcadia we read the following: “we were peacefully enjoying the festivities / in the green forest, to the sound of the oaten flute.”86
In Spain, Herrera (1534–1597) draws from Virgil to compose the idyllic setting for his eglogue Amarillis: “and with sorrowful song, echo the verses of Baetis [river], my oaten flute.”87
83 Klaus Wachsmann. "Reed instruments." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 18 Jul. 2013. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/subscriber/article/grove/music/23045. 84 Marino dedicated an ottava rima to Garcilaso in his facetious collection of verbal portraits, La Galeria (1675:197). 85 ‘Sincere’ denotes Sannazaro by antonomasia. 86 “Si stava mansueti a prender festa / per la verde foreste, a suon d’avena” (Arcadia, vv. 120–121; transl. mine) 57
Schnabel posits that the emphasis in Herrera’s stanza is precisely the affective assessment of the place of the pastoral song as it evokes Virgil’s eighth eclogue: “begin with me o flute, begin the song of Maenalios.”88 The oaten flute, albeit modest in the long-standing tradition of wind instruments, is significant in Garcilaso’s lyrics. It is transformed from a simple straw reed into the melodious representation of pastoral longing. Two instances reveal the sophisticated interweave of the musical instrument in the lyrical tapestry of Garcilaso’s eclogues.
In the first instance, found in Eclogue I, Orpheus laments Elisa’s loss to the underworld.
He bewails that the fields are no longer obedient and that wild oat is simply accursed [infelice avena] (Ecl. I, v. 301).89 Herein, the avena does not signify a conduit of pastoral music. On the contrary, it is presented in its crudest form as ordinary straw. Analogously shepherds sing no longer, the nightingale sings of heartbreak (v. 324), and Orpheus unbridles his own grief (337).
In contrast, in the second eclogue the music of the avena as pastoral flute sounds in counterpoint with that of the zampoña and the lira. Interestingly, Rivers observes that in this second eclogue, the characters of Albanio, Salicio, and Nemoroso may represent the different dispositions of the same person: the poet himself (213). I extend this idea to conjecture that the instruments metaphorically represent the singular voice of the respective characters, including that of Severus
(the magus).
Shall we unravel this musical web. The lira, played by Garcilaso’s wise magus Severo
(Ecl. II, v. 1161), figuratively represents the voice of Orpheus. It is counterposed to the pastoral
87 “Y con lloroso canto, versos de Betis suena, avena mía” (Herrera Amarillis, vv. 97–98; transl. mine) 88 “Incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, versus” (Schnabel 76; Virgil 140; transl. mine) 89 “Después que nos dejaste, / nunca pace en hartura el Ganado ya, ni acude el campo al labrador […]No hay bien que en mal no se convierta y mude: la mala hierba al trigo ahoga, y nace / en lugar suyo la infelice avena” (Ecl. II, vv. 296–301) – “Since you left us, the flock has never had its fill, no more do the obedient fields greet the farmers […] there’s nothing good that does not change to ill: weeds swamp and choke the wheat and in its place accursed wil oats spring up and flourish” (transl. John Dent-Young 139). 58
pipe the zampoña, played by the shepherds Albanio (v. 636) and Nemoroso along with the avena
(vv. 1159–1160).
Albanio, lovesick, turns to the wild animals of the forest so that they may celebrate his forthcoming death, and pleads they bend their ears as he sings the reasons for which he contemplates death. He thus asks wolves and bears to listen and remain calmly hidden in their dark caves, thus allowing their ears to be delighted by the sound of his zampoña or pipe (Ecl. II, v. 636). In the next scene, Salicio and Nemoroso attempt to persuade Albanio out of his madness. Nemoroso literally drops his avena or oaten flute and zampoña, as he invokes the nymphs to untangle his tongue (vv.1156–1160) so that he may declaim his song with sophisticated and sweet facility. Nemoroso extols the magic wisdom of Severo who, as is the case of Orpheus, with “süave canto y dulce lira” [sweet singing and delightful lyre] (v. 1162), calms the fury of the winds, attuned as it is to the sound of accents and the resonance of the voice
(vv. 1161–1166):
Escucha pues un rato Estrañas y espantosas poco a poco. Ninfas a vos invoco: verdes faunos, Satiros y silvanos, soltá todos Mi lengua en dulces modos y sutiles: Que ni los pastoriles ni el avena Ni la zampoña suena como quiero
Este nuestro Severo pudo tanto Con el süave canto y dulce lira Que, revueltos en ira y torbellino En medio del camino se pararon Los vientos, y escucharon muy atentos (Ecl. II, vv. 1154–1165)
Listen, then, a moment / I will say strange and bewildering things. / Nymphs I invoke you; green fauns, / satyrs and sylvans, untie my tongue. / You all, so that I may speak in a sweet and refined way: / since neither the pastoral nor the oaten flute / nor the shepherd’s pipe sounds as I wish it to. // This, our Severo surpassed / with his sweet singing and delightful lyre, / the fury of stormy winds / that stopped in their path / to attune to his voice (transl. mine).
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In this stanza (1154–1165), Nemoroso’s strategic workings with the language’s sweet sound, sweeter than that of the shepherd’s pipe or the oaten flute, and the emphasis on the power of
Orpheus’s music underline the power of the poetic voice. Accordingly, there is a clear distinction between the musical voice of the pastoral instruments and that of the mythological supreme musician. Westcott observes that the role of the different voices or characters in this eclogue functions as “different notes on a hypothetical musical scale of Neoplatonic amorous harmony”
(57).
In these verses, then, the musical design serves to enhance the representation of the eclogue’s drama. Indeed, given the elements of performance, the poet combines the pastoral with the epic and drama as arte rappresentativa (Morera 40). Whereas the form in this second eclogue is beset by polymetric stanzas 90 and is seemingly fragmented (Lumsden 1947:251; Rivers 1974:
212; Lapesa 1985:96), Garcilaso is ultimately able to demonstrate how artistic heights can be achieved when the passion of the shepherds is combined with the beautiful forms of nature and poetic lyricism (Lumsden 271). Therefore, the oaten flute, however unpretentious it may be, remains a significant instrument: a meaningful strand in the lyrical tapestry of this work.
The zampoña (shepherd’s pipe) is an aerophone, an instrument typically associated with pastoral or folkloric music. According to the Garzanti’s Enciclopedia della musica, the term zampogna (It.) or zampoña (Sp.), in its etymological sense of the word, may derive from the
Greek symphōnia – that is a consonance of sounds suggestive of the Pan’s Greek flute (993).
Menéndez Pidal (1924) writes that the simfonía, known in Spanish as the vihuela de rueda or
90 Morera observes that the meters utilized in the second eclogue constitute hendecasyllables, heptasyllables, terza rima, and rimalmezzo. Morera observes that “in Garcilaso’s second eclogue the change in meters seems to accompany the rhythmic flow of the work” (57). That Nemoroso’s monologue is set in rimalmezzo may resound with sixteenth-century works written to allude to the political greatness of a figure (Morera 60), in this case, that of Severo the magus. 60
zanfoña, was used by the blind in Galicia and Asturias to sing and beg (Poesía juglaresca 67).
According to the Oxford Music Online, the shepherd’s zampoña of the Balearic Islands is still played today.91 In his Tesoro (1612), the Spanish lexicographer Sebastian de Covarrubias y
Orozco (1539–1613) provides the history of the çampoña in Spanish literature. He reports that
Diego Ximénez, Antonio Nebrija and Sánchez de la Broza (El Brocence) referred to çampoña as a corrupted version of the Asian stringed instrument sambuca (Tesoro 262). On this matter, Cirot
(1941) opens his article with a reading from Garcilaso, to provide insight into the evolution and corruption of the terms zanfoña and zampoña (152). Throughout the centuries and in various countries, a great deal of variation transpired. It varied from the simple wind instruments to the cornamuse, the musette, and even an instrument similar to the medieval fiddle. The instruments are still in use today, in particular the pipe flute prevalent in many parts of Latin America.
Ultimately, Cirot posits that Garcilaso may have had in mind the musette or cornamuse and not the stringed instrument (154).
In Spain, a pastoral scene in the pastoral romance Diana, written by Jorge de
Montemayor (1520 ca. –1561), echoes the Parthenian sound of Garcilaso’s and Sannazaro’ s pastoral zampoña:
Al río estaba una pastora tañendo con una zampoña y cantando con tanta gracia y suavidad como tristeza (Diana, Libro Primero 37)
By the river a shepherdess was playing a pipe flute and singing with such grace and delightfulness (transl. mine).
Garcilaso’s third Eclogue reads as follows:
En las templadas ondas ya metidos tenían los pies, y reclinar querían los blancos cuerpos, cuando sus oídos fueron de dos zampoñas que tañían
91 William A. Cocks, et al. "Bagpipe." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 Jul. 2013.
suave y dulcemente, detenidos tanto, que sin mudarse las oían (Ecl. III, vv. 280–286)
Their feet had already entered the warm flood / and they were about to stretch out and give back / their white bodies to the water, when they heard / the dulcet sound of two country flutes, which struck / the ear so arrestingly that where they stood / by this sweet music they were held in check (transl. Dent-Young 199).
Lastly, in Sannazaro’s Arcadia we read:
O rustica e boscareccia sampogna, degna per la tua bassezza di non da più colto, ma da più fortunate pastore che io non sono, essere sonata (Arcada: A la Sampogna; It. Transl. Mauro 142).
Oh rustic and pastoral pipe, worthy in your lowly status, to be played not by the most erudite, rather by a most fortunate shepherd, which I am not (transl. mine).
Incidentally, Damiani (1984) observes that Montemayor’s Diana serves as an historical document of coeval instruments and musical practices. Similar to Garcilaso, Montemayor’s reference to music and lyricism is steeped in the author’s practical experience as a musician, one who also developed an extensive interest in the history of musical instruments (435). Damiani asserts that in the Diana Belisa’s grief “finds its utmost expression through music and song, the best vehicle for […] alleviating suffering,” in the same manner that Garcilaso also converted
“grief into beauty” (453).
The sound of Garcilaso’s verses, his lyricism and direct musical references will reverberate in the works of other poets, such as Fray Luis de León, San Juan de la Cruz,
Góngora, and Cervantes. Both Garcilaso and Góngora, for example, imagined a poetic world in which the unlearned sound of the zampoña ruda and sweet zampoña mía represent the duality of the world, what it is now and what it could be.
Góngora’s Fabula de Polifemo y Galatea is a particularly fascinating work in which the themes or voices interplay with one another. The Fábula consists of sixty-three octavas. The octava real verses, with a rhyme scheme of abababcc, were typical of epic poetry and appropriate for its mythological content. Indeed, Góngora’s hendecasyllabic line is patterned by
62
Garcilaso de la Vega’s mastery of Italianate form. Góngora divides the work into two sections.
Briefly, the first section opens with the Greco-Latin traditional dedication in which the poet requests that Count Niebla listen to his verses (st. 1–3); to be followed by a description of
Polyphemus’s setting and ambience (st. 4–12), the introduction of the nymph Galatea (st. 13–
17), and a geographical description of Sicily (st. 18–24). The second section begins with the
Song of the Cyclops (st. 43–58) culminating with the destruction and transformation of the young Acis (Galatea’s lover) into a river (st. 59–63). Alonso (1971) speaks of themes represented by the voices of Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis. Yet here I perceive a deeper level of complexity in the theme of Polyphemus: two motives, tenderness vs. monstrosity are stated, juxtaposed, contrasted with one another, and placed in counterpoint with the theme of Galatea and Acis.
The duality of Polyphemus’s personality is observed, metaphorically, in the initial description of the ambience, especially the cave where the monster lives. Therein the beauty of the Sicilian sea is contrasted with disturbing images of the bones of Typhus. The resonance of clear vowels and all allophones /e/a/i/i/ï (el mar sicilïano) is juxtaposed against the dark, lower register of articulated sounds of /o/ and /u/ (o tumba del los huesos de Tifeo). The fifth stanza further intensifies the unnerving atmosphere with its detailed description of the cavernous abode containing a lurid couch in its somber womb.92 The one-eyed Cylops, Polyphemus, appears in the seventh and eighth stanzas, with thick black curly hair and an impetuous beard. Strident cacophony follows in the twelfth strophe, with the consonantal resonance of /r/tr/r/: “rompe
Triton su caraco torcido” [Triton breaks his twisted conch] (st.12). The poetic voice thus
92 “[L]a caverna profunda, que a la peña / calignoso lecho, el seno oscuro” (Góngora, The Fable, in Hanak 18). 63
bellows: “¡Tal la música es de Polifemo!” [Such is the music of Polyphemus!] (st.12). Yet,
Polyphemus does not only exhibit primordial moods of monstrosity and brutal power, emotions are stirred deep within him, as he is warmed by the presence of Galatea. He then conveys his song: “Oh beautiful Galatea, fairer than the carnation under the morning dew, whiter than the swan who floats gently and gracefully on the water while singing a dirge of death.”93 The image of the white swan that lives to die is reminiscent of Garcilaso’s Egloga II: “not even the white swan that dwells in the water.”94 In this poetic act of musical ekphrasis, the distinction between the arts seems to vanish.95 The outwardly monstruous Cyclops expresses love; in so doing he evokes Garcilaso’s singing swan and expresses tenderness and pathos. Indeed the scene brings to mind Giulio Romano’s manneristic representation of Polyphemus (1527) in Mantua’s Palazzo del Té: his eyes are full of tears, thus manifesting tenderness trapped in monstruous form.
Similarly, Góngora’s Polyphemus affirms that: “in even numbers my bounties and my afflictions are given.”96 The direct articulation of good and evil represents a poetic subject torn between two inner voices, herein interpreted as motives.
This brief digression into the musical world of Góngora’s Polyphemus has served to forge a return to the introduction of a poem in which resonance and synaesthetic elements support polyphonic form. The opening verses to Góngora’s The Fable of Polyphemus and
Galatea read as follows:
93 “¡Oh bella Galatea, más suave/ que los claveles que tronchó la aurora; blanca más que las plumas de aquel ave/ que dulce muere y en las aguas mora […]”(st. 46; transl. Hanak 133). 94 “ni al blanco cisne qu’en las aguas mora” (Eclogue II, v.303; transl. mine) 95 Lydia Goehr in How to Do More with Words. Two Views of (Musical) Ekphrasis, explains that “one way in which music and ekphrasis join hands is when a descriptive speech or writing brings an image or scene of music before the imagination (the ‘mind’s eye’)” (389). 96 “en numero a mis bienes son mis males” (Polyphemus st. 49, vv. l-8; transl. Hanak 140 ) 64
Estas que me dictó rimas sonora Culta sí, aunque bucólica, Talía […]
ahora que de luz tu Niebla doras, escucha, al son de la zampoña mía (La Fabula de Polifemo y Galatea, St. I, vv.1–2 and 5–6).
These sonorous verses were dictated to me, by Thalia, whose inspiration is cultured, though of the rustic, or bucolic variety […] your presence your city Niebla, listen to the sound of my reed pipe (transl. Hanak 1).
In this introduction, the poetic voice declaims his verses allegedly dictated by the Muse Thalia, and accompanied by the sound of his zampoña. Further onward, as the story unfolds and the tension rises, the sound of the unrefined pipe enters to underscore the cavernous voice and unrefined sentiments of the Cyclops. The poet, unable to speak or produce harmonious sounds, invokes the muses to intercede on his behalf:
La caverna en tanto, los ribazos Que ha prevenido la zampoña ruda, El trueno de la voz fulminó luego ¡referido, Pïérides, os ruego (La Fabula de Polifemo y Galatea, vv. 355–358).
In the caves and on the coastal spaces, / the rude prelude which to the concert cited, / the thunder of his voice is now descending / Yours, Muses, is the task to write the ending (Transl. Hanak 130).
Hanak connects Góngora’s verses to Garcilaso’s First Eclogue where the poet, in dire need of supernatural intervention, had summoned the muses:
Lo que cantó trasesto Nemoroso Decildo vos, Pïérides, que tanto No puedo yo ni oso, Que siento enflaquecer mi débil canto. (Ecl. I, vv. 235–238)
What Nemoroso sang thereafter, / you tell it, Piérides for I neither can nor dare, for my vanishing song is feeble (transl. mine).
Therefore, for both poets, the zampoña stands as a metaphor for the dualistic representation of the world: the uncultured dimension and the idyllic all in one, and the unrefined pastoral world vs. the lyrical possibilities of the Arcadian poetic voice on the other. In these comparable verses
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by Góngora and Garcilaso, the musical elements, the zampoña in this case, serve as meaningful constituents of the poetic tapestry and indeed fundamental to the lyrical expression.
Certainly, in his 1997 essay on Ideologies of History in the Spanish Golden Age, Cascardi proposes an insightful perspective on Garcilaso’s attempt at subjective self-creation through the power of the poetic speech-act. In the First Eclogue, as Cascardi observes, Garcilaso “raises the questions of its own status and its force, and that it is within the space opened up by these questions that the poetic “I” is constructed” (261). Indeed, I add, by questioning the power of song, the poetic voice is able to situate lyrical expression at the centre of his preoccupations and the aesthetic concentration of his art. In both Góngora and Garcilaso, then the poetic voice modulates its expression as it articulates different perspectives to metaphorically represent historical issues and archetypical human struggles that engage the reader in a dialogic interface.
The cíthera (cithara) to which Garcilaso refers in his Canción V is one of the most ancient chordophones in human history. It continued in use in Spain throughout the eighteenth- century. According to the entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the etymological origins of the word can be traced back to the Assyrian chetara, the Greek KtOapa- κιθάρα, the Latin cithara, and possibly the Hebrew kinura or kinnor (Britannica).97 Accordingly, the cithara was probably an improvement of the ancient lyre. The Greek Kithara was the instrument of professional singers used not only for epic recitations but also for playing solos at solemn national games
(Britannica). Plutarch (de Musica 1141C:30; 1142C:31) mentions the two most well-known kithara virtuosos, Philoxenus of Kythera (c. 436–380 BC) and Timotheus of Miltetus (c. 450–
360 BC). In Virgil’s Aeneid Orpheus relies on his Thracian cithara (Bk. VI, 619) when he, the
97 "kithara." Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) Public Domain: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Cithara 66
priest of Thracia, is summoned to play at the solemn entrance of Aeneas (645). Lastly, in the
Renaissance, Castiglione draws from the ancient Greeks to remind his readers that “music, not only soothes the souls of men but often tames wild beasts” (95). In the Book of the Courtier, the
Count evokes the spirits of the bellicose Spartans and Cretans who used citharas and other melodious sounding instruments in battle (95).
Garcilaso’s verses read as follows in translation: “because of you, his gentle / muse abandons her sonorous cithara / for miserable laments.”98 The poetic voice here depicts the agony of the despairing lover whose military pride (v. 27), metaphorically represented by the cíthera (v. 47), is transformed into a weeping viol (vv. 28–29). The excerpt is reminiscent of
Petrarch’s verses in his sonnet 292 “et la cetera mia rivolta in pianto” [and the sound of my cithara is turned into weeping] (v. 14; transl. mine). Baker, upon describing Petrarch’s verses, writes that “the speaker conveys the impairing, paralyzing effect of grief and concludes with a moving biblical return to the weeping topos” (151). Similarly, in Garcilaso’s Canción V, the poetic voice describes the annihilating effect of unrequited love on one transformed from a vigorous man of arms into a deplorable weeping creature.99 What is pertinent at the moment is that the cíthera stands as a musical instrument emblematic of the character it represents, as well as a means to connect with Petrarchan aesthetics, ancient literary topoi and classical traditions.
The voice of the instrument thus stands as a moment of and for poetic self-expression.
The lira (lyre) is a chordophone the sound of which is produced by vibrating strings.
Originally, the box of the lyre was made of a tortoise shell. It was also known as a Kithara with a box made of wood (Galilei 99; Garzanti 481). The fifth-century Greek historian Thucydides
98 “Por ti, su blanda musa, / en lugar de la cíthera sonante / triste querella usa” (Canción V, vv. 46–47; transl. mine) 99 A close reading of this work is presented in Chapter III. 67
provides a detailed description of the construction of the tortoise-shell lyre by the young God
Hermes (Mathiesen 37). Apollo’s lyre has been the subject of numerous musical treatises, poems and paintings since ancient Greek times. It is even present in Ovid’s Metamorphosis in which the story of cruel Anaxarete provided material for inspiration for Garcilaso’s Canción V. In Book II of the Metamorphosis, the poetic voice relates the fable of Orpheus whose Apollonian lyre, drowned out by the cacophonous sound of Dionysian flutes and other instruments, was tossed in the Hebrus River along with the poet (Book XI, 52–53).
The lyre, Brandolini argues, was the instrument of choice at banquets of great princes since antiquity, for it marked momentous events (Brandolini 31). Ruggiero, one of the heroes in the epic romance Orlando Furioso, written by Ludovico Ariosto (1516), attends a banquet where the lyre, lute, and harp sound in tuneful accord, so producing a splendid concert and ever sweet harmony:
A quella mensa citare, arpe e lire E diversi altri dilettevol suoni Faceano ontorno l’aria tintinire D’armonia dolce e di concenti buoni (Orlando, Canto Settimo, st. xix,)
At board lyre, lute and harp of tuneful string, / And other sounds, in mixed diversity, / Made, round about, the joyous palace ring, / With glorious concert and sweet harmony. / Nor lacked there well-accorded voice to sing / Of love, its passion and its ecstasy; / Nor who, with rare inventions, choicely versed, / Delightful fiction to the guests rehearsed (transl. by William Stewart Rose “The Project Gutenberg EBook).
Music and poetry, in a Renaissance social context, evoked the Greek’s practices in which the two disciplines could coexist, not figuratively, but rather in the performances of the poet-musician.
Furthermore, Ann E. Moyer observes that Brandolini, in his De musica et poetica (1513), emphasizes that musico-poetic practices, with their inherent poetic allegorical understanding, served “as a complex means for conveying complex truth to a wide audiences” (xxiii). Similarly,
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in Garcilaso’s first Ode, dedicated to his friend Antonio Tilesio, the poetic subject expresses his suffering and longing for his native land and family, provoked by barbaric and fierce actions:
Uxore, natis, fratibus et solo Exul relictis, frigida per loca Musarum alumnus barbarorum Ferre superbiam et insolentes (Ode I, vv. 1–5)
Exiled from my wife, my sons, brothers, and homeland, a student of the Muses, I learned to endure suffering provoked by the pride and cruel customs of barbaric people (transl. mine).
Garcilaso’s poetic voice finds consolation in the muses that inspired Apollo’s lyre to thereby evoke the melodious song of nymphs on the meadows, surrounded by the ancient Neapolitan
Sebeto River:
Iam iam sonatem Delius admovet Dexter tacentem barbiton antea; Cantare Sebethi suädent Ad vaga flumina cursitantes (Latin Ode I, vv. 12–15)
Apollo, so dexterous draws near the silent lyre. The nymphs of Sebet running around in the sinuous river are inspired to sing” (transl. mine).
Garcilaso’s verses echo the ancient rhymes of Homer’s Illiad:
And they listened, entranced, to the sound of Apollo’s lyre, And the Muses sang, voices responding to lovely voices. [Illiad, Bk. I, vv. 590–591 (transl. by Stephen Mitchell)]
The verses also bring to mind the Dantesque allegorical journey to Parnassus, recounted by Juan de Mena in his La Coronación, in which the poet declaims:
¡O tú, orfénica lira son de febea vihuela ven, ven, venida de vira e de tus cantos espira (Copla XXXI, vv. 1–4)100
Oh lyre of Orpheus, may the sound of Phoebe’s lyre, sing, sing with an outflowing of melodies, sing! (transl.mine).
100 Kerkoff (2009): 87-88. 69
Mena, however, freely interchanges the lyre with the Spanish vihuela. Likewise, Luis de Milán’s depiction of Orpheus playing a large vihuela adorns his first book of music precisely for
‘vihuela’ (Valencia 1536). Clearly the Spanish vihuelist considered the vihuela a direct descendant of the classic lyre of ancient Greece (Pope 366).
The vïola (viol/vihuela/lute) is a musical instrument often cited in Renaissance literature.
Yet, references to viola, vihuela and lute are often loosely interchanged and unclear, for all terms simply denoted stringed instruments in general, as well as the particular instruments (Ward 59).
There are many references to the vihuela in the corpus of Spanish Medieval literature (Pope
369). In his Libro de buen amor, Juan Ruiz Arcipreste de Hita (ca .1283–1350), distinguishes between the vihuela de péñola (played with a plectrum) and the sweet sound of the vihuela de arco (146). Indeed, the Renaissance Spanish vihuela can be traced in its various forms as vihuela de arco (bowed) and vihuela de mano (hand-held). It was transmitted to Italy during the
Aragonese period beginning in 1442 where it became known as the viola da mano (Griffiths
1989:2). Johannes Tinctoris (ca. 1435–1511), who served at the Aragonese court in Naples, remarks that the vihuela was an instrument invented by the Spaniards, derived originally from the lira and called by the Italians viola or viola sine arculo (Stevenson 236 n. 22).
In Naples, Benedetto Gareth, known as Il Chariteo (1450–1514) and Serafino Aquilano
(1466-1500) both distinguished themselves as a poet-singers and vihuela players (Pope 375). In
Renaissance Spain and Italy the vihuela was widely used, especially in urban centres and was especially connected with poets and their poetry. It is in this tradition that Garcilaso is known as a “vihuela player” (Griffiths 2009:359). Certainly, Garcilaso, as author of the prologue to Juan
Bscán’s Spanish translation of Castiglione’s Courtier, would have known the musical practices of the day, in particular the Italian humanist’s allusion to “il cantare alla viola per recitare”
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(108).101 Ward asserts that Castiglione’s reference to the viola is analogous to “the Spanish of
Boscán, as ‘to sing to the vihuela’” (62). Griffiths remarks that the vihuela, the lute, and the viol were tuned to the same intervals, and that from practical perspective vihuela and lute music are interchangeable (1989:2). Whereas Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo asserts that Garcilaso was a skillfull vihuela player, Garcilaso indicates in his own will that he owned a harp and a large lute
(Sliwa 2006:155). Hence, although the designation vïola appears in Garcilaso’s works only once, the allusion is significant, for it connects with both the Spanish tradition as well as his own experience as a vihuela player. It also relates to the Italian recitar-cantando tradition: a phenomenon pivotal in the endeavour to codify the rules of scansion as well as the musicality of the hendecasyllabic line (Abramov-van Rijk 218).
Singing: Con acordado canto
In his De Musica, Plutarch explains the following:
because our chiefest grammarians define the voice to be a percussion of the air made sensible to the ear, and for that we were yesterday discoursing of Grammar,—which is an art that can give the voice form and shape by means of letters, and store it up in the memory as a magazine,— let us consider what is the next science to this which may be said to relate to the voice. In my opinion, it must be music (Vol. I, Section II; Transl. Goodwin).
If one reflects, as Jonathan Culler did, that the lyric as a form of “epidectic discourse, stands as a rhetorical transaction, an instrument of ethical paideia”102(204), as it did in ancient Greece, then the attuned listener is able to participate in the memorable linguistic event with its musicality,
101 Abramov-van Rijk observes that in Musica e identità nobiliare nell’Italia de Rinascimento, Stefano Lorenzetti makes reference to the numerous unsatisfactory translations of the phrase ‘il cantare alla viola per recitare’ from the Cortegiano, often translated as the “singing with viola accompaniment for reciting verses.” Abramov-van Rijk suggests that the inadequacy of such literal translations underscores the fact that the phenomenon was exclusively Italian (191). 102 “During the 5th century CE, paideia came to denote ‘culture,’ the harmonious development of mind and body that produced a lasting attitude towards life.” (Thomas J. Mathiesen. "Paideia." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 9 Jul. 2013). 71
rhythmical shaping, and music of thought.103 Culler reminds us that “the force of poetry is linked to its ability to get itself remembered, like those bits of songs that stick in your mind” (205). I must then pose, Garcilaso’s own question: “[s]u dulce habla. ¿En cuya oreja suena?” [his sweet voice, in whose ears does it sound?] (Ecl. I, v. 127; transl. and emphasis mine). Hence, I attend to the music in Garcilaso’s lyrics, placing it in context of sixteenth-century Renaissance
European poetic practices.
Vocal music in the Renaissance was at the centre of artistic practices in urban centres, courts, and religious institutions. Vernacular poetry offered suitable lyrics for secular compositions. These were cultivated, especially in courts or aristocratic circles. Tomlinson’s reinterpretation of Ficino’s De Vita (On Life) challenges Walker’s view that according to Ficino, only words, not music, affect the intellect and the human spirit. In his reappraisal of Ficino’s epistemology, Tomlison asserts the following: “in Ficino’s list not only songs but musical sounds in general and words are ascribed to Apollo” (Tomlison 105).104 By revisiting Ficino’s view,
Tomlinson underscores the role of words and music as an effective means for reading the human intellect and spirit as well as their central role in terms of Renaissance’s ontology. He concludes thus: “In Ficino’s mind music, musical effects, words, magic, and demons all inhabited this liminal place” (105). Similarly, the reader becomes aware that allusions to song and singing in
Garcilaso’s verses are more than mere passing metaphors. The Toledan places himself in dialogue with Renaissance musical practices, characterized mostly for their vocal tradition. And when his poetic voice declaims con acordado canto [with harmonious singing] (Ecl II, v. 646) or
103 Anthony Gritten deals with Music in Bakhtin’s Philosophical Aesthetics by stressing open attunement and musicality as a result of thoughtful resonance to art and life. For a discussion on the ethical practice of music in philosophy that “teaches the heart to listen,” see. Babich (2002). 104 “Verna, cantus, soni […] omnia rite dedicantur Apollini, musicae prae ceteris auctori” (De vita, III, 21). 72
con canto no aprendido [unlearned singing] (Ecl. II, v. 68), the reader perceives a well-educated distinction between the two forms of singing. Certainly, Garcilaso’s musicality of verses influenced his successors. Luis de León’s Vida Retirada, for example, echoes his predecessor’s
Ecl. II: despiértenme las aves / con su suave canto no aprendido [awaken me birds / with your delightful and unlearned singing] (vv. 31–32; transl. mine).
In his De Pratica, Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro (1420 – 1484 ca.), a dance master to some in the most prominent of courts, including that of Lorenzo de Medici and Naples, recalls in particular the musical world of the ancients, their sweet singing and the delightful sound of well- tuned instruments. Similar to Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo de Medici’s tutor, Ebreo reveals that the sweet consonance of music provides the greatest of pleasure (Berghaus 56). Likewise, the musical domain of Garcilaso’s verses reveals an expertise in song, in instrumental as well as polyphonic music:
El viejo Tormes, con el blanco choro / de sus hermosas ninfas (Ecl. I, vv.142–143) [The old man Tormes [river], with his white choir / of delightful nymphs]
y tu hermoso choro, allá en las Hondas (Ecl. I, v. 163) [and you, majestic choir, immersed in waters]
y reprimiendo el lamentable choro (Ecl. I, v. 220) [and subjugating the desolate choir]
De vírgines un choro está cantando (Ecl. II, v. 1403) [a choir of virgins was singing]
Cantando uno y el otro respondiendo (Ecl. III, v. 304) [one singing, and the other re-joining]
de una manera / a cantar juntamente aparejado, / y a responder (Ecl. III, vv. 302–303) [both singing together in pleasant accord and in response ]
(For all of the above citations - transl. mine)
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One of the most popular texts and its musical setting, both in Italy and Spain was Il
Bianco e Dolce Cigno, based on a text by the Marquis Alfonso D’Ávalos with musical setting by
Jacque Arcadelt (Pastor Comín 2007:78). In Garcilaso’s Eclogue II we read the following:
ni al blanco cisne que’n las aguas mora por no morir como Faetón en fuego del cual el triste caso canta y llora (Ecl. II, vv. 302)
The white swan, dwelling on the pathless wave / Lest it by fire, like Phaëton, should die, / For whom its shrill voice yet upraids the sky (transl. Wiffen 206).
These verses echo those of Ovid’s Metamorfosis (I, vv. 367–380) and Sannazaro’s Arcadia
(VIII, vv. 24–24 as identified by Morros (156). It is crucial, however, to observe that Garcilaso maintained a close friendship with d’Avalos.105 He may also have known Arcadelt, who served the Medici in Florence in the early 1530’s (Ferrand 592), at a time when the Spaniard accompanied Charles V in his Italian campaign (Keniston 96). Pastor Comín (2007) observes that Arcadelt’s musical composition gained remarkable success in Spain (78). His madrigal, issued in print in 1538, was an enormous success: it was reissued more than fifty times (Atlas
430). Therefore it is reasonable to conjecture that Garcilaso may have known the madrigal before it was printed or, at the very least, D’Ávalos’s literary text during his lifetime. Parenthetically, both in Garcilaso’s and D’Ávalos’s text the swan dies sweetly singing, an expressive dimension that functions as a metaphor for the erotic but also the ecstatic. Susan McClary observes that the
105 D’Ávalos, related to Vittoria Colonna, who mentored him in his literary pursuits, was one of the most celebrated poets, a musician - tutored by the composer Costanzo Festa (1485 ca. –1585) and a great supporter of music in his times (Bernstein 166; Brundin 25; Fenlon 83). To the Marquis, incidentally, Garcilaso most likely dedicated his sonnet XXI Claríssimo marqués (Morros 39). To ascertain their friendship, I refer to a letter written to Fascitelli in which Bembo observes that Alfonso d’Ávalos, Marquis of Vasto held “Garcilaso in esteem and [was] eager to have him in his company” (Keniston 139). One hastens to suggest that Garcilaso may have heard d’Ávalos text. 74
wide dissemination of the text with its musical settings, may be explained because thematically, the verses trace a remarkably intricate archetypal model of “selfhood” (59), by touching upon the most significant themes of the time:
tension between the speaking subject and an inner core of exquisite sensitivity, simulation of the experience of sexual bliss, implied homologies between erotic and religious ecstasy, anxiety over the loss of control entailed in passionate transport, and the mechanism of desire, which fuels a sense of agency even as it seems to come unbidden from a source non-identical with the self (60).
McClary’s analysis is pertinent to the extent that the theme in Garcilaso’s second eclogue is wrought in a complex lyric narrative, in which the white swan represents one of the characters,
Albanio, whose major problem is, in fact, “uncontrolled sexual desire” (Rivers 62).
Pastor Comín (2007) observes that Cervantes shares with Garcilaso the poetic image of the sweet, dying white swan. In his Viage al Parnaso, Cervantes writes: “I hope to sing with such harmonious voice so to make you think I am a dying swan.”106 Pastor Comín, questioning the reason for which Cervantes’s hildago sings Il bianco dolce cigno, opines that Cervantes adopts the text and music of previous poets and composers in order to place his voice strategically in this particular poetic tradition (80–85). Cervantes draws extensively from
Garcilaso, and often the compositions are sung, thus providing more evidence that they were part of the current song repertoire (Pastor Comín 2007:206).107 By extension, then, Cervantes canonizes Garcilaso as poeta-musicus.
The idea of the white swan persists in Garcilaso’s work, returning as it does in the Third
Eclogue:
106 “[E]spero / cantar con voz tan entonada y viva / que piensen que soy cisne y que me muero” (Cervantes, Viage al Parnaso 73; transl. mine) 107 On the intertextual connections between Cervantes and Garcilaso see José Manuel Blecua “Garcilaso y Cervantes (1947); Jean Caravaggio, “Garcilaso en Cervantes” (2000), and Mariano Calvo, “Cervantes y Garcilaso: la voz a ti debida” (2003). 75
Cerca del agua en lugar florido Estaba entre las hierbas degollada108 Cual queda el blanco cisne cuando pierde La dulce vida entre la hierba verde (Ecl. III, vv. 228–232)
Near the still water, in a myrtle bower, / She lay amongst the green herbs, pale and meek, / Like a white swan that, sickening where it feeds, Sighs its sweet life away amidst the reeds (transl. Wiffen 274).
In this eclogue, tension resolves in harmonious accord for, according to Rivers (1980), “[i]n the figure of the swan, Elisa and the poet are joined and death gives rise to a song” (84). Alexander
Parker observes the following:
Love therefore means the free fulfillment of man’s being in personal self-transcendence towards what is higher, either in an unselfish love of generosity, or in a love of desire which serves as a means of self-affirmation (5).
Similarly, in the aforementioned verses, unattainable human love resolves its tension in a
Neoplatonic spiritual possibility. The resonance of the water and the song of death are juxtaposed to depict visions of harmony and discord, one aside the other. It is precisely this manifestation of love, in its physical and spiritual form, that resonates in the heart of the attuned reader/listener.
Dance: Con gracioso movimiento
One of Garcilaso’s earliest writings, his first copla, is a villancico, a traditional octosyllabic poetic form, originating from earlier Arabic rustic solo song performances (Ferrand
926; Stevenson 18). The villancico became one of the most popular Spanish lyrical forms of the sixteenth-century. It was prevalent in the works of, for example, Juan del Encina and Garcí
Sánchez de Badajoz (Tomás 216). Juan Encina, musically trained at the Salamanca Cathedral
108 For a discussion of the brutality of the adjective, degollada, see Morros (235) and Rivers 1980:84. 76
and in the service of Don Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, set music to many of his villancicos (Atlas 360). Juan de Espinoza (fl. 1514, Stevenson 92) who worked at the Toledo cathedral and whose patron, Pedro de Mendoza of Toledo, was the son of the Marqués de
Santillana, also Garcilaso’s great grand-father. He composed two of the secular villancicos included in the Cancionero de Palacio (no. 4 and 202 in Stevenson 93). The villancico, widely performed in the New World, stands as a musico-poetic genre clearly representing the cultural interchange between Spain, Portugal, and their dominated territories (Ferrand 816). Gásser observes that villancicos and other early musico-poetic forms, traditionally recited and semi- improvised with guitar accompaniment, are also found in fifteenth and early seventeeth-century
Italian manuscripts. This precedence reflects the extensive Hispanic/Neapolitan exchange (14–
15). In fact, the form functions as a nexus for musico-poetic practices since the times of the troubadours and the Moorish zajal, the precursor of the Spanish villancico (Stevenson 18). With
Garcilaso’s first copla being, in fact, a villancico, the poet thus engages in a dialogue with his
Spanish musico-poetic tradition.109
Garcilaso’s first copla was dedicated to Don Luis de la Cueva who danced in the presence of a pájara or prostitute. The scene is aptly rowdy in which the dancer is bemused by the unorthodox presence of the pájara. The feamale dancer tends to stagger and skip more than dance.110 In a similar vein, the image of the stumbling dancer reappears in Copla VII. Here the dedication alludes to a celebratory dance for a wedding in Germany, where the attendants are
109 In terms of the literary tradition, the copla is a well-known poetic form best exemplified, perhaps, by Jorge Manriques’s Coplas por la muerte de su padre. Manrique (1440–1479), a man of arms and letters, was trained in poetry by Santillana and became one of the most celebrated poets of Toledo (Marino 5). His aforementioned Copla is a dance of death in memory of the poet’s father. 110 “Esta le hizo caer / mucho más que no el saltar / que hizo con el bailar” (Copla I, vv. 8–10) – She caused his faltering / much more than stumbling / let alone dancing (transl. mine). 77
provoked to laughter by the sight of the dancing character: “Should you continue / in the same custom / of changing water into wine / like dancing provoking laughter (transl. mine).”111 Once more, the poetic voice derides his own attempt at dancing. The poet’s self-conscious attitude towards the art parallels that of Federico, in Castiglione’s Courtier, who deems the practice of dancing in the open air undignified and admonished such that in public “care must be taken to be graceful and without affectation” (118).
According to the Grove Music Online, in the Greek conception of mousikē there was no distinction between dance and poetry, since both implied movement and rhythmic patterns
(Sutton, et al in Grove). In the first part of the fifteenth-century, Rinaldo Corso wrote a Dialogue on Dance (1550). He asserted that “[h]e who dances well is a poet just like he who writes fine verse.”112 Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, of the Lombard School of Dancing, devised a system of dancing for Italian courts. In his treatise De pratica seu arte tripudii (1463), Ebreo upheld dance as a spiritual movement, “based on harmonic structures, which join the human world (including arts) with nature [and there] it finds expression in polyphonic music, the harmonies of which are like the four Empdoclean elements of fire, air, water and earth” (Berghaus 57).
Certainly readers will find innumerable mentions of rhythmical movement in Garcilaso’s poetry.113 Rhythmic movement is perceived in the swaying movement of trees in the wind,114 the movement of trees in response to Orpheus’s song,115 the movement of the voice,116 and
111 “Pienso que habéis de venir, / si vais por ese camino, / a tornar el agua en vino, / como el danzar en reír” (5-8). 112 Corso writes: “Et così Poeta, chi Balla beb, come chi fà bene versi” (in Berghaus 62). 113 Sarmiento displays twelve entries for the word movimiento/s (564). Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, for movement as it could be represented in many other forms, such as volando – flying. 114 “el mover los árboles al viento” (Ecl 2, v.14). 115 “los àrboles movieron con su canto” (Son. 15, v.4). 116 “pienso mover la boz a ti devida” (Ecl. III, v.12). 78
ondulating flags that imitate the trembling effect of water waves.117 It is worthy of note that in the last verse of Garcilaso’s Second Eclogue, the term tremolando is a musical neologism denoting the shaking of the bow to thus create a vibrato by viola players. It was first mentioned in a musical treatise for the viola da gamba Regola Rubertina (Venice, 1542), written by
Sylvestro di Ganassi dal Fontengo (Woodfield 268).
Further representations of movement are found in Garcilaso’s First Elegy. The body of
Don Fernando’s body lies prematurely dead at the foot of his beloved. The poetic voice recalls images of Venus watching Adonis lifeless and unresponsive. She then graciously moves away from the body, leaving her grief behind as all creation rejoices in her vision. In these verses cast in the Dantesque form of interlocking rhymes, the terza rima, a synaesthetic representation portrays the gentle rhythmical movement of Venus as she sways away from the body:
Y luego con gracioso movimiento se fue su paso por el verde suelo con su guirnalda usada y su ornamento desordenaba con lascivo vuelo el viento su cabello, y con su vista alegraba la tierra, el mar y el cielo (Elg. I, vv. 235–239 in Rivers 2011:115)
And away with that gliding step of hers she sailed, / Over the green, dressed and adorned as ever / With their customary garland and finery; / The wind played wantonly with her wafted hair. / All creation, earth and sea and sky / Was filled with gladness at the joyous vision (transl. John Dent-Young 93)
In this rhythmical design of sound images and metaphors of movement, the salient words are gracioso movimiento / paso/ desordenaba / vuelo and viento. The undulating movement of her persona and of her hair in the wind is further underscored by the sound of the semi-vowels falling on the accents of the hendecasyllabic line, thereby enhancing the swelling and prolongation effect of the verse.
117 “luego vieras al viento las banderas tremolando las ondas imitando en el moverse” (Ecl. 2, vv. 1627–29). 79
Y lue – go con gra cio so mo vi mien to (v. 235). _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _
Venus’s graceful movements bring to mind the Primavera (1482 ca.), a painting by Sandro
Botticelli (1445–1510) displayed in the Florentine Palace for Lorenzo Pierfrancesco de Medici’s wedding (Hartt 302). Garcilaso’s Latin Ode III also brings this image to mind. Here Venus appears with her hair adorned in garlands, and leading a dance:
Sedes ad cyprias Venus, Cui centum redolent usque calentia Thure altaria sacro, Sertis vincta comas, nuda agitans choros Gaudebat, […] (Latin Ode III, vv.1–5). [Venus in her temple of Cyprus, / overflowing with delight, / with hair adorned with garlands, leads a choral dance (transl. mine)].
The art historian Frederick Hartt posits that the choir of semi-nude Graces dancing together depicted in Botticelli’s Primavera represents “the emanation of Venus, embodying the beauty she creates” (335). He further suggests that the idea may have been inspired by Alberti who recommended that painters practice just such a composition – of Venus and the dancing Graces, as described by Seneca (335). Venus’s choral dance in Garcilaso’s third Latin Ode is reminiscent of the Greek partheneia, a maiden dance, mentioned in Homer’s Illiad as: “the girls […] moving gracefully […] were crowned with garlands of flowers” (Bk. 18, vv. 577–580). Plutarch, in his
De Musica, describes partheneia as being widely composed, for example, by Alcman, Pindar,
Simonides, and Bacchylides (Section 17- Goddwin). These connections and conjectures are not entirely unfounded, for Heiple effectively correlates the Ode ad Florem Gnidi to a tapestry of paintings depicting the tension between Venus and Mars. Indeed, the scholar asserts that to deny the link between Garcilaso’s poetry and Renaissance art and, in this discussion, music, in its various manifestations, is to miss the meaning of a work created at the pinnacle of the Italian
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Renaissance, since “the intellectual appreciation of his poetry requires a familiarity with several poetic and artistic traditions” (392–395). His poetry thus connects with Renaissance practices and aesthetic currents that sought to emulate the classic tradition in their artistic representations, architecture, philosophy, literature, dance, music as well as cultural aspects of life.
Sound Images of Wind and Water: Una agua clara con sonido
Fernández-Morera defines Garcilaso’s poetry as pure melody “that rings on in the memory long after it is heard” (108). Music in poetry, however, is fuelled by rhythm that transports images of sound. In Garcilaso’s lyrics, the wind and water are often the main sources of energy. There are thirty entries of the word ‘wind’ and over fifty for ‘water,’ including twenty or so references to ‘rivers’ in his entire corpus. Fittingly, in Garcilaso’s first elegy, a work dedicated to the Duke of Alba to celebrate the death of his brother Don Bernaldino de Toledo, words such as vuelo (flight) and desordenaba (disarranged) stand as metaphors for the evanescence of time. Similar musical neologisms are present in Garcilaso’s sonnet XXIII, where the movement of the female dancer’s hair swaying in the wind stands in antithesis to the idea of the wind sweeping through the earth as an analogy to the movement of time. The wind scatters and disperses her beautiful hair “el viento esparze y desordena [el cabello] (vv. 5–8) con vuelo presto (v.6) [with fast movement]. In the end, the gelid wind sweeps over all that is tender and beautiful and, as a rose, her beauty withers away: “marchitará la rosa al viento helado” (v. 12).
Ultimately, the wind represents the unrelenting rhythm of life that transcends human limitations:
¡O quántas esperanças lleva el viento! [Oh, how many hopes the wind carries] (Sonnet XXVI, v.
4; transl. mine).
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Water is often the conduit of the resonace of Garcilaso’s poetic voice (Canción III). At other times, it is the current against which the poetic voice must struggle (Sonnet XXIX). Isabel
Torres postulates that water is the conduit of a dialogic form because it is, in her analysis of the
Second Eclogue, for example, a “polyvalent figure that stimulates a universe of reader responses” (878). Water stands for motion and stillness, thus representing human beings in interplay with temporality or the rhythm of life (878). This is certainly true in Garcilaso’s Third
Canción. The poet, exiled to an island on the Danube, manipulates the rhythm of the water in order to make it function as a conduit for his lyrics:
Danubio, río divino, Que por fieras naciones Vas con tus claras ondas discurriendo, Pues no hay otro camino
Por donde mis razones vayan fuera de aquí, sino corriendo Por tus aguas y siendo (Canción III, vv. 52–59).
Sacred river Danube, / you who go among savage / nations, the flow of your clear waters guiding, / since there is no other route / by which my thoughts and my words / can go from this place, except by riding / your stream, or immersed in it (transl. Dent-Young 63).
The form is a musical one, a canción that is a song. The carrier of the poetic voice is the rhythm of the water. Music thus serves as a cathartic element to create a sensation of freedom and a means of subversion. Whilst the poet is forced into exile, he transcends physical restraints by relying on the water as the carrier of his voice. In this case, the poetic voice entices the reader to its attunement, ultimately fulfilling the poetic creation of the self.
There are forty-two entries for agua and nine for aguas in Garcilaso’s verses. The following references are precisely to water as the conduit of sound:
O convertido en agua aquí llorando (Son. XI, v. 13) [transformed into water here I am crying].
Por donde una agua, clara con sonido (Ecl. I, v. 47) [where water, with clearest sound].
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Aquel manso ruido del agua que la clara fuente envía (Ecl. II, vv. 65–66) [that delightful sound of the water that the clear stream conveys].
El agua y la hendían con sonido (Ecl. II – v. 1626) [the waters were separated by the sound].
El agua baña el prado con su sonido (Ecl. III – v. 63) [water imbues the meadow with its sound]. (all transl. mine).
In his study of Garcilaso’s eclogues, Fernández-Morera discovers that in the Third Eclogue water is a constantly moving motif that serves as a conduit of sound as well as basis for thematic unity.
Water is the locus amoenus in which the nymphs dwell and the lens through which the listener is able to see and hear the unfolding scenes from beginning to end (76–77). In the second stanza of the Eclogue, the poetic voice reveals that it is water, indeed, that will carry its celebratory lyrics:
Pienso mover la voz a ti debída: libre mi alma de su estrecha roca, por el Estigio lago conducida, celebrando te irá, y aquel sonido hará parar las aguas del olvido (Ecl. III, vv. 12–16)
I contemplate moving the voice in your honour / free my soul from its constricting rock / led by the waters of the Stygian lake, / it will celebrate you, and that sound / will counter the waters of oblivion (transl. mine).
Water runs through the entire structure of the Eclogue and is thus integral to form. Water transforms in various disguises and alternates its presence with the shepherds’ land setting. In the end the nymphs disappear into the water, thus bringing closure to the entire work. While water is occasionally the carrier of sound and the poetic voice, in these verses (vv. 12–16) it represents that which needs to be subjugated. The evocative power of the poetic voice, assuming the figura of Orpheus, will detain the waters of oblivion. Fernández-Morera concludes his observation on the water motif in the third eclogue by stating that perhaps “we might not be wrong in seeing
Garcilaso’s waters as an objectification of feelings” (80).
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Garcilaso’s inner distress is most vividly represented when the poetic subject assumes the personality of the mythological Leander whose, voice struggles against wind and water to be heard:
Esforçó el viento, y fuese embraveciendo / el agua con ímpetu furioso (Son. XXIX, vv. 2–4) [the wind picked up, and the water became rougher with a furious impetus] (transl. Randel 67).
Esforçó su boz cansada / y a las ondas habló d’esta manera / mas nunca fue su voz della oídas (Son. XXIX, vv. 7–10) [He raised his tired voice as much as he could / and spoke to the waves (water) as follows: but they never heard his voice] (transl. Randel).
These verses strike a chord with the attuned listener, who perceives Garcilaso’s verses as a microcosmic representation of the universal human condition.
We can now conclude this section on musical representations. The wind and water motifs, interwoven in Garcilaso’s poetic tapestry, are integral elements in the overall structure.
Their movement and sound are carefully choreographed to depict the psychological world of the poet, one in which the power of the lyrical voice subverts all forces. “Who of the Gods,” the poetic voice questions, “is awakened by the foreboding anxiety in his thought with music and poetry? The same one, whose music deters the overflow of rivers and silences the fury of the winds as they dissipate through the dense woodlands” (Latin Ode I, vv. 25–32; transl. mine).118
Verbal Musicality: Hinchen el aire de dulce armonía
When Garcilaso’s poetic voice refers to the son de las palabras (Ecl. 2, v. 1084) [sound of the words] a metapoetic discourse transpires, whereby the poet, demonstrates a self-conscious awareness to the resonance of his verses in an attempt to awaken the listener to the attunement of
118 “Aegro deorum quis tulerit, rogas, / herbis reposits auxilium potens, / mentisque consternationem / cantibus er fidibus levaritis? // Idem sonanti cui vaga flumina / sistunt silentes margine vortices / ventosque narrator frementes / per nemora ardua conquiesse […]” (Latin Ode I: Ad Antonium Thylesium Ode, vv. 25–32), in Morros (248–249). 84
the meaning, as underscored by the acoustic effects of the words. Furthermore, it is precisely this perceivable verbal musicality that distinguishes the lyric form from other genres. Minturno so explains:
Harmony […] that concentus, one hears in the consonances: thus it is perceivable only in those verses in which it can be observed and heard, hence they are ornamented and harmonious [...]. These are the traits of melic poetry […] and this is the difference that lies between her and her sisters: namely drama and epic […] (transl. mine).119
Whereas Minturno distinguishes between drama and epic poetry, he classifies melic and lyric as one: “One is defined as Epic, the other Scenic, the other Melic of Lyric.”120
Harmony, according to Longinus, is an instrument of persuasion and pleasure caused by the sympathetic vibrations of rhythm and the meaning of words; it moves the hearer (On
Sublimity 152)121. Theorists agree that the foremost characteristic of the lyric as genre rests precisely on its aesthetic prestige as well as its ability to imitate reality with words, rhythm, and harmony (Vega & Esteve 91). The sixth-century Hispanic scholar Isidore of Seville writes that lyric (lyricus) poets are named after a Greek term literally signifying “to speak trifles that is, from the selection of their songs. Henceforth the lyre (lyra) was named” [The Etymologies vii, 4
(transl. Barney et alii 180]. Indeed, according to Aristotle, one of the principal characteristics of lyrical poetry is the representation of reality through verbal expression using rhythm, speech and melody (Poetics 1447a-b).
119 “Ma l’armonia, della qual’io ragiono, è quell concento, che s’ode nelle consonanze: e, perciocch’è notabile, quelle rime solamente, nelle quali si fa udire e notare, si chiamano ornate d’armonia […].Queste son proprie della Melica Poesia […] e questa differenza è tra lei, e le sue sorelle: perciòcchè così la Scenica, come l’Epica” […]. (Arte Poetica, III, 176). 120 “[L]’una si chiama Epica, l’altra Scenica, la terza Melica, o Lirica.” (Arte Poetica 3; transl. mine). 121 “Harmony is a natural instrument not only of conviction and pleasure but also a remarkable degree, of grandeur and emotion (39.2). The aulos fills the audience with certain emotions and makes them somehow beside themselves and possessed. It sets a rhythm, it makes the hearer move to the rhythm and assimilate himself to the tune, untouched by the Muses though he be” (152). 85
Garcilaso articulates the word ‘harmony’ only once in his verses; specifically, in his second eclogue, where the poetic voice speaks of dulce harmonía (Ecl. 2, v.69) or sweet harmony. This is most fitting, since Keniston regards the second eclogue to be one of the poet’s finest lyrical works (253). For the sake of comparison, Monterosso observes only three mentions of the term ‘harmony’ in Dante’s Commedia. Yet the critic observes that a complex formulation of the concept of harmony imbues the finest substrates of Dante’s work throughout. The
Purgatorio and Paradiso sections of the Commedia, for instance, are overflowing with musical terminology and musical imagery (Monterosso1965:83). In De vulgari Eloquentia Dante writes that vernacular poets are those who compose “poetry conceived as nothing more than verbal invention in tune with the rules of rhetoric and music.”122 Monterosso discerns that Dante considered the canzone as “fabricatio verborum armonizatorum” [an harmonious verbal construct] (transl. mine) that implicitly requires the congenial accord of all the elements integral to the macrocosmic poetic structure (89). Accordingly, Dante proposes three prerequisites for the artistic realization of the canzone: the melodic division (i.e. word disposition and rhyme), the proportionate distribution of elements in each stanza, and the rhythm of syllables and verses (91).
Yet Monterosso reminds us that, whereas Dante considers the harmonious articulation of poetry and poetry written for music, in his Rime he purposely reveals “a distinct understanding of the autonomous dignity of poetry, that must fulfill its own discrete principles in such a way, that
122 “[s]i poesim recte consideramus que, nihil aliud est quam fictio rethorica” (De vulgari eloquentia II, iv, 2; transl. mine). 86
from the smallest element to the macroform, every single part is meaningful in itself, and not subservient to any other art form.”123
Spitzer (1963) also reminds his readers that the concept of harmony encompasses a broad range of meanings, linguistic expressions as well as exegesis. He cites the Greek author
Stobaeus, who maintained that the “healthy soul is symphonic, i.e., harmonious” (17), and Plato, who predicated temperament and harmony between body and soul (17). Spitzer asserts that one of Dante’s most cherished documents is the Somnium Scipionis by Cicero, which relates the
Pythagorean theory of harmony of the spheres (17). These various concepts, expressed by Cicero and by the Roman- Iberian Quintillian, are included in a broad terminology, namely the Latin temperans (moderation), concentus (harmonic singing) and many other terms that underscore the idea of the concordant exegesis of opposing forces (19). The Greek Pythagorean idea of the harmony of the spheres, as proposed by Boethius, permeated widely throughout Christian Latin literature (19). Spitzer observes, however, that the idea of concordant voices in music did not lead to the idea of polyphony, where all the voices are brought together, until the fifteenth- century, and that rhyme in poetry was first used by St. Augustine. The Roman concept of consonantia vocum (consonantal voices) was subsequently applied to Provençal poetry, leading to the notion of rhyme or numeri (order). Both polyphony and rhyme mirrored world harmony and the idea of universal unity. Spitzer suggests that rhyme was then freed from the rational as an acoustic and emotional phenomenon that responded to the harmony of the universe. Indeed, as
Monterosso indicates, in Dante’s notion of fabrication verborum armonizatorum resides a
123 Monterosso writes that in his Rime Dante reveals “una coscienza precisa e netta della dignità autonoma della poesia, la quale deve badare innanzi tutto alle esigenze sue proprie, in modo che, nelle single parti e nell’insieme, tutto abbia un significato, e non serva da pretest o da sottofondo per altre forme d’arte.” (91; transl. mine). 87
meticulous attention to verbal euphony. Finally, Spitzer proposes that the musicalization of poetry is another way to define the synaesthetic formation of art or Gesamtkunstwerk (46).
Augustín de la Granja questions the reason for which countless poets refer to harmony as
‘sweet harmony.’ Why the epithet “dulce,” he asks? In part, he asserts, because numerous
Spanish poets, from Garcilaso to Cervantes and Lope de Vega, adopted the same (83). In the
Universal vocabulario en Latín y Romance written by Alfonso de Palencia (1423–1492), the definition of ‘armonía” reads as such: “smoothness of the voice, consonance of several voices: it is that element in music which distinguished acute and grave sounds.”124 Therefore, Granja notes, according to Palencia the term armonía comprises the smoothness of truly modern voice and the consonance of many voices (83). Granja also draws from the very first, Spanish dictionary, based on literary authority, El Diccionario de Autoridades (1732), that includes reference to variety and proportions to propose similar semantic meaning for the three terms, armonía, concento, and consonancia [harmony, concordance, and consonance] (transl. mine).
Granja reminds his readers that Calderón allegorically represents Music as dulce armonia (sweet harmony) and Poetry as ingenioso ritmo (inventive rhythm). Granja, maintains that the epithet dulce referring to armonia remains in history as a legitimate sintagm (86). Finally, he draws from Lope de Vega’s Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, where it states: “every poetic imitation / consists of three elements, that are: speech, / verse, sweet harmony: and that is music.”125
Dante employs the term dolce two of the three times when he mentions the term armonia: “dolce armonia tra queste rote” [sweet harmony among these wheels] (Paradiso VI–
124 “Suavidad de voz y consonancia de muchas voces: es parte de la musica que distingue lo agudo de lo grave” (Palencia f.xxxiir and Granja 83; transl. mine). 125 Granja cites Lope de Vega: “cualquiera imitación poética / se hace de tres cosas, que son: plática, / verso, dulce armonía o sea, la música” (in Granja 87; transl. mine). 88
126), and dolce armonia da organo [sweet harmony to the ears] (Paradiso XVII–44). Pazzaglia has investigated the role of music in Dante’s poetic thought (1988) observing that Dante deals clearly with the notion of beauty of expression in its linguistic composition, its rhetorical structure, and the metrical texture (257). Dante, according to Pazzaglia, makes direct reference to this concept in La Vita Nuova, when, in chapter XIII, the poet imagines beauty in the sweet utterance of love: “lo nome d’amore è si dolce a udire” (Pazzaglia 260).126 Similar to
Monterosso and Spitzer, Pazzaglia suggests that Dante’s sensitivity to the phonic aspect of language is a means to interrelate with thematic Pythagorean and Neoplatonic notions of harmony (260).
In Spanish literature, Patrick Gallagher draws intertextual literary connections between
Fray Luis’s Horatian the Odes Vida Retirada and Oda a Salinas, to Garcilaso's Egloga II (36–
76), detecting concepts of sound and harmony expressed in their respective poetry. The Vida
Retirada reads: “may the birds awaken me with their unlearned songs.”127 Similarly Garcilaso’s
Eclogue reads thus: “and the unstudied songs of the ungoverned birds fill the air with musical delight.”128 Gallagher explains that Fray Luis’s concept of harmony, which juxtaposes the pleasant locus amoenus and the ‘unlearned” songs of birds, is similar to that of his predecessor,
Garcilaso. In his Oda a Salinas Fray Luis also speaks of “una dulcísima armonía” [sweetest harmony] (v. 25; transl. Gallagher 147). The same idea appears in Cervantes’s Don Quixote
126 Dante’s La Vita Nuova reads: “The name of Love is so sweet to the ear that it would not seem possible for its effects to be other than sweet; seeing that the name must needs be like unto the things named: as it is written: “Names are the consequents of things.’”(12; transl. Dante Gabriel Rossetti). 127 “Despiértenme las aves con su cantar sabroso no aprendido” (Fray Luis de León, Vida Retirada, vv. 31–32; transl. mine). 128 “Y las aves sin dueño / Con canto no aprendido / Hinchen el ayre de dulce armonía” (Ecl. II, vv. 67–69; transl. John Dent Young 153, emphasis mine). 89
when the protagonist, conversing with the canon, cites Garcilaso’s verses: “the small birds delight the ears with their sweet and untutored song.”129
Attunement to Dante’s poetic universe, however, reveals that, in striking contrast to the concept of universal harmony and the sweet order of the spheres filled with the sound of choirs of the blessed, as Ciabattoni describes it, lies a world of infernal cacophony, a total lack of music and undecipherable verbal messages (2010:83). Could one surmise then, that at the micro-level the type of aural discord and cacophonous soundscape, constructed in the finest strands of the poetic form, provides a good measure of variation and harmony? We remember that Bembo, drawing from the Ciceronian precept of variazione, states that two are the parts that fulfill a good composition with gravità and piacevolezza.130 Piacevolezza is achieved by rhymes close together and gravità is perceived when the sound of rhyme is far apart (Prose, Libro II – x , 65).
Indeed, Monterosso observes that in his De vulgari eloquentia Dante often uses words that are deemed to be harsh or strident if one will, yet the poet purports that if the word is well situated, just as a sharp stone becomes part of a beautiful stone work (levigata is the term he uses), then it is set harmoniously: “pulchram faciunt armoniam compaginis” [create beauty in the harmonious disposition of the words (De vulgari Eloquentia II, 7, vi; cited in Monterosso 88; transl. mine).
In the spirit of aesthetic appropriateness and ethical responsibility for the dissemination of the moral and the good, in his Eloquencia española en arte, the Spanish theorist Bartolomé
Jiménez Patón (1569–1640) defines cacophaton as “un mal sonido torpe sucio y deshonesto” [as a corrupt sound, torpid, dirty, and dishonest] (Smith 28; transl. mine). Yet, in his prologue to
129 “ [y] entretiene los oídos el dulce y no aprendido canto de los pequeños” (Cervantes DQ1-L; transl. mine). 130 “Due parti sono quelle che bella ogni scrittura, la gravità e la piacevolezza; e le cose poi, che empiono e compiono queste due parti, son tre, il suono, il numero, la variazione” (Prose 59). 90
Boscán’s translation of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, Garcilaso reminds his readers that when they perceives words that offend “good ears,” one must keep in mind that there are “tantas suertes de hablar” or many ways of speaking (Morros 269; transl. mine) used by the author precisely so that the listener may be able to discern one style from another.131
Indeed, the concept of harmony includes all of those forms that bring together opposing forces. Northrop Frye questions the meaning of the epithet “musical,” which he argues “has been the source of many crude misunderstandings” (167). Music, he observes, “is not a sequence of harmonies [but] a sequence of discords ending in harmony […]. When music attains “harmony” it has reached its final chord and is all over” (Music in Poetry 1942: 168). Certainly, as the concept of concertare came to be known as a strict musical reference “to strive harmoniously to make music” (Spitzer 111), it descends from the Latin, “to fight someone,” or, as Spitzer defines it, “harmony within strife”(108). Spitzer, in his etymological analysis of the term, includes the
‘untranslatable’ Spanish term sosiego that comprises “the subsiding of pain and the philosophical poise that follows” (Spitzer 113). It is precisely this concertar/sosiego, concept that fills the heart of the suffering poet in Garcilaso’s lyrics:
Con tal fuerça y vigor son concertados Para mi perdición los duros vientos (Son. XX, vv. 1–2) [With such power and vigour the harsh winds conjure against me] (transl. mine).
131 From the Preface to Los quarto libros del Cortesano: “A propósito de hacer reír y de hablar delgadamente, hay algunas puestas por ejemplo que parece que no llegan al punto de las otras ni merecen ser tenidas por muy buenas de un hombre que tan avisadamente trató las otras partes, y de aquí podrían inferir una sospecha de no tan buen juicio ni tan fineza del autor como le damos. Lo que a esto se puede responder es que la int[e]nción del autor fue poner diversas maneras de hablar graciosamente y de decir donaires, y porque mejor pudiésemos conocer la diferencia y el linaje de cada una de aquellas maneras” (Garcilaso in Morros 269). “For whenever we read a variety of graceful and witty sayings that are intended to make us laugh with their subtlety, we find in other passages examples that are not so clever or well crafted. Those readers might then suspect that the author is not as reasonable or refined as we assume. To this we can answer that the author meant to include different sorts of graceful and witty sayings; and so that we may distinguish the differences and similarities between them, he put forth examples of all kind” (transl. Cruz and Rivers, 239). 91
¡Oh bienventurado! Que sin ira sin odio, en paz estás, sin amor ciego […]
Y eterna holganza y en sosiego vives, y vivirás cuanto encendiere Las almas del divino amor el fuego […]
yo te prometo […] se cantará de ti por todo el mundo (Elegy I, vv. 292–304).
Oh fortunate and deceased one! Without hate, anger, or blind love you live at peace […] for there you live and will live in perfect harmony and repose whilst the fire of divine love inflames the souls […] I promise you […] you will be sung all over the world (transl. mine).
In this intimate relationship between text and reality, the poetic voice manifests a world of harmony achieved only through the death of Don Bernaldino and the completion of the elegy.
The perfect state of repose is impenetrable to hate, anger, or blind love. Here the poet resolves his eulogy with a promise: an enduring song that glorifies his lost friend all over the world.
Music thus serves as the highest and concluding tribute in celebration of Don Bernaldino de
Toledo’s final moment and metaphorically the poet’s verses. In this excerpt, Garcilaso’s poetic world of imperfection, love lost and war is antithetical to the concordant sound of his lyric and the music of his verses.
In his 1971 classic essay on Spanish poetry, Dámaso Alonso asserts that the musicality of verses, as expressed by the poetic voice in Garcilaso’s verses, is not only present but even an integral element of the form in all its substrates. For example, in his analysis of a single hendecasyllabic verse “el agua baña el prado con su sonido” [the water infuses the meadow with its sound] (Ecl. III, v.63; transl. mine), Alonso perceives a circular motion of the vowel /a/ repeated three times, each time emphasized by the accents of the hendecasyllabic verse. The recurring sound of the vowel, he asserts, imitates the clear sound of the crystalline, transparent waters of the river Tagus. The same prominence of the sounding vowel /a/ and /e/ is observed in
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another line of the same stanza: cerca del Tajo, en soledad amena - near the Tagus river in pleasant solitude (Ecl. III, v. 57). Furthermore, in this stanza, Alonso observes, words that are most representative of the locus amoenus, such as Tàjo – sauces – hiédras – tronco (the Tagus river - willows – hedera or ivy - wood trunk) are emphasized by the strong primary accents in the hendecasyllabic line, the fourth. On the other hand, darker signifying words such as espesura
(thicket) fall on the least expressive accent of the verse: at the tenth. In his final analysis of the stanza, he writes:
It is here, thus, that […] the words transfer as waves in the whirlwind of the deepest musical exhilaration, for the purpose of advancing imaginative complexes […]. One feels the swelling of the river, the filling of solitude, the swaying of the willows: this is the accent, this is the musical wind.132
Westcott obliquely concurs. He describes this scene in the eclogue in these words: “the matrix of universal harmony is realized in a model, the locus amoenus, which provides an ideal, a backdrop and a language for the shepherds” (475). Indeed, as Orotbig notes, if the early works display a certain asperity, typical of the older cancioneros, Garcilaso’s new poetry reveals a deep quest for harmony, musicality, and lyrical fluidity (30).
In these verses the attuned listener becomes aware that Garcilaso’s musicality of verse is a tangible microcosmic element that mirrors the whole. In other words, the echoing vowels, the images of water, and the surrounding locus amoenus plus the musical correlation between and among the verses, are all elements that contribute to the overall synesthetic experience in this idyllic setting of the pastoral eclogue. Keniston observes that: “there is hardly a locution to be
132 “He aquí, que […] las palabras giran, como hojas, en el remolino de la profunda conmoción musical, para así adelantar complejos imaginativos […]. Parece que el río se riza, la soledad se puebla, los sauces se cimbrean: es el acento, es el viento musical” (Alonso 1971: 59–60). 93
found on his works which is not of good usage…[and in comparison to previous poets] Garcilaso sings a song of eternal youth” (350).
In his study of the history of the Renaissance vihuela, John Griffiths asserts that
Garcilaso’s “swiftness with the sword was often balanced by skills in poetry and music”
(Griffiths 2008:37). And in this business of war, Garcilaso’s spirit struggled to find its place as he wielded “ora la espada, ora la pluma” [now the sword at other times the pen] (Ecl. III, v. 40; transl. mine). His literary quest contended with, or at least paralleled, his commitment to arms and service as a courtier and soldier of Spain. Anne Cruz reminds her readers that Garcilaso’s years at the service of Charles V were beset by “unremitting anxiety” (2002:324). From his involvement in the revolt of the comuneros to the prohibitism of marrying Guiomar Carillo, the mother of his illegitimate son Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa, to his exile on a Danubian island for supporting his nephew’s wedding against the wishes of the empress Isabel of Portugal,
Garcilaso’s relationship with Charles V was tense, at best (Cruz 325). Graf, the author of the article reviewed by Cruz, and Cruz herself agree that, inevitably, Garcilaso’s overwrought relationship with the emperor “resounds in his poetry”(324).
Similarly, Lapesa open his analysis of Garcilaso’s third eclogue stating that: “Garcilaso ha aprendido a refugiarse en el arte” [Garcilaso learned to take refuge in his art] (Lapesa
1985:158; transl. and emphasis mine). In this poem, the musical representations support poetic self-fashioning and a vision of universal harmony.133 The work was conceived during a military campaign, and was dedicated, allegedly, to María Osorio Pimentel, the wife of the viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo. It possibly is Garcilaso’s last work before his premature death in
133 For this concept of poetic self-fashioning, see chapter I, n.6. 94
1536 (Morros 223).
Let us move irectly to the fifth stanza. It reads thus:
Entre las armas del sangriento Marte, so apenas hay quien su furor contraste, hurté de tiempo aquesta breve suma, tomando, ora la espada, ora la pluma.
Aplica, pues, un rato los sentidos al baxo son de mi zampoña ruda indigna de llegar a tus oídos, pues d’ornamento y gracias va desnuda; mas a las veces son mejor oídos el puro ingenio y lengua casi muda, testigos limpios, d’animo inocente que la curiosidad del elocuente. (Ecl. III, vv. 37- 48; in Rivers 2011:210–211)
While serving in the bands of bloodthirsty Mars, / whose madness hardly ever is resisted, / I used what little time I could afford, / taking up now the pen and now the sword. // So to the rustic sound of my untutored pipe, please pay attention for a moment, although it is unworthy of your ears, / bare as it is of grace and ornament, / for sometimes it can happen that one hears / a simple talent and a tongue unfluent / more gladly, as signs of a soul that’s innocent, / than the rare inventions of the eloquent (transl. John Dent-Young 183).
In these verses, the poetic voice establishes its obligation to bear arms, alternating its will between the sword and the pen “tomando ora la espada ora la pluma” (v. 40), but also to his music “mi zampoña ruda” (v. 42). This, together with “lengua casi muda” (untutored language) provide more inspiration than the tongue of eloquent speeches. Indeed, the sound of the pastoral instrument, regardless of its lowly quality, circuitously subverts the arms of war and the tongue of the eloquent. The poetic voice herein evokes the spirit of Apollo and the nine muses to grant him the power of subliminal poetry: “Apolo y las hermanas todas nueve / me darán ocio y lengua” (Ecl. III, vv. 29-30). In these verses, the pervasive substrates of language reveal a moment of poetic self-fashioning. Garcilaso’s instruments of subversion are silence (lengua casi muda; v. 40) plus the lowly and crude sound of the shepherd’s pipe. With a simple use of the imperative “aplica pues un rato los sentidos,” or please pay attention (v.41), the poetic voice entices the listener to partake in this dialogical performance of poetry. Garcilaso thus
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accomplishes his objective: that his poetic voice may be heard above the imitative but eloquent voices of the literati and that it may rise above the sounds of war made by the “sangriento
Marte” [bloodthirsty Mars] (v.37). From this perspective, his own brand of eloquence arises from the realm of his poetic imagination.
In the next few paragraphs, we will see how Garcilaso’s musicality of verses, the original element herein considered, is not only a means to engage in dialogue with past models but also a means to speak to the socio-political issues shaping his own country and empire. Parenthetically, viewed in this way, musicality and modernity assert innovation. We will observe that in this realm of war, one obviously antithetical to the idea of peace and harmony, the music of the verses is no longer consonant; it is wrought in pungent dissonance and infernal cacophony. We recall Spitzer’s idea of “harmony within strife” (108) to support the conjecture that Garcilaso forges his idea of poetic harmony against the backdrop of the most pervasive conditions of war.
Sonnet XXXIII will serve as the central basis for this argument.
A sonnet of war; it depicts the conquest of Tunis. The poetic speaker stands on the threshold of life wishing his voice may find its place in the chorus of the world’s voices. The verses invite the listener’s participation in the abhorrence of bellicose action. The first two stanzas read thus:
Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte, Que en su proprio a fuerça el africano Suelo regando, hazen que el romano Imperio reverexca en esta parte, han reduzido a la memoria el arte y el antiguo valor italiano, por cuya fuerça y valerosa mano África se aterró de parte a parte (Soneto XXXIII, vv. 1–8; in Rivers 2011:65)
Arms, Boscán, and the fury of rampant Mars, / that, cultivating with their modern power / the soil of Africa, persuade the empire / of Rome to burgeon in these parts once more, // have reawakened, brought again to mind, /
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Italy’s art, Italy’s ancient valor / by means of which, with gallant deeds and power, / Africa was laid low end to end (transl. John Dent-Young 53).
During this Tunis expedition, herein declaimed, Garcilaso experienced once more and firsthand “el furor de Marte” that is the fury of Mars (v.1). In this war, as the Emperor and his troops ransacked Tunis-Carthage (Africa), Garcilaso was injured. In a similar manner Charles V had previously overpowered the comuneros tumult in Toledo (1520), the battle of Pavia (1525) and the sack of Rome (1527). While triumphant celebrations for the Spanish imperial might and successful translatio imperii arose throughout the empire (Helgerson, 26), the poet took time to reflect on the meaning of such conquest. With this sonnet, he shared his thoughts with his good friend, the Catalan poet Juan Boscán.
The poetic voice utters “Boscán”. The comma that follows his surname implies a moment of pause in the rhythm of the verse, suggesting something of great importance is about to be said.
The melodic contour of the first verse is interrupted: it metaphorically suggests ensuing tension.
At the same time it demands attention to the text at hand. Tomás Navarro Tomás in his investigation of Spanish intonation, observes that the pause serves to modify the musical tone and, similar to those changes of duration and intensity, modifies the meaning and intention of the words (41).134
The meaning of the words, as they unfold to describe the war, is underscored by a cacophony of sounds. Cacophony itself denotes dissonance. For example, one can simply recall the strident cacophony of sounds in the fairground of Stravinsky’s “Petrushka”. Hence, in music cacaphony creates tension. Returning to the sounds of Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXXIII, the reader
134 “La pausa desempeña un importante papel complementario en la construcción fonológica de la oración. La mayor o menor extensión de la pausa sirve lingüísticamente, como los cambios de la altura musical y como las modificaciones de la duración e intensidad, en la función de determinar y precisar el sentido e intención de las palabras” (Navarro Tomás1948:41). 97
auditorially perceives a cacphony of bilabial plosives /p/ /f/ and /s/ repeated over and over.
Examples are proprio/parte/por cuya/de parte a parte; the labiodental fricative /f/ in furor/ fuerça/ africano/ fuerça Africa; the repeating sounds of /s/ in Boscán/armas/ fuerca/suelo/ hacen/reverdezca/reducido.135 Herrera noted that this repetion “los griegos lo llaman polysigma”
[the Greeks call it polysygma (or an overuse)] (in Heiple 96). The compounding plosives and fricatives consonants stands in counterpoint to the lower vocalic dark sounds of /u/ and /i/.
Thomas Montgomery in 1978 investigated the sound-symbolism of close vowels in Garcilaso’s
Sonnet XXII, En tanto que de rosa y d’açucena. For reliability, he studied this poem in the context of Garcilaso’s complete corpus of sonnets. The vowel /u/ in Spanish is the least sonorous and Montgomery perceived that Garcilaso’s war-like sonnets are “characterized by many close vowels” (213). The question here is: How does the sound of these verses impact the reader?
aThough it may appear that Garcilaso is offering tribute to the great Spanish imperial conquest of Africa where old Roman power may flourish again, the opposite is true. The sound of the verses offers the clue to a correct reading. The last two verses present an extraordinary paradox. On the one hand, the poetic voice utters praises: “por cuya fuerça y valerosa mano” [by the strong and valorous hand], but on the other, it shatters that same image:“Africa se aterró de parte a parte” [Africa was levelled from end to end]. The heroic rhythm of the poetic voice urges on with a synaloepha and a falling rhythm toward the end of the verse: “de par tea par te”.
[a.'fɾi.ka se a.te.'ro δe 'paɾ.te a 'paɾ.te]136
135 In the Spanish language the phoneme /s/ or /z/ at the beginning of the syllable are “sorda” (the vocal chords produce a consonant that is not sonorous or, in linguistic terms, voiceless). /C/ before /i/ and /e/ is also sorda and it sounds as [s] (Morgan 249). 136 Navarro Tomás characterizes this endecasilabo, with accents on syllables 2-6-8-10, as “Heroic” (1969:420). 98
The reader, through rhythm, sound and meaning, is reminded of the power of Rome whose ancient artistic valour is upheld, yet by brute strength it levelled Africa. This is reminiscent of
Alonso’s assertion that Garcilaso uses the expressive possibilities of rhythm to agitate the human soul (105).
The next two stanzas read:
Aquí donde el romano encendimiento, dond’el fuego y la llama licenciosa solo el nombre dexaron a Cartago,
buelve y rebuelve amor mi pensamiento, hiere y enciend’el alma temerosa, y en el llanto y en ceniza me deshago. (Soneto XXXIII, vv. 1–8; in Rivers 2011:65)
Here, where once the Romans, looting and burning, / kindled profligate flames that left the whole / of Carthage nothing but a name alone, // love invades my thoughts, turning and returning, / to torture and set fire to the anxious soul, / and I in tears and ashes am undone (transl. John Dent-Young 53).
The poet is besieged by the devastation of fire. He turns his thoughts to Dido, the queen of
Carthage in Virgil’s Aeneid, and in a similar vein the poet is “undone” and turns to ashes.
In the first two stanzas, vv. 1- 4 -5 and 8 all end in mid-vowel and phoneme /e/. The same mid- vowel and phoneme persists in the last two stanzas. In fact, it is heard internally at the end of the following words: donde/nombre/buelve/rebuelve/hiere/enciende/ as well as the polyptoton encendimiento and enciende. Montgomery asserts that the dominant /e/ vowel and phoneme contributes to a tone of “the impersonal (impersonal in that it does not define feminine ending in
-a- or masculine ending in -o-)” (215). In this war sonnet, the poetic voice creates a distance between himself and the war to which he contributed. He turns into ashes; he wants no part in the celebrations of conquest. The sound of the poetic voice in its laments dissipates as the body, undone, transforms into ashes. In this act of repulsion, the agitating sound and meaning of the
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verses invites the listener’s participation. This vivid synaesthetic representation brings to mind
Torquato Tasso’s (1544–1595) discernment:
Homer […] with sound and number imitates things in such way that they appear in front of our eyes, he lets us see and hear simultaneously [Discorsi del poema eroico; (transl. mine)].137
At this point, I place myself in dialogue with E. C. Graf (1994) who asserts that
Garcilaso, in his poetry, not only demonstrates a remarkable awareness of the relationship between his art and the idea of cosmic harmony, but “even subversively questions the very possibility of such harmony” (170). Graf observes that in Sonnet XXIX the poetic voice, submerged by the sounds of the waves, is perceivable to the listener/reader through lyrical effects and meaning. Therefore, Garcilaso, via his poetic voice, appropriates a myth “that paradoxically records the unrecordable” (173). Likewise in this sonnet, the poetic voice, through meaning and sound effects that, by the very nature of the subject matter, echo the sounds of war, thus being cacophonous, is in Bakhtinian terms “caught in an arrested tragic moment: individuated, rootless and modern insofar as he is called on to find his place in the dissonant chorus of voices sounding residual visions of the world” (Kliger 82). The poetic speaker recalls not the Petrarchan ideal of the ancient glory of Rome and its dominion over Carthage, but rather
Virgil’s Dido, the mythical queen of Carthage who fells on a sword as she was cursing Rome and its conquerors. In this poem the poetic voice also subverts the Petrarchan form in that, while the sonnet inherently signifies sonitus – a murmur, the resonance of Sonnet XXXIII is pure dissonance. In the antithesis between the lyrical and unmistakable cacophony, the poet questions the possibility of world harmony. The critic thus realizes that, as Dante proposed, harmony is found in the whole structure even though the single words may express harshness (De eloquentia
137 “Omero... e co’l suono e co’l numero imita [le cose] in guise che ce la pone innanzi a gli occhi, e ce la fa quasi vedere ed udire” (in Ramos 312). 100
II, vii, 6).138 Garcilaso’s dissonant poetic voice questions human harmony and forges his own world vision as the sound of his verses join the chorus of poetic voices in the realm of cosmic harmony. Giuseppe Mazzotta, writing about rhetoric and music in Petrarch’s poetry, reminds us that in the Republic, Plato included music as a means of paideia and political interrelationships.
For Petrarch as Mazzotta writes, music dwells in “the interiority of the self and to the breath of poetry [and] as such, music and rhetoric come to constitute poetry as the new realm of politics as culture” (146). Similarly, music for Garcilaso is a cathartic element enabling the transformation of politics into art and imitated forms into his own language one infused with the rhetoric of his own spirit and his own voice. This invites the attuned listener to share in the anguish of war and the fulfillment of poetry.139
Summary
The final paragraph leads this chapter on musical representations in Garcilaso’s works to a conclusion that ultimately synthesizes a conceptual underpinning concerning the aesthetics of poetry as the locus of tension and resolution, discord and harmony, but most of all of dialogism, in that it requires emotional intelligence on the part of the listener. Musical representations in
Garcilaso’s poetry are signifiers integral to the semantic field of the poetic work. Garcilaso takes his readers on a journey through time from the mythological tradition to his time depicting with incisive precision the evolution and trasformation of various instuments throughout the ages. The
138 “I so call all polysyllabic words that, when mixed with combed ones, make the harmony of the whole structure beautiful, even though they may have some harshness of aspiration ” (De vulgari ii, vii, 6). 139 For a discussion on the ideology of music and political underpinning, read Johan Beverley Against Literature (1993:124–142). 101
singing, dances or instruments performed according to their tradition, form intertextual links as each performer is magically interwoven in Garcilaso’s poetic tapestry.140
By way of harmony and disharmony, dissonance, cacophony, and even silence,
Garcilaso’s listener is invited to step out of the ideology of ‘art for pleasure’s sake’ and the site of social torporization. The listener is asked to interpret and question: Why, where and at the hands of whom did the nymph die? (Eclogue III, 230). The listener is shaken out of his or her comfort zone; he/she is enticed to hear the sound of the cavernous mountain that resounds the
Nemoroso’s lament (Eclogue III, v.244), or question the sounds of war in Sonnet XXXII.
Whereas moments of concord and harmonious relationships provide a vision of the possibility of harmony and perfection and what life could potentially offer, Garcilaso, ingenious and perceptive, provides his listener with the full gamut of sounds and colours, of tension and resolution: a variegated reality, in other words, made up of multiple elements and multiple forms.
140 I am grateful to Dr. Griffiths for this insight. 102
CHAPTER III: THE MUSICO-POETIC TAPESTRY IN GARCILASO’S ODE AD
FLOREM GNIDI
Whom should I select as the finest literary genius of Spain? […] One came recently to light: Garcilaso, whose odes are worthy of the sweetness of Horace (Paolo Giovio; transl. mine).141
In Italy, the1596 manuscript by Paolo Giovio (1483–1582) is housed in the vast collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze. It is known as the Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium. In it Giovio, a Renaissance historian, pays tribute to the most distinguished men of his time, most of whom are of Italian origins. One of his encomia, however, is a tribute to the
Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega (1501–1536), upheld for sweetness and harmony of his
Spanish verses (394).142
In the same Magliabechiano collection, the manuscript Cl. XIX, 109 includes a selection of Italian canzoni (Cacho135) and two folios that feature Spanish poetry set to music. These contain a musical setting of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Canción V- the Ode ad Florem Gnidi.143 This is the ode termed by Menéndez y Pelayo “un model[o] de ligereza y de gracia” [a model of delight and grace] (1885:13; transl. mine) and by Keniston, Garcilaso’s “most perfect work”
(1922:207).
These findings pose an intriguing Italian response to Garcilaso’s Spanish poetic voice in a country of independent municipalities, wrought by foreign dominion and exploitation, relied on
141 Paolo Giovio, Elogi degli uomini illustri. Ed. Franco Minonzio. Torino: Einaudi, 2006. Minonzio translates from Latin: “Ma a chi dovrei rivolgermi per avere una selezione dei miglioi ingegni della Spagna[…]. Tra di loro si è recentemente messo in luce Garcilaso, che ha scritto delle odi con una dolcezza degna di Orazio” (394). 142 The first Italian translation was provided by Lodovico Domenichi and printed in Florence by Lorenzo Torrentini, 1553. The Spanish translation appeared in 1568: Paolo Iovio, Elogios, o vidas breves, de los cavalleros antiguos y modernos, illustres en valor de Guerra, q’están al biuo pintados en el Museo de Paulo Iovio. Es autor el mismo Paolo Iovio.Y tradúxolo de latín en castellano, el licenciado Gaspar de Baeça, En casa de H. De Mena, En Granada 1568 (Minonzio 111). 143 Image provided on p. 278 of this dissertation. 103
its own literary and artistic traditions for supremacy. The sources bear testimony to Garcilaso’s
Spanish poetic voice resonating within the oral written and visual tapestry of literary and musico- poetic discourses at the heart of Italian Renaissance culture. Indeed, Keniston reminds his readers that Garcilaso, canonized as the ‘Prince of Poets” by a cohort of contemporary bards, was known in Italy for his poetic lyricism (420). In Naples, Garcilaso’s place of exile for seven years, the Neapolitan poet-soldier and architect Mario Galeota (1499–1585) celebrates
Garcilaso’s poetry and their close friendship. He epitomizes Garcilaso as “a man of rare intellect, valour and letters.”144 It is allegedly to Galeota that Garcilaso dedicates the Ode ad Florem
Gnidi.145 The poem is the focus of this study.
In this poetic work, Garcilaso resorts to his lyrical inclination to enter into dialogue not only with antiquity, but also with Renaissance literary trends circulating amid
Hispanic/Neapolitan erudite circles. The poet explores the ancient musical powers of Orpheus to conceive a poem of exhortation for love, on behalf of a tormented lover. The poetic voice is situated in a structure, the canción/oda/ lira, that is most conducive to expressivity, musicality and sensibility, all intensified herein to achieve maximum persuasion. A close reading of OFG reveals that Garcilaso subverts imitated foreign forms by recasting them with the sound and expressiveness of his language deep-rooted in the Spanish lyrical tradition (Navarrete 1992:771).
The result is a poetic conceit shaped out of the material of music. It is my intention in this chapter to explore how the music of poetry in OFG functions organically to sustain form, purpose, and meaning. The study will reveal that the music of the verses, from polyphony to
144 “[…]l’honorata memoria di Garcilasso della Vega huomo di raro ingegno, di valore, et di lettere” Mario Galeota Trattato delle fortificazioni...” (Brown 1995:199) and (Brunetti 2006:267). 145 Ode ad Florem Gnidi, henceforth indicated as Canción V or OFG. 104
cacophony, acoustic images of sound, musical allusions and distinct rhythmic configurations, emerges as a deliberate poetic instrument, embedded in every fibre of the form. Finally, the form is the utmost musical representation, for it is shaped by the interplay of three voices and three instruments rooted in a lyrical tripartite structure.
Whereas the focus of this study is the music in the poetry of Garcilaso, I will now digress to deal with inextricable historical realities. This brings to mind Dante, who believed that “buried beneath the surface [of poetic works] lies the sweet nectar of solid historical and philosophical truths” (Boccaccio 9). Indeed, Garcilaso’s OFG, the structure of which comprises ancient and
Italian imitated forms wrought with Spanish lyricism and situated in the Spanish dominated
Neapolitan setting, transcends linguistic and socio-cultural boundaries.146 Drawing from the most recent scholarship on Garcilaso, I will first outline this understanding of music of poetry and musicality of verses. Then, I will treat with the issue of methodology, above all the ways in which I consider Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony in regards to the understanding of OFG from two perspectives. The music of poetry is viewed as dialogical, in that the poetic voice invites the reader to perceive the resonance of the verses. Garcilaso thus joins the polyphony of world voices. Secondly, literary polyphony (between the poetic voice and the reader), intertwined with musical polyphony that is, (intertwining of the sound and rhythm of verses or other musical allusions) is considered an instrument of intertexuality and modernity.147 The argument will continue on with an examination of the exterior and interior form, so as to reveal how the music of poetry serves the author and the listener in the creation of the work.
146 For a study of Garcilaso in Naples, read Croce (1894). Brown (1995) observes the scarcity of research on Garcilaso in Naples as well as on the Hispanic/Neapolitan cultural and literary interchanges (210). Milburn (2003) expresses similar sentiments about the “marginalization of southern Italian Literature” (1). 147 Modernity, according to Bakhtin, is a “threshold on which the hero […] is called to find his place on the dissonant chorus of voices […] of the world” (Kliger 82). 105
What Do We Mean by Music of Poetry and Musicality of Verses?
John Dent-Young (2009) notes that “generations of readers and scholars […] have delighted in the musicality of [Garcilaso’s] verses” (3). Keniston (1922), in his critical study of
Garcilaso, remarks on his Horatian singing style. He asserts that the poem, OFG, adopts the power of Orpheus and the Ovidian myth of Anaxaratè148 to provide a synaesthetic experience.
He thus writes: “[t]he poem appeals directly to the senses in the suavity and harmony of its cadences, the variety of diction and quiet sense of mastery” (208). On matters of musicality, he elaborates no further. Navarro Tomás, in his 1969 study of the musicality of Garcilaso’s verses, suggests that the basis for his study is to reveal how the rhythmical elements contribute to a musical hendecasyllabic line. His analysis of rhythm serves for a better understanding of
Garcilaso’s craftsmanship and acknowledges the expressive dispositions of accents and the rhythm of the words. Drawing from the linguistic theories of Roman Jakobson (1987), who recognized the role of sound shape of and in language, Montgomery (1978) studied sound- symbolism in Garcilaso’s sonnets. His investigation led to an understanding of linguistic elements and forms that reflect extra-linguistic realities according to observable patterns (211).
The question still remains: What do we mean by the musicality of verse or the music in poetry? Is musicality perceivable in the form, musical allusions, metaphors, sound of words, in the rhythmic unfolding of each verse and in the form of inner speech? According to Navarrete, in his critical analysis of Garcilaso’s eclogue III, musicality is manifested in the tonal allusions of sounds, instruments, or voice and musical forms (123). Navarrete’s definition is perhaps close to
148 The name Anaxeretè appears in print with orthographic variants. The name appears as Anaxeretè in the (1826) English translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Bk. XIV- 373); in Garcilaso de la Vega (Morros 1995: 89) as Anajárete, and in Dent-Young’s English translation as Anaxarete (71). 106
T. S. Eliot’s definition in The Music of Poetry (1942). He asserts that the music of poetry is “not a line by line matter, but a question of the whole poem… in the plays of Shakespeare a musical design can be discovered [as] a music of imagery as well as sound” (25). He contends that musicality is not inspired by learning rules of scansion or versification, but rather the repertoire of learned sounds in one’s native toungue (10) and that “the music of poetry [does not] exist apart from meaning” (13). This brings to mind Ciabattoni’s investigation of Dante’s Journey to
Polyphony (2010). He insists that a deep knowledge of coeval musical practices inspired Dante to incorporate a substantial number of meaningful musical performances in the Commedia.
Music, as Ciabattoni demonstrates, is so integral to the form and so extensive that it behooves the critic to attempt an understanding of its meaning.
Certainly an investigation of Garcilaso’s corpus reveals that the poet draws from current practices of imitation and existing musico-poetic conventions. The musical element in the OFG is not exclusive to this work. Let us now digress briefly and return to verse 303 of Garcilaso’s second Eclogue. As previously mentioned in Chapter Two, the stanza is reminiscent of Jacque
Arcadelt’s sweet madrigal, Il bianco e dolce cigno, a popular tune at the time of Garcilaso’s visit to Italy. Garcilaso’s eclogue III reads as follows:
Cerca del agua, en lugar florido estaba entre las hierbas degollada cual queda el blanco cisne cuando pierde la dulce vida entre la hierba verde. (Ecl. III, vv. 229–232; in Rivers 2011:219)
In a dappled place beside the stream she lay, / bloodless, limp, lodged in a leafy bower; / like the white swan, when sweet life ended, / cast on the green grass like a thing discarded (transl. Dent-Young 195).
Garcilaso creates his poetic sense of harmony. He juxtaposes a symphony of synaesthetic elements. Images of a white swan that abandons its body in the green grass are contrasted with the sound of water, as it moistens the blooming fields. Harmony is first perceived in the circular
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rhythm that fashions the first four verses in enjambment as the lines run into one another to the end of the strophe. The sound and rhythm of the running water is juxtaposed to the circular rhythm of the hyperbaton: “Cerca del agua, en lugar florido/estaba” [In a dappled place beside the stream she lay]. The phrase, invites interpretation. It should so read: she lay by the water in a dappled place. This prolongation of resolution in the form of a hyperbaton enhances the images of the locus amoenus near to the slow running water. Quintillian asserts that the hyperbaton or
“transposition of words” is “harmony and beauty of composition” (Bk. VIII, Ch. VI, 139).
Similarly, in his consideration of the term ‘musical,’ Northrop Frye proposes that music in poetry
is concerned not with beauty of sound but with the organization of sound, and beauty has to do with the form of the organization. A musical discord is not an unpleasant sound; it is a sound which throws the ear forward to the next beat” (1956:xiii).
Indeed, according to Spitzer’s definition of “harmony with strife” (108), the discord arouses the listener’s compulsion toward yearning resolution. Hence, by emphasizing the hyperbaton, the poet deliberately bends the rules of the poetic work so as to engage the listener in the music of his verses. Thus, Garcilaso’s poetic voice then crosses the threshold of mere linguistic utterance to agitate and stir passion in the modern listener.
On the other hand, Mary E. Barnard (1992) contends that Garcilaso, in this Eclogue III, subverts the myth of Orpheus to distance himself from the ancient past in order to enter in dialogue with the chorus of Renaissance poetic voices. Barnard observes that, contrary to the classical model, the Orpheus of Eclogue III is deprived of his voice and lyre (5). This Orpheic tapestry, as Barnard observes, underscores the theme of absence with no “potential regeneration at the end of the story” (4). In the third Eclogue, language and music thus function as the primary conduit of consolation or, in this case, their absence. Viewed in this manner, the music of poetry is inextricable from its meaning and serves as an instrument of intertextual dialogicity with the
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reader and other contemporary literary and musical texts.
Music of Poetry: an Instrument of Purpose
For this concept of dialogicity, I draw from the literary theories of Mikhail Bakhtin
(1895–1975). In his Discourse in the Novel (1934/5), Bakhtin theorizes that the novel is dialogic and that poetry is fundamentally monologic. He writes thus:
In genres that are poetic in the narrow sense, the natural dialogization of the word is not put to artistic use, the word is sufficient unto itself and does not presume alien utterances beyond its own boundaries. Poetic style is by convention suspended from any mutual interaction with alien discourse, any allusion to alien discourse (1981a, 285).
However, Scanlon (2007), who is among a small number of scholars who insist that dialogicity in poetry is possible, argues that this marginalization of poetry is a premature conclusion on
Bakhtin‘s literary theories (2). The Russian asserts that internal dialogization is artificially extinguished in poetic discourse (284). Scanlon disputes this, noting that the inner clashes of poetic voices are a form of dialogic interaction. He observes that one of the theories for explaining this exclusion is that poetry was a “code” word for socialist Russia, one that Bakhtin could not openly contest.149 Furthermore, Bakhtin may have run out of time, and for this purpose he wrote: “Nothing is absolutely dead” (Scanlon 4). In fact, Julia Kristeva (1980) elaborates on
Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony to underscore that in language there exist multiple representations. Language, she asserts, beseeches interactive communication that goes beyond the Saussurian sign and signifier, and is “opened out within semiotic articulation, with a material
149 Stephanie Sandler, in The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature writes that “Poets who had found ways to adapt to Soviet rule in 1920 faced staggering new challenges as Stalinism consolidated its hold on all public institutions in the 1930s. The emergence of the official doctrine of Socialist Realism clarified some expectations, but complicated others: creators of narrative poetry were urged to pursue plots of successful integration into the new socialist order […]” (2011:116). On the topic of Bakhtin’s repulsion of Russian poetry that upheld poiltical ideals, see Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West, by Clare Cavanagh. 109
support such as the voice, this semiotic network gives ‘music’ to literature” (63).
This brings to mind an example cited by the Spanish poet, and philologist Dámaso
Alonso (1971). He perceives color and musicality of verses in one of Góngora’s verses in the
Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea: “Purpúreas rosas sobre Galatea” [On Galatea shower purple roses] (st. VIII, v.1; Hanak 25). Alonso writes:
These overpowering visions of undulating color, let us say, via the verse and its distribution within the hendecasyllabic line, provide a feeling of movement of dance. These are movements associated with colours and vowels, similar to the interplay between meter and rhythmic accents (intimately associated with one another); they take place in a secret chamber of our psyche, not exactly in the figurative imagination, but rather as the subsoil or the backdrop tapestry to the entire work (transl. mine).150
Góngora’s line was most likely inspired by a verse in Garcilaso’s Eclogue III, v. 222: “Cestillos blancos de purpúreas rosas” [white baskets of crimson roses] (Morros 235; transl. mine).
Alonso, like Kristeva, believes that there are multiple meanings interwoven in each and every fibre of a work. He reminds us that a single verse, a strophe, part of the poem, the rhythm and the articulation, are all significant and perceivable elements in Dante’s Divine Comedy (32). Alonso conceives musicality as the complex representation conveyed by a multitude of sensorial signifiers, such as the sound of each vowel, morpheme, syllables, words, tone, intonation, velocity, prolongation, or the representation of nature, all of which express la “soledad Sonora”
[the sound of silence] (105–108; transl. mine). These expressive elements shape the work in its multiple dimensions: the affective, the descriptive, the pictorial, sensory, synesthetic, and more.
This definition of musicality is not limited to that quality of speech perceivable only in
150 “Estas oleadas albeantes o encendidas fluyen, digamos, por el verso y en su cambio de distribución por el endecasílabo llevan un movimiento de danza. Son movimientos éstos de asociación de color y vocales que, como los de medida y ritmo accentual (e íntimamente asociados con ellos), tienen lugar en una cámara secreta de nuestra psique, no exactamente en la imaginació figurativa, sino como en el subsuelo de ésta o en su trasfondo” (D. Alonso 380 –381). 110
performance. Rather, musicality also refers to those forms of expression that may lie in the relation of words and silences that implicitly enhance underlying meaning in the text 151 The signifiers, according to Alonso, modify the reader’s psychological state (30). Indeed Di Pinto, in his critical edition of Garcilaso’s works, writes the following in this matter:
He is scrupulously attentive to the norms of meter […]. And yet the mark of this poetry must not be reduced to mere prosodic formulas. His true originality consists of the invention of a new language, equidistant from the Italian and the same Spanish: a simple language, fluid, thriving today into modern uses with facility and eloquence of expression. In [Garcilaso’s] language words flow in flawless rhythm creating a magic vibration, a miraculous equilibrium of sound and meaning.152
In a study on The Pragmatics of Prosody (2007), Hurley asserts that meaning in language is interpreted to slide “from intentio auctoris to intentio operis […] to intentio lectoris” (53-54). He purports to reclaim intentio auctoris by asserting that a certain pragmatic competence, linguistic knowledge, and cultural sensibility are the criteria for a successful delivery. However, as he warns, both author and reader must share the responsibility for the uptake (55). Hurley reminds the reader of poetry that poets have the extraordinary ability to “add the faculty of joining music with reason, and of acting at once upon the sense and the passion” (59). Whereas the aesthetic of poetry has long been marginalized in literary theories, Hurley argues it is necessary to return to
“the nuts and bolts of poetry’s sound patterning […]” (58). Indeed, Bakhtin asserts the following on this question: “from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning verses enter into the discourse of social life” (Dialogic Imagination, 259). Fundamental to this concept of musicality and music of poetry is the thoughtful engagement of the reader and/or listener.
151 For more on the inner musicality of language or music, see Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner, chapter on The Musicality of Language, by Paul Johnston (1993:96–127). 152 “Scrupolosamente attento alla norma metrica […]. E tuttavia il segno di questa poesia non può esaurirsi in una formula prosodica. La vera originalità equidistante dall’italiano come dallo stesso spagnolo: una lingua semplice e fluida ancor oggi fruibile con facilità ed emozione. In essa le parole si posano nelle caselle giuste con una vibrazione magica, un miracoloso equilibrio di suoni e di significanti” (Di Pinto 57; transl. mine). 111
Ode ad Florem Gnidi: the Musical Exterior Form
In this ode Garcilaso evokes the voice of Orpheus, whose incantation of such beauty had a profound effect on the god of the netherworld, on humans, animals and even rocks. It is a myth of multifaceted literary transformations, and its genesis dwells in antiquity. It exists, for example, in the writings of Plato, Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Quintilian, and Horace, through to the Middle
Ages and Renaissance with Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and in Renaissance Spain in the poetry of the Marqués de Santillana and Jorge Montemayor.153 The following Spanish woodcut of
Orpheus playing the vihuela synthesizes the Renaissance humanist interest in the musico-poetic practices of antiquity, where poetry and music were conceived as one (Brown & Stein 255). This representation appeared as a frontispiece to Luis de Milán’s El Maestro (1536):
153 For Garcilaso and the Orpheus tapestry, see Barnard 1987. For a discussion on the myth of Orpheus in Renaissance Spain, see Enrique Valdés (2010). 112
Fig. 2. “El Grande Orfeo” in Luis de Milán, Libro de Música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro.Valencia: Francisco Díaz Romano, 1536. By permission of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Available also from the Lute Society of America: Digital Facsimiles154
154 An insightful interpretation of the imagery of Milán’s frontispiece is provided by Robin Headlam Wells, in Elizabethan Mythologies: Studies in Poetry, Drama and Music (1994:144–146), who writes: “For the frontispiece of his collection Milán chose a woodcut showing a young musician dressed in antique costume with flowing hair and a wreath of laurel [… ]. As he plays, a group of wild animals listens, spellbound by his music. The setting for this primitive concert champêtre is bleak – a stony plain with only two trees to shade the player from the sun. In the distance there is a river where a ferryman plies his trade; if you look closely you can just make out a pair of horns on the ferryman’s head. Beyond the river is a burning town. Even without the inscription, the musician’s identity is obvious […]. In case the point should be missed, he [Milán] spells it out in the words that frame his picture: “El grande Orpheo, primero inventor: si el fue primero, no fue sin segundo” [renowned Orpheus, chief among poets: if he was the first, he was not without a second] (transl. Wells146). 113
In the minute details of the woodcut, Wells observes the many representations of associations between music and poetry. He underscores Luis de Milán’s intent to associate himself with
Orpheus, the mythical poet-musician, and to encourage readers to “see in him the rebirth of classical antiquity” (146). Harrán reminds us of the sixteenth century appeal for Orpheus: “he testified to the new powers recognized for words and music…as vehicles of poetic expression”
(1990:266). In studying OFG, I pose the following question: what is this sound of the poetic voice that provides this remarkable “harmony of metric form?,” as perceived by Lapesa (154).
In these verses, the poetic voice exhorts a Neapolitan lady, whose identity is still at the centre of ample literary polemics,155 to soften her heart towards the miserable lover: the poet’s friend, presumably Mario Galeota.156 She is ostensibly Lady Sanseverino, “the flower of
Gnidi.”157 Di Falco (1589) informs us that the Seggio di Nido was a quarter celebrated since ancient times, even by Petrarch, for its distinguished soldiers and ancient valour (fol. 2). Recent evidence (Brown 1995; Johnson 2000; Toscano 2010) reveals that both Mario and Lady
155 It is beyond the scope of this study to speculate on the identity of the lover and the lady. Brown (1995) and Toscano (2010) provide a review of extant discourses in literature and salient new evidence about the possible identity of the distressed lover and addressee of the poem. They identify the lady as Donna Catalina Sanseverino (Brown) and Mario Galeota as the destitute lover (Toscano). For further insight also read Morros (429–438). I am grateful to both Brown and Toscano for personally securing their articles for me for this study. Johnson, in Spanish Literature from Origin to 1700, proposes a reading of the poem “that seeks to restore the idea of personal involvement in relation to both poetry and the poetic tradition […] (2000:192). 156 Toscano (2010) observes the conspicuous omission of Galeota’s first name in Garcilaso’s poem and the substitution of Fabio [sic] Mario in two collections of Rime printed in Venice in 1552 and 1564. Toscano and Brown remind the reader that Mario was a tenacious follower of Juan de Valdés, and his transcriptions would earn him a few years of incarceration and eventual release in (1559:189). Whereas this ode conceals Galeota’s identity, in another work Garcilaso makes no effort to hide his affection for Mario. His first Latin ode to Antonium Thylesium reads: “Haec aure cuncti praecipque imbibunt/alte silentes, et Marius meus, rerumque multarum refertus/atque memor Placitus bonarum” [These ideas are perceived by all those who are absorbed in profound silence and by my beloved Mario and Placido filled with knowledge and goodness] (Morros 250–251; transl. Mine). 157 Brown (1995) offers historical insight in the debate on the identity of Lady Sanseverino. Regarding the allusion to the place “Gnidi” in his (1574) annotations to Garcilaso’s works, Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas (1523–1600) describes the culture of the Neapolitan Seggio di Nido (a city quarter named Nido) as a place where caballeros would gather to meet ladies (Gallego Morell 1972:273). 114
Sanseverino were historical figures, contemporaries of Garcilaso, who frequented the famous
Neapolitan district, the Seggio of Gnido.
Although an extensive discourse on the connection between the author’s life and his poetry is beyond the scope of this argument, modern scholars have dealt with this issue. In his essay The Death of the Author, the French critic Roland Barthes (1910–1980) condemns a theoretical tradition that places disproportionate emphasis on the author. He argues that Van
Gogh’s madness does not reside in his work any more than Tchaikovsky’s voice in his music (in
Norton 1322). Barthes’s poststructuralist view of the author depersonalizes him or her. In his view, language subverts the author. He further asserts that the unity of the work lies in the reader: “it is not on the origin but in its destination …the reader is a man without history”
(“Death of the Author,” in Adams 1258). The reader, in this case, focuses exclusively on the text.
On the other hand, Cruz (1988) reminds the modern reader that “the Renaissance poet/narrator expresses his subjectivity in the instability and inconsistency of his narrative voice” (transl. mine
75). She draws from Rivers to determine that Garcilaso fuses in his work all the different aspects of his literary Renaissance personality as poet, lover, soldier and admirer of the pastoral landscape. These voices appear as the function of a narrator and at other times in other figures
(76). On this matter Rivers writes:
All of the links between Garcilaso’s life and his poetry are highly problematic. He was a lover of women, and his first serious love affair, as now documented by Carmen Vaquero, was frustrated by the Emperor’s political intervention. In this we may reasonably find the deepest personal roots of his “dolorido sentir.” But without his reading of fifteenth-century cancionero poetry of Ausiàs March and Petrarch, of Virgil, Horace, and Sannazaro, this personal experience would never have taken on the poetic forms that it did. We may oppose the modern concept of the “death of the author” by asserting the living subjectivity: Garcilaso as a person of flesh and blood linked his own sensation and sentiments to his readings of poetic texts. These readings shaped his feelings and gave form to his own newly created texts, which transcend both his “raw” and his literary experiences. As students of his poetry, we must discipline our interest in his biography and his readings in order to appreciate his literary accomplishments as such (365).
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On the other hand, Isabel Torres (2008) reminds readers that critics, such as Alexander Parker, who chose to counter structuralism’s tendency to associate the meaning in Garcilaso’s poems with his real-life experiences, cannot be ignored. Regarding the first eclogue, Torres observes a closer connection with aesthetic realism than structuralism. In fact, she asserts that in
“Garcilaso’s eclogue freedom and order are beautifully and musically made one” (105). Though an historical consideration may not add to the understanding of the eclogue, in this ode the inherent musicality is inextricable from the rhythm of life foregrounded in experience.
Returning to the work, one clearly observes a central theme of unfulfilled love.
It echoes Horace is Odes I-VIII and Ovid’s Metamorfosis XV (Morros 84). Garcilaso’s OFG, in the words of Menéndez y Pelayo (1885), is a Horatian model of graceful rhythmic expression, an
Orphic exhortation for love in a “precioso juguete” [a spirited game] (13–14). Garcilaso’s intertwining of three forms clearly captivates Pelayo: the work is an ode, a Canción (V), also called a lira. The sources of inspiration are traceable to Horace, Ovid and Bernardo Tasso. The poem, a Horatian ode, is dedicated to a lady, the flower of Gnidi.158 Fr. Girolamo Seripando,
Garcilaso’s friend and mentor, with whom the poet would share his Latin works and deliberate on those by Horace (Morros 273), reminds us that Garcilaso was studiosissimus Horatii (Lapesa
101).159 The title, Ode ad Florem Gnidi, brings to mind the Carmen XXX by Horace. His first verse reads as follows: “O Venus, regina Gnidi Paphique.”160 Horace refers to a shrine to Venus in Gnidi or Cnidus, a Dorian city in Asia Minor. In this work, Garcilaso refers to Cnidus of Nido,
158 For Garcilaso and his Horatian inspiration in this poem, see Morros 84 and 245. Daniel Heiple provides a comprehensive overview of Garcilaso’s Ode and the Classical Tradition (339–364). 159 Girolamo Seripando was related to Mario Galeota. He was critical in Mario’s discharge from jail in 1559 (Toscano 187). 160 Horace, 92. On the development of the ode in Spain in the sixteenth-century, see Juan Montero, in B. López Bueno (215–247). On Garcilaso’s treatment of this Ode, see: Peter N. Dunn (1965) and Kurt Reichenberger (1973). 116
the well-known district of Naples (Morros 432). The etymological meaning of the word ode
( δή) in ancient Greek is (to sing). In this form, Horace has no definite philosophy to convey and the logic is inherent in the overall form, with recurring motifs of musical allusions and synaesthetic imagination. In his critical study of The Odes of Horace, Commanger writes: “Each
Ode is a calculated assault on our sensibilities, a deliberate invasion of our consciousness”
(viii).161 Likewise, as I hear it, the structure of Garcilaso’s ode is a complex network of expressive sound patterns juxtaposed to a soundscape of lyrical and cacophonous images.
According to Herrera, the work is a canción, a term that derives from the Italian word canzone, indicating a lyrical work accompanied by music.162 In its etymological sense, the term denotes cantus or song. The courtly French canso or Italian canzone was the most important song-form of the twelfth and thirteenth-centuries. Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), one of the main exponents of the Dolce Stil Nuovo, describes the canzone as the most honourable form, a perfect expression for vernacular lyrics. In addition, the most honourable of forms bestows honour on those who create it (De Vulgari Eloquentia II iii 6–7). Whereas Garcilaso’s canción bears classical influence, the opening manifestation of Orpheus, accompanied by a lyre echoes the melopoetic tradition of the earlier Spanish Cancioneros (songbooks) as translated by Gies
(88).163 For example, the declamatory tradition of the poet-musician Garci Sánchez de Badajoz
161 Williamson (1951) traces the development of the Pindaric and Horatian ode in Italy. He states that the impulse for this Greek transplant of form was threefold: “The growth of the classical sentiment within the forms of the Petrarchan canon, the attempt to reproduce quantitative measure, and the conscious adaptation to Italian and other classical forms” (80). 162 The title, Canción V, was attributed to Garcilaso’s Ode ad Florem Gnidi by Herrera, in his Anotaciones (1580). This amendment has been at the centre of criticism. See Heiple (1994), Chapter XIV, and Gargano (2005:157–180). 163 For a discussion of music and poetry in relation to the myth of Orpheus in Renaissance Spanish lyrics, see Leuci 2009 and Valdés 2010. Valdés traces the ancestry of the music-text fusion. He makes reference, for example, to the early compositions of San Dámaso (fourth century CE) (200). 117
(d. 1526) comes to mind.164 Picatoste y Rodríguez recalls Cicero, who asserted that the Romans looked to Spain for the best musicians as entertainers for festivities and banquets (333).
Structurally, Garcilaso’s Canción is similar to Bembo’s canzonette-odi, as both present unrequited love, the possible fulfillment in the second section, and the mythological digression in the latter (Gargano 2005:168). The overall metric structure of OFG is that of the lira: a form most likely inspired by Bernardo Tasso’s Amori (1534). Garcilaso’s poem follows the same scheme as Tasso’s O pastori felici (Williamson 89). Each stanza consists of five verses: two hendecasyllabic and three heptasyllabic lines.165 Allegedly, Garcilaso conceived this poem while serving in Naples between 1534 and 1536 (Alonso 612), and he may have known Tasso from their expedition with the imperial forces of Charles V in the siege of Tunis. It is reasonable to assume that Garcilaso had read Tasso’s Rime. In fact his Sonnet XXIII is direct imitation of
Tasso’s Sonnet: Mentre che l’aureo cria v’ondeggia intorno (Morros 43), and, therefore,
Garcilaso would have known the lira Pastori felici. Williamson observes that Tasso and other contemporary learned poets used the ode “to give appropriate form to their humanism” (88).
This, I reason, is the case with Garcilaso, who shaped the Horatian ode to devise his own Spanish humanism.166
164 Garci Sánchez de Badajoz, known as Badajoz el músico, declaimed his poetry with vihuela accompaniment at the Aragonese court. His works are included in the Cancionero de Palacio (Guide de la musique de la Renaissance, 824). 165 Tasso asserts that the meter of the Horation Ode was not well suited to the modern language. He expressed this idea in the introductory dedication to his Rime, directed to the duke of Savoia . He writes: “queste mie ode & himni fatti ad imitazione de’ buoni Poeti Greci, e Latini; non quanto al verso, il quale in questa nostra favela è impossibile d’imitare , ma nell’invenzione…” [these are my odes and hymns written in imitation of the good Greek and Latin poets; not imitated in their verses, in that, in our own language it is impossible to do […] (LXVII transl. mine). For further insight, see Gargano (2005:157–180). 166 Williamson expands briefly on Garcilaso’s Ode ad Florem Gnidi and its influence in the works of Gutierre Cetina, Hernando Acuña, Fr. Luis de León, Francisco de la Torre, Ternando Herrera (89: note 96). 118
What are the implications of this conflation of forms? One may conclude that the Horatian Ode offers poetic inspiration, that the canción dictates the arrangement of material, and that the lira provides a form suitable for the creation of verses in Garcilaso’s Spanish language.
The ensuing analysis reveals that the three forms also contribute to the psychological cohesiveness of the work as well as the poet’s motivation for this poem: the desire to advance a distraught lover’s interest toward a Neapolitan lady. The recurring motif of the poetic work is thus a feeling of crisis. In his incisive study of Orpheus in Garcilaso and Fray Luis, Valdés asserts that the contrast between the hendecasyllabic and heptasyllabic verses, typical of the lira, produces great rhythmic energy and sonority (203). The expressive ode/canción/lira structure thus provides the means by which the new Orpheus subverts human suffering. The poetic voice transcends human limitations through poetry and music. In this complex artifice, the intentionality of the poet, in terms of a musical form, has been made clear. The poetic work enters in dialogue with two musico-poetic traditions. On one hand, it echoes the Spanish oral cancioneril tradition, and, on the other, it connects with the long-standing improvisatory art of the Neapolitan poet-singers. It is not difficult to imagine Ode ad Florem Gnidi performed in sixteenth-century Naples and, more so, in the district of Nido. In fact, between 1530 and 1630 music was at the core of most cultural activities. At that time several in the aristocratic circle were themselves musicians who supported a great number of composers (Larson 59–60).
Ode ad Florem Gnidi: the Musical Interior Form
A tripartite paradigm, parallel to the exterior form, is present in the interior structure of
Garcilaso‘s OFG. It consists of twenty-two stanzas, subdivided in the classical strophe, antistrophe and epode (Foster 1971). Drawing on the Renaissance rhetorical procedures to
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underline its thematic intent, Foster perceives the first segment, vv. 1–35, as the exordium in which the poetic voice intermediates for his friend. The middle section, vv. 36–60, depicts the lover’s deplorable state. Finally, the last section, vv. 61–100, is an exemplum whereby the poetic voice recalls Anajárete’s tragic fate. Extrapolating from this formal exegesis, there are observable linguistic patterns that support three themes: the poet, the lover and the cold-hearted lady. A particular musical arrangement of verses serves to heighten the characterization and dialogization of the three voices: the lyrical expressive poetic voice, the turbulent sounds of transformation denoting the lover’s inner turmoil and, finally, cold cacophony to depict the cold- hearted lady. Certainly, in Bakhtinian terms, polyphony is manifested in the complex multilayered interplay of the three forms and the three voices in counterpoint to linguistic and rhythmic elements. Finally, a polyphonic texture is formed by the interplay of the three instruments that embody the three voices. The exhorting Orpheus is represented by the melodious lira (v. 1); the desperate lover’s voice is metaphorically transformed from a military cíthera to a weeping vïola (v. 28); the third motif is that of the cold-hearted lady, whose spirit inspires cold silence and cacophonous sounds as she is transformed into marble (v. 97). In this consideration of the overall musical design in the poem, I expand on a thesis proposed by
Whitby (1986). In his article, “Transformed into What? Garcilaso’s ‘Ode ad Florem Gnidi,’’’ he re-interprets the meaning of the term viola, by framing the viola and the two other instruments in the context of three different “discrete and significant functions” (140).167 Whiteby maintains that the different instruments embody figural representations. For example, Orpheus's lyre
167 The term viola was interpreted by Sánchez de las Brozas (1577) to be a reference to Lady Violante Sanseverino. For more on this subject, see Wilson (1952) and Brown (1995). Herrera (1580) asserted that this allusion is “a weak and unfounded conjecture” (266; transl. mine). 120
represents the poetic voice. The resonant cithera eventually transformed into a viola personifies the lover’s resolute military figure transformed into a pathetic weeping viola. The ode as a whole, according to Whitby, is about transformation, love and music (137). In the following section of this current study, it will become clear that the music of verses or absolute cacophony supports not only Whitby’s thesis, but also the overall musical structure and meaning of the ode.
Ode ad Florem Gnidi168
St. 1-2, (vv. 1–10) Si de mi baja lira tanto pudiese el son, que en un momento aplacase la ira del animoso viento y la furia del mar y el movimiento,
y en ásperas montañas con el süave canto enterneciese las fieras alimañas, los árboles moviese, y al son confusamente los trujiese,
If the sound of my simple lire / had such power that in one moment / it could calm the anger / of the violent wind / and the fury of the sea, the sea’s turbulence, / and if in the wilderness / with sweet singing I could melt / the savage hearts of the fiercest animals, / and so move the trees that they approach, / stirred and bewildered by the sound […] (transl. Dent-Young 67–73).
The music commences with the very first verse. The speaker in the first stanza assumes the voice of Orpheus who declaims: “si de mi baja lira tanto pudiese el son” [if the sound of my simple lyre had such power] (Can. 5; v. 1). In these opening verses Garcilaso forges a fascinating scheme that represents the way he conceives the self. He aspires to emulate the classical culture of Horace and to establish his poetic voice in modern aesthetics. This is particularly evident in that, if the motivation for this work is to persuade the lady to love, the poet resorts, not to the military powers and prestige invested in him, nor to the dignity of the Horatian Latin style. To the contrary, he transforms his figura into Orpheus, who declaims a lowly lira. Albeit lowly,
168 The Spanish text is from Rivers (2011:100–105). 121
Orpheus’s musical instrument becomes a synecdoche for the power of his poetic voice. In
Mimesis, Auerbach asserts that:
Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first (73).
It behooves the poet to share in the miseries of his friend, also to urge the listener, in this case the lady in question, to bend her ear to eschew potential misfortune. Ghertman (1979) suggests that
Garcilaso’s self-deprecatory reference to his humble lyre is an act of transformation. She observes that the transformation of poet and friend will “converge thematically in St.12, for both persons are reduced to a negative state because of the lady’s intransigence” (36).
The polysemic representation of the term lira (the form and the instrument) serves yet another function for it sustains the supremacy of poetic art and music as a means of dialogue.
Fernando de Herrera (1537–1597) reminds us that Garcilaso “[f]ue mui diestro en la música, i en la vihuela i arpa con mucha ventaja” [he was very competent in music and an exceptional player of the vihuela and the harp] (14 transl. mine).” Music was an acceptable means of social expression for a poet-soldier at the court of Charles V and in Hispanic/Neapolitan circles.
Noteworthy is Charles V’s display of vocal and instrumental abilities as he performed an epistle for his coronation in Bologna in 1530 (Picatoste y Rodríguez 335). In 1536, on the occasion of
Charles V’s visit and the wedding of his daughter Margaret of Austria to Alessandro de’ Medici, great festivities were celebrated throughout the city especially in most aristocratic circles of
Naples. At the Poggio Reale, the Monarch’s Neapolitan residence, Garcilaso’s contemporary poet-soldiers, such as Alfonso d’Avalos and Ferrante Severino, sang their verses accompanied by musical instruments (Toscano 2000:251). Garcilaso himself caught the attention of the cultured, aristocratic circle with the sweetest performances on his harp (Picatoste y Rodríguez 336).
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Reference to baja lira may refer to the soft mellow sound of the lyre that subtly entices the listeners into an intimate milieu and invites them to listen attentively.169 From a different perspective, if the sound of Orpheus’s lyre is deemed ‘simple,’ it is only because it reduces itself to sing of such human absurdities, yet its tender, delightful sound “suave canto enterneciese” (v.
7) must stand against a chorus of cacophonous sounds. The verses speak of this last notion best, for their opening conjunction “si” (if) purports a moment of prolepsis and suspense. It presages the impending fate. The words are chosen carefully so that the word son (sound) may be supported by a strong beat in the hendecasyllabic line: on the sixth syllable to be exact. Here the poetic voice pauses momentarily, allowing time for the listener to reflect on the impact and meaning of son. A close examination of the rhythm of the very first hendecasyllabic line, the second verse, reveals harmonious underpinnings. For example, the elisions in the second line are designed to maintain the rhythm of the hendecasyllabic verse, thereby increasing the conceptual framework of the verse:
[tanto pudiese el son que en un momento] phonematic transcription: ['tan.to pu.' ȷe-se el 'soŋ ke-en 'un.mo.'men.to]
Sound structure is complex in the first stanza foreboding harmony at the same time as disharmony. This needs be elucidated. The sweetly harmonious sound of a lyre is emphasized via the prosodic accents that underscore the words ‘lowly lyre’ and ‘sweet and song’:
[si de mi baja lira] - [el son] - [suave canto] phonematic transcription: [mi 'β a.xa 'li.ɾa] - [el 'son] - ['sua. βe . 'kan .to]
I draw from Burke to observe the presence of concealed alliteration, the relationship between phonematically related sounds (369). Accordingly, the phonematic cognates /d/m/b/l/n/r/ (si de
169 I am indebted to Dr. Griffiths for this insight. 123
mi baja lira) contribute to the melodious resonance of the verses.170 A feeling of gravity is created by the repetitive open sound of the mid-vowel /a/, heard in the alliteration of the words aplacase/animoso/ásperas/alimañas/árboles/ and their accompanying plosive consonant clusters
(pl, sp, rb). This combination of middle and forceful sounds, according to Bembo and Herrera, suggests a grave tone (Heiple 89 and 96). Their hypothesis holds true if positioned in the context of the verse’s meaning. The rhythmic rallentando (a gradual slowing) is produced by a caesura that divides as the second verse increases tension: “tanto pudiese el son, que en un momento.”171
The voice lingers on the thought of the possible powers of sound, specifically that of the lyre.
This instrument of classical antiquity, Wells reminds us, entails the Orpheic and Mercurian power of coercion, not by brute force, but rather by its ability to enthrall.172
Unexpectedly, the melody of the lowly lyre is set in counterpoint to the disharmonious sounds of the turbulent winds, the furious sea and the bitter wilderness, encroached on by bewildered animals that move viciously through the trees (vv. 1–10). The enjambments of lines
2–3 and 4 and the droning sound of the polysyndeton “y la furia/y el movimento/ y en ásperas/ y al son,” propel the rhythm agitatedly forward to the last verse of the second stanza: “y al son confusamente los trujese” [stirred and bewildered by the sound] (v. 10).173 Furthermore, a
170 Concealed alliteration is a term coined by Kenneth Burke (1940–1941) and adopted by David H. Porter (1970) in his study of “Some Sources of Musicality in Ancient Poetry.” Burke asserts that when the lips remain in the same position to produce different sound, “the poet retains the same phonetic theme, while giving us a variation upon this theme” (369). Porter identifies a close relationship between the sound of certain consonants, such as b and m, that he defines as “poetic cognates” (206). 171 Rallentando is a musical term that denotes a gradual slowing in pace. Hemistich is defined as: “Half a metrical line divided at the caesura. In drama the half line is used to build up tension and create the effect of cut-and-thrust argument” (Dictionary of Literary Terms, 375). All definitions of literary terms will be taken from this dictionary, henceforth indicated as DLT. 172 In this argumentation, Wells draws from Gramsci, who argues that social control is obtained by “appropriating culture in such a way that people willingly consent to their domination” (5). 173 An enjambment is a “running on of the sense beyond the second line of a couplet into the first line of the next” (DLT 261). Polysyndeton is the repetition of a conjunction (DLT685): in this case y (and). 124
hyperbaton underscores the “bewilderment of sound” both of syntax and images.174 Nature’s voices partake in the symphonic outset of the work. Virgil writes: “Non canimus surdis: respondent omnia silvae” (Virgil Buc. X, v. 8) -we sing not for the deaf: the forest echoes our music (transl. mine). From the beginning of this lyrical work, in the very first stanza, the listener’s response is compelling.
A brief digression is indispensable, at this point, to elaborate on the rhythmic effect of the hyperbaton, by its very nature a disordered, syntactical organization. The hyperbaton, characterized by Alonso (1970) as an expressive poetic tool (338), invites the listener’s interpretation. Dialogicity results from the engagement between the poetic voice and the interpreting listener. In her article entitled “Syntax and Passion. Bonhours, Vico and the Genius of the Nation,” Paola Gambarota places the hyperbaton at the centre of a French-Italian
Renaissance debate on national language as an expression of the character of its people (2006).
Gambarota argues that Bouhours (1628–1702) “sees languages as the expression of a nation’s collective experience” (291). In fact, she goes on to state that while Italian usually “embellishes” or decorates, Spanish “usually makes its object bigger than it is and goes far beyond nature”
(291). Gambarota concludes that, according to Bouhours, “the superb and grave Spaniards have created a pompous and hyperbolic language;” their hyperbaton is a device of “disorder” typical of Latin, Spanish, and Italian (292). Indeed, Gambarota reminds us that the ancient Greek
Longinus characterized hyperbaton as the “truest mark of passion” (288). This mark of passion forms the seeds of future gongorisms (Gongóra’s literary excesses such as cultism and hyperbathon) for Spanish poetry of the seventeenth century.
174 Hyperbaton is defined as: “A figure of speech in which words are transposed from their usual order” (DLT 405). 125
Based on the last discourse, Garcilaso’s use of the hyperbaton in OFG is not only a means for rhythmical expression but also a nexus between the older Spanish tradition and modern mainstream literary currents and models. For instance, the opening hyperbaton in this
Ode is reminiscent of the works of medieval Spanish poetry. Jorge Manrique (1440–1479), in
Coplas por la muerte de su padre, laments so: “Si fuesse en nuestro poder tornar la cara fermosa” [Could we new charms to age impart] (st. 13; transl. Crow 25). Garcilaso’s hyperbaton foreshadows its uses in Góngora’s Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea.175 In addition, this use of the hyperbaton posits Garcilaso in dialogue with his contemporary Neapolitan poet, Bernardo Tasso.
His verses evoke the Italian’s sound images and syntax: “the resounding sea and winds furious so to already subdue pride and ire/to the sound of my lyre.”176 Naples is a shared landscape for both poets in both works. The contrasting images and cacophony of sounds bring to mind
Boccaccio’s description of the Parthenopean city as “a forest, for just as wild animals live in the woods, so does man in the cities” (transl. Morosini 7).
T. S. Eliot conjectures that music in poetry is manifested when it is “latent in the common speech of its time” (17). In other words, Eliot argues that the music of poetry is only present if it is expressed through the “ordinary everyday language, which we use and hear” (13). This point is critical, for it implies that, concomitant with Bohours and Vico’s theories of language, that language conveys the unique spirit of their people (Gambarota, 2006). The previous two stanzas are evidence that Garcilaso forged imitated forms, such as the lira of Bernardo Tasso, to the
175 For Góngora’s extensive and expressive use of the hyperbaton, see D. Alonso (1971: 338). 176 “[C]he’l sordo mare e i venti/rabbiosi poser già l’orgoglio e l’ira/al suon della mia Lira” [Odi, xxxvii , 12–13; Mele (1930:239); transl. mine]. 126
sound of his native Spanish language and, the music of this poetry then constitutes a representation of his own Hispanic culture.
St. 3-4, (vv.11–20) No pienses que cantado seria de mí, hermosa flor de Gnido, el fiero Marte airado, a muerte convertido, de polvo y sangre y de sudor teñido,
ni aquellos capitanes en las sublimes ruedas colocados, por quien los alemanes, el fiero cuello atados, y los franceses van domesticados;
[…] do not suppose, beautiful/ lily of Knidos, that I would sing of / the deeds of angry Mars, / dedicated to death, / his countenance stained with powder, blood and sweat, / nor of the captains would I / sing, who ride in state, seated in high chariots, / by whom the German princes, their proud necks tied to the yoke, / and French ones too, are tamed and put on show (transl. Dent-Young, 67).
The third and fourth stanzas point to the relationship between the Orphic reciter and theme of war. Orpheus makes it clear that his intention is not to sing of war. To wit the poetic voice begins with a negation: no piense [do no suppose] (v.11). He rejects images of war, epic themes, captains, German princes and visions of angry Mars (perhaps referring to Charles V), whose deeds of death remind one of the strong hand that levelled Africa de parte a parte (from end to end), as described in Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXXIII (v. 8).
These two stanzas are characterized by two contrasting motifs. The ongoing singing, emphasized by the use of the present participle cantando (singing), is in counterpoint to the noisy, cacophonous rumbling of sublimes ruedas [chariots of war] (v.17). Montgomery, who observed the “extraordinary musicality” (212) of verses in Garcilaso’s sonnets, investigated visual and auditory effects of vowels in his poetic works. For example, he noticed that in Sonnet
XVI the abundance of words containing -i- and -u- “evoke the clamour of battle [and] plainly contribute to that effect” (213). The Greek rhetorician Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his De
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Compositione Verborum, observes that /u/ is inferior in sound to other vowels for “through a marked contraction taking place right round the lips, the sound is strangled and comes out thin”
(Ch. XIV- 142). The same intensity of colour and sound is perceived in these two stanzas, with words such as muerte/sudor/sublimes ruedas/cuello (death/sweat/sublime wheels/neck).177
Hence, the dark sounding phoneme of the words in counterpoint to the Orphic voice cantando
[singing] (v.11), juxtaposed to synaesthetic images of colour and odor of angry Mars stained with powder, sweat and blood, create a palpable symphony of war.
St. 5-6-7, (vv. 21–35) Mas solamente aquella fuerza de tu beldad seria cantada, y alguna vez con ella también seria notada el aspereza de que estás armada,
y cómo por ti sola, y por tu gran valor y hermosura, convertido en vïola, llora su desventura el miserable amante en tu figura.
Hablo d’aquel cativo, de quien tener se debe más cuidado, que ’stá muriendo vivo, al remo condenado, en la concha de Venus amarrado.
No, for I would sing of / nothing but the power of your beauty, / though occasionally too / I might put on record / the cold-heartedness which is your dreaded weapon, and tell you how only through you, / for the sake of your quality, your beauty, / the wretched lover is turned into a pale violet / your namesake, and weeps for all his ill fortune. // It is of that captive / I speak who deserves more consideration, / for his is a living death, / sentenced and chained to the oar, / a slave caught and bound to the shell of Venus (transl. Dent-Young 67-69).
Here, the poet exploits lyrical themes and poetic tropes to heighten the lady’s sensitivity.
177 For a deeper understanding of sound shape and symbolism in language, see Jakobson and Waugh 1987. Chapter Four deals specifically with The Spell of Speech Sound (182–234). On language and poetry they write the following: “A dynamized tension between signam and signatum and in particular the direct interplay of the speech sound with meaning – is superimposed …in general by poets upon their creation destined: to overcome the palling flatness and univocity of verbal messages[...]” (233–234). Their assertion supports this author’s attempt to link the music of poetry to Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony or dialogicity in poetry.” 128
From a stylistic standpoint, it is crucial to observe that the verses in the fifth and sixth stanzas terminate with the vowel /a/, that denotes feminine gender, so as to underscore her presence. In this last attempt to heighten her sensitivity towards the lover, the poet sings notwithstanding to extol her beauty. The meaning is rhythmically underscored by the prosodic stresses of the hendecasyllabic line falling on the words (the force of your beauty is celebrated):
[fuerza de tu beldad seria cantada] phonematic transcption: [‘fweɾ. θa de. tu. βel.´dað. ´seɾja. kan.´ta.ða]
The topos of the woman’s beauty celebrated by Renaissance Neoplatonists is short-lived and re-examined. In fact, the scenario degenerates suddenly, when Orpheus reminds the listener of her cold-heartedness as her most dreaded weapon. In the sixth stanza, a declarative sentence purports the lady to be the sole culprit of the lover’s misfortune. The resonance of fatidic words reverberates strong: “y como por ti sola” [because of you alone] (v. 26). The pronoun ti produces tension, for it is emphasized by an extrametrical accent [ 'ko.mo poɾ 't i 'so.la], pointing to responsibility for the lover’s torment to the lady.178 The intonation of this verse underscores the meaning as the voice stresses the pronoun ti, and the ensuing comma after the word sola forces the rhythm to slow down, thereby allowing the words to reverberate strongly.
The following verses (sixth and seventh) introduce the voice of the desperate lover who
“convertido en vïola llora su desventura” [turned into a pale violet weeps for all his ill fortune]
(vv. 27–28). The lover is transformed in an instrument of sadness and tears: the vïola. Scholars interpreted the vïola, in this context, as a violet an allusion to Lady Violante by antonomasia
(Wilson 1952). However, Whitby believes that the term viola may represent an instrument. In this understanding, Whitby’s reading of su figura, is critical. Based on Auerbach’s emblematic
178 Extrametrical accents according to Caparrós, are those that present themselves before the usually accented syllables, in this case 2 and 6, with 't i falling on the fifth. 129
interpretation of figura as previously discussed, Whitby imagines a metaphorical transformation of the desperate lover from a cítara sonante [a singing cithara] (v. 47) into a wistful viol (v.
28).179 The cithara (ode v. 42) is an instrument of classical literature, perhaps used for the recitation of epic poetry and ceremonies. Accordingly, a hymn for the gathering of the Gods from Apollinem reads thus: “Apollo plays on the Kithara stepping high and fealty and radiance shines around him” (Mathiesen 35). Similarly, Dante conceives the cithara as a “particularly noble instrument” (Ciabattoni 190). The Italian viola is an instrument well-known to Garcilaso who penned a prologue to the Spanish translation of Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1534). Federico, one of the interlocutors, reminds the courtier of the following:
‘Truly beautiful music,’ answered Federico, consists, in my opinion, of fine singing, […] and still more in singing to the accompaniment of the viola. […](120).
The speaker upholds the practice of improvisation of songs declaimed with instrumental accompaniment. James Haar observes that it is not clear if Castiglione meant the viola (174) or the lira da braccio, as Whitby surmises (138). According to Atlas, the vïola originated in
Valencia in the middle of the fifteenth-century. In the last part of the century it came to Italy and its use for performance remained in the canon of acceptable Renaissance aesthetics as praised in
Castiglione’s Courtier (372). It is worth noting that, in the respective translations of
Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, the term vïola is translated as vihuela in Spanish and lute in
English.
The notions of the lira da braccio associated with antiquity “in the hands of Orpheus,” and the vihuela have also been interchanged through time (atlas 202). A classic example is the depiction of Orpheus playing the vihuela in Luis Milán’s El Maestro (1536:21). Indeed, this is
179 The citara is known in English as the cithara. See Moyer’s translation of Brandolini (31). 130
the case in a copla by Juan de Mena (1411–1456) in his La Coronación. Mena makes no distinction whatsoever between the lyre of Orpheus and the Spanish vihuela. His Copla XXXI reads as follows:
¡O tù, orfénica lira, son de febea vihuela (Mena, 88)
Oh thy, orphic lyre/ sound of Phoebus’s vihuela [… ](transl. mine).
Kerkhof remarks that Mena in this copla makes no distinction between the lyre and the vihuela, the instrument played by Phoebus, his father (2009:88).
Now that we have discerned the presence of three distinct musical instruments, we can concur with Whitby in an attempt to identify the three respectively different roles implied in
Garcilaso’s work (140). The lyre represents the poet’s voice; and the cithera and the vïola the desolate lover’s transformation. This emblematic transformation suggested by the verbal past participle convertido has been at the centre of literary debate. Scholars pondered if the verb was emended from the feminine form convertida, referring to Lady Violante. Wilson’s incisive research (1952), with which Rivers agrees (1974), restored any doubts on the gender of this verb.
He argues that convertido refers to the lover’s transformation into a pale violet or, as Whitby suggests, a weeping vïola (the instrument). Noteworthy is the use of the same verb in the second stanza (v. 11), where the proud Mars (god of war) is converted into death. The third stanza may indeed metaphorically represent the lover’s transformation from a mighty soldier into one miserable corpse besmirched by dust, sweat and blood.
The poet is committed to his Neapolitan friend: Galeota. For him he sings of the lady’s beauty. His Orphic poetic voice declaims verses accompanied by a lira or vihuela (an instrument that Garcilaso played). In the verses of the fifth stanza, the poetic voice cautions the lady to
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soften her heart, to take pity on the lover afflicted by suffering. The speaker’s tone, immediately changes from cantando [singing] (v. 11), to hablo [speaking] (v. 31). The language of transformation serves as a fulcrum from which the poet can re-create himself. Garcilaso ascertains his poetic power through music and language. This modus operandi is not new to this context. In a passage of Garcilaso’s third eclogue, Barnard observes that the poet expresses poetry as divine inspiration and as pure ingenio, as he switches from singing to speaking, thus underscoring the “major role of language” (317).
St. 8-13, (vv. 41–65).
Por ti, como solía, por ti, el mayor amigo del áspero cabello no corrige le es importuno, grave y enojoso: la furia y gallardía, yo puedo ser testigo, ni con freno la rige, que ya del peligroso naufragio ni con vivas espuelas ya l’aflige; fui su puerto y su reposo,
por ti, con diestra mano y agora en tal manera no revuelve la espada presurosa, vence el dolor a la razón perdida y en el dudoso llano que ponzoñosa fiera huye la polvorosa nunca fue aborrecida palestra como sierpe ponzoñosa; tanto como yo dél, ni tan temida.
por ti, su blanda musa, No fuiste tú engendrada en lugar de la cítera sonante, ni producida de la dura tierra; tristes querellas usa no debe ser notada que con llanto abundante que ingratamente yerra hacen bañar el rostro del amante; quien todo el otro error de sí destierra.
Because of you, no longer/does he correct the fierce rebellion / of the restless stallion / or control him with the rein / or harry him with sharply pricking spurs; // because of you, he does not brandish with expert skill the hasty sword, / and on the training ground / he flees the dusty lists/as if anxious to avoid a poisonous snake; // because of you, his gentle / muse abandons her sonorous lyre / for melancholic complaints, / which cause the lover’s face / to be inundated with copious tears; // because of you, he finds / his best friend importunate, a bore, a burden; / as I can testify, who / once in time of peril / and shipwreck his refuge and safe haven, // and now to such degree / is his lost reason overcome by grief / that no poisonous beast / was ever so much hated / as I by him, nor ever so much shunned. // You were not engendered from, / nor fashioned out of the hard earth; it is not / right that one should be known for / the sin of ingratitude, / who has banished from herself all other faults (transl. Dent-Young 65).
Heiple analyzed resonance in Garcilaso’s poetry and he concludes that: “[t]o create
gravity, he [Garcilaso] used double consonants and forced pauses to slow the line”
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(101).180 The seventh, eighth, and ninth stanzas, for instance, present a series of consonant clusters that bequeath a visceral response. One cannot escape the cacophonous dissonant clamor produced by resounding plosive consonant cluster: /rt/sp/rd/fr/sp/fl/rt
/st/sp/pr/lv/st/rp/rt/tr/str/rt/rt/gr/rt/st/gr/fr.rt/.
In the seventh strophe, it was made clear that the poetic voice is no longer singing: it is now expressing in a recitativo style (hablo).181 Tension arises as all three voices emerge in counterpoint to one another. The setting is a palestra [a battlefield]
(v.45). The poetic voice accuses the obdurate lady with an overbearing anaphora on the words por ti (because of you), repeated over four stanzas. The subordinate clause (por ti) thus modify the subject, the lover unable to brandish his sword with skill. An alliteration of the sound /p/: (presurosa/polvorosa/ponzoñosa), stressed by the rhythmical accents on the third syllable of each word and falling on the tenth accent of each hendecasyllabic verse [pre.su.'ro.sa/pol.vo.'ro.sa/ pon.zo.'ño.sa] plus the homoioptoton (osa), present a rhythmical drone that parallels the anaphora por ti .182 These three words are characterized by the mid vowel /o/ which according to Montgomery, in Spanish “denotes weakness or defects” (210). Montgomery observes that it is often heard in words like:
“bobo - soso - boto - tonto” (210). This may very well be the case, since the poet is
180 Heiple considered Herrera’s critical edition of Garcilaso’s works in context of Renaissance theories. He focused on the theories posited by Bembo, in his Prose della vulgar lingua (1525), and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his De Compositione Verborum, reprinted in Venice (1508). 181 Monson et al, denote recitativo as a style that “occurs as early as 1626. It derives from the verb recitare, ‘to recite’, which was also used in the 16th century for vocal performance, for example in Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano (1528), where the phrase ‘cantare alla viola per recitare’ occurs.” In, Dale E. Monson, et al “Recitative.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 24 Oct. 2012.
underscoring the desolate lover’s afflictions, weak physical and confused mental state.
Tension increases between the two protagonists of love. The second verse of the ninth stanza, la espada presusrosa [hasty sword] (v. 42) provides a rhythmic standoff to sierpe ponzoñosa [poisonous snake] (v. 45). Each voice carries the sixth and tenth accents of the hendecasyllabic line of the ninth strophe.
By the tenth stanza, Mario, the desolate lover, is no longer exercising games of battle and the sounds of the gentle muses. His muse has abandoned the sonorous citara.
It is now being replaced by the murmur of laments and profuse tears (st. 10). Noteworthy is Herrera’s comment of the use of the gerund cantando (v. 11).183 To this consequence
Herrera writes: “These gerunds are dictions of open and high spirit, and grave in their movement” (Gallego Morell 242).184 The poetic voice was initially hopeful that his singing could move hearts of stone. By this tenth stanza, it becomes evident that a transformation has occurred. The lover’s emblems of military power, such as the sword
(v. 42) and the cítara (an instrument of performance for military celebrations) are no longer part of his being. He is being transformed, like the skin of a snake as his self slowly sheds away. Only a mere shipwreck remains: a body in a deplorable state (v. 55).
A musical modulation parallels the figurative transformation. Ooccuring at the moment in which the Orphic sound of music is replaced by dry speech (hablo) (v. 31). When the lover’s gentle muse abandons the sonorous lyre, he is reduced to triste querellas [sad laments] (v. 46–48). The new tone is clear. Orpheus no longer sings: the lady’s resistance
183 Keniston, who analyzed The Syntax of Castilian Prose (1937), states that the Spanish present participle is a derivative of the Latin gerund. It is found as “an appositive modifier of the subject” (552). 184 “Estos gerundios son altas dicciones de ancho y largo espíritu, y graves en su movimiento” (Gallego Morell 405). 134
weakens the destitute lover and his friend’s role as mediator. The poet, once a refuge for
his friend, is now an importunate burden (v. 52).
Yet, the poetic voice asserts that the lady was not “shaped of the hard earth” (v.
62). In a last effort, the poetic voice resorts to an exemplum, drawing on the Ovidian fable
of Iphis and Anaxeretè. Ovid writes:
The nymph, more hard than rocks, more deaf than seas, Derides his pray’rs, insults his agonies; Arraigns of insolence th’aspiring swain And takes a cruel pleasure in his pain. Resolv’d at last to finish his despair, He thus upbraids th’inexorable fair: O Anaxeretè, at last forget…. (Metamorphoses Bk. XIV: 657–664)
Garcilaso’s verses read as follows: St. 14-22, (vv. 66–100)
Hágate temerosa ¿Cómo te sucedió mayor dureza? el caso de Anajárete, y cobarde, que de ser desdeñosa Los ojos s’enclavaron se arrepentió muy tarde, en el tendido cuerpo que allí vieron; y así su alma con su mármol arde. los huesos se tornaron las entrañas heladas Estábase alegrando tornaron poco a poco en piedra dura; Del mal ajeno el pecho emperdenido, cuando, abajo mirando, por las venas cuitadas el cuerpo muerto vido la sangre su figura del miserable amante allí tendido; íba desconociendo y su natura, hasta que finalmente, y al cuello el lazo atado en duro mármol vuelta y transformada, con que desenlazó de la cadena el corazón cuitado, más duros y crecieron y con su breve pena y en sí toda la carne convertieron; compró la eterna punición ajena. hizo de sí la gente, no tan maravillada, Sentió allí convertirse cuanto de aquella ingratitud vengada. En piedad amorosa el aspereza. ¡Oh tarde arrepentirse! ¡Oh última terneza!
It were better you should fear / Anaxerete’s outcome and avoid it, / who of her disdainfulness /too late repent and whose / soul therefore is burning with her marble flesh. // Her flinty heart exulted, / taking its pleasure in another’s pain, / till chancing to turn her eyes / downward she saw the corpse / of the wretched lover stretched upon the
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ground, // and tied with this brief suffering/purchased another’s lasting punishment. // Right there she felt her harshness / converted into tender loving pity. / O repentance come too late! / O tenderness at the last! / What then of the greater hardness soon to come? // Her eyes became fixed / on the lifeless body that they saw; then/her bones still further hardened/and grew, until they engrossed / all the flesh, taking it into themselves, // her frozen organs little/by little converted into solid stone; / in the anguished veins the blood was beginning to forget/its proper form and function, its true nature; // until at the end she was nothing but hard marble, metamorphosed, / and to the people less / a wonder to behold/than welcome proof of ingratitude avenged (transl. Dent-Young 71–73).
In these final verses, Orpheus’s voice loses its ability to sing, but the power of poetry still persists. The deliberate withholding of music reminiscent of the deprivation of celestial music in
Hades sharpens the listener’s discernment. In his interpretation of Garcilaso’s Orpheus From
Voice to Silence Dadson reminds the reader that “art is born out of loss and absence [and it] provides a presence to make up for this void” (102). In comparison to the opening stanzas, the lack of music and cacophonous sounds of the ensuing verses is indeed striking.
The Ovidian myth is juxtaposed to the rhythm and colour of the Spanish language. The poetic voice, drawing from Ovid “O Anaxeretè, at last forget” (Metam. Bk. XIV, v. 664) admonishes in this way:“Hágate temerosa” [be fearful!] (v. 66). The repetition of te at the end of one word and beginning of the next is reminiscent of Virgil’s alliteratic caeca caligne or
Dorica castra, as Herrera in his commentary of Garcilaso observes (Morros 1997:75). Consistent with this observation, a similar poetic quip is located in Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXXII, mi lengua va por do el dolor la guía; / ya yo con mi dolor [my tongue simply follows where pain leads; / while I with my pain] (v. 1–2; transl. Dent Young 55).
Beware, the poet advises, “ el caso de Anajárete, y cobarde” [Anajárete’s fate and cowardice!] (v. 67). An accent on the first syllable of the heptasyllable, / 'há.ga.te /, is unusual, but required to increase suspense. A caesura in the next verse, underscores the mythological figure Anajárete, and her hard-heartedness and apparent cowardice is made poignant by the
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pause at the end of the line. As a result, an extra syllable is perceived in the otherwise hendecasyllabic verses:
[el caso de Anajárete, y cobarde] phonematic transcption: [el 'ka.so 'δe a.na.'ja.ɾe.te ko.'βaɾ. δ e] * * * * * * * * * * * *
At this fatidic moment, the rhythm is uniquely prolonged. In this unexpected prolongation of meter and unnatural elision after the eighth syllable, the poetic voice reinforces the foreboding idea: the mythical fate of cold-hearted Anajárete. The evocative verses, se arrepintió muy tarde
[she repented too late] (v. 69) is stressed again in (v. 83): ¡Oh tarde arrepentirse! [O repentance comes too late!] (transl. Dent-Young 71). This sentiment echoes a similar forewarning in Jorge
Manrique’s Ode on the Death of his Father, who exhorts: “¡Oh mundo! Pues que no matas! [O world! A few years to live!]. The poetic voice thus warns “Behold” like the Ovidian Anajárete who repented too late “thy body will gradually transform into stone”.
The ensuing verses describe the horrific scene with palpable details. The verses in stanzas
14-21 are indeed cacophonous, ridden with an onomatopoetic whirl of /r/ and /r/+/k/ and consonant clusters sounds. /R/- sounds are perceived in words such as temerosa…cobarde… arrepintió… emperdenido…and so on. John Hanak observes similar modes of expression in Luis de Góngora’s, The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea (1612), where he reminds the reader that
“r-alliteration is a well-known classical topos” found, for example, in both Virgil and Petrarch
(Hanak 180).185 A droning alliteration of /k/ sounds begins in the fourteenth strophe and persists relentlessly until verse 93: caso…cobarde…cuando...cuerpo...cuello...cadena...corazón... cuitado...compró...convertirse. Indeed, the infernal noise intensifies in the eighteenth strophe:
185 Also see Vega Ramos (1992:142). 137
Los ojos s’enclavaron en el tendido cuerpo que allí vieron; los huesos se tornaron más duros y crecieron y en sí toda la carne convertieron; (vv. 86–90)
The dark resonance of this strophe is determined by abundant and overbearing consonant alliteration, of vocal oscuras /o/ and /u/ as Alonso also defines them (144), of consonant clusters and a rhythmic enjambment that forces the poetic voice to utter the last three verses in one sole breath.186
In verse 92 of the next strophe, the dissonant clatter intensifies: a salient iambic rhythm with accents on 2-4-6-8 and 10 strikes beneath the sound of /r/ and /p/ alliterations as Anajárete’s organs turn slowly into stone: tornaron poco a poco en piedra dura. The poetic voice utters hard- sounding words of death to describe her transformation. The lack of musical sweetness is extraordinary: the words are as harsh as stone. Cold blood is no longer a representation, that is to say a figura of life (st. 19). These evocative cacophonous verses support the thematic premise of the work. Similarly, Ciabattoni describes Dante’s cacophony in his Inferno as “a primary element of the landscape and an instrument of punishment” (78). The power of music in poetry, however transformed, still qualifies. The universal rhythm that connects both language and music reverberates strongly. In the words of Dámaso Alonso, these sounds form a microcosmic web of signifiers integral to the overall meaning and form of the poem.
186 As I interpret it, José Domínguez Caparrós (2012) recommends caution in adhering to D. Alonso’s characterization of light and dark vowels, for this generalization may not necessarily hold true and inspire the same sensation in all readers (88). Yet, Caparrós grants that Alonso’s observations, regarding vowels, may hold true in some poetry, especially when their representation enhances the theme or meaning of the text (4.2.3:48). On this topic, also see Vega Ramos (315–317). 138
St. 20–21 (vv. 101–110) No quieras tú, señora, de Némesis airada las saetas probar, por Dios, agora; baste que tus perfectas obras y hermosura a los poetas
den inmortal materia, sin que también en verso lamentable celebren la miseria d’algún caso notable que por ti pase, triste, miserable.
Do not you then, my lady, / tempt the arrows of angry Nemesis! / Avoid them for God’s sake, / and let it be enough that / your perfect deeds, your beauty, / should supply / the poets with immortal / inspiration, without their being obliged / in sad verses to record/some horrible disaster / laid at your door, / some wretched tragedy (transl. John Dent-Young 73).
The euphonic sound of the last two verses changes dramatically. Herrera associates Garcilaso’s emphasis on the bilabial voiced /m/ sound, “de mi mesmo yo me corro agora” (Egl. I – v.66) as a manifestation of inner anguish similar to that felt by the poetic voice in Petrarch’s Sonnet I: di me medesimo meco mi vergongo [I am ashamed of myself] (v. 11, in Herrera 439; transl. mine).
Garcilaso’s concluding stanzas are filled with euphonic resonance to celebrate poetry and the
“poet’s’ immortal inspiration as he sings sad verses” (vv. 105-106). The final verses are indeed overflowing with an onomatopoetic resonance of the bilabial voiced consonants /m/ and alveo palatal /n/:
den inmortal materia, sin que también en verso lamentable celebren la miseria d’ algún caso notable que por ti pase, triste, miserable. (vv. 106–110)
The lover’s sword has now lost its power and the consummate poet sings his misery (v. 108).
Orpheus has the last word. The power of poetry emerges as the poet draws final attention to
“immortal inspiration.” The noun immortal is critical. It digs into the thematic premise of the work as it bears the weight of its existence. Divine inspiration surpasses all meta-poetic
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purposes. The substance of poetry cannot be reduced to earthly means for if disharmony exists in the fable, the poetic work provides artistic harmony. The poetic work thus subverts the idea of harmony, of the Petrarchan lady whose beauty and rejection of the forlorn lover captivates the imagination of poets and, finally, of the nationalistic assumptions as to the capacity the Spanish language has to assert itself.
Summary
This investigation of the Ode ad Florem Gnidi reveals that music constitutes a tangible and significant element integral to the artistic creation. In this “resolutely lyrical poem” (194), as
Johnson describes it, musical polyphony (many voices) or plain cacophony sustains literary polyphony (dialogic voices) in a complex exhibit of poetic ingenio, originality and modernity.
The poet subverts classical and humanistic forms by articulating his verses to the sound
[music] of his Spanish vernacular language. For maximum persuasion, Garcilaso casts an original lyrical form, drawing from the classical tradition and fused three musical forms: the oda, lira and the canción. He conjectures a metaphorical interplay of three voices and three instruments in a tripartite structure. We have discerned that the network of partial signifiers, in this case the three motives represented by three instruments, the visual and acoustic images, the rhythm, the words, the syllables, the vowels, the single phonemes, the ending rhymes, the poetic devices, such as alliteration, anaphora and hyperbaton, are all observable linguistic signs, vivid sonorous representations of the reality at hand: the struggle between the lover and the cold- hearted lady. The sign, as the motivation for poetic expression, is an attempt to intervene between a lady and a desolate lover. It is this motivation that inspired music as a tool of persuasion. The presence of music in this work is substantiated when each substrate represents
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ethically and consistently the whole. From a hermeneutical perspective, the reworking of classical lyrical forms, the explicit uses of musical terms, and identified expressive elements all contribute significantly to the organic cohesiveness of Ode ad Florem Gnidi. I concur with Graf
(1994) when she writes: “I read Garcilaso as a poet highly conscious of the aesthetic and even ontological problems inherent in the production of his art” (166).
With this work, Garcilaso enters into a modern discourse. Allow me to explain. Agnes
Heller posits: “the dynamics of modernity first begin to shake traditions and convictions” (41).
Indeed, while Garcilaso asserts his poetry to reflect on certain cultural realities, at the same time he subverts social and political divisions. How? We may ask. Navarrete notes that Renaissance
Spain had to reconcile its political dominion with a sense of cultural inferiority to the long- standing literary tradition of Italy (1). Garcilaso’s literary quest contended with or at least paralleled his commitment to the arms as courtier of and for Spain. The young poet, whose life was taken prematurely at age thirty-six while serving at war, found the time to write his Ode ad
Florem Gnidi on behalf of a Neapolitan best friend. Fictitiously or otherwise, through his poetic art Garcilaso mediated for Galeota whose precarious fate at the hand of his female desire seemed grim and whose real-life heterodoxical affairs would eventually secure him five years in prison beginning in 1552 (Brown 1995:197).187 In this complex social political and historical arena of intercultural tensions, the poet reflected on the private vulnerability of a tormented friend.
The poetic setting for OFG is the Seggio del Nido in Naples. The lover for whom the
187 Mario Galeota was allegedly a follower of the allegedly “heretic” Juan de Valdés who arrived in Naples in 1534 (López, 96). While further inquiry may lead to salient information regarding the historical context of Garcilaso’s Ode ad Florem Gnidi, the matter is beyond the scope of this present study. For further insight, see Il Movimento Valdesiano a Napoli, by López (1976) and Toscano (2010). 141
poetic voice intercedes is a Neapolitan gentleman on the opposite side of the threshold of power.
Garcilaso transcends that solipsistic eccentricity that could have prevailed in this arena of war and domination, to allow the power of poetry to subvert political divisions. This disdain for segregation is expressed in Garcilaso’s preface to the Cortesano addressed to lady Gerónima
Palova de Almogávar. He writes: “Soy tan enemigo de cisma” [I am a great enemy of schism]
(Morros 269; transl. Mine). In this preface, as well as in this poetic conceit, Garcilaso’s voice joins the anthropological discourses on war and politics and the orchestra of Hispanic/Neapolitan
Renaissance voices, to assert his poetic vision as a means of dialogue. Drawing on his musical experience and considering the privileged place of music in the humanistic and aristocratic circles of the Seggio di Nido, Garcilaso transcends linguistic and cultural divisions through the finest artistic medium he can afford: a poetic conceit deeply embedded in music. In this way, he brings the idea of harmony to its highest implication. Habermas reminds us that the term
‘modern,’ inspired by the ancients, denotes the “infinite advance towards social and moral betterment” (in Theory and Criticism 1577). From that perspective, Garcilaso’s ode constitutes a poetic means for the subversion of cultural and social-political assumptions. Croce, referring to the theological and socio-political underpinnings of Dante’s Commedia, reminds critics that, in fact, certain works are “still written, with the object of divulging and rendering desirable and acceptable to others something believed or desired by the author, and presenting it with the help of the imagination” (1922:84). Most of all, this ode, deemed by Keniston as Garcilaso’s finest work, is a lyrical masterpiece that “appeals directly to the senses” (208).
This author concludes that Garcilaso’s OFG remains an ingenious and complex poetic endeavor, one in which the music of his Spanish verses is a substantiation of the dialogic tendencies of the poetic work. Undeniably, Garcilaso’s ode reached the ears of humanists who
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praised the mellifluousness of its verses and composers who would then set this work to music
(CD track 9). The musical design in this poem, tangible and effective, thus rests as a means to invite the listener to partake in Garcilaso’s act of poetic creation (CD track 10).
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CHAPTER IV: GARCILASO AND THE MUSIC OF HIS OWN TIME AND PLACE
The first section of this dissertation dealt with the music in Garcilaso’s poetry. In a broad sense, it is comprised of verbal musicality, silences and/or cacophony, musical imagery and direct allusions to musical practices. In this second part (Chapters Four and Five), I move beyond the poetry’s aesthetic to investigate to what extent Garcilaso’s poetry and the sixteenth-century musico-poetic context intersected. I thus ask: Did composers set the Castilian verses to music?
Was there a direct interchange between poet and composer? What do musical settings reveal in terms social, cultural, and historical contexts from which the music and the poetry arose? This positioning accounts for the musical interpretations of Garcilaso’s verses, but also, arguably, through musical performance, Garcilaso’s aesthetic forms are realized through a dialogical unfolding between poet and composer. Chapter Four provides the contexts in which
Hispanic/Neapolitan sixteenth-century musico-poetic discourses took place. Chapter Five moves beyond the purely formal poetic conventions to explore how composers present the literary work in a new light.
Logically, one may ask if Garcilaso had direct contact with composers. Sources unearthed thus far do not provide any direct links between the poet and composers of his time.
The only reference is found in a seminal study of Garcilaso in music undertaken by Don Randel, who conjectures that Garcilaso’s presence in early music collections is an indication he was well known and admired by musicians of his time (1974:66). Randel investigated a number of musical settings of Garcilaso’s work. A few more have materialized since then in Spain and
Italy (see Chapter Five). Significantly, in this study Garcilaso emerges as a nexus in the adaptation of the polyphonic Italian madrigal to the Spanish language.
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The argument in this chapter is divided into two parts. The first section outlines the
Hispanic/Neapolitan musico-poetic practises and inevitable exchanges. The next follows the trajectory of a musico-poetic interchange between Naples and Spain, focussing on the points of contact between Garcilaso’s poetry and the dense sixteenth-century musico-poetic tapestry.
Hispanic/Neapolitan Sixteenth-Century Musico-Poetic Practices
Numerous festivities were held in Italy for the coronation of Charles V in Bologna
(Giordani 177–185).188 After the capture of La Goleta and the city of Tunis in 1535, the emperor visited various other cities throughout the country as well as Naples (Giordani 1842; Saletta
1981). Public ceremonies, festivals, musical performances, and ritual traditions took place throughout Italy, and were inevitably intertwined with local socio-political practices. While
Charles valued and studied music,189 his direct involvement with the musical activities at his court and for his scheduled visits throughout the empire was limited (Ferer 2012; Stein 1993).
When he travelled, the leaders of the visiting cities were responsible for organization of all ceremonial activites. On the occasion of his coronation in 1529 in Bologna, celebrations included a splendid mass, theatrical works, games, parades, and fireworks (Giordani 48). The music for the mass was performed a doppio coro (Giordani 124), reminiscent of that Venetian polyphonic
188 Giordani (1842) provides an extraordinary account of Charles V’s coronation and festivities in Italy on the occasion of his arrival. 189 Emilio Ros-Fábregas, in his Music and Ceremony during Charles’ V’s 1519 Visit to Barcelona,asserts that Charles V and his sister were taught to play the manicordium by the famous organist Henri Bredemers (382). A 1512 document reports that Bredemers (c.1472–1522) received payment for teaching Charles and his sister “the art of music and to play on many melodious instruments” (Picker 28). 145
practice attributed to the Fleming composer Adriano Willaert (ca.1490–1562).190 Giordani makes reference to a number of prolific composers who contributed to the festivities. He mentions, among many, Marchetto Cara, Ercole Bentivoglio, Alfonso dalla Viola, plus the Spanish composers Morales and Salinas (n. 154, 35).
In Naples, the sindaco or mayor Ferrante Sanseverino d’Aragona, prince of Salerno, whose role was “purely ceremonial and honorific,” represented the city as president of the general parliament, and oversaw the organization of all public ceremonies (Marino 99). With other nobles of the city, namely Pietro Antonio Sanseverino prince of Bisignano, and Alfonso d’Ávalos, marquis of Vasto, he invited Charles V to visit Naples upon his return from the
Tunisian expedition. When Charles entered the city on November 25th, 1535, Ferrante
Sanseverino led the pageant through a prescribed route, passing the various seggi of Portanova,
Porto, Nido, Montagna and Capuana (Marino 99). The occasion presented a remarkable opportunity for cross-cultural fertilization of artistic and, for our purpose, musical ideas between
Italy and Spain.
The triumphant entry into the city was commemorated with a relief on the funerary monument to Don Pedro in San Giovanni degli Spagnoli in Naples, still visible today. At the time, each seggio displayed statues, flags, and emblems that epitomized imperial power. In the
Seggio of Nido, Charles V was welcomed by the humanist Scipione Capece. The latter composed and recited verses in honour of the emperor (Coniglio 52). The seggio of Capuana displayed statues of Jove with an eagle at his feet and Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. The seggio of
190Willaert may have achieved refined mastery of this type of polyphonic music which consisted of a complex performance by two choirs in dialogue with each other forming the coro spezzato (divided choir), yet the practice had a long-standing tradition in Venice (see D’Alessi, 1952). 146
Montagna exhibited statues of Atlas and Hercules, symbolizing the emperor’s impresa or emblem “Plus Ultra” [overseas empire] (Marino 99). Giovio asserted that the impresa bearing the image of Hercules’s columns surpassed in dignity and delightfulness all those that had come before (transl. mine).191
Interestingly, Ferroni posits a correlation between the expression of the Petrarchan lyric and the imprese, with their accompanying mottos. The emblems were designed to celebrate and represent, through numerous encoded signs, captains worthy of such dedications (Giovio,
Dialogo; 1559:9). Ferroni suggests that the expression of the lyric in its social uses, with its rhetorical figures, codified schemes, allusions, and secret spaces is parallel to the emblematic representation of the imprese often found embroidered on the vests of courtiers (16). Giovio observes that the design of the imprese was considered respectable only when the emblems conformed to specific rules of decorum. He explains, as an illustration, that a worthy emblem displays appropriate proportions in body and soul, and its design delights the spirit.192 Giovio’s embodiment of the object as a representation of human expression in a typical social milieu, governed by the rules of decorum and appropriate proportions, is analogous to the literary critics’ appropriation of the lyrics. In other words, Ferroni explains that the critic’s annotations transformed the Petrarchan text with its signs and its sound, as a model for human social behavior and verbal expression. The emblematic representation of the text was thus analogous to that of the imprese (17). Furthermore, Ferroni posits, the underlying social code of morality, of life and expression, permeated every facet of life in a complex manneristic spiral (15). Indeed,
191 Giovio writes: “mi pare, che l’impresa sua delle colonne d’Ercole col motto del PLUS ULTRA, […] abbia superato di gravità e leggiadria […] tutte l’altre […] (Ragionamento 16). 192 Sappiate adunque […] che l’inventione ò vero l’impresa, s’ella debba havere del buono, bisogna c’habbia cinque conditioni; Prima giusta proportione d’anima e di corpo […]. Terza, che sopra tutto habbia bella vista, la qual si fa riuscire molto allegra (Giovio Dialogo 9). 147
the code of expression spilled over into the arts, architecture, literature, music, education, and even courtiership (Navarrete 1994:1). Hence, in this context, the dialectical interrelationship of language and literature was inextricable from all other means of expression. The Spaniards were able to penetrate this social code successfully, not only in terms of political prowess but also in terms of language. Giovio, for instance, marvelled at the fact that the Spaniards used their language to endorse mottos for their emblems. “Surely,” remarked Giovio “no one can negate the fact the Spanish language is as delightful and imaginative as any other, in particular the
Castilian.”193 This digression underscores the remarkable cross-cultural exchange between the
Hispanic and Neapolitan cultures.
In most Italian courts music activities thrived, supported as they were by the rich patronage of its political leaders. Returning to Naples, in this sixteenth-century city the nobility, the academies, and wealthy families shaped the fabric of the musical and cultural context. Music, as performed in the noble court, was another means of representation of power, acculturation, and prestige (and this not being specific to Naples, of course). Larson describes the music scene in Naples at the time of Charles V’s visit in these terms:
An impressive collection of Italian nobility gathered in Naples during Charles V’s stay there. The Medici faction from Florence arrived in Naples on 29 Dec. 1535; it included Duke Alesandro de’ Medici, Cosimo, Lorenzo and Lorenzaccio de’ Medici, the archbishop of Pisa (Onofrio Bartolini de’ Medici), the bishops of Pistoia and Saluzzo (Antonio Puggi and Alfonso Ronabene), Francesco Gucciardini, Francesco Vettori, Alemanno Salviatim and Roberto Acciaiuoli. Attending the wedding of Charles’s illegitimate daughter, Margherita d’Austria, to Alessandro de’ Medici on 29 Feb. 1536 in Naples were the dukes of Ferrara (Ercole d’Este), Urbino (Guidobaldo dell[a]
193 Giovio writes: “Io mi meraviglio molto, come questi signori spagnoli tutti, ò la maggior parte usino di fare I motti delle loro Imprese nella propria lingua. E non si può negar certo, che la lingua spagnola no sia bellissima e vaga, quanto alcun’altra, ma massimamente la Castigliana; e ch’ella non sia capace di tutti quegli ornamenti, che hà seco la Latina, e la Toscana; e benissimo fanno à servirsene quei pellegrini e acuti ingegni” [I marvel greatly, how all these Spanish gentlemen, or the majority, for the most part, use mottos written in their own language. No one can deny the fact that their language is as beautiful and inventive as all others, in particular the Castilian; and that the latter may not be able to articulate as inventive and beautiful language as the Latin or the Tuscan; and praiseworthy are those peregrines and acute ingenious minds that use it (Dialogo Dell’Imprese 1559:159; transl. mine)]. 148
Rovere), Parma (Pierluigi Farnese), Ferrante Gonzaga and other noblemen […]. Many of these noblemen may have brought musicians with them, thus giving the opportunity for Neapolitan composers to hear the latest developments in the art from the north (1985:156).
In his Antichità di Napoli e del suo amenissimo distretto (1536), Benedetto di Falco, a poet and erudite Neapolitan humanist, describes the music scene in early sixteenth-century Naples:
Already in the Academy of the Sereni one perceives the radiant light of Apollo. In the Ardenti the sacred lights of human virtues are practiced and the Incogniti propose the knowledge of oneself. Music, above the natural instinct, which every Neapolitan seems to have inherited from heaven, is practiced by almost everyone according to their nature. Thus, day and night, at times with voices, or instruments, or various harmonies, in different places it is heard with admirable sweetness […] The spectacles, the representations, the musical encounters return. It is no wander that the great lords come from Germany, France and Spain, upholding the wonders of the city of Naples and sharing in its pleasures.194
In his 1601 Della Prattica Musica, Scipione Cerreto observed that the Neapolitan lords of most noble blood were often leaders of humanistic academies. They were also the city’s most avid supporters of music, while at the same time excellent musicians and composers (155).195 In his research Larson identified approximately twenty-five composers of noble ranks working in
Naples between 1530 and 1630 (1983:75). Some were composers of the early canzonette alla napoletana (rustic themes and simple structure) in addition to the more complex polyphonic madrigals (idyllic themes and Petrarchan structures).
The viceroys, who were stationed in Naples for only a few years, provided limited and sporadic commitment to the arts. Don Pedro de Toledo, a viceroy who ruled the city for twenty
194 “Già nell’Academia de Sereni si vede di nuova luce il biodo Apollo risplendere. In quella le gli Ardenti i Sacri accesi incendi della virtù fu mano, e nell’Academia de gli Incogniti la conoscenza di se stesso proponesi. Della Musica poi, oltre di quel naturale istinto, di che par che il Ciel habbia ogni Napoletano spirito dotato, onde quasi ciascuno alla natura, l’arte giungendo, di giorno, e di notte, tal’hora con voci, tal’hora co’strumenti, diverse armonie in diversi luoghi che si sentono co dolcezza mirabile [...]. Gli spettacoli ritornano le scene si rappresentano, e le gare de’ musici si apparecchiano, e perció non è meraviglia se in Napoli sempre furono [...] le nazioni lontane [...] Perché dall’Alemania, dalla Francia, e dalla Spagna vengono i gran signori tutti dal grido della sempre honorata Napoli a meravigliarsi di lei e a godere con lei […]” (Falco 64; transl. mine). 195 “Ma che dirò d’infiniti altri Signori Napolitani, nati di nobilissimo sangue, che anco sono eccellentissimi Musici, della Composizione, & del Suono” (Cerreto, 155). 149
years beginning in 1532, was known for his unbending governance (Coniglio 1967:38-78).
Toledo suppressed political and religious upheavals and censored some of the most thriving humanistic academies, namely the Pontoniana, of Scipione Capece, and the Sereni, of Placido di
Sangro (Lumsden 1946). However, Lumsden recalls that Alicarnasso avowed that Don Pedro de
Toledo “brought back justice into veneration and respect” (Lumsden 1946:33). Surely, Toledo is recognized by historians for his efforts to beautify the city and his endorsement of at least some artistic activities that had been stifled in previous years, namely the theatre (Coniglio 1967;
Lumsden 1946; Pirrotta and Povoledo 106). In the end, Don Pedro’s portrait hangs in the Uffizi
Gallery, conspicuously beside that of the Duke of Alba and next to some of the most renowned leaders of the sixteenth-century: reminders of the significant Spanish presence in Italian history.
Fig. 3. Don Pedro de Toledo. By permission of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The music composed and performed in Don Pedro’s Naples existed mostly outside the court, in religious establishments as well as in private urban circles (Larson 1983: 61). For
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example, in the popular Seggio (quarter) of Nido, Giulio Cesare Brancaccio resided. He was a courtier, soldier and singer. So did Luigi Dentice (1510 ca –1566 ca), who served the powerful
Prince of Salerno as an imbasciatore (ambassador). The Prince of Salerno was known for his
“passion for poetry, music, and Italian comedy” (Cardamone, 1995:80).196 Dentice’s son,
Fabrizio, was also a prolific musician (Griffiths and Fabris xx). The Dentice’s lives were connected with Sanseverino’s political turmoil, marked by conspiracy against the leaders of
Kingdom of Naples. As a result they, with Sanseverino, were forced to escape the city for a period of time (Wistreich 10).
Luigi’s treatise, Duo Dialoghi della musica (1552), is of particular relevance to us, as it displays contemporary musico-poetic trends and compositional practices. The dialogues on music are situated in a splendid garden at the villa of Colantonio Colonna, marquis of Vico. The interlocutors are Giovanni Antoni Serone and Paolo Soardo, both well-known musicians in
Naples at the time (Wistreich 32). In the Dialoghi, the narrator observes that Soardo arrives late for the encounter, returning from an impressive concert at the house of the “most divine
Giovanna d’Aragona.” The discourse begins with Sardo’s account of the music and the players just listened (fol. ii). Sardo recognizes amongst the guests María de Cardona, Marchioness of
Padua, a key figure in the Neapolitan circle, both poetess and patron of the Arts (fol. 64).
Giovanna D’Aragona, unahappily married to Ascanio Colonna, left her husband and withdrew to Ischia with her sister in-law Vittoria Colonna, the wife of Ferrante D’Ávalos, and their mentor the widow Constanza d’Ávalos. Their palace was a centre for religious revival,
196 Cardamone (81) cites from two sources: Gatta’s Memorie in which the author describes Salerno’s musical establishment and his secret academy (485), and N. Baldoni’s “La cultura magica e astrologica a Napoli nel ‘500,” in Studi Storici 1 (1959/60: 696–699). 151
coinciding with the spiritual movement initiated by the heterodox theologian, Juan de Valdés, but also a place for lavish music evenings, as mentioned in Dentice’s Dialoghi. At the concert,
Soardo identifies a few composers: Giovanleonardo dell’Harpa Napoletano, Perino da Firenze,
Giaches de Ferrara, Scipione della Palla and the singer Giulio Cesare Brancanzo (Brancaccio
(f.63). Brancaccio’s presence underscores a penchant for solo singer practice (Wistreich 2007).
Dell’Arpa was an eminent musician who took part in Gl’Ingannati (1529–30), a musical comedy based on a text written by Giovan Francesco Muscettola (Wistreich 24). The comedy appeared first in Siena and was later performed in celebration of Charles V’s visit to Naples, and, afterwards for the marriage of María de Cardona to her second husband, Francesco d’Este, in
Naples (1536). The play brought many city musicians together. Luigi Dentice and Scipione della
Palla played the role of the servants. Fabrizio, Luigi’s son and a prolific composer of madrigals, acted as Pasquella, and Giovanni dell’Arpa assumed the role of the shrewd servant (Pirrotta and
Povoledo 107). Evidence demonstrates that Giaches de Ferrara was employed at the court of
María de Cardona. It was there that he published Il primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci
(1558), dedicated to Alfonso Gonzaga (Fenlon 29).
The circle of illustrious women patrons of music, mentioned by Dentice and others in
Naples, was impressive and not unlike that found in other cities in Italy. Though some were characterized as being of ‘questionable’ moral status (Feldman 2006; Robin 2007), a few were actually praised for their musical skills, such as Vittoria Fagiola, at the service of María de
Cardona. In fact, Soardo, in the Dialoghi, asserts that seldom do musicians sing and accompany themselves perfectly. Many, Soardo continues, err in their singing or in their pronunciation, intonation and accompaniment, except Vittoria Fagiola, who was mentored by Cardona (fol
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64).197 Dentice’s Dialoghi thus provides small evidence of solo-singing practices and the presence of women performers at court. In Italy, the figure of the woman, at least an erudite one, was featured in Castiglione’s Cortegiano and Della Casa’s Il Galateo. In terms of women musicians, the Franco-Flemish Perissone Cambio dedicated a music collection to the celebrated woman-poet-musician of Italian origin, Gaspara Stampa (1523–1554).
Notwithstanding an extensive debate on the worth of Stampa’s poetry and her figura as a courtesan or cortegiana onesta (respectable courtesan) and not a concubine, recent scholars recognized her work as an important conduit for the “other poetic voice” in the Petrarchan literary and the musico-poetic tradition.198 Controversial perspectives on women performers abound in Renaissance literature. For example, the Venetian humanists Pietro Bembo exalted women’s musical abilities on one hand (Gli Asolani 1505), but at the same time discouraged his own daughter from playing an instrument on the other (Feldman 2006:105). Bembo underscored that “a noblewoman’s musical prowess played a major role in her ability to retain a central position at the court” (McIver 146). Certainly, Feldman demonstrates that women-poet performers had to resort to sophisticated and clever strategies in order to penetrate the misogynistic cultural milieu (2004:367).
Dentice’s reading unquestionably provides evidence that sixteenth-century Naples, similar to Feldman’s Venice, was a place of an intricate web of varying discourses on language, poetry, and music among the humanists at court, in the academies, and also within the powerful circles organized by women. In both cities, “poetry was the domain of the Renaissance political
197 “Soardo: […] pochi Musici si trovano che cantano sopra gli strumenti […]. Serone: Sarebbe forse piaciuta la Signora Vittoria Fagiola?La quale sdegnando il Mondo, se n’è gita in cielo à cantar con glo Angioli? Soar: Questa sic he mi piacque assai: e la signora Donna María de Cardona Marchesa della Padula, la quale […] l’amò come figliola, non per altro, che per conoscere I buoni costume accompagnati co’l soave, e non mai più inteso canto di quella giovane” (f. 64). 198 For more on Stampa, see Fiora A. Bassanese (1982), Benedetto Croce (1946:366–75); Martha Feldman and Bonnie Gordon. (2006), and Abdelkader Salza (1913). 153
and intellectual class” epitomized in Naples, in part, by Colonna and her cenacle of erudite ladies
(McIver 380). It was to Colonna that Castiglione sent a draft of his Cortegiano, a manual recommended by Lodovico Dolce for female readership. Dolce’s Dialogo della institution delle donne (1547) was the Italian version of Juan Luis Vives’s On the Education of a Christian
Woman (1522). Kaufman (1978) points to the Spanish Juan Luis Vives as a writer generally perceived as a strong supporter of women in education or learning situations. She argues, however, that in his writings some antifeminist clichés, such as “I give no license to a woman to be a teacher,” betray the alleged intent of Vives’s manual. Nonetheless, one could argue that by the simple fact that Vives makes reference to a list of distinguished learned women, and obviously exhibits at least both sides of the debate, he obliquely raised awareness of female strengths in his Renaissance readers. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Colonna’s verses enjoyed significant publication and dissemination, and were subsequently set to music, this, considering also that her poetry exemplifies the Petrarchan and Neoplatonic style.199 This brief digression suffices to provide a balanced overview of the Neapolitan humanistic circle to which
Garcilaso was exposed, one that includes the figure of the woman-poet. It is precisely the
Neapolitan milieu that inspired Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIV, dedicated to the poet-musician and
199 For a discussion of Colonna’s Petrarchism or, to be precise, her ‘Reformed Petrarchism,’ see Abigail Brundin (2008). For musical settings of Michelangelo and Colonna’s poems, see McIver (2003). To investigate further Neoplatonism in Vittoria Colonna’s poetry, see McAuliffe (1986). Renaissance Neoplatonic ideals of love and beauty were infused by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) in his translations of Plato. Ficino writes that “the soul burns with a divine radiance which is reflected in the man of beauty as in a mirror” (222–223). Ficino’s philosophical and literary traditions echoed in the works of Bembo’s Gli Asolani (1505) and Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del Cortigiano (1528), translated by Juan Boscán (1490-1542), with a prologue by Garcilaso, and printed in Spain in 1534. 154
maecenas Maria de Cardona, whom he addresses as the tenth muse on Mount Parnassus (v. 2), an epithet attributed by Plato to Sappho, the most lyrical poet musician of ancient Greece.200
Points of Contact: Garcilaso’s Poetry and the Solo Improvisatory Tradition
In poetry and music, boundaries were thus continuously reshaped. In terms of music, sixteenth-century Naples hosted a representation of remarkable fusion of the written and oral musico-poetic tradition, parallel as it was to the flourishing Petrarchan literary movement. Since the fifteenth-century, the Catalan Benedetto Gareth, known as Il Chariteo (1450–1514), and the
Italian Serafino Aquilano (1466–1500), improvised music to accompany their own verses. The former was a member of the Accademia Pontoniana and friend of Pontano and Sannazaro. He published Endimione all luna, a lyric canzoniere in Italian (1509) emulating Petrarch and wroting in Italian to bestow “on the Neapolitan court an Italian cultural identity to which the
Spanish aristocracy assimilated” (Kennedy 72). Indeed, as already established, Petrarchism became the site of political exchanges stressing intimate models of human behaviour and expression that were deemed socially acceptable. Il Chariteo was a skilful rhetorician, a foreigner at the service of the aristocracy, and an ardent supporter of monarchism with “pan-Italian sensibilities” (2002:1196). His appropriation of the Petrarchan model in Italian reinforced the
Spanish ability to measure up to the dominant culture of the controlled territories in Italy and solidified his political position at the court of King Ferrante II. That Chariteo sung his verses at court and at the Accademia Pontoniana, implies that solo singing was common practice
200 For more on this topic, see Chapter I p.44 supra. 155
(Cummings, 53). Cummings posits that this is significant, in that “Il Chariteo was responsible for initiating a new site of Petrarchism, destined to be influential”(230).
Antonio de Ferrariis (1444–1517), in his De Educatione (1504), affirmed that the convention of extemporizing poetry was indeed a “Spanish importation” (Larson 1985:157).
The poet and literary critic Vincenzo Calmeta (1460ca –1508) encouraged poets and singers to imitate Il Chariteo and Aquilano, whose singing and accompanying was so refined that it underscored the beauty of the text so that “it may be better understood [just as the] discerning jeweller, who having to show the finest and whitest pearl, will place it, not on a golden cloth, but on some black silk, that it might show up better” (See Cummings 89). The solo singing tradition, adopted by contemporary Hispanic and Neapolitan poet-musicians, thus contributed to the interchange of Italian and Spanish songs (Larson 1983:64). Indeed, it continued in the
Neapolitan Cinquecento context, where poet courtiers, such as Luigi Tansillo, Garcilaso de la
Vega, and Alfonso d’Ávalos Marqués del Vasto, disseminated their poetry, both in Italian and
Spanish. They would overtly accompany their own verses with the viola/or vihuela (Griffiths
2009:359).
To own and play an instrument and to be knowledgeable of music along with the cultivation of poetry were “features by which new nobility established their credentials”
(Lawrence 140). Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano encourages the development of musical aptitudes for men and women of the upper class, and especially solo singing accompanied by the viola:
“Above all, singing poetry accompanied by the viola seems especially pleasurable, for the instrument gives the words a really marvellous charm and effectiveness” (The Courtier 120).
Learning music was one of the topoi of the political and moral codes of the Quattrocento at the court of Urbino, the site of Castiglione’s early inspiration. Marianna Villa draws a direct
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correlations between Castiglione’s views on music and its socio-cultural ideologies underpinning those ideas, propagated earlier by Pseudo-Plutarch in his De Musica (58). After all, Plutarch’s
Moralia formed part of the Renaissance academic learning curriculum of Trivium and
Quadrivium, and was a direct line to the classics. In his writing, PseudoPlutarch recognized the ethical-psychological benefits of studying music, a central theme in the Book of the Courtier:
So you must not wish to deprive our courtier of music, which not only soothes the soul of men but often tames wild beasts. Indeed, the man who does not enjoy music can be sure that there is no harmony in his soul (95).
Castiglione’s Courtier advocated mostly for the declamation of poetry, accompanied by stringed instruments, namely the viola (120–121). It must be noted that Castiglione wrote his Courtier in
Spain, where Garcilaso penned the dedication to its first Spanish translation.
In Spain, the composer and vihuelist Luis Milán (ca. 1500c. –1561) saw his El Maestro appear in print in 1536 in Valencia. According to Griffiths, Milán was a very accomplished composer whose music abounds with improvisatory passages reflecting contemporary Spanish practices (Griffiths 2003: 112). Undoubtedly, Milán was also influenced by the Italian
Renaissance trends to which he was exposed while at the court of Ferdinand the Duke of
Calabria in Valencia, a patron of the arts who cultivated Italian literary and musical practices. At his death, his library comprised of 795 manuscripts. Amongst them were the writings of Ovid,
Virgil, Aristotle, Vitruvius, Ariosto, Bembo, Dante, Boccaccio Guarini, Petrarch and a treatise by Tinctoris. Johannes Tinctoris (1435–1511), who served Ferdinand, dedicated five musical treatises to his family (Atlas 71–77). McMurtry, in an article that examines the life of the Duke, asserts that “few hold a position of higher esteem for brilliant patronage of music and the other arts in Spanish Renaissance than Ferdinand” (17). Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), of Naples,
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dedicated his fourth eclogue, Proteus, to the Duke. His early education took place in Naples, a city enjoying extensive music patronage by wealthy members of society. Navarrete observes that since the Duke of Calabria’s earliest learning and exposure to culture occurred in Naples where he was exposed to improvisers-poets such as Il Chariteo and Aquilano, it is not surprising he would encourage musico-poetic practices in Valencia (1992:773).
Milán’s collection includes seventy-two musical compositions, of which twenty-two are for voice and vihuela, and seven are settings of Italian texts, out of which six are labelled sonnets, but only three are actually in the sonnet form (El Maestro, Gásser 1971). With regard to the exact terminology used for the compositions, Navarrete remarks, for example, that three of the compositions are labelled sonetos although they are not in sonnet form (1993). Certainly
Milán may have considered the etymological meaning of soneto, a derivative of the provençal
French sonnet, that is a lyrical canzone. It is perhaps this concept of the musicality of verse that may have influenced Milán’s choices, ranging from Spanish villancicos to sonnets by Petrarch and Sannazaro. The Spanish verses, rooted in the oral tradition fittingly exemplify the lyrical model in this collection since it is a poetry that is “above all melopoeic” (Navarrete 1993:771). It is therefore reasonable to cojecture that at the time of the publication of El Maestro in 1536,
Milán may have known the 1534 Spanish, Juan Boscàn’s translation of Castiglione’s manual by
Juan Boscán with a prologue by Garcilaso de la Vega; hence he probably knew Garcilaso or knew of him. In 1536, however, Milán may not have known Garcilaso’s poetry that appeared in print in 1543. This may explain Garcilaso’s exclusion from Milàn’s collection (Restrepo 1).
On the other side of the Mediterranean, in Garcilaso’s Naples, the musico-poetic Spanish influence spread particularly amid the nobility who adopted the Spanish practice of declaiming their verses to the accompaniment of a lute or vihuela. According to Larsen, it is possible that the
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Neapolitan nobility sang Italian lyrics set to the melody of other Spanish songs, but most of these songs were improvised and very few of the Spanish ones remain. Evidence demonstrates that in the latter part of the sixteenth-century, Ferrante Sanseverino set Spanish texts to music and performed them throughout France and Italy (Bridgen 2013; Larson 1985:112). Another significant composer who set a significant number of Spanish verses to music was Giovanni
Maria Trabaci (Larsen 75). More research is needed, however, to fully unravel the extent of the
Spanish influence in Italy (Cacho 2006). Nevertheless, a few fragments have been unearthed to reveal Garcilaso’s presence within the extant music cancioneros in Italy.
One of Garcilaso’s works that best exemplifies the Spanish tradition of serenading the lady, the Canción - Ode ad Florem Gnidi is found in Ms. Magl. XIX C109, in the Biblioteca
Nazionale di Florence. Garcilaso’s ode appears alongside a popular Renaissance octava A su albedrío y sin orden alguna (Cacho 84, in Veneziani). The musical tablature appears to be for vihuela, an instrument identified by Coelho as “the Spanish guitar-shaped version of the lute”
(Coelho 231). This music will be presented in the next chapter. Cacho explains that the Fondo
Magliabechiano (in which Garcilaso’s ode is found) originally belonged to the Medici’s Palatine library (83). Piperno confirms that Magliabechiano XIX was compiled in the sixteenth-century
(2). Warren Kirkendale determined that the sixteenth-century composer Emilio de Cavalieri imported Spanish guitars from Naples for the intermedi presented at the Medici court in 1589 (in
Veneziano 22). At that time, for instance, two women performed the music for the intermedi,
Vittoria Archilei and Francesca Caccini. One played the Spanish guitar, the other the Neapolitan
(Fabris 23 in Veneziano). It is therefore not surprising to find Spanish poetry or Spanish cancioneros in this Medici collection.
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Another excerpt by Garcilaso was discovered in a recently studied and edited manuscript,
Reggio 55, containing music for a sixteen-verse stanza, a fragment from the Third Eclogue that was sung to lute accompaniment by descendants of Sephardim in Leghorn or Pisa (Brown 2002:
175). The Sephardic people were Spanish Jews who inhabited Tuscany and formed strong communities after they were forced to leave the Kingdom of Naples: hence this possible contact with the poetry of Garcilaso. It is significant that members of the Iiberian-Jewish community, not entirely segregated from mainstream activities such as music, emerged as well-known musicians and music teachers at the courts of the Italian aristocracy. Indeed, they were very much part of the humanistic activities of Renaissance Italy (DiMauro 44). In his study of Italian Jews, Hughes underscores that one of the Jewish dancing master and violinist, Jacopo di Sansecondo, was
“immortalized by Raphael as the model for Apollo on Mount Parnassus” (15). Di Mauro conjectures that this Jewish musician was celebrated within the Vatican circle of humanists, precisely for his talent on the lire. Mauro writes:
In the sixteenth-century the increasing interest in secular studies and in the liberal arts opened new possibilities to the talented Jews at the most important courts of the Italian peninsula. At the turn of the sixteenth-century a group of Jewish musicians were part of the musical entourage of Pope Leo X, the former Giovanni de' Medici, in Rome. Leo was a patron of the arts. He sponsored the artistic career of the great Italian painter Raphael who, in his turn, employed one of the Jewish musicians at the Pope's service, Jacopo di Sansecondo (Jacob the Unmatched) as his model for his Apollo on Mount Parnassus. No information is available about Jacopo's lire and music except that he was much celebrated in the Vatican circle not only for his musical talent but also for his personal beauty (45).
Marco’s study provides evidence of the presence and direct contact between Sephardic Jewish and coeval artistic circles, and their participation in musico-poetic practices.
This cross-cultural interchange has significant implications in that, as Cacho observes, it demonstrates that the poetic influence that had travelled from Italy to Spain with poets who had
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begun to explore the ‘italico modo’ was now returning to Italy, as Italian poets were beginning to adopt the ‘hispánico modo’(399). In fact, in his study of ‘translingual’ Hispanic/Italian
Cinquecento and Seicento poetry, Canonica discovered that the production of Spanish poetry written by Italian poets far outweighs the opposite, clearly underscoring the significant role of the Spanish language in the Italian municipalities (88). Further research may yield more insight into this area of Hispanic/Neapolitan musico-poetic exchanges. For now, these few fragments in the solo improvisatory musico-poetic collections are enough to posit that Garcilaso’s poetry held a place of privilege, particularly because his Spanish poetry is located not only in several Spanish vihuela collections (see Chapter Five), but also, in its original Spanish version, in musical cancioneros of Italian poetry (Magl. XIX and Reggio 55). This phenomenon attests to an appeal for his Spanish poetic style.
Points of Contact: Garcilaso’s Poetry and the Spanish Adaptation of the Italian Madrigal
It is now possible to imagine how the site of Petrarchism shifted from a literary trend into the solo musico-poetic tradition of the Quattrocento improvisers, one also found in French and
Provençal chansonniers. Amateur and professional musicians gradually adopted the more formal polyphonic madrigal text setting of verses as a celebration of poetic pieces in courts and academies. Cummings conjectures that the early Cinquecento musico-poetic practices were inextricably interconnected with the rise of Petrarchism, and here symptomatic “of a quintessentially Italian interest in text setting and expression, of which the concerted madrigal was the early Seicento manifestation” (90).
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The development of the early madrigal, Haar posits, is grounded in the history of the frottola201 with “occasional resemblance to the Spanish villancico” (53). It is rooted in the poetry and song of the improvvisatori, who flourished in Naples, namely Il Chariteo and Aquilano (44).
In 1509, Petrucci printed in Venice the second book by Franciscus Bossinensis, in which music was printed without text, this for the declamation of various other sonnetti. Similarly, other collections appeared seventy years later, one compiled in Florence by Cosimo Bottegari (1574) and a second in Naples by Rocco Rodio (1577).202 This, Feldman observes, is an indicator of the historical continuity of the recitar cantando improvisatory practice (2004:371). Indeed, James
Haar notes that Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso’s stanzas were widely declaimed by poet-singers in which the traditional forms of the ‘recitar epico’ were applied to the verses.203 Within this tradition, it is now possible to imagine Terracina’s adapted verses of the Furioso dedicated to
Garcilaso, declaimed to music in the Hispanic/Neapolitan context.
The term madrigali emerged first in a music collection in Venice in 1530. It included musical settings of various poetic forms (Haar 2006:227; Lewis Hammond xiii). Piperno indicates that a collection appeared at the same time in Rome. He isolates a miscellany of works printed by Valerio Dorico, titled Madrigali di diversi musici libro primo de la serena.
Accordingly, Dorico’s collection is the first in which we find the term ‘madrigale’ (4). Although the exact birth of the madrigal is still a matter of wide speculation, most scholars refer to
Philippe Verdelot, Giaches de Wert, and Costanzo Festa at the centre of the development of the
201 Haar stipulates that whereas the origin of the frottola is unknown, it would have certainly grown out of the improvised traditions “in northern Italy, the strambotti of the south and possibly some Spanish music via the Neapolitan court, where the contemporary villancico was well-known” (47). 202 H. M. Brown draws a connection between Rooco Rodio and Giaches de Wert (1990:16–50). 203 In Feldman (2004:372). 162
early Cinquecento madrigal (Knighton and Fallows 397; Piperno 4). Incidentally, both Festa’s and Wert’s early musical experiences occurred in Naples (Fenlon 2008:107; McIver, 382).
When Charles V visited Naples in 1535, composers in great numbers contributed some form of musical compositions for the festivities (Pirrotta 1).204 Local composers had the opportunity to perform canzone villanesche, that were polyphonic works based on rustic themes and popular folk tunes. This ante litteram phenomenon, as Pirrotta considers it (5), had to compete with the flourishing and stylish Italian madrigal forms of Renaissance Italy. The villanesche performed in Naples were compiled and printed in 1537 (Pompilio 91), attesting to their performance in a more formal setting for professional musicians. A letter from Count
Maffei to the Gonzaga court in Mantua reveals a sumptuous display of entertainment by the nobility and the performance of villanesche along with madrigali (Larson 1985:156). Larson identifies nine books of madrigals printed in either Venice or Rome by Neapolitan composers between the years of1545 and 1560 (158).
The Italian madrigal or madrigali was a compositional combination of polyphonic settings of a single poetic stanza of various lyrical forms that were not necessarily the poetic madrigal, but also other forms such as the Petrarchan canzone. Its widespread dissemination was interconnected with literary trends (Fenlon 129). The preoccupation with Renaissance aesthetics and the use of vernacular languages shaped the development of music and musical practices.
Renaissance composers were, in part, influenced by the linguistic theories of the Venetian Pietro
Bembo (1470-1547). As already discussed in Chapter One, Bembo upheld the poetry of Petrarch
204 According to Croce, Garcilaso attended the great celebrations in the city on the occasion of the emperor’s coronation (1894:5).
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as the perfect blend of sound and harmony. In this he echoed the work of Angelo Poliziano
(1454-1494),205 whose Orpheic verses, sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, portray a perfect model of musicas poesis.206 With his Istitutioni Harmoniche (1588), the Venetian composer
Gioseffo Zarlino (1517–1590) consolidated many of the existing theories of music and rhetoric.
Zarlino closely observed the relationship between text and music. For example, he emphasized that human speech is melody, and it is for this reason that the poets and their verses, often accompanied by artificial instruments, are called lyric.207 Furthermore he upheld the singing of the canzone style of the time. To this he wrote: “these are the ways in which we now sing the sonnets and canzoni of Petrarch or the rime of Ariosto.”208 Indeed, according to Pompilio and
Vassalli, most Neapolitan early Cinquecento poetic choices for music were influenced by several reprints of Diversi eccellenti autori by Giolito Ferrari, in which Petrarch’s verses abound along with Orlando Furiosoi, by Ariosto, and the Arcadia, by the Neapolitan Sannazaro.209
205 Bembo knew the works of Poliziano well and collaborated with him in Venice in 1491. For this correlation between Bembo and Poliziano, see Massimo Danzi, La Biblioteca del Cardinal Bembo, (Genève: Librairie Droz 2005:30). 206 Poliziano’s Song of Aristaeus reads: “Deh tra fuor della tasca la zampogna / e canterem sotto l’ombrose foglie,/ ch’I’ so che la mia ninfa il canto agogna.” In Poliziano’s Rime. 207“Potemo adunque hora conoscere la differenza che è tra questa e l’altra specie di musica, che Metrica si chiama [...] la quale se medesimamente colemo dichiarare, non è altro che l’armonia, che nasce dal verso per la quantità delle sillabe [...]. Si che non dalle lettere, ma dal suono delle voci viene a nascere la Musica Metrica: perciochè accompagnandolo col suono de gli artificiali istrumenti, si forma il metro, come anticamente facevano li Poeti lirici, che al suono della Lira, o della Cetera cantavano i loro verso; onde parimente li poeti e i versi da loro cantai vengono chiamati Lirici.” [It is thus possible to recognize the difference between this and the other type of music, that of Meter […] that in a similar manner, we may say, is without different harmony, that arises in verses from the quantity of syllables […]. It is not from the letters, but from the sound of the voices that metric music originates: therefore, when it is accompanied by the sound of artificial instruments, meter is formed, similar to the ancient practice of the lyric poets, who sung their verses accompanied by the sound of the lyre or cithara; therefore the poets and their sung verses are defined as Lyrics] (Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche, Parte I, Cap. 9, p19; transl. mine). 208 “[...] si come sono li modi di cantare, sopra i quali cantiamo al presente li Sonetto, o Canzoni del Petrarca, overamente le Rime dell’Ariosto” (Zarlino, Book III, ch. 79, p. 355; transl. mine). 209Angelo Pompilio and Antonio Vassali, “Il madrigale a Napoli nel Cinque-Seicento” In Domenico Antonio D’Alessandro, and Agostino Ziino, eds. La musica a Napoli durante il Seicento: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi: Napoli, 11-14 aprile 1985. (Rome: Torre d’Orfeo, 1987:15). 164
Some of the early composers of madrigals in Naples whose Petrarchan settings were published were Giovan Tomaso Cimello, Costanzo Festa, Gian Domenico da Nola, Tommaso
Maio, Gian Domenico da Nola and Rooco Rodio (H. M. Brown 25). Festa was a prolific composer who worked at the court of Costanza d’Avalos and Vittoria Colonna in Ischia (McIver,
382). He composed musical settings for a poem by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1574) dedicated to Vittoria Colonna. Giovan Thomaso Cimello (1510–1591) was also a composer employed by the Colonna family. His Libro primo de’ canti sopra madrigal et altre rime con li nomi deli loro authori volgari a 4 voci, printed in Venice in 1548, included settings of poetry by
Petrarch, Ariosto, Vittoria Colonna and the Spanish Alfonso d’Avalos (McIver 383). Naples was also the ideal setting for Giache de Wert’s early musical formation under the patronage of María di Cardona. Indeed her court was the site of de Wert’s musical settings of Petrarch’s first capitolo of the Trionfi and five settings of stanzas from Ariosto’s Orlando (H. M. Brown 26).
At that time, in the early Cinquecento, numerous Spanish musicians visited Naples, namely Luis de Guzmán, Francisco de Salinas, Cristóbal de Morales, Diego Ortiz, Francisco
Martínez de Loscos, Pietro Valenzola, Giovannni and Pietro Gutiérrez (Larson 1983: 65). Luis de Guzmán was a soldier at the service of Charles V and “a player of wonderful sweetness on the cithara (Roberts 37). Likewise, a few Italian musicians travelled to Spain. Fabrizio Dentice worked in Barcelona in 1564 and Giulio Severino served the Marquis de Estepa in Spain in 1560
(Larson 1983:64). Significantly, Severino adopted the poetry of Garcilaso for the setting of two
Italian madrigals: O más dura que mármol and Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso now housed in the Valladolid Cathedral library, MS 17. On that matter Griffiths remarks: “The Spanish settings are indicative of Severino as a nexus between Naples and Spain” (2002:101). I expand
Griffiths’s idea to posit that whereas Severino serves as a conduit in the musical interaction
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between Naples and Spain, Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry is at the fulcrum of the literary and the musico-poetic interchange between the two countries.
Summary
In conclusion, sixteenth-century Naples hosted an intricate web of discourses on language, poetry, and music between the humanists in the courts, academies and women’s circles. Once in Naples, Garcilaso was in direct and/or indirect contact with some of the most well-known political and literary figures of the time, such as Bembo, Navagiero, and Castiglione, as well as ardent humanists and poets such as Giulio Cesare Caracciolo, Scipione Capece,
Girolamo Seripando and even the Benedictine Onorato Fascitelli, as well as women poet- musician, such as María de Cardona and soldier-poets-musicians such as Alfonso d’Ávalos and
Luigi Tansillo. Undeniably, as Bembo leaves engraved for history, Garcilaso was perhaps the most celebrated Spaniard in Naples.210 He placed himself in direct dialogue with Tasso, Tansillo, and Minturno with his dedication of Sonnet XXIV to María de Cardona (Chapter I). The dedication signifies the complex position of Cardona as a woman of poetry, and a musician in the Renaissance environment of Naples. Indeed, Sarli describes Cardona as a “woman of the highest culture, of singular beauty and most virtuous in music and song.”211
It has been established that Garcilaso was himself a skilled musician who extended his talent to declaim his own poetry (Keniston 20; Griffiths 2009:359). As a quintessential courtier, soldier, poet and musician, Garcilaso recognized himself in the various traditions that he
210 Bembo writes: “ut hoc aderet omnium Neapolitarutinom qui te novissent sermonibus attestationibusque confirmari, his temporibus, quibus maxime Italiam vestrae referserunt, quem omnes plane homines te uno ardentius amaverint, cuique plus tribuerint, illam ad urbem ex Hispania venisse porro nullum” (Sliwa 132). 211 Emilio Sarli, in La decima musa del Parnaso María de Cardona writes: “Fu donna di grande cultura, di singolare bellezza e valentissima nella musica e nel canto” (178; transl. mine). 166
interwove in his poetry. His plurilingual aptitude, encompassing Tuscan, Spanish, Catalan, Neo-
Latin, Latin, and Gascon (Brown 2002:174) extends to cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary adaptations for the enrichment of his Spanish poetic tradition.
The exchanges herein examined include treatises, dialogues, historical accounts, letters, poetry, music and dedications. Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry stood at the threshold of
Renaissance Hispanic and Neapolitan discourses. His voice penetrated the chorus of “dialogic genres” as a poet in the literary world and clearly in the musico-poetic context. We find
Garcilaso’s poetry played in the Spanish vihuela tradition in Italy (Ms. Magl. XIX and Brown’s
Sephardic collection in Leghorn), in the Italian madrigal tradition (Giulio Severino in MS 17), and set by Spanish composers in the Italian Madrigal tradition (Alonso Mudarra and others in the
Cancionero de Medinacaeli). Finally, the evidence confirms the status of Naples as a nexus for musical exchange between sixteenth-century Spain and Italy, and Garcilaso’s poetry, its supreme portavoce.
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CHAPTER V: UT MUSICA POESIS. GARCILASO’S POETRY SET TO MUSIC
In this concluding chapter, on the musico-poetic trajectory of Garcilaso’s verses, I borrow the expression ut musica poesis (as is music, so is poetry) from Howard Mayer Brown, who investigated the music and poetry of late sixteenth-century France (1994). Brown reveals that
Renaissance poets, similar to painters, sought to imitate nature through pictorial representations in order to stimulate emotions (2). He contends that poets, such as Pierre de Ronsard (1524–
1585) and Joachim du Bellay (1522–1560), extended the Horatian concept of ut pictura is poesis to music, that combined with poetry, provided a tangible manifestation of cosmic order and also served as catharsis influencing human emotions (3). Ronsard amd du Bellay fused music and poetry, and in doing so they enriched the French language (13).
In this attempt, as Brown observes, French poets borrowed from the ancient world and older lyricists, such as Maurice Scève (1501–1562), whose musical orientation can be traced back to the Catalan poet Il Chariteo and the Italian Serafino d’Aquilano (14). Il Chariteo’s poetic style, incidentally, bears the influence of the Catalan troubadour Ausiàs March.212 Indeed, Louise
Stein discerns that “Spanish musicians were among the first to recognize and promote the view that music and words to be sung, should coexist in a close relationship” (436). Their word-music relationship was firmly rooted in the long tradition of improvised song and recitation of medieval poems, a common practice, for example, at the Toledan court of Alfonso X the Wise. Unlike
Ronsard, Garcilaso, who died prematurely, did not leave written explicit evidence to reveal his own intent to write poetry for music. The previous chapters, however, demonstrate that Garcilaso borrowed from existing musical traditions for lyrical inspiration. Furthermore, considering that
212 For more on the poetry of Il Chariteo and the influence of Ausiàs March, read Pèrcopo (1892). 168
Renaissance composers sought the finest poetry in vernacular, especially Petrarchan poetry for their musical setting, I herein attempt to examine composer’s musical setting of Garcilaso’s poetry. I investigate possible interchanges between poet and composer and seek to understand that which musical settings may reveal in terms social, cultural, and historical contexts from which the music and the poetry arose.
Randel was the first to investigate the extent to which the style of the new poetry of
Garcilaso and other contemporaries, made a difference in the kind of music composed (1974:65).
He carefully analyzed three musical settings of Garcilaso’s poetry from the Cancionero de
Medinaceli, the largest collection of sixteenth-century Spanish polyphony. He considered the musical settings of a stanza from Garcilaso’s first Eclogue ¡O más dura que mármol, the Sonnet
Passando el mar Leandro set to music by Pedro Guerrero, as well as a stanza from the second
Eclogue ¡Quán bienaventurado attributed to Cevallos. Randel suggests that Garcilaso was well- known and admired by poets and composers alike. Composer’s penchant for the newest poetry in vernacular and Garcilaso’s imitation of the Petrarchan and classical model may have influenced their poetic choices (66). On the other hand, Pastor Comín asserts that Cervantes’s works may have also provided composers ideas for their compositions (2005:1). Indeed, Garcilaso’s verses resonate profusely in Cervantes’s works, especially the Don Quijote and La Galatea. Pastor
Comín notes the striking musical and literary connection between Garcilaso and Cervantes, for the old master’s verses appear more than fifteen times in the second part of Don Quijote and over one-hundred times in Cervantes’s other works (2005:3). Therefore, Cervantes marked his indebtedness to his predecessor, indirectly canonizing the Toledan as a poeta-musicus.
In this chapter, I will gather all extant Renaissance musical setting of Garcilaso’s poetry currently known to me, and attempt a tandem reading of five musical settings of Garcilaso’s
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literary texts: two for vihuela and voice, namely Por ásperos caminos, by Alonso Mudarra,
Flérida para mi dulce, by an anonymous composer and intabulated by Diego Pisador, and three
Italian madrigals Pasando el mar Leandro, by Pedro Guerrero, Gracias al cielo doy, by Juan
Vásquez, and En tanto de que rosa y azucena, by Francisco Guerrero. I will then proceed to a discussion of the music in the Magliabechiano manuscript XIX 109, along with one transcription, and Giulio Severino’s musical settings of Garcilaso’s verses. These are briefly mentioned in the literature but are highly significant in the overall understanding of his influence in the Renaissance musico-poetic context. Both genres, the solo song for vihuela and the polyphonic madrigal, are representative of the musical repertoire circulating during Garcilaso’s time.
For this analysis, I borrow the concept of ‘tandem reading’ from Lawrence Kramer, who notes that critically adequate musical/literary criticism, which he defines as melopoetics, must comprise a ‘double trajectory’ or ‘tandem reading’. In other words, the critic provides a serious interdisciplinary musical and literary criticism. Hence, Kramer insists, “each half [of the] analysis can claim to hold up in its own right, apart from the context of the comparison”
(1989:60). Clearly, each particular poetic or musical analysis could very well exist separately in its own discipline. Yet, investigated from an interdisciplinary lens, the musical settings present composers who are engaged in a dialogue with the poet, thus creating a symbiotic relationship.
The composer as exegete of the poetic work provides, perhaps, further insight into the musical characteristics of the text. Whereas poetry is as the principal seed of inspiration, in this musico- poetic fusion of arts the author, the composer, and the listener are all central to the creation of theholistic aesthetic experience.
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In terms of the methodology employed for this analysis, I will adopt philological, linguistic and musicological lenses to consider the broader context within which the poetry and music fused. I will therefore consider some of the questions posed by H. M. Brown (1994), who suggests that in order to understand the music we must first understand the poetry. The separate analysis of the works provides the fundamental differences between the two arts: linguistic syntax vs. musical syntax. Once this is clear, we can begin to discern with confidence the peculiarities of the music-text relationship. H. M. Brown also underscores that in considering the relationship between Southern European music and poetry of the sixteenth-century, one may be tempted to analyse through “Italianate spectacles, yet one needs to look at unique French ways of thinking about prosody and rhetoric and about more subtle relationships between music and literary ideas” (49). Certainly I will explore ways in which the fusion of music and Garcilaso’s poetry reflects Spanish expression and then how it relates to the broader European socio-cultural context.
In this analysis I shall draw from Alonso (1971), Montgomery (1978) and NavarroTomás
(1969) in the consideration of rhythm, verbal music and sound symbolism as the basic constructs for poetry, and from the research of Eric Thomas Chafe, in the study of word-tone relationships in the musical settings. I am also indebted to the works of Susan McClary, who adopts an interdisciplinary lens to link sixteenth-century musicopoetic works to their social contexts by drawing from writers such as Michel Foucault, Stephen Greenblatt and Peter Burke, with the purpose of interrogating art’s details and conventions in terms of human subjectivity, and also as
“potential sources of historical evidence” (McClary 8). Both Chafe and McClary analyze the musical settings of poetry in the context of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century tonal syntax, which consists primarily of modal polyphonic practices. McClary contends that the sixteenth-
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century repertoire cannot be analyzed through the seventeenth-century’s musical idiom. Earlier composers’s modal language includes a broader gamma of expressive possibilities than those provided by major/minor tonality (17). In other words, the two modes of expression are markedly different. The analogy is similar, McClary explains, to that of Arctic languages, that can express the word snow in a dozen ways in respect to the limited number offered by the
English language (17).
The first part includes a review of Garcilaso’s poetry in the vihuela repertoire, to be followed by a poetic and musical analysis of two works, one by Alonso Mudarra, a professional musician, and the second by Diego Pisador, an amateur composer. I will not attempt yet another reading of Garcilaso’s poetry found in Miguel de Fuenllana is Orphénica Lyra and Esteban
Daza’s Parnasso. Don M. Randel (1974), Rachel Meyers (2009) and Juan Pastor Comín (2009) investigate Fuenllana’s vihuela intabulation of O más dura que mármol, by Pedro Guerrro.213
John Griffiths discusses Daza’s collection, including an in-depth analysis of the musical setting by Ceballos on a stanza from Garcilaso’s second Eclogue, Quán bienaventurado, as transcribed by Querol (Encomium Musicae 2002:321–337). The second part of this chapter includes works for solo voice by Pedro Guerrero, Juan Vásquez and Francisco Guerrero. All of the musical settings are amongst the earliest attempts at the madrigal form, this being a polyphonic composition for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment, or solo voices.214 Each section provides a summary of all Renaissance musical settings of Garcilaso’s poetry unearthed thus
213 Meyers mistakenly interchanges the names of Pedro and Francisco (iii and 112). 214 For more information on the madrigal in Spain, see Margarita Restrepo (2009). 172
far.215
Garcilaso’s Poetry in the Vihuela Repertoire in Spain and in Italy
The vihuela was a typically Spanish instrument, as attested to by Joahannes Tinctoris in his treatise on fifteenth-century instruments, De invention et usu musicae (ca. 1487). He defined the instrument as hispanorum invento (in Griffiths 1997:159). The vihuela emerged in the fifteenth century, denoting a stringed instrument that could be played with fingers, a bow or a plectrum. Its appearance coincided with the emergence of polyphonic instrumental music in
Spain (Koonce 1). Griffiths remarks on the social versatility of the instrument as the middle class, the nobility and royalty enjoyed it in both formal and informal settings. Considerable numbers of printed editions of music for vihuela have emerged in recent years, providing evidence of its widespread popularity, even among soldiers such as Garcilaso de la Vega
(Griffiths in Koonce 2).216 Considering the widespread practice of solo vihuela performances in sixteenth-century Spain, however, sources available to us today remain scarce. The following table includes seven collections of tablature for the vihuela in Spain between 1536 and 1576:
215 Excluded from this table are possible later compositions, such as a setting for voice and piano of Garcilaso’s Canción III, Flauta y Vihuela (1945), by the Mallorcan composer, Joan Maria Thomàs, and Four Spanish Sonnets by the twentieth-century American choral conductor and composer Z. Randall Stroope. 216 For more on the history of the vihuela, read Ward (1953). On its stylistic performance, see Griffiths (1999), and finally, see Isabelle Pope (1961) for an understanding of the place of the vihuela in Renaissance humanistic circles.
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Table I – Early Spanish Vihuela Collections Luis Milán El Maestro Valencia, 1536.
Luis de Narváez Los seys libros del Delphín Valladolid, 1538.
Alonso Mudarra Tres Libros de Música Seville, 1546.
Enrique de Valderrábano Silvas de sirenas Valladolid, 1547.
Diego Pisador Libro de música de Vihuela Salamanca, 1552.
Miguel de Fuenllana Orphénica Lyra Seville, 1554.
Esteban Daza El Parnasso Valladolid, 1576.
Garcilaso’s poetry appears in these last five collections published after the arrival in print of
Boscán and Garcilaso’s poetry in print in 1543.
There is evidence, albeit scarce at the moment, that Garcilaso’s poetry in music was
already performed in Renaissance Spain and Italy. In Spain, in 1590, a play was presented in
honour of Philip II during which a well-known performer, Doña Catalina Acuña, sang
Garcilaso’s A Dafne ya los braços le crecían (Sonnet XIII) accompanied by guitar. This was for
one of the first extant plays from the era of Philip II (Stein 466).217 Other findings of Garcilaso’s
poetry emerged in recent years in collections of vihuela tablatures in Italy. An octave from
Garcilaso’s third Eclogue, [C]erca del Tajo en soledad amena, is included in Bodleian Hebrew
manuscript Reggio 55 (Brown 1998). It is not surprising to find this particular work set to music,
since this eclogue presents an imaginary sphere in which the thematic, linguistic, and semantic
field come together to produce utmost musical expression. Brown observes that Conversos
Sephardim living in Leghorn or Pisa entuned this Eclogue probably to the accompaniment of the
217 A personal conversation with Dr. Louise Stein and the musicologist Daniel Zuluaga confirmed that no musical settings of Doña Catalina Acuña’s performance of Garcilaso’s A Dafne ya los braços have been unearthed thus far. It is very possible that, as was common at the time, the music may have been improvised. 174
lute (2002:175). The Conversos and Sephardim were Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who were very skilled musicians: “knowledge of music and dancing was obligatory […]. Jewish composers and instrumentalist were prized guests and performers at several distinguished courts, including
Lorenzo de Medici in Florence” (Sachar 1994). It was such an environment, then, that the
Sephardim sang Garcilaso’s verses when “not studying the Torah, Hebrew language, Talmud, and Cabala” (Brown 2002:175).
In Italy, we also find the first stanza of Canción V in the Magliabechiano CL XIX 109
(Cacho, in Veneziano 2002).218 According to Cacho, the manuscript was initially housed in the
Biblioteca Medicea Palatina, and is from the sixteenth-century. The Cl 109 is one of four manuscripts. The first includes three canciones by Juan del Encina, who allegedly accompanied
Pope Leon X (Giovanni de Medici) to Florence in 1515 as his chamber musician and “secret cantor” (83). It is possible, as Cacho conjectures, that Encina may have inspired a penchant for
Spanish musico-poetic likings within the Florentine culture (Veneziano 84). These findings depict Florence as a centre of cosmopolitan culture. It is thus significant to find a poem by
Garcilaso in one of these Florentine collections of musical settings of Italian poetry in the form of tablatures for vihuela. In this manuscript, only one other Spanish poem is included, the octava attributed to Juan de Orta, A su Albedrío y sin orden alguna, to the later cited by Cervantes (DQ
II- 49). The copyist was familiar with the Spanish language since the verses are articulated correctly. The composer, on the other hand, may have been an amateur, since the musical notations are unclear and the rhythm inconsistent:
218 For this information, I am indebted to Dr. Kenneth Brown, who exhumed the collection. It is housed in the Bodleian Library’s Department of Oriental Books. See Brown 1998. I am also grateful to María Teresa Cacho for personally providing the information that led me to Florence to study the Magliabechiano manuscript in situ. 175
Fig. 4. Si de mi baja lira in Ms. Magliabechiano XIX 109 fol.7v. Reprinted with permission of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze.
Ms. Magliabechiano CL XIX 109 would offer delightful case study of cross-cultural interchanges between Renaissance Italy and Spain. Garcilaso’s presence certainly adds another rich dimension of interest in that his poem Si de mi baja lira, from his Canción V, in my opinion, is representative of the Spanish musico-poetic tradition and one of his most musical poetic accomplishments in any Romance language.219 Magliabechiano is an indication of Garcilaso’s pervasive influence in Italy, a sign that the vihuela tradition that had originated in Spain spread to Italy. More on-site research would undounbtedly lead to a better understanding of Garcilaso’s poetry in the Italian literary tradition as well as in the Hispanic/Italian sixteenth-century musico- poetic interchange. This dissertation includes a transcription of the Magliabechiano’s Si de mi baja lira (see Appendix I), provided by Dr. Ralph Meier of Calgary, a soloist perfomer of the vihuela. The CD includes two versions of this poem: with solo singer (Julie Harris) and vihuela
219 For a close reading of Ode ad florem Gnidi and its musical elements, see Chapter III. 176
(Dr. Ralph Meier) (track 9), and a version in which Robinson Ayala Mejía declaims the poetry accompanied by Dr. Ralph Meier on the vihuela (track 10).
The first stanza of Garcilaso’s Canción V also appears in a polyphonic work by the
Catalan composer Pere Albrech Vila, Odarum (1561). This work includes a musical setting of
Garcilaso’s El aspereza de mis males (First stanza of Canción IV). Regretfully, the Odarum comes to us incomplete:
Fig. 5. Pere Albrech Vila, Odarum (Quas vulgo madrigales appellamus) diuersis linguis decantatarum harmonica, noua, & excellenti modulatione compositarum, Liber primus: altus. Barcinone: Iavobi Cortey, 1561. (Biblioteca de Catalunya).
Navarrete observes that in these early collections it is uncommon to find musical settings of sonnets (1992:770). His study of the literary debates on the worth of the sonnet reveals that this verse form was considered more prosaic in nature than the more musically traditional Castilian forms (771). Nonetheless, Garcilaso’s sonnets are present in almost every collection compiled by
Mudarra, Pisador, Fuenllana, and Daza:
Table II – Garcilaso’s Poetry in Vihuela Collections Poem Composer Poetic form Musical Form Collection Por ásperos caminos Alonso de Mudarra Sonnet Melody with Alonso de Mudarra, Tres polyphonic libros de música en cifras accompaniment. para vihuela. Seville: Juan (CD Track 1) de Leon, 1546. Transcription by Emilio Pujol, 1949.
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Passando el mar Leandro Adaptation from Sonnet Madrigal Diego Pisador, Libro de Pedro Guerrero (CD Track 3) música de vihuela. Salamanca, 1552. Flérida para mi dulce y Anonymous Eclogue III –v.1-2 Madrigal Diego Pisador, Libro de sabrosa (CD Track 2) música de vihuela. Salamanca, 1552.
O más dura que mármol Adaptation from Eclogue I –St. 5-9 Madrigal Miguel de Fuenllana, Libro a mis quexas220 Pedro Guerrero (CD Track 5) de música para vihuela Composed for intitulado Orphénica Lyra. vihuela by Seville: Martín de Fuenllana Montesdoca, 1554. (Libro V fol.v cxxiiii, and fol.r cxxiiii).221
O más dura que mármol Anonymous Morais, Manuel, Cancionero a mis quexas Musical de Belém Portuguese Mannerist Music, Introductory Study and Transcription. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa de Moeda, 1988.
Quan bienventurado Attr. To Rodrigo Stanza 1 and 2 Canción/Madrigal Esteban Daza, Libro de Ceballos Eclogue II música de cifras para vihuela, intitulado El Parnasso. Valladolid: Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1576.
Escrito está en mi alma Anonymous Sonnet Madrigal Esteban Daza, Libro de vuestro gesto (CD Track 8) música de cifras para vihuela, intitulado El parnasso. Valladolid: Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1576.
Serca del Taio en Anonymous Eclogue III – st.8-9 MS. Reggio 55 soledad amena Oxford: Bodleian Library.222
Si de mi baja lira Anonymous Canción V Voice and vihuela MS. Magliabechiano CL (CD Track 9) XIX 109.223
220 Only the fifth stanza, O más dura que mármol a mis quexas appears in Querol’s transcriptions, as it appears in the Cancionero de la Casa de Medinaceli (see p. 50). 221 The abbreviations R and V stand for recto and verso indicating the front and back of a leaf of paper. 222 Discovered by Kenneth Brown (1998). 223 Exhumed by María Teresa Cacho (2001). 178
Alonso de Mudarra (ca.1510-1580)
Mudarra was a composer and vihuelist raised in Guadalajara at the court of the third
Duke of the Infantado, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1461–1531), and his son Íñigo López de
Mendoza y Pimentel (1493–1566). With them, the composer had the opportunity to travel to
Italy. The influential Mendoza family often hosted notables of the day, including Charles V and
Francis I (Ward 376). Mudarra was allegedly one of the best vihuelists of his day, a canon of the
Cathedral of Seville, and a contemporary of one of Spain’s best-known organists, Antonio
Cabezón, a composer at the service of Charles V and Philip II (Anglés III: 1476).
In 1546, Mudarra published Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela, in Seville; it is a work revealing the influence of Italian lute music and coeval practices (Ward 375). He was the first to attempt a madrigal setting of and for Spanish verses. Previously, Luis Milán had included only Italian sonnets in El Maestro (1536). Luis de Narváez does not include any sonnets in Los seys libros del Delphín de música (Valladolid 1538). Narváez worked as a composer for a well- known patron of the arts, Francisco de los Cobos, Charles V’s secretary and music tutor for his children, in particular for the future king of Spain Philip II (Perkins 787). However, Navarrete conjectures that at the time of the publication of Los seys libros, Narváez may not have known the new literary forms that were about to transfrom the literary history of Spain (1992:775).
Indeed, Garcilaso’s verses appeared in print seven years later, in 1543.
Stevenson asserts that Mudarra was a composer “of singular excellence and taste,” who strove to establish superior musical excellence at the Seville Cathedral (142). The composer’s
Tres Libros is the third tablature printed in Spain (Stevenson 173). It reflects the humanistic taste for it includes the Latin verses of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, as well as the Italian verse of
Petrarch and Sannazaro as well as the Spanish verses of Jorge Manrique, Juan del Encina, Juan
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Boscán and Garcilaso de la Vega. Mudarra includes seven sonnets. According to Navarrete, it remains the largest of extant vihuela books (1992:777).
In this consideration of the setting of Garcilaso’s poetry to music, it is particularly meaningful that Mudarra appears first since he seems to be the first composer to include
Garcilaso’s verses. Moreover, since the Tres Libros is the first collection of musical settings of sonnets to Spanish texts, the inclusion of Garcilaso in this collection is noteworthy. Therefore, the poet emerges not only as the chief innovator of new literary forms but also as a nexus in the musico-poetic adaptation of Italian forms for Spain.
Por ásperos caminos - The Poetry of Garcilaso
Por ásperos caminos he llegado a parte, que de miedo no me muevo; y si a mudarme, o dar un paso pruevo, allí por los cabellos soy tornado;
mas tal estoy, que con la muerte al lado busco de mi vivir consejo nuevo; y conozco el mejor y el peor apruevo, o por costumbre mala o por mi hado.
Por otra parte, el breve tiempo mío y el errado proceso de mis años, en su primer principio y en su medio,
mi inclinación con quien ya no porfío, la cierta muerte, fin de tantos daños, me hazen descuidar de mi remedio. (Soneto VI; in Rivers 2011:48)
It’s by rugged paths like these I’m taken / Moreover, I am kept still by fear; / And if I try to take one step, / I’m taken back to where I was. / With death beside me / I would be no worse; / I seek new guidance for my life; / I know what is best but I do what is worst, / Owing to bad habits or my fate. / Besides this, the short time I have left, / And the mistaken course of my years, / [At the beginning and in the middle] / My desire for the one I no longer trust, / And certain death that ends / So much suffering makes me neglect myself, and / my remedy (transl. Juan José Pastor Comín 2009 with permission).224
224 In braket translation is mine to reflect Garcilaso’s text. I am indebted to Dr. Pastor Comín for personally securing this translation as adapted by Alonso Mudarra who omits v. 11. 180
Sonnet VI was allegedly written in the early stages of Garcilaso’s poetic career (Morros
1995:376). Addressed to an unidentified lover, in these verses the poetic voice manifests a state of wretchedness. The poetic subject seems to find himself at the critical threshold of life’s journey - in the middle - when one is compelled to take account of ontological existence.
Thematically, these verses resonate humankind’s universal struggle for human love or love of one’s art. In the second part of the Sonnet, the subject justifies his state of aporia, realizing that impending death brings an end to all inclination and desire.
In the opening verses, the poetic voice describes his camino, or road, as áspero (perilous), and his vacillating state, de miedo no me muevo [benumbed by fear] (v. 2). Morros maintains that the poet intertextually connects with the cancionero poetry of the Catalan lyricist Ausiàs March
(1995:376). Specifically, Garcilaso’s opening verses recall the Valencian’s poem CXXI:
“Abandon your vice, and take up virtue, / between these two there is a great pathway; / the walk is terrible and harduous / when one is midway without aid.”225 The metaphor of the camino is a recurring motif in Garcilaso’s works, emphasizing a poetic subject at the crossroads of life where it is overwhelmed by his passions, feelings of entanglement, and obligation. These themes appear also in Sonnets I, VIII, XVII, and XXIV.226
In this Sonnet VI, Garcilaso draws from Petrarch’s Canzone CCLXIV. Heiple observes, however, that in Garcilaso moral ambiguity becomes a central argument (166). Both poets seek life’s counsel, but ultimately surrender to death. As the Petrarchan subject vacillates between his love for Laura and that for God, he articulates his inadequacy, hence his choice. Petrarch’s last
225 “Vici jaquir e pendre la virtut / entre aquest mig se troba un gran vai; / lo caminant és en terrible glai / quan és al mig sens lo socors vengut” (vv. 41–44 in Archer 532; transl. Robinson Ayala). 226 Considering Garcilaso’s works number barely over fifty, the word camino (including the plural form caminos) is used in more than twelve works, for a total of twenty-nine times. 181
verses read thus: “I see the best, I choose the worst.”227 Similarly, Garcilaso’s poetic subject expresses “I seek new guidance for my life; / I know what is best but I do what is worst.”228 In
Garcilaso’s poem, life’s sudden realization occurrs midway, at the end of the second quatrain, offering an opportunity for psychological change in the sextet. Unlike Petrarch however,
Garcilaso’s poetic voice does not move beyond the precincts of the poetic form. Thinking that death is certain justifies the poetic subject’s ambivalence, and in the end nothing indicates that the individual actually makes the transition to end the journey. On the contrary, right from the onset the poetic subject stipulates that if he attempts a move, will be immediately dragged back and pulled by the hair: y si a mudarme a dar un paso pruebo, / allí por los cabellos soy tornado
(vv. 3-4).
The idea is emphasized by the recurrent, droning sounds of the anaphora por: por
ásperos/ por los cabellos / por costumbre / por mi / por otra and finally no porfio. The last word signifies, in its etymological sense, to contend. Cacophony is heightened by words beginning with the plosive consonant p229 and the repeating consonant cluster pr: parte / paso / pruevo / peor / apruevo / proceso / primer / principio. The poetic voice resists no longer: no porfio. The anaphora echoes the foreboding words perceived by Dante’s pilgrim standing at the entrance of
Hell: “Per me si va nella città dolente, / per me si va nell'eterno dolore, / per me si va tra la
227 “[C]erco del viver mio novo consiglio/ et veggio’l meglio, e tal peggior m’appiglio” (Petrarch, CCLXIV: vv. 135–136; transl. mine). 228 “[B]usco de mi vivir consejo nuevo, / y conozco el mayor y el peor apruebo” (Garcilaso, Sonnet VI: vv. 6–7; transl. Pastor Comín). 229 The difference between voiced and voiceless can be felt in the vibration of the vocal chords. According to the linguist Terell A. Morgan, while in the English language the consonant p may be aspirated at the begining of a word, such as pot, peek, pill, in the Spanish language the consonant is always oclusiva y sordas – occlusive and voiceless (2010: 158). 182
perduta gente […] Queste parole discolor oscuro vid’io scritte al sommo di una porta.”230
The p motif sounds in counterpoint to that of the consonant m reminiscent of the drums of death
(muerte): miedo / me muevo / mudarme / muerte / costumbre / mala / tiempo mio / medio / muerte / remedio. The overall effect is not one of harmonious musicality; on the contrary, the sound of these verses projects harmony with strife.231 Nadine Ly, who conducted extensive studies of Juan de Mena’s Laberinto de Fortuna,232 a medieval poem in which the idea of man’s journey is central to the poet, observes that, if one cared to listen and to understand the music of the work, one would discover “harmonious cacophony” in the sound that the words form, or a symphonic motif that contributes significantly at the semantic level to the meaning of the work.233 Likewise, in Garcilaso’s Sonnet VI the repeated sounds of p and m provide a case of harmonious cacophony. It is harmonious because the consonants produce a motif; cacophonous because tension and dissonance are produced when the sound of p is placed against m.
Unlike Dante, whose poetic realization occurs at the doors of underworld as he declares that this journey is not uniquely his but rather “ours” (nostra vita),234 Garcilaso places himself at the centre of this preoccupation: he llegado (v. 1) (I have reached). The poet’s arrival at the threshold of life and death marks a transition that, Gatland construes, represents destination and
230 “Through me you enter into the city of wretchedness, through me is the way to eternal suffering, through me is the way to the place of the lost [… ] These dark words I saw written above the entrance door” (Commedia – Inferno Canto III vv. 1–10). 231 See Spitzer’s notion of harmony with strife, discussed in Chapter II. 232 The Laberinto (1444) is a classical epic poem written in arte mayor, in 12 syllables, over 300 stanzas. It was inspired by Dante’s Inferno. 233 Indeed, Ly observes it would take Saussure’s patience and perspicacity to unravel all the structures that contribute to the semantic and linguistic density of Mena’s work (1997:80). 234 The Divine Commedy reads: “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/ mi ritrovai per una selva oscura” (Canto I- Inferno vv. 1-2) – halfway in the journey of our life/ I found myself in a dark wood (transl. mine). Hollander links the Cammino motif to Hezekiah, Bernard of Clarivaux and the epic tradition. 183
originality (76). Emma Gatland, for her study of liminality in the sonnets of Garcilaso (2010), draws from Anthony J. Cascardi, who asserts that:
The focus in Garcilaso’s verse is not the objectivity of the object as potential vehicle for satisfaction of desire (or conversely the suffering and pain that stems from absence of the beloved object) but the ability to create himself out of a series of speech-acts whose ultimate challenge is to establish their own efficacy.235
Gatland argues that, while Cascardi recognizes Garcilaso’s inability to transition between subject and object, the impossibility is ‘deliberate’ in order to ensure that the poetic subject remains firmly rooted in artistic form (76).
From this perspective the poet’s ultimate struggle lies at the threshold of art and life.
Establishing meaning through a sophisticated semantic field, the poet places the listener in a situation where she is compelled to perform an exegetical act in order to interpret the nature of the struggle, to distinguish between the physical and the psychological journey, and to place the poetic conceit in context of the greater literary tradition, be it Spanish, Italian or ancient.
Garcilaso’s speculation about the poetic subject’s self, according to Gatland, is a deliberate attempt to create “a poetic voice that otherwise might not be heard” (75). On this note, we proceed to the analysis of Mudarra’s composition to consider how the composer as an exegete, responds to Garcilaso’s Por ásperos caminos.
Por ásperos caminos - The Music of Alonso Mudarra (CD Tr. 1)
Mudarra’s musical setting of this soneto for voice and vihuela reflects a style similar to early improvised vihuela songs, the frottola, or early Italian madrigal in which music is carefully composed to heighten the music-text relationship (Griffiths 2003: 130). The composer’s choice
235 Cascardi 1997:260 and Gatland 75. Gatland grounds her observations through a close analysis of thirteen sonnets by Garcilaso. 184
of this literary form for Spain is definitely a move to maintain a dialogue with humanistic literary trends. The composer follows the division of the sonnet in two quatrains and two tercets. The two quartets are repeated over the same musical line in an AABC form. According to Navarrete,
Mudarra’s close attention to the prosodic form is unusual among Spanish vihuelists, thus displaying complete knowledge of the poetic genre (777-778). Yet, one could argue, it is also typical of the solo vihuela improvised tradition in which music followed closely the poetic form.
The musical framework is firmly built around a strong F modal centre with some extraneous chords to heighten the meaning of words. Though it may appear that the tonality circles major and minor keys foreshadowing the full-fledged tonality of the eighteenth-century,
Chafe observes that the sixteenth-century form is understood in terms of a “modal-hexachordal” system built on a choice between cantus durus and cantus mollis.236 In 1989, Peter Manuel stressed the importance of recognizing that the Western harmonic system built on related chords evolved from early modal practices in which modes comprised by a linear melodic construct centered around a tone and where the polyphonic structure included melodic lines governed by linear tonal centre instead of horizontal harmonies (70).
In the opening idea, the rhythm of the melody mirrors the text closely by accentuating the prosodic accents of the hendecasyllabic line. Mudarra’s attention to text-music relationship is
236 Eric Chafe, in his study of Monteverdi’s tonal language, demonstrates that sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century tonal language essentially centered around three hexachords beginning on the note G (hard hexachord), F (Soft), and C (the natural hexachord). A fourth hexachord was added to accommodate the tradition to use flats in the key signature. Hence, according to Chafe, the gamut of the cantus mollis includes the two flat, one flat and natural hexachord and the cantus durus the three traditional hexachords – soft, natural and hard. The following is Chafe’s framework for the harmonic range of the four hexachords: two flat hexachord: Eb Bb F - c/C - g/G - d/D one-flat hexachord Bb F - C - g/G - d/D - a/A natural hexachord F - C - G - d/D - a/A - e/E sharp hexachord C - G - d/D - a/A - e/E - b/B For further discussion, see Chafe (1992:27). 185
immediately displayed with a melisma that colours and emblematically prolongs the term llevado
(transported), ending with a Phrygian cadence, that is to say ending on the raised fifth chord A.
This cadence accentuates a typical Andalusian tonality of pre-Moorish Spain (Manuel 72). In the next phrase, the melody moves stepwise to remains static on the same pitch, with slightest movement in virtually declamatory style, this to underscore the moment of fear and immobility communicated by the words: “therein petrified with fear I dare not move / and if I attempt to take a step […].”237 In the Sonnet, the rhythm pauses in suspense at the end of the second and third verses. Similarly, the composer pauses the melodic line on the term pruevo [or pruebo] (I attempt), with a C cadence:
Musical example 1. Alonso Mudarra “Por ásperos caminos” (mm. 20-24), in Jacobs (1988:35).
Subsequently, a quicker rhythmic figure drives the cadence with a melisma in the melody on the word tornado (overturned), thus depicting images of a poet whose attempted move is suddenly arrested by the dragging of the hair. In this final phrase of the first section, the accompaniment modulates through various “chords” underscoring the meaning of text and the fury of the physical scene:
237 “[A] parte que de miedo no me muevo / y si a mudarme a dar un paso pruebo […]” (Garcilaso Sonnet VI, vv. 2- 3; transl. Juan José Pastor Comín). 186
Musical example 2. Alonso Mudarra “Por ásperos caminos” (mm. 25-31), in Jacobs (1988:35).
In the second half, the first tercet comes to a rest on a minor and the composer chooses to omit the eleventh verse: en su primer principio y en su medio (and the mistaken course of my years). In its place, Mudarra repeats the tenth verse transposing it up a third to Bb in order to highlight el errado processo de mis años (the erratic process of [the subject’s] years). The composer, thus, enters into dialogue with the poet, so as to interrogate the erratic process of life one that yields ambiguous outcomes. Indeed, Griffiths remarks on Mudarra’s acute sensitivity to text composing, music that enhances “the drama of the text” (2003:126).
In the thirteenth verse, the toll of death is foreboding. According to the musical setting, the note A sounds five times over various chords, including the raised A chord, to epitomize certain death [la cierta muerte] (v. 13 – m. 65). The voice abandons itself on a free melisma on the words mis daños (my suffering), ending this phrase with a succession of tone changes, the melody weaving in and out of the tone G, as accompanied by the chords e/d/ D/ Eb:
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Musical Example 3. Alonso Mudarra “Por ásperos caminos” (mm. 63 - 70) in Jacobs (1988:36). The melody finally reaches its destination by weaving through the various modalities of the two- flat hexachord (Eb - c/C). The last phrase is marked by a melismatic passage on the words of de mi remedio, by so doing accentuating the carelessness of the poetic subject absorbed in and by his earthly misery. After moments of uncertainty the voice comes to rest on F.
In this first attempt to fuse Italianate poetic forms, Spanish texts and music, the work rest at the threshold of the new Renaissance humanistic voices to be heard.
Diego Pisador (ca. 1509 – ca. 1557)
Pisador was born in Salamanca. Scholars consider him an amateur vihuelist and composer (Griffiths 2008). His family inheritance made possible the expensive publication of his
Libro de música vihuela, a compilation of seven short books that includes settings of works in
Latin, Italian, Castilian and some in solmization.238 His transcriptions of Garcilaso’s two works are based on pre-existing madrigals of anonymous composers. Whereas both are categorized as a soneto, only the first one is actually written in sonnet form. The second is in hendecasyllabic octava form, the third an eclogue. Pisador incurred major expense for the production of his book, that took fifteen years to complete (Meier Ch. 3). One would assume that his transcriptions were
238 Solmization is defined as using syllables, such as ut, re, mi, fa, sol and la, to sing the hymn. 188
among those well-known works that would appeal most to the market. Passando el mar Leandro was certainly a popular work, and the setting by Guerrero well known. The question that arises, however, is why the inclusion of Flérida para mí dulce y sabrosa by an anonymous composer?
There is no extant version of this work to demonstrate its popularity, suggesting an area that needs further research.
Fig. 7. Diego Pisador “Flérida para mi dulce y sabrosa.” Libro de música de vihuela fol.v vii .
Flérida para mi dulce y sabrosa - The Poetry of Garcilaso
Tirreno
Flérida, para mí dulce y sabrosa más que la fruta del cercado ajeno, más blanca que la leche y más hermosa que’l prado por Abril de flores lleno: si tú respondes pura y amorosa al verdadero amor de tu Tirreno, a mi majada arribarás primero que’l cielo nos amuestre su lucero (Ecl. III, vv. 305–311; in Rivers 2011:223).
Flérida, for me, sweeter, more alluring / than forbidden fruit in a neighbour’s orchard, / whiter than fresh milk and more entrancing / than April meadows filled with new spring flowers; / if you respond with a heart that’s pure and
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loving / to Tirreno’s love, which is all truly yours, / at the sheepfold I know you will appear / before in the sky we see the evening star (transl. John Dent-Young 200–201).
In this third Eclogue, the first octava of the antiphonal stanzas between two shepherds opens with Tirreno’s song to his beloved Flérida, this being a mythical name of folkloric origins.239 Fernández-Morera provides an insightful interpretation of Garcilaso’s song in the context of its Virgilian model. More importantly, for this discussion, he discerns that the songs in
Garcilaso’s eclogues are never part of a singing contest, rather “an expression of personal lyricism on the part of the shepherds” who are in effect imitating Virgil stylistically but leaving everything else behind to forge the poet’s own lyrical expression (96). From a linguistic perspective, the opening octave is a delight in synaesthetic effect and verbal sonority marked, for example, by the resonance of liquid consonants that form an auditory motif: Flérida / sabrosa / fruta / blanca / prado / Abril / flores / primero / amuestre with an inflection on the rhyming adjectives: sabrosa, hermosa and amorosa [sweet, beautiful and loving].240 From the onset of these stanzas, Garcilaso crafts his verses into pure pastoral art, arousing a synesthetic symphony of feelings: sweeter than fruit, whiter than milk and more delightful than April meadows filled with new spring flowers. Although this is not the place to digress into an extended analysis of the lyricism in Garcilaso’s Third Eclogue, it is significant to underline that Tirreno’s song forms an integral strand of the overall structure meant to free the poetic voice from its prison, so that its
Orpheic resonance may halt the waters of oblivion:
239 For more information about the folkloric origins of the character of Flérida, see Manuel a Costa Fontes (2000). Interestingly, Costa Fontes indicates that Gil Vicente (1465ca. –1536 ca.) was one of the most renowned European playwrights of his time, and the author of the ballad of Flérida and don Duardos (1525), that inspired many imitations (Ch. 7 The Oral Transmission of Flérida 119–180). 240 According to Morgan, Spanish liquid consonants are resonant when a syllable begins with two consonants in clusters, namely: plaza, prisa, blanco, etc. (2010:368). 190
Pienso mover la voz a ti debida; Libre mi alma de su estrecha roca, Por el Estigo lago conducida,
Celebrando t’irá, y aquel sonido Hará parar las aguas del olvido. (Ecl. III, vv. 12–16; in Rivers 2011:209)
I intend to stir the voice, which I owe to you; my soul, when it is free of its narrow prison, and is being ferried over the Stygian Lake, will continue to celebrate you, and that sound will halt the waters of oblivion (transl. Rivers (1966: 68).
Indeed, Rivers (1974) defines the third Eclogue as “canto y discurso” [song and speech] (245; transl. mine). It is thus not coincidental that we find Tirreno’s stanza in a musical setting arranged by Pisador, and, similarly, the eighth and ninth stanzas, Cerca del Tajo, en soledad amena, in a collection of songs recorded by the Sephardim in Italy (Brown 1988). Indeed, the pastoral lyrical style of this eclogue lends itself to the Sephardic tradition of poetry singing
(Caparrós 356). If the meter did not exactly conform to theirs, for they tended to use more traditional forms, perhaps the simple lyricism of Garcilaso’s pastoral world did.241
Flérida para mí dulce – Intabulation by Diego Pisador (CD Tr. 4)
Jacobs (1988) provides the modern vihuela player a transcription of Pisador’s vihuela settings of Garcilaso’s first two verses of the eclogue’s thirty-ninth octave. He specifies that the work is for four voices; in this case, one is the singing voice, and the other three are for vihuela accompaniment: “las tres tañidas y las otras cantada” (Pisador fol.v V). The work would be what
Griffiths defines as “animated homophony,” imitating closely the solo singing models with simple melodies and repeated notes (Encomium 2002: 336).
241 For more insight on this topic, read Brown and Aranda 1998:45–54. 191
Flerída’s melody gravitates around the F modal centre. In the first verse, contrary to the poetic voice that proceeds without respite to affirm that Flérida is sweeter and more alluring than the forbidden fruit in the neighbor’s orchard, the composer savors the sound of the word sabrosa
(sweeter), with long notes and a melismatic moment in the tenor voice:
Musical example 4. Flérida, para mí dulce Diego Pisador (mm. 1–7) in Jacobs (1988:77).
The music comes to a complete rest before starting again with the second verse, and drives to a final cadence on F at the end of the second verse “fruta del cercado ajeno.” Overall, the voices move in simple stepwise motion and the harmonic structure is kept very simple. There are no virtuso displays. The composer seeks no further poetic material; the second verse is repeated to a new melody landing on F modal centre.
This treatment of poetic material, on behalf of the composer, challenges the listener to question this interpretation. The question is: why only two verses, and why repeat the second verse? Perhaps the composer intended the rest of the stanza to be repeated over the same musical structure. This was common practice at a time when intabulations included little embellishment other than at cadences (Griffiths 1997: 163). Indeed, Anglés asserts that the early polyphonic
Spanish composers, well versed with the complex style of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic school, chose to compose mostly in simple contrapuntal form. “That is which is so wonderful about Spanish music!” exclaimed Anglés (1216). It is worth noting however, that in the same collection, Pisador includes sophisticated transcriptions of the complex polyphonic Masses of the
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Flemish Josquin de Prez. Finally, Maier reminds the listeners, that although Pisador’s efforts as an amateur composer were modest at best, this poetry of Garcilaso se to music may not be available to us without his efforts (2012:243). Certainly no other pre-existing copies of Flérida have been found.
Garcilaso’s Poetry in Collections of Madrigals for Solo Voices
It is significant that two settings found in Madrigal collections were composed by the
Italian Giulio Severino, attesting to the admiration for Garcilaso’s verses, not only in Spain but also on the European stage. Severino was a member of Luigi and Fabrizio Dentice’s circle.
According to Griffiths and Fabris, Severino was also the most important lutenist and polyphonist of his time, confirmed by Francisco Pacheco in his Libro de descripción de verdaderos retratos de illustres y memorables varones (Griffiths and Fabris 2004: xii). Severino’s madrigals appear in the Valladolid Cathedral’s Archivo Musical that houses a remarkable collection of Italian madrigals donated to Valladolid by Jerónimo de León in 1629 (Jiménez Ruiz 2013:240). Jiménez
Ruiz observes that Ms. 17, which includes Severino’s settings of Garcilaso’s poems, “stands out for its uniqueness,” referring to the cross-cultural inclusions (241). Unfortunately, the collection arrives to us incomplete, yet, it provides a glimpse into this cosmopolitan milieu rich with
Hispanic/Italian exchanges. The manuscript includes works in Castilian, French, and Italian, by composers such as Francisco Guerrero, Orlando di Lasso and Alessandro Striggio (Jiménez Ruiz
2013:241). Since Julio (Giulio) Severino’s choices appear next to musical settings of mostly
Italian text, and composers such as Arcadelt and Orlando preferred French text, his choice of
Garcilaso’s poetry, given that he was Italian, is indeed significant. Garcilaso’s influence as a
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European poet is also shown by the inclusion of his works in a sixteenth-century Portuguese collection of madrigals housed in Lisbon’s Biblioteca de Arte Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
The following table includes all extant (partial and complete) musical settings of
Garcilaso’s poetry in Italian madrigal form:
Table III – Garcilaso’s Poetry in Madrigal Collections Poem Composer Poetic form Musical Form Collection
Passando el mar Leandro Pedro Guerrero Sonnet Madrigal Miguel Querol Gavaldá, ed. Cancionero musical de la (CD Track 2) Casa de Medinaceli (XVI century) Vol. II - No.83 Barcelona, 1949:112.
Passando el mar Leandro Giulio Severino Sonnet Madrigal Higinio Anglés, “El Archivo Tenor part242 Musical de la Catedral de Valladolid.”
O más dura que mármol Giulio Severino Eclogue I – St. 5 Madrigal a 5. Higinio Anglés, “El Archivo a mis quexas Fol.v 80 Musical de la Catedral de Tenor part Valladolid.” Anuario Musical III, 1948:59–108.
O más dura que mármol Pedro Guerrero Eclogue I- St. 5 Madrigal Miguel Querol Gavaldá, ed. a mis quexas Cancionero musical de la (CD Track 6) Casa de Medinaceli (XVI century) Vol. I - No. 46 Barcelona, 1949:112.
O más dura que mármol Anonymous Manuel Morais, transl. and a mis quexas study. “Vilancetes, Cantigas e romances do século XVI.” Portugaliae Musica Vol. XLVI. Lisboa: Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1986: 89–91.243
Gracias al cielo doy Juan Vásquez Sonnet Madrigal Juan Vásquez, Recopilación de sonetos y villancicos a quatro y a cinco.Seville:
242 See, Griffiths note 29 (2002): 101. I am indebted to Dr. John Griffiths for sharing his articles and this information for this research. Also see Keith A. Larson (1983): 65, n. 22 and Jiménez Ruiz (2013). 243 See, Juan José Pastor Comín (2009), n.17. 194
(CD Track 4) Juan Gutierrez, 1560. Transcription by Higinio Anglés (Barcelona: C.S.I.C., 1946. First printing, 1551.
Si de mi baja lira Pedro Alberch Vila Canción V –Stanza Madrigal Pedro Alberch Vila, fo. xxxi-xxxii- 1,2 and 4 Odarum, (quas vulgo xxxiiiAltus madrigales appellamus) diversis linguis decantatarum harm”onica, nova, & excellenti modulatione compositorum, Liber primus. Barcelona: Jaume Cortey, 1561.
El aspereza de mis males Pere Alberech Vila Canción IV – v.1-9 Madrigal Odarum liber primus.1561 fo.IX – Altus (See above).
Quan bienventurado Attr. to Rodrigo Stanza 1 and 2 Canción/Madrigal Miguel Querol Gavaldá, ed. Ceballos Eclogue II Cancionero musical de la (CD Track 7) Casa de Medinaceli (XVI century) Vol. II. Barcelona, 1949:54-57.
En tanto que de rosa Francisco Guerrero Sonnet Madrigal Francisco Guerrero, Canciones y villanesca (CD Track 5) espirituales a tres y a quatro y a cinco bozes. Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1589.
Pedro Guerrero (ca. 1520- ca.1560)
Scant information is available to us about the life of Pedro Guerrero. In Francisco’s Viaje de Hierusalem (Barcelona 1596), we read that Francisco considered his brother Pedro “muy docto maestro” [most learned maestro] (Anglés 1234; transl. mine). It is known that Pedro resided in Seville in his early years and that he may have travelled to Italy and sung at the pontifical chapel or another one in Rome. Anglés verifies that his signature appears in the
Archivio di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (1236). Pedro Guerrero’s music appears in Italy, next to well-known Renaissance composers such as Giaches Wert, Giovanni Pier Luigi
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Palestrina, and Orlando Lasso in, Vincenzo Galilei’s Fronimo (1583: fols. 6-23 and 112).244
Galilei includes not one, but three of his works. Clearly, then, Pedro Guerrero was a Spanish composer who understood well the Renaissance stylistic trends and was thus able to make a name for himself. In Spain, the Cancionero de Medinaceli contains four of Pedro Guerrero’s madrigals, and several more are housed in the collections compiled by Fuenllana and Pisador.
Scholars have reviewed one of Guerrero’s settings of Garcilaso’s O más dura que mármol a mis quexa numerous times.245
Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX, Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso, is included in Miguel
Querol Gavaldá’s edition of the Cancionero musical de la Casa de Medinaceli (1949:112). This poem is set to music, in madrigal form by Guerrero. Significantly, the term “madrigal,” in the musical sense of the word, is not Spanish, rather, it is a musical borrowing from sixteenth- century Italian composers (Trend 13). A lucid characterization and distinction between the literary madrigal and the musical madrigal is provided by Rivers (1994/1995). He explains that the literary form is similar to the canzone, a form of seven and eleven syllables with irregular rhyme. The musical form is a polyphonic construct in which three to six voices may sound simultaneously or in counterpoint with or without instrumental accompaniment. The texts adopted for the musical settings are literary ones and in the typical forms of Petrarch’s
Canzoniere: ballata, sonneto, sextina, canzone and, of course, the poetic madrigal. Navarrete provides further insight into “The Problem of the Soneto in the Spanish Renaissance Vihuela
244 Vincenzo Galilei was the father of the scientist Galileo Galilei and member of the Florentine Camerata. Galilei was a distinguished lutenist, who supported the revival of Greek musical practices (H. M. Brown 1999:333). 245 This work appears in Miguel de Fuenllana’s Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica Lyra (Seville 1554) and others (See Table II). It was considered in studies by Miguel Querol Gavaldá (1949–50), Lola Josa and Mariano Lambea (2011), Rachel Meyers (2009: 107-109), Juan José Pastor Comín (2005) and Don Randel (1974:64–65). Josa, Lambea, and Pastor Comín consider the work in the context of Cervantes’s music in Don Quijote. 196
Books “(1992). He discerns that the term soneto in Spanish vihuela collections surprisingly does not correspond to the Italian sonetto. Investigated from an interdisciplinary perspective, vihuela collections bring to the fore the reality that the madrigal in Spain had to be adapted to the existing Spanish tradition, and that various poetic forms were actually meant for singing. In short, the word soneto may simply denote poetry to be sung. According to Restrepo, the musical term madrigal appears for the first time in Spain in Diego Pisador’s Libro de música de vihuela
(Salamanca 1552), which includes an adaptation of Guerrero’s musical settings of Garcilaso’s
“Passando el mar Leandro el animoso” and the setting of “Flérida para mí dulce” by an anonymous composer (Restrepo 43).
Randel, in his 1974 study of Sixteenth-Century Spanish Polyphony and the Poetry of
Garcilaso, ponders the reasons for which Guerrero would have chosen one of Garcilaso’s least
Italianate poems to include in his collection of Italian madrigals. Indeed, the theme of
Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX evokes the classical model of Leander and the Hero of Ovid and
Martial’s epigrams,246 as observed by Sánchez de las Brozas and Herrera (Gallego Morell 1972:
271 and 383–385). Randel observes that the material from which composers drew inspiration for the settings of Italian madrigals was poetry filled with “adjectives of all kinds, especially those directed towards the senses” (68). In this poem by Garcilaso, Randel discerns a total absence of imagery appealing to sight and touch wondering what features may have prompted the composer to choose this work (67). Might it be, then, that Garcilaso’s poem was very popular at the
246 Marcus Valerius Martialis, known as Martial, was a first-century AD Iberian-Roman poet who lived in Rome for 34 years and returned to Spain. He published his twelve books of Epigrams in Rome and Spain. For more on Martial, see Martial Selected Epigrams, 2003. 197
time?247 Randel probes further. In Italy, for example, the Florentine poet and writer Anton
Francesco Doni (1513–1574) included his own translation of Garcilaso’s Pasando el mar
Leandro el animoso in his Pistolotti amorosi (Doni 1552: C iii).248 From a composer’s perspective, it is significant that Doni was also an amateur composer, who played a key role in the development of the Venetian madrigal and the musical scene in 1540. Girolamo Scotto of
Venice published Doni’s Dialogo della musica in 1544 (Feldman 19). I have been unable to ascertain wether Guerrero had any contact, directly or indirectly, with Doni at this time. One can safely assume, however, that Guerrero, who worked in Rome, was aware of current Italian madrigal stylistic expressive trends in Italy and certainly the works in Spain of Milán and
Mudarra, whose inclination for Spanish verses in the new poetic forms was clear.
In this analysis of Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX, I draw from Graf (1994), who opposes
Lapesa’s assertion that this poem is “inferior en valor poetico” (Lapesa 164–162), to consider
Sonnet XXIX as “a poem about poetry and the nature of the lyric voice but it is also a poem about the nature of the human subject and its relation to the universe” (167). Similarly, I seek to demonstrate that the poem is rich in the cadence and sound of its verses and that Guerrero may have chosen this sonnet, not necessarily for its popularity, but rather for its form and the
247 Antonio Alatorre investigated the fortune of Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX (1975). Alatorre’s argument departs from Lapesa’s enumeration of several imitations of Garcilaso’s Passando el mar Leandro. Lapesa named Sa de Miranda, Cetina, Coloma, Jorge de Montemayor, Ramírez Pagán, Camoens and others. In his article Alatorre questions, however, why Lapesa would describe this sonnet as “inferior en valor poético” (poetically speaking inferior) while acknowledging its widespread imitation (143). Alatorre asserts that while Sonnet XXIX is considered a paraphrase of Martial’s epigram, the latter became known precisely thanks to humanists such as Garcilaso (146). Alatorre, citing Menéndez y Pelayo, notes that already in 1536, the year of Garcilaso’s death, Garcilaso’s sonnet appeared en un pliego suelto portugués (in Portuguese loose sheet) (149). Finally, Alatorre suggest that Garcilaso’s interpretation of the myth inspires hope, the same hope that resonates in Lope de Vega’s “Pasando el mar el engañoso toro” (176). Accordingly, Alatorre continues, Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIX remains not as an inferior poetic form, but rather as one of his most sensitive sonnets, hence its fortune. 248 The definition of Pistolotti, according to the Treccani.ii Enciclopedia italiana is “a declamatory work to invite applause.” http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/tag/pistolotto/ 198
musicality of text; and, precisely, for the nature of the lyric voice that links it with Orpheus. In the next few pages, I will consider that, just as the poet explores a vast range of affective expressions, so Guerrero, as an exegete of Garcilaso’s text, explores its tonal and rhythmic possibilities.249 In this interpretation I also elicit Mikail Bakhtin’s work on dialogism whose theories have been considered in the introduction. Bakhtin’s ideas underscore that dialogism in literature, like music, implies first and foremost an attentive audience and an attitude of
‘answerability.’250
Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso - The Poetry of Garcilaso
Passando el mar Leandro el animoso, en amoroso fuego todo ardiendo, esforçó el viento, y fuésse embravecçiendo el agua con un ímpetu furioso.
Vençido del trabajo presuroso, de contrastar las ondas, no pudiendo, y más del bien que alli perdia muriendo, que de su propia vida congojoso,
como pudo, sforçó su voz cansada, y a las ondas habló d'esta manera, mas nunca fue su voz dellas oída;
“Ondas, pues no s'escusa que yo muera, dejadme allá llegar, y a la tornada vuestro furor esecutá en mi vida. (Soneto XXIX; in Rivers 2011:71)
While the courageous Leander was crossing the sea, / all burning with the fire of love, / the wind picked up, and the water became / rougher with a furious impetus. // Overcome by the strain and effort, / no longer able to fight the waves, / and rather dying because of happiness lost / than concerned for his life, // he raised his tired voice as much as he could / and spoke to the waves as follows / but they never heard the voice: / Waves, since it is not permitted /
249 I borrow the term ‘exegete’ from Calcagni who writes that the metaphors of composers as ‘reader’ or ‘exegete’ serve musicological literature to refer to the interpretation of poetic texts in [musical] settings (293:n.29). 250 Anthony Gritten, in his study of Music in Bakhtin’s Philosophical Aesthetics underlines an “attitude of consciousness” that “Bakhtin hears resonating in the truly answerable act and what [Gritten} suggest[s] is its essential musicality” (59). 199
that I escape death, / let me reach the other side, and when I return, / vent your fury on my life (transl. Randel 1974: 67).251
In this sonnet, according to Graf, the poet’s reworking of the classical myth of Hero and
Leander serves as a metaphorical representation of the self. Though the figure of Leander traditionally evokes the archetypal struggle between the male self and the impetus towards possessing the female, Graf asserts that, with this sonnet Garcilaso also questions the likelihood of harmony between his own artistic expression and poetic appropriation, love and poetic creation (168). Indeed, the sonnet form echoes the Petrarchan literary tradition. The poet, however, quickly breaks with convention to exhibit his own interpretation of the myth in his own language system. The figure of Leander embodies the poet’s own struggle between art and life.
As Graf observes, the unconventional252 rhyme scheme of the poem reveals masculine and feminine endings in abba abba cde dce (170). While the lines in the octave end with masculine nouns, such as animoso, ardiendo, embraveciendo, furioso, presuroso, pudriendo, muriendo and congojoso, the sextet lines end with feminine nouns, such as cansada, manera, oída, muera, tornado, and vida. In this manner, Garcilaso centres the “sexual/textual conflict”
(Graf 170). Incidentally or not, tension is discernable in the very first verse. For example, the accented vowel sounds parallel the feminine and masculine conflict of the macro-form:
Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso a a o e a ea o e a o o
In his Prose della vulgar lingua, Bembo writes that in Petrarch’s very first sonnet, Voi ch’ascolate in rime sparse, the quality of vowels (o-a-o-a-e-i-i-e-a-e), so uniformly distributed,
251 In his Sixteenth-Century Polyphony and Garcilaso, Randel adapted this translation from one by Rivers in Reniassance and Baroque Poetry of Spain (38) (herein reprinted by permission). 252 J. A. Cuddon defines the Petrarchan sonnet as a form that “comprises of an octave rhyming abbaabba and a sextet rhyming cdecde or cdcdcd, or in any combinations except a rhyming couplet” (844). 200
renders their sound sweet and pleasant (56). Whilst musicality of verse is very difficult to define,
Alonso, in his Poesía Española: ensayo de métodos y límites estilísticos (1971), contends that musicality in poetry may be understood in concrete terms. He asserts that musicality is tangible when one considers the work in its entirety. In other words, musicality may be perceivable within the literary form, the linguistic, and musical elements of a work, such as rhythm, accents, intonation, musical allusions, the sound of phonemes, words, verses, and stanzas. Every microelement is therefore considered integral to the macro-poetic structure. Indeed, sound seems to play a critical role in this sonnet. In the first quartet, the sounds of melodious open vowels stand in counterpoint to the sounds and imagery of the water and the wind. The poet juxtaposes the vowel sounds of the first few words to a cyclical progression of the voiced nasal consonants
/n/m/ and the sibilant /s/ in words such as animoso (courageous) and en amoroso (all burning with love). The sibilant consonats /s/ and /ç/ persist to emphasize extreme strain, the furor of the wind and the swishing of the sea: esforçó el viento y fuésse enbraveçiendo el agua, con ynpetu furioso (v.3). The result is a synaesthetic polyphonic effect.
The word order is also suggestive: Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso. The literal translation of this verse reads as follows: “Crossing the sea Leander the audacious.” The sentence however should read thus: While the audacious Leander was crossing the sea. This form of transposition of word order is a literary figure of speech, deriving from the Greek hyperbaton (ὑπέρβατον) (Cuddon, 1996). Alonso, a poet in his own right as well as a literary critic of Spanish poetry, maintains that the hyperbaton elicits affective reaction and interpretation on behalf of the reader (399). The hyperbaton is also a purposeful syntactical arrangement, considered by Longinus as the “truest mark of passion [a figure able both to express and to evoke emotions]” (Gambarota, citing Longinus 288). Undeniably, Alonso discerns the expressive
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significance of the hyperbaton in Garcilaso (80). In this first verse, by way of the hyperbaton, the poetic voice delays the adjectives animoso and amoroso, so that the listener, by its rhyme, may associate the impetus of Leandro’s sea crossing in his feverish passion el animoso en amoroso fuego todo ardiendo (v. 2). An additional word inversion is present in the third verse: esforzó el viento (forcing the wind). Graf observes: “due to the [listener’s] urge to grant verb to the imposing subject, Leander remains suspended between the grammatical roles of object and subject” (171).
In the second quatrain of Sonnet XXIX, the poet’s struggle against the waves of the sea is underscored by the words vencido/presuroso and congojoso [overcome / anxious / troubled].
Graf observes also that, in the combination of masculine article/feminine noun, such as el agua,
Leander’s masculinity is slowly abated by the feminine element overpowering the masculine adversary (171). Graf’s theory holds true if one considers also the presence of the present participle masculine verbs, namely pasando/ardiendo/embraveciendo/pudiendo and muriendo.
According to Montgomery, these progressive verbs “inform the hearer that the situation described is thought of as temporary” (222). Certainly, then, masculine temporality was suggested in the very first word: the gerund Pasando.
Eventually, Leandro tires. In the sextet, the sound of the lyrical voice articulates voz cansada (v. 9; tired voice) and nunca fue su boz oída (v. 1; his voice was never heard, above the sound of the waves). The semantic representation of the voice functions at two levels of consciousness. On one hand, the poetic voice connects intertextually with the myth of the older literary tradition. On the other, the poet subverts his own limitations and imitations by forcing the poetic voice at the threshold of art and reality, by expressing clearly his struggle and fulfilment. Incidentally, this metapoetic reflection is intertextually related to Sonnet XXXII in
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which language is governed by suffering: mi lengua va a donde el dolor la guía [my language is guided by my suffering] (v. 1; transl. mine).
Lastly, Sonnet XXIX metaphorically represents, if only for a brief moment, a poet who questions the possibility of harmony in the universe, in the struggle between passion and love, in the sound of his own poetry within the greater literary tradition. He thus entices the listener to listen to his plea, to engage in this discourse on life and death, and, finally, to recognize that
Garcilaso’s poetics (his voice and his ondas) subvert Leander as a classical subject: “and the hero’s drowning becomes a kind of baptism of rebirth into new art” (Graf 173).
Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso - The Music of Pedro Guerrero (CD Tr. 2)
Guerrero’s sensitive approach to Sonnet XXIX is manifested immediately and precisely in the first verse. The opening phrase of the musical work is in A mode. The music unfolds in homophonic texture, that is all voices in similar rhythmic pace, emphasizing the musicality of the poetic voice that stresses uniformly spaced open vowels:
Musical example 5. Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso (mm. 1 - 5) in Querol Gavaldá, 96.
Herrera notes that the recurring accented vowels in a verses, such as the first verse on Sonnet
XXIX and Garcilaso’s first Sonnet, Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado, establish a mood
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of grace gravity and dignity produced by the internal rhyme of stressed vowels that are “grandes y llenas y sonoras” [dignified and full and sonorous] (78; transl. mine). Guerrero amplifies the feeling of gravity ending the first phrase, on the word animoso, with a tierce de Picardie in A underscoring the rising hopes of the courageous Leander.
The voices continue in counterpoint with a quick rhythm rising G to G# (m. 13) imitating the rising flames suggested by the term ardiendo (burning). It is fascinating to observe the composer’s interpretation of the male/female struggle embedded in the linguistic form of el agua
(m.18) arriving “con impetú furioso” (with furious impetus). The musical phrase begins in m. 14 with lower (male) voices entering first, and the top female voices following in counterpoint.
Agitated rhythms imitating the sound of the wind arrive at the apex of Leander’s sexual and physical struggle against the water (agua) marked by homophonic stately texture, and with the words weaving in and out of the reciting tone -e-, the dominant of the final rises to A on on the word furioso (furious). It is a peculiar correspondence that the word ‘Leandro’ is articulated to the sounds of the modal centre -a- while water arrives with impetus on the overpowering sound of the A chord. This underscoring of music-text relationship brings to mind Bakhtin’s
“answerable act” whereby composer and poet are united in the ethical sharing of a musical consciousness that is imparted and embodied in the tone, rhythm or syntax (Gritten 59). The composer as an exegete captures the essence of the poetic text and heightens its meaning with his own musical coloring: the term agua is thus contrasted with the subject it threatens to subvert
Leander.
The next phrase begins with fugal entries and contrasting rhythmical patterns to represent
Leander vanquished by extreme strain. Yet, when the poetic voice expresses feelings of euphoria
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to evok the love/death theme reminiscent of Arcadelt’s Il dolce e bianco cigno,253 the music underscores the meaning of the text with an ascending scale on the words y bien y más del bien
[and rather dying because of happiness (m. 38)], with a melisma on the word muriendo [dying]
(m. 37) tha closes with an A in the soprano voice while the alto voice falls to G. The composer, it seems, obliquely concurs with Graf’s interpretation of Leandro’s struggle between the masculine and the feminine and his eventual death metaphorically representing “the baptism of rebirth into new art” (173).
In the next phrase the poet’s spirit is clearly manifested with voz cansada (tired voice).
The reflexive composer intensifies the music with various modulations alternating between, cantus mollis (centered on the f or one flat hexachord m. 44) and cantus durus (G hexachord or one-sharp system m. 49), as Eric Chafe defines them (50).
Musical example 7. Pedro Guerrero “Pasando el ma Leandro el animoso” (mm. 44–53) in Querol Gavaldá 98.
253 The madrigal was published in Arcadelt’s First Book of Madrigal of 1539, thirteen years before the appearance of Guerrero’s work in Pisador’s collection.
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The tercet concludes with the voices in homophonic declamatory style to underscore the words
‘d’ellas oída’ from mas nunca fue su boz d’ellas oída [their voices were never heard (v. 11)]. It is remarkable here to note the disjuncture between the Saussurian linguistic elements: the signifier and signified, in that the meaning of the words (signified) does not correspond to their musical representation or acoustic images (signifer). Indeed, in the musical setting, the lyrical voice rises above Leander’s for a declamatory style that compels a powerful projection of sound through the screen of reality, from the stage to its listeners (mm. 56–58).
In the next phrase, and underscoring of the overpowering waves, the composer responds with a homophonic declamatory representation of the word ondas (waves) stretched over two measures, two syllables and two semibreves. The enjambment of the last two lines act as a representation of the poetic subject’s final and futile effort to overcome his passions, and, finally to face the meaning of vida (life). Similarly, whereas each phrase rests on a cadence, the last two musical phrases overlap with no real cadence, thus imitating the poetic enjambment. Guerrero repeats the last phrase twice for emphasis. The first time the phrase cadences on A, but the second time the mediant rises to C# forming a cadential tierce de Picardie. This brings to mind
McClary who interprets a similar final chord in Monteverdi, as ambiguous. She explains: “can the composer satisfy both the integrity of the materials and the powerful rule that one must cadence within the mode?” (35). Does the final chord confirm the A sonority or is the A chord interpreted as the dominant of D “posed to resolve all the weight of the madrigal onto the rival final?” (McClary 35).
Similarly, in this music by Guerrero, the ambiguous A or D sonority emulates the poetic subject’s struggles between art and reality, passions and life. Music and text have thus come
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together to entice the listener to guess, to interpret and, finally, to partake in the rebirth of this classical theme into a new lyrical art forms.
Juan Vásquez (ca. 1510 – ca. 1560)
Hyginio Anglés, who conducted a study of Juan Vásquez’s life and works, maintained that the composer serves as one of the most important composers of the Castilian and Andalusian school (in Vásquez 1946:10). Vásquez was a priest at the cathedral of Badajoz and Palencia. He served Don Antonio de Zúñiga y Guzmán in Seville and was financed by Juan Bravo and
Gonzalo de Moscoso for his publications (Rivers 1994/95:57). He lived at a time when music, flourishing already at the court of Alfonso the Magnanimous, reached its apogee at the Spanish courts of Charles V and Philip II. Music for vihuela, monochord and organ thrived as well as the polyphonic love song cultivated extensively in Segovia, Toledo, Seville, Barcelona and
Zaragoza. Anglés asserts that composers frequented the courts and were exposed to the great literary works of the cancioneros. A small number of music collections are extant, however, for rarely Spanish composers published their compiled compositions (Anglés 10). Further research may reveal a much wider musical dissemination than previously discerned, in particular through
Spanish cancioneros extant in Italy, where music printing was thriving. In fact, John Griffiths,
María Teresa Cacho, Maria Grazia Profeti and Santina Tomasello in recent years, have advanced this field of investigation.
According to Anglés, who compared Juan Vásquez to Juan de Encina, Francisco de la
Torre, and Pedro Escobar, asserts that Vásquez is probably the most prolific composer of polyphonic secular music in sixteenth-century Spain (10). Vásquez adopted Boscán’s and
Garcilaso’s verses for his compositions of Italian madrigals. One of the early researchers of
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Spanish madrigals, John Trend, asserted that the difference between early villancicos and
Madrigal verses in Spain was the fact the latter were considered “more real compositions,” with more careful consideration given to texts “written by real poets,” namely Boscán, Garcilaso,
Góngora and Lope de Vega (1925:19). Undoubtedly, the works of “real poets” may have provided the opportunity to place a given composer’s works in dialogue with the most current
Renaissance literary and musico-poetic trends. In effect, some of Vásquez’s works appear in the music collections of Valderrábano and Mudarra (Anglés 15). Most significantly, Rivers discovered that with his 1551 collection of Sonetos y Villancicos a quatro y a cinco, Vásquez was the first to publish Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXXIV Gracias al cielo doy, a Sonnet that does not appear in the 1543 princeps edition of Boscán’s and Garcilaso’s Obras (1994/95: 58). Perhaps, as Rivers ponders, Herrera’s edition was influenced by Vásquez’s composition.254 This also raises the question: Did Vásquez know Garcilaso? Did poet and composer collaborate? These questions invite further research but for now they confirm the inextricable interrelation between the literary and musical currents and thus the significance of interdisciplinary investigation.
Gracias al cielo doy - The Poetry of Garcilaso
Gracias al cielo doy, que ya al cuello del todo el grave yugo he [sacudido] y que del viento el mar embravecido veré desde la tierra sin temello.
Veré colgada d’un sutil cabello la vida del amante embebecido en [su] error, y en engaño adormecido, sordo a las vozes, que le avisan dello.
254 Eleanor Russell observes that Juan Vásquez’s patron, Don Antonio de Zúñiga y Guzmán, was the same person to whom Fernando Herrera dedicated his Anotaciones to Garcilaso’s works (Encomium Musicae 2002:298). 208
Alegrarám’el mal de los mortales, y no es mi coraçon tan inumano [en aqueste placer, como parece,]
Porque yo huelgo, como huelga el sano, no de ver a los otros en los males, sino en el ver que d’ellos el carece. (Soneto XXXIII in Rivers 2011:76)
Thank heaven, I’ve lived then from my neck to tear / The heavy yoke that long my strength opprest; / The heaving sea which boisterous winds infest / I now can view from shore, and feel no fear;// Can see suspended by a single hair / The lover’s life, with fancied bliss possest, / [In his error]255 his danger slumbering, cheated into rest, / Deaf to advice that would his ills declare. // So shall I smile at other mortal’s ills; / Nor yet, though joy to me their pains afford, / [in this pleasure, as it appears] // For I will smile as one health restored / Joys not to see his fellows suffering still, / But joys indeed to find himself is sound (transl. Richard Vassal Lord Holland 1806: 24-25).
In this sonnet the poetic subject expresses freedom from the yoke of love. Sonnet XXXIII is in typical Petrarchan form, divided into two quartets and two tercets rhyming in ABBA ABBA
CDE DCE. It also echoes Petrarch’s Rerum (Canzone 28) “Dunque ora è’l tempo da retirare il collo / dal giogo antico” [Now is the time to lift the yoke / hanging for long around the neck]
(vv. 61–62; transl. mine). In Garcilaso, however, the Orpheic poetic voice rises above the power of wind and the sea, unmoored from the yoke of love. In a moment of self-fashioning, the poet’s verses subvert all yokes and that which ensnares his creative spirit. This includes the Petrarchan model and inherently those models of antiquity, such as Lucretius and Horace, on whose thread the image of the yoke is interwoven (Rivers 1994/95: 60). In this effort, the poet engages in a dialogue with the reader, enticing her/him to attune to the poetic verse through visual and auditory effects.
Montgomery, in his study on sound symbolism in Garcilaso’s poetry, asserts that
Garcilaso’s vowels play a critical role in the resonance of the entire verbal fabric of the work, as they are not randomly distributed (214). The poet, with an obviously heightened sense of
255 The slight modifications shown in brackets reflect the text adapted by Vásquez (vv. 7 and 10). The brief translations are mine. 209
musicality, tends to rely on specific vowel sounds or phonemes to provide meaningful auditory effects. For example, Montgomery observes that the lower vowel /u/ performs specific functions such as suggesting the clamour of battle (213). The critic discerns that the only accented /u/ vowel in Sonnet XXXIV rests on the word yugo (yoke), in the second verse (214). Indeed, the poetic subject has now liberated himself from such a yoke. The sense of detachment is reinforced by the recurring sound of neutral vowel /e/ recurring in the end rhymes, from the first verse to the last: cuello/ embravecido/ temello/cabello/ embebecido/adormecido/mortales/parece/males and carece. Whereas not all /e/ vowels are underscored by prosodic accents, its resonance remains persistent, particularly in those words that form the end rhymes.
In the second quatrain, a rhythmical enjambment interrupts after the words en su error
[in his error] (v. 7), and is emblematic of the lover’s life as it flows though the air suspended on a single hair coming to an awkward pause. Indeed, the lover vacillates in a state of aporia, deaf to the voices that are warning him (v.9). Sound images of rising winds and the furious sea in the first quatrain thus stand in counterpoint to the foreboding voices of the second.
Suddenly, the first tercet opens with a musical neologisms, alegrarám’[I will rejoice] (v.
9). The word is pivotal for this psychological change of mood, marking the critical, utopian, moment of happiness when suffering is denied and marginalized. The poetic subject relishes that the ills of others are no longer his own. The ninth verse confers a space where language and sound conflate to transport the poetic spirit beyond the precincts of the poetic form. The poet uses the verb huelgo (to breathe), implicitly placing himself at the heart of the poetic form.
Garcilaso thus stand as the pulsating vital organ that releases the lyrics with the inherent inner struggles. The spirit of the poetic voice thus diffuse into the literary spaces of the world: Porque yo huelgo, como huelga el sano [For I will breath as the sound person breathes]. Ultimately then,
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by virtue of this poetic expression, in which sound appears central to the form and meaning, the poet obliquely presents the idea of imitation, transformation, and achievement.
Gracias al cielo doy – The Music of Juan Vásquez (CD Tr. 4)
This Sonnet appeared first in one of the earliest madrigal collections of vocal music the
Villancicos y canciones de Juan Vásquez a tres y a cuatro (Seville: 1551). As already mentioned,
Vásquez’s edition is slightly different from that of Herrera or El Brocense.256 Gracias is a madrigal for five voices. Rivers point out that as the Sonnet was written for a literary sophisticated audience, the madrigal was equally meant for a musically sophisticated audience capable of appreciating the musicality and complexity of the polyphonic work (1994/95: 57). I conjecture further to remark that an interdisciplinary listener may be able to delve more deeply into the dialectical interrelationship between text and music.
The formal setting of the madrigal follows the natural division of the sonnet into two quatrains and two tercets, with no repeats and cadencing at the end of each section.
The tonal/modal centre is A with some modulations to heighten the meaning of text This prefigures, in some ways, the later Renaissance madrigalistic style. For the most part, however,
Vásquez depends on simplicity of line and harmonies, reminding his readers that he is a composer of villancicos and folk melodies that are at the centre of his inspiration. Indeed, his melodies unfold at times in declamatory style, as they are often syllabic and the voices arrive intermittently at the end of each verse.
256 For more on this topic see Rivers 1994/95. 211
The opening four measures introduce the first verse in declamatory style, with the long notes emphasizing the sonorous open vowels of Gracias al cielo doy. Voices entries become erratic in both melody and rhythm, thus evoking images of the wind and furious sea.
Musical example 8 Juan Vásquez Gracias al cielo doy (mm. 23–30) in Vásquez 1946.
On m. 33, three voices come together to declaim the fourth verse, Veré desde la tierra sin temello [I will view from above the earth and experience no fear] (transl. mine). The phrase is echoed by the three inner voices, as the section concludes with a d tone on m. 41. In the following phrase, Veré colgada d’un sutil cabello [I will see suspended by a single hair] (transl. mine) the voices enter sporadically, by so doing emulating life suspended by a hair. The rhythm quickens in the inner voices to underscore the lover’s slumber, deaf to his own errors. The lowest voices heighten the words sordo a las bozes que le avisan d’ello [deaf to the voices that warn him] (transl. mine) with long foreboding notes (m. 75–84):
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Musical example 9 Juan Vásquez Gracias al cielo doy (mm. 75–84) in Vásquez 1946.
Music and text thus fuse together to emphasize y en su error y engaño (in error and deceit), producing an impressive moment of homophonic declamatory style. The listener is emphatically reminded of life’s pervasive deceits and the inner psychological struggle in choosing to negate admonishing voices. If the poetry and music are no longer an object of contemplation, then the listener, not sordo a las voces que le avisan (deaf to the voices that warn him), is granted catharsis.
Indeed, this a pivotal moment in the sonnet, providing the opportunity for psychological change. The tenor voice weaves through C#, to awaken the listener from slumber (mm. 83–84).
The first tercet begins with the word Alegrarám’el (It will make me happy). Each voice enters in counterpoint to utter the words in declamatory style on the same note, by so doing it underscores the significance of the moment:
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Musical example 10, Juan Vásquez, Gracias al cielo doy (mm. 89–96) in Vásquez 1946.
The music renders power to the ninth verse, Porque yo huelgo, como huelga el sano [Because I breathe, as he who is healthy] (transl. mine). The first huelgo is articulated homophonically on even notes and the second is released on a cadential G. At the end of the second to the last verse, the inner voice repeats the phrase otros males (the pain of others). The concluding verse displays a decisive show of colour as the voices follow each other in an almost fugal counterpoint, repeating sino en el ver que d’ellos el carece [if not to see that he is free of the ills of others] (transl. mine). The melody rises to a cadence with a tierce de Picardie (mm. 151–155).
With this final gesture, music and text come together to invite the reader/listener to partake in the celebration of life and the artistic work at hand.
Musical example 11, Juan Vásquez, Gracias al cielo doy (mm. 151–155), in Vásquez 1946.
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Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599)
Robert Stevenson, in his 1961 Spanish Cathedral Music in Golden Age, defines
Francisco Guerrero’s style as a “consummate mastery of counterpoint so much that Gioseffo
Zarlino, chapelmaster of Venice, described him as the most eminent of all musicians whom he had heretofore known” (174 and 211). A prolific composer, Guerrero was indebted to his music teachers, his older brother Pedro Guerrero and Cristóbal Morales (ca. 1500–1553). He worked as chapel master in the cathedral of Seville from 1544 until his death. Seville was his home but also at the time one of the wealthiest cities in Spain. Guerrero travelled extensively, including to
Jerusalem, and enjoyed a brief sojourn in Venice where he published two books of music. In
1589, a collection of Canciones y villanescas espirituales was dedicated to the Cardinal of
Seville, Rodrigo de Castro. It appeared in Venice printed by Giacomo Vincentio. The collection of spiritual songs for various numbers of parts includes secular lyrics partially reworded with sacred text.257 Cristóbal Mosquera de Figueroa, a poet in his own rights authours the dedication in the collection. He observes the following: “So widely has his fame traveled […] that no collector thinks his library complete without works by the celebrated Guerrero” (Stevenson 184).
It is within this collection that we find one of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Sonnet XXIII set to music,
En tanto que de rosas y açuçena. Miguel Querol Gavaldá, in his 1955 edition of Guerrero’s
Opera Omnia, argues that Guerrero chose his composition for publication carefully from his life-
257 In 1575, Sebastián de Córdoba published Garcilaso a lo divino, in which Garcilaso`s poems were altered to reflect a spiritual mood. For a full discussion, see María José Martínez López (1998):31–43. 215
long repertoire, selecting the most well-crafted madrigals and canciones.258 Garcilaso’s poem thus holds a privileged position in this Renaissance Spanish collection of music published by
Giacomo Vincentio in Venice, one of the most prestigious music printing centres in Europe at the time and a pivotal hub for the dissemination of madrigal repertoire (Lewis Hammond 2007:1 and 2011:14).
Guerrero’s composition presents an exceptional model for the coming together of music and poetry. Drawing from the work of Chafe, I intend to demonstrate that in the musical setting of En tanto de que rosa y azuçena, the composer responds to Garcilaso’s text with a tonal allegorical representation of reality: physical beauty vs. fleeting time. But first, I must investigate
Garcilaso’s verses.
En tanto de que rosa y azuçena – The Poetry of Garcilaso
Sonnet XXIII by Garcilaso evokes the Horatian theme of carpe diem, one of the most prevalent poetic topoi of the Renaissance. Indeed, in the sixteenth-century “the woman’s body serves consistently as a literary site for measuring the passage of time” (Yandell 23).259 The theme links with antiquity, however, echoing the Gallo-Roman Ausonius, the Roman Horace, the
Italians Petrarch, Lorenzo de Medici and Pietro Bembo. Add to this the poem Mentre che l'aureo crin v'ondeggia intorno written by the Bernardo Tasso, a poet and, allegedly, Garcilaso’s close friend.
258 See Francisco, Guerrero, Opera Omnia, I (Canciones y Villanescas Espirituales, Venice, 1589 (Part 1). Transcribed by Vicente García, with introduction and critical notes by Miguel Querol Gavaldá. (Barcelona: Instituto Español de Musicología, (1957):21. 259 Yandell challenges modern generalizations and understanding of the topos of carpe diem topoi of the sixteenth- century, in that she presents a balanced perspective, including women writers. She reminds her readers, for example, that Louise Labé “urges women to ‘rise above’ the menial tasks assigned to them”(13). Yandell studies the implications of interpreting the carpe diem motif as the “locus of time and the projection of the poet’s own fear of aging onto the female addressee” (15). 216
Whereas Garcilaso weaves the tapestry of classical and Renaissance imitations through his own lyricism with verbal and semantic constructions, he thereby transforms the poetic conceit into a locus for socio-ideological discourses, as I will explain. It is precisely through what Babich advocates as “reading what is written in the lines and between the lines” (180), that
Garcilaso’s listeners and participants or collaborators (i.e the Sephardim participated in
Garcilaso’s aesthetic recreation in music) are able to discern the underlying gender issue and the power of representation in this poetry through the auditory power of language and its complex stratification of signifiers.
The following is Garcilaso’s text, as presented in Guerrero’s musical setting:
En tanto de que rosa d’azuçena Se muestra la color en vuestro gesto, Y que de vuestro mirar ardiente, honesto, Con clara luz la tempestad serena;
Y en tanto que’l cabello, que’n la vena del oro s’escogió, con vuelo presto por el hermoso cuello blanco, enhiesto, el viento mueve, esparce y desordena;
[servid a Dios en vuestra primavera] el dulce fruto, antes que’l tiempo airado cubra de nieve la hermosa cumbre,
Marchitará la rosa el viento helado, Todo lo mudará la edad ligera, Por no hacer mudanza en su costumbre. (Sonnet XXIII; in Rivers 2011:65).260
While colors of the lily and the rose / are displayed within the outline of your face, / and with that look, both passionate and chaste, / storms grow still in the clear light of your eyes; // and while your hair that seems to have been mined / from seams of gold, and seeming too in flight / about that neck, so white, so bravely upright, / is moved and spread and scattered by the wind, // [serve God in your spring], / before angry time creates a waste, /
260 The 1580 edition compiled by Fernando de Herrera presents a different fourth verse: enciende el corazon y lo refrena – enflames the heart and constrains it (transl. mine). Both versions appear to be original verses, authored by Garcilaso (Blecua 68). Guerrero’s collection includes ten songs the verses of which were slightly altered to reflect a spiritual meaning a lo divino. This was common practice in sixteenth-century Spanish literature. Guerrero thus chose from one of the two extant versions available to him at the time and changes the first verse of the sextet from coged de vuestra alegre primavera to servid a Dios en vuestra primavera. 217
summoning snow to hide the glorious summit; // the rose will wither in the icy blast / and fickle time will alter everything, if only to be constant in its habit (transl. John Dent-Young 43. With permission].
The poetic voice urges the young woman to gather her flowers and enjoy the fruit of spring, for time is ephemeral and youth will dissipate in the wind of the new season. The sonnet, as a form, brief and concise, is in itself emblematic of ephemeral beauty and fleeting time. The carpe diem theme is emphasized in the smallest strands of this poetic fabric: for example, in the rhythm and sound of the language. From the start, the opening verse presents uniformly-spaced open sonorous vowels, reminiscent of the poetic style of Dante or that of the Dolce Stil Nuovo poets. The unfolding of the vowels in the first verse are as follows: /e/a/o/e/e/o/a/a/u/e/a:
_ / _ / _ /_ _ _ /_ en tánto qué de rósa y acucéna
Montgomery, who carefully studied the sound of Garcilaso’s sonnets, observed that in this
Sonnet XXIII the sound of the vowel /e/ underscored by metrical stresses, allegorizes the impersonal voice of the poetic voice. He underlines the accented /e/ in words such as: muestra / vuestro / gesto / ardiente / honesto / enciende (215). It is worthy to note that the detachment of the poetic speaker is further emphasized in the formal address vuestro (you formal) in the second and third verses. Male/female tension is reflected in the succession of the vowels in the end- rhyme scheme of the two quartets: aooa aooa aoe oae, mirroring the ABBA ABBA CDE DCE sonnet rhyme scheme. The first nine lines rhyme with words whose vowel /e/ falls on the hendecasyllabic accent, except the last four verses where the vowels /a/, /o/ and especially /u/ figure prominently. Indeed, Montgomery remarks that the abrupt shift in stressed vowel, from /e/ to /u/, expresses a clear “change of orchestral coloring [as in] a musical composition” and is emblematic of the sudden change of the musical/emotional mood in the sonnet (216).
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Certainly, the first quartets depict the lady, whose fiery yet honest look, with clear light in her eyes and golden strands of hair scattered by the wind around her beautiful white and upright neck, evoke images of Botticelli’s Primavera (painted in 1482), with its plasticity and rhythmical movement in the lines and colours. As Beverley points out, the reader cannot escape the musical neologisms that deepen the meaning of these verses with the terms presto and alegre [fast and quick or happy] (1993:34). Indeed, one also gets a sense of the speeding up of time in the second quartet, implicit in the rhythmical enjambment of the verses and images of hair spread and scattered by the wind as it moves around her white and bravely upright neck(vv. 4–8).
In the sextets, the mood clearly changes from a happy spring to images of angry time and icy winds. The female figure represented the transitory pristine beauty of the rose and/or the purity of the lily as it perishes at the hands of time. This is indicated by the future tense of the verbs marchitará and mudará (wither and change). A grave moment is emphasized in the rhythm and sound of the subjunctive phrase: ante que’l tiempo ayrado cubra de nieve la hermosa cumbre (before angry time covers with snow this utmost beauty). While the prosodic accent modifies the vowels /o/ and /u/, the rhythm of the evenly-spaced vowels e/, o/, a /, u/, e/, provide a sonorous and solemn ritardando of the verse. The sound is thus inextricable from the form with which it converges to convey meaning.
Although an extended parenthesis on the social construct of gender issues in sixteenth- century Southern Europen literary and social context is not called for in this dissertation, it suffices to note that Bernardo Tasso, whose sonnet provided clear inspiration for Garcilaso
(Morros 43), underscores the folly of the female subject, whose desire to resist the enjoyment of youthful pleasure leads to frustration. His final verses read: “seize oh foolish: oh be fast that the
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quickening hours and fickle time in the end destroys everything.”261 Whereas Tasso’s verses underscores the foolishness of the female subject (object), Garcilaso’s poetic voice describes her figure honest and resisting honesto/cuello blanco, enhiesto [honest / neck so white, so bravely upright] (transl. John Dent-Young 43).
Beverley’s close reading of this sonnet leads one to understand clearly that it is not about erotic love; rather, it is a gender-inflected sonnet (37). Beverly also maintains that in these verses the tension between the subject (male) / object (female) is all too pervasive, thus underscoring the Renaissance objectification of the woman figure. The concept parallels the “relation between
“man” and colonial space, and elites and subaltern subjects (37). Perhaps, however, if we extrapolate from Montgomery’s analysis, we may arrive at a slightly different interpretation. The linguist highlights the prevalence of the neutral voice marked by a persistent /e/. If, then, the subject sustains a neutral stance and underscores her virtue, then the ideological space enriched by the sound of the semantic field, provides the listener with a unique perspective. The intent of the poetic voice is to maintain neutrality and the female figure is depicted as virtuous and upright as she inevitably advances towards decline, she is the provided the opportunity to assert her position and is deemed respectable, regardless of the outcome. Of course, it is possible to counter that, ultimately, it is the male poetic voice that affords her the freedom to choose her space.
Nonetheless, this albeit one-sided interpretation, is not entirely unfounded, if one reads the Three
Literary Manifestos of Early Modern Spain, by Cruz and Rivers, in which the authors conclude
261 “Cogliete ah stolte il fior: ah siate preste che fugaci son l’ore e’l tempo lieve, e veloce alla fin corre ogni cosa” (Bernardo Tasso, Rime 112 vv. 11–13; transl. and emphasis mine. Likewise, Bembo’s Sonnet O superba et crudele, that deals with the same theme, concludes with: hor non son bella, allhora non fui scaltra [I am no longer beautiful, therefore I have lacked judgment] (transl. mine). 220
that the manifestos highlights Boscán’s and Garcilaso’s “regard for women as equal partners in the development of early modern culture” (235).
Beverley also elucidates the ideological political underpinnings, viewing the work as a representation of the male/dominant figure and the colonized/female figure. Yet an internal intertextual reading of Garcilaso’s works reveals a poet who is “undone” by the horrors of the
‘sangriento Marte’ that rips ‘África de parte a parte.’ Indeed, in his analysis of Sonnet XXXIII,
Helgerson observes that for Garcilaso, “art and arms oppose each other” (39). Therefore, as I so interpret, the Sonnet En tanto de que rosa y acuçena provides a space in which the lyrics subvert death, earthly hungers, war and empowerments, including that of ‘aduladores,’ who seek nothing but personal and vane glory (Ecl. II, v. 47). The male poetic voice, in a neutral stance and the female figures he depicts, both stand at the threshold of death, for, ultimately, neither is capable of subverting the inevitable. Indeed, that which prevails is the resonance of the verses through time and space.
En tanto de que rosa y azuçena – The Music of Francisco Guerrero (CD Tr. 5)
Stevenson states the following: “Guerrero picked his modes with expressive intent”
(222). Extrapolating from Chafe’s theory of tonal language, the ensuing analysis accords with
Stevenson’s statement that the musical structure emerges as an expressive tapestry of tonal allegories. Chafe found inspiration for his novel approach to music analysis in the “intensity of expression which breathes and speaks…embodying a new aesthetic of word-dominated music or music as oratio” (xi). Carter asserts that Chafe’s “unashamed invoking of a 'tonal language' seems to place the composer (Monteverdi) on the modern side of the Renaissance-Baroque divide” (277). Carter, in fact, observes that Chafe’s theory proves that the great divide between
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tonal and modal language is not so clear. Indeed, the ensuing analysis will demonstrates that
Chafe’s theory of tonal language is not unique to Monteverdi, for Guerrero’s music anticipates tonality as well. In En tanto que de rosa y azuçena, tonality is not clearly modal, for it leans towards a notion of keys. Finally, it is possible to conjecture that the presence of a logical paradigm of “tonal allegory” in the smallest strands of the overall structure, support this form: in its mode, in the cadential pattern, in the texture, in the melodic contour and its rhythmical configurations.
The allegorical representation is immediately perceived in the tonal setting: a conflict between cantus mollis and cantus durus effectively epitomizing the underlying beauty/time, male/female themes of the poetry. Guerrero’s form closely follows the poetic form. Each verse is delineated by a distinct melodic phrase ending with a cadence, except when the poetic lines flow into one another in enjambment. Whereas phrases in cantus mollis (centered around F) clearly depicting physical earthly beauty, phrases in cantus naturalis and cantus durus (centered around
C c and G) portray the antithesis: fleeting time.
The composition opens in F as the homophonic texture recreates the temporary stillness of time and beauty. Indeed, the phrase begins with long notes enunciating the words en tanto
(meanwhile).
Musical example 12, En tanto que de rosa y azuçena, by Franciso Guerrero (mm. 7–8), in Guerrero (Querol Gavaldá) 1955. 222
A quick rhythm underlines the word rosa (rose) continuing with homophonic voices delineating the sphere of lily. The phrase comes to a rest on a IV-I plagal cadence in F. In the second phrase/verse, the cajoling poetic voice extols her physical beauty. The top three voices enter in counterpoint to the lower two voices, foreboding the male/ female tension (mm. 7–8). The cantus durus firmly gains ground with a V-I cadence in C ending on the masculine word gesto [gesture]
(m.11). Turmoil is manifested as all five voices enter in counterpoint beginning with the middle neutral voice singing the words y que vuestro mirar ardiente (v. 3, m. 12). A dialogical interaction is perceived between the top two voices entering a third apart on the word con clara, thereby outlining the C tonality, while the lower three voices move to F7 chord and eventually
Bb in m.19. Tension rises in the next phrase, as the tempest grows in the fourth verse of the first quatrain: la tempestad serena. The mood changes to c, and the melodies are angular filled with leaps. The rhythm quickens to project the word tempestad (storm) in mm. 21–22. Finally it arrives to a IV-I plagal cadence in C in m. 23, resting on the last word of the first quatrain, serena (serene).
In the first verse of the second quatrain, the voices chase one another contrapuntally. The lowest voice provides a feeling of stability beginning in F, and the top voices outline the C chord
(mm. 23-25). The tension between temporal beauty and fleeting time is allegorically represented in vv. 5 and 7 describing her beauty in cantus mollis, and vv. 6 and 8 expressing the flow of time in cantus durus. A poetic enjambment emulates the movement of the golden strands in the wind.
A metaphor for fleeting time, is clearly depicted in the lack of cadence and the sudden change to
G in m. 32. The rhythm slows down; the texture is almost homophonic emphasizing the words el hermoso cuello blanco (the beautiful white neck) arriving at a cadence in F at the end of the
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third verse in m 36. Suddenly, as verses describe the wind, the rhythm becomes agitated and the angular melody stresses the words el viento mueve sparze y desordena (moved and spread and scattered by the wind). The composer finally brings the octet to a cadence with a V-I in C and underscores the psychological division of the sonnet.
The first verse of the tercet urges the young woman to serve God in the springtime of her life. A stretto (a sudden acceleration) emblematic of the impending decay, forces the entire verse in two measures and drives to a sudden V-I cadence (mm. 42-43). The second verse unfolds with voices entering in erratic counterpoint and juxtaposing the sweet fruit and angry time. Pockets of rests simulate the circulating motion of the wind, the bearer of snow that will ultimately cover her beauty with icy whiteness. This image remains frozen in time, for the musical phrase drives quickly to a rest with a V-I cadence in F on the word Cumbre [the lady’s figure] (m. 51). The final tercet brings only three top voices together in C in homophonic style to herald the fatidic word marchitarà (it will decompose). Perhaps privileging the foreboding term that seems to pertain uniquely to the feminine space, the lower voices avoid singing the word marchitará. The tenor voice heightens the female/male tension with a brief melismatic passage on the word helado (icy). Musical and poetic syntax, thus combined, accentuate the role of the masculine voice (icy wind) that modifies (marchitará - will rot) the object (the rose). The composer as an exegeted, who chooses a spiritual interpretation of the work, thus privileges the male poetic voice (God) that is granted the power of exhortation.
In the last tercet, an Eb chord brings sudden transformation thereby supporting the meaning of mudará (it will change). Followed by a quick stumbling over C and back to F, the second voice, the tenor and partially the bass voice repeat the final sentence twice. It is only on the last syllable of the word cos-tum-bre (time’s habit), that all voices come together on the final
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F chord, preceded by a V chord on measure 65 and long cadential notes sustained by the top and tenor voices (mm. 65–68):
Musical example, 13 En tanto que de rosa y azuçena, by Franciso Guerrero (mm. 7–8), in Guerrero (Querol Gavaldá) 1955.
In this work, Guerrero’s musical response is suggestive, for he conjectures a paradigm that allegorically represents the two forces in nature that provoke antithesis in reality: ephemeral physical beauty vs. fleeting time. He does so with sudden changes of tonality, contrasting rhythms, various melodic contours and musical textures, such as homophony and counterpoint.
The psychological division of the poetic form is allegorically represented with a quickening of time and sudden change of tonal colour moving from an F tonal centre (cantus mollis) to a C
(cantus naturalis). The female/male struggle is emblematically expressed, especially in m. 51 where the division of voices is clear and the word wither is attributed to the top voices while the foreboding lower voices warn of impending fate. The smallest strands of this composition, such as texture and melodic shaping, and connective tissues, such as rhythm and cadences of the structure, all support the larger form, and the meaning of the text. The composer as an exegete, thus provides the listener with yet another means of interpretation through musical representation of the poetic work.
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Summary
In this chapter, Garcilaso’s poetry and all extant Renaissance musical settings of his verses were brought together. The close readings of a selected number of works have provided the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Garcilaso’s artistry from both a philological critical perspective and a musicological point of view. It remains clear that, whilst both the poetic work and the musical composition can be analyzed separately and in their own rights, the central role of music in the Renaissance was to feature the meaning of the text. For example,
Paolo Fabbri reminds us that at the time Marc’Antonio Mazzone, in his dedication of the first book of madrigals (1569), wrote that “the notes form the body of the music but the text is the soul more dignified than the body hence it must be imitated” (transl. mine).262
I have demonstrated that Garcilaso’s verses clearly penetrated the sphere of both musical traditions: the solo song, accompanied by the vihuela (typically a Spanish tradition) and the
Italian madrigal form in Spanish (found in both Italian and Spanish collections). Garcilaso’s poetry emerged as a conduit in the musico-poetic interchange from Italy to Spain and from Spain to Italy. The musical madrigal crossed paths with the Petrarchan movement in literature; yet
Garcilaso forged a trajectory outside the boundaries of Petrarchism, both in poetry and music. He did so with verses expressed in his own language, his own themes and his own musicality. The composers, on the other hand, created musical compositions that, in H. M. Brown’s words in ut musica poesis, “support and enhance the text and yet allow the words to be clearly heard” (49).
Further investigation on this intimate conflation between sixteenth-century Spanish poetry and music would enrich learning for both the fields of philology and musicology. In the
262 Mazzone writes: “il corpo della musica sono le note, e le parole sono l’anima, e sí come l’anima per essere più degna del corpo deve da quello esser seguita ed imitate” (Fabbri 1988:17). 226
field of philology, Audrey Lumsden-Kovel notes that Garcilaso’s and Spain’s contribution to the
Renaissance period in general has been marginalized and “in need of much further research”
(92). María Teresa Cacho (2006) observes similar trends in regards to the Spanish-Italian literary exchange. History has demonstrated that Spanish and Italian cultures were interwoven social fabrics that lie at the core of their identities. Likewise, Renaissance ideologies, deeply entrenched in the imitation of the classics in every aspect of life, do not allow modern historians, philologists, linguists, and musicologists to conveniently dissect various disciplines as they unfolded in distinct solipsistic trajectories. Garcilaso, who, according to Heiple, was “a strong intellectual figure capable of understanding and utilizing the many aspects of Renaissance artistic traditions” (395), may thus hold the key for modern interdisciplinary advances in the field of literary-musical critical studies.
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CONCLUSION
This dissertation deals with the music in Garcilaso’s poetry and, by extension, his poetry in music. Many pages have been dedicated to formal criticism of Garcilaso’s poetry, and whilst countless scholars have remarked on Garcilaso’s musicality of verses, only a few articles have been devoted to its study. There is a corollary to this interdisciplinary investigation couched in a humanistic discourse, and that is an insight into how Garcilaso’s poetic language intersected with the Renaissance musico-poetic context, a context that, as established in Chapter Four, was inextricably related with the humanistic literary currents.
In the first part of the thesis, I drew from Dámaso Alonso’s stylistic critical approach that begins with the listener’s sensitivity so as to dig deeply into the poetry in order to substantiate the perception of musicality with tangible concrete, recurring microelements integral and indispensable to the macro form. Bakhtin’s theories of ‘sociolinguistic poetics,’ as Sell defines them (22), provide a unifying thread throughout the work. I drew from Bakhtin’s recurring idea of dialogism and heteroglossia to investigate, and outline the complex tapestry of meaningful strands in Garcilaso’s poetry and the role of his poetic voice in the chorus of Renaissance literary and musico-poetic voices. It is precisely Bakhtin’s notion of the language act as the process by which “I” “empathize[s] actively” with the other that urges the reader of poetry to the realization that the music one hears is but the conduit of thought, standing at the threshold of reality, and requiring the ethical reflection on life (Toward a Philosophy 12). From this perspective then, this interdisciplinary research that takes into consideration musicality of verse, poetry, and music as an opportunity for communication and interconnections.
Chapter One provides a brief survey of the literary contexts from which Garcilaso’s poetry emerged. Chapter Two examines specific musical elements in Garcilaso’s opus. Chapter
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Three reveals a sophisticated musical tapestry in Garcilaso’s Canción V: Ode ad Florem Gnidi.
In this work, an ingenious interplay of voices conveyed by three different musical instruments and a cacophonous literary motif provide a sophisticated literary and musical polyphonic texture.
Chapter Four surveys the sixteenth-century Hispanic/Neapolitan musico-poetic contexts and
Chapter Five features Garcilaso’s poetry in music.
In terms of musicality, it became clear that Garcilaso used the lyrical expression as a means to reach the listener and invite her or him to partake in his vision of cosmic perfection in which form and music are inextricable from one another. I must return to the poetry once more, for Salicio’s song illustrates the point best:
Convida a dulce sueño aquel manso ruïdo el agua que la clara fuente envía, y las aves sin dueño con canto no aprendido hinchen el aire de dulce armonía; Háceles compañía, a la sombra volando, y entre varios olores gustando tiernas flores, la solícita abeja sussurando; los árboles, el viento al sueño ayudan con su movimiento (Eclogue II, vv. 64–76; in Rivers 2011:149)
To a delightful sleep / the soft sound of running / water from the limpid stream invites; / and the unstudied song of the governed birds / fills the air with musical delights, / to the accompaniment wandering in the shade, / among perfumed bowers, sipping tender flower / Of the busy bee humming in the glade; / Sleep is aided by the breeze Gently rocking the branches of the trees (transl. John Dent-Young 153).
The modern Canadian composer Murray R. Schafer once wrote: “Behold the new orchestra: the sonic universe” (5). Schafer draws from Homer, who repeated the myth that Hermes invented the lyre from the resonant shell of a turtle, to emphasize the Apollonian expression of music as a reflection of the harmonious sounds in the universe (6). In the above citation, deriving from
Garcilaso’s Second Eclogue, the poetic voice dares to imagine the world as it could be: it records
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the sounds, the sights, and the smells of the imaginary locus amoenus to render them audible, visible and tangible to the listener.
On the other hand, as shown in Chapter Two, Garcilaso’s concept of world harmony involves strife as well as resolution, the one juxtaposed to the other. Indeed, the poet, a shrewd observer and attuned listener, records with utmost sensitivity the sweet sounds of streams (Ecl. II vv. 64-76) and the cacophonous sounds of war, all as part of the same reality (Son. XXXIII).
The music and musicality conspicuously present in Garcilaso’s verses is thus a means of expression that needing to be attended, not as mere ornament but as part of the literary encounter that, through its resonance, lingers in posterity and in our memory for our own reflection on life.
Certainly, Cervantes’s Periandro, a character in his Persiles and Sigismunda, remembered the
Toledan bard with admiration, and upon seeing the river Tagus, exclaims:
We won’t say, ‘Here Salicio brought his song to an end,’ but here Salicio began his song; here he outdid himself in his eclogues; here his shepherd’s flutes trilled, the waters of this river paused to hear, the leaves of the trees ceased fluttering, and the wind grew calm to give news of his astonishing song a chance to go from tongue to tongue and from one nation to another through all the world (Cervantes, The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda. Translated by Celia Richmond Weller, and Clark Andrews Colahan (2009:238–239).263
Cervantes, whose characters were made to sing Garcilaso’s verses innumerable times, seals the status of the poetic master in history as poeta-musicus whose lyrics makes us reflect on what the poetry says.
Lastly, John Dent-Young wrote that Garcilaso’s music “is an important contribution to
Spanish literature” (23). Indeed, he who emerges in this discussion of the poetry of Garcilaso, is a poet who, by way of sound and resonance returns to the primogenial constituent of the
263 “No diremos: ‘Aquí dio fin a su cantar Salicio’, sino: ‘Aquí dio principio a su cantar Salicio; aquí sobrepujó en sus églogas a sí mismo; aquí resonó su zampoña, a cuyo son se detuvieron las aguas deste río, no se movieron las hojas de los árboles, y, parándose los vientos, dieron lugar a que la admiración de su canto fuese de lengua en lengua y de gente en gente por todas las de la Tierra” (BK. III- Ch. VIII). 230
universal language. The study reveals that in his poetry, Garcilaso draws form a broad spectrum of melodic and rhythmic linguistic articulations to heighten meaning and forge his own musico- aesthetic model. Ultimately, Garcilaso’s Spanish lyricism arouses universal emotions that transcend cultural boundaries. The lyrics invite the reader or participant to the attentive discernement of verba and res, and that is, the choice of words, their effects, and the meticulous disposition of images, as much as meaning. And while his poetry thematically and formally reflects the most current Renaissance humanistic literary trends of Spain and Italy, drawing from the classical and Petrarchan traditions, the music of the language reflects his own poetic tradition, culture, geography for the sound of his Tagus River runs deep in his poetic spirit. This is a sign of creativity, originality and ideology as much as the themes he presents.
Chapter Two reveals the breath and scope of Garcilaso’s multifaceted artistry and his knowledge of music. If we speak of musicality of verses, Frye reminds us, there must be some technical knowledge and intent on behalf of the poet (1941). Indeed, Garcilaso’s reference to instruments, in his poetry takes the readers on a journey through time from the mythological sphere of Apollo’s lyre to the Renaissance mellow sound of a weeping viola. Likewise, the musical forms studied in Chapter Three for Ode ad Florem Gnidi, reflect the poet’s creative spirit and vast knowledge of ancient and modern forms that he fuses to forge his own Spanish ode/canción/lira. The investigation of musicality and close reading of Garcilaso’s poetry was limited to the Ode ad Florem Gnidi (Chapter Three) and five sonnets (Chapter Five). A study of
Garcilaso’s eclogues, elegies, and Latin odes may yield further understanding of Garcilaso’s musical expression.
In the second part of the dissertation, the presence of Garcilaso’s verses set to music is an indelible sign of his influence across disciplines and cultural boundaries, within the Spanish
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vihuela tradition but also in that of the Italian madrigal. Garcilaso’s poetry thus bridges two musico-poetic traditions and survives as a conduit of a reciprocal literary and musico-poetic exchange between Italy and Spain. It is well known that scholars, over the centuries, have marginalized the study of the history of southern Italy (Milburn 2003:1), and that the study of the
Spanish influence in Renaissance Italian literature remains scarce (Profeti 1993). Manuscripts such as the Magliabechiano, inspire further questions as to who was the composer? For whom was the manuscript compiled? Who are the poets of the Italian poems included with Garcilaso’s verses? Why Garcilaso precisely? Many more Hispanic/Italian manuscripts lie unearthed in
Italian libraries, waiting to be discovered and explored. Perhaps they hold further information regarding Garcilaso in music and, incidentally, his influence in Italy. This was a study that began with the work carried out by Benedetto Croce and Eugenio Mele in the first half of the twentieth- century. Moreover, since one of Garcilaso’s sonnets, Gracias al cielo doy, Sonnet XXXIV, appeared in music before it was printed in any literary anthology, studies of the musical repertoire might lead to the discovery of other works waiting to be rightly attributed to Garcilaso.
Lastly, given a discussion of Garcilaso and the circle of Neapolitan women in Chapter Four, further research in this context may prove profitable for an investigation concerning gender in
Garcilaso’s poetry and possible intertextual references to women poets and their poetry. A
Neapolitan poetess, Laura Terracina, even dedicated a stanza to the supreme Spanish poet.
Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXIV is dedicated to María de Cardona, a Neapolitan poetess and a musician. These facts are suggestive of Garcilaso’s esteem for women as creative participants in poetry and music.
The present dissertation deals with the music in Garcilaso’s poetry and his poetry in music from an interdisciplinary perspective: to be exact, from the vantage point of the
232
philological, linguistic, and musicological fields of studies. This interdisciplinary lens provided the appropriate viewpoint in the investigation of the rich contexts from which Garcilaso’s poetry emerged. The understanding of the musico-poetic context is not extraneous to the poetry, rather it deepens our understanding of the various perspectives and historical issues that shaped the work. Heiple, in his study of Garcilaso’s Horatian Ode ad Florem Gnidi and Latin odes, cites
Maddison, to remind readers that within this classical form, for example, “we are always aware of a social background. The poet is always a member of society addressing his fellow men”
(340). Indeed Heiple investigated the complex iconological structure the mythological allusions of which are drawn from Renaissance, paintings and philosophy produce meaning. The
Renaissance, spurred by humanists’ s desire to revive classical antiquity, remains as one of the most innovative eras in the history of Western human culture, with unprecedented advances made in various facets of life, especially philosophy, the arts and literature. Additionally, given that Spain politically dominated most of Italy for two centuries, the sixteenth-century historical, socio-political, cultural and literary contexts of the two countries are inextricably intertwined.
Their literary contexts could hardly be understood in completely distinct planes of reality.
Therefore, in this study, literature, linguistics and musicology have came together to enhance our understanding of Garcilaso’s poetry such that it proves to be at the centre of a literary and musico-poetic exchange between sixteenth-century Italy and Spain.
Finally, I draw from Rosemary Feal, who recently asserted the following: “So accustomed are we [humanities scholars] to defending our scholarship as discipline-specific, with its own vocabulary and audience, we rarely try to present it in any other terms” (3). Hence, in the spirit of cross-cultural dissemination and interdisciplinary appreciation of Garcilaso’s poetry, I include a CD recording of a selected number of Renaissance musical settings of his
233
verses, including a spoken declamation of his Ode ad Florem Gnidi accompanied by vihuela
(Appendix I and II).
234
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Reprinted by permission of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze. 283 APPENDIX II: MUSIC INSPIRED BY GARCILASO DE LA VEGA CD: Si de mi baja lira ‘Si de mi baja lira’ v Garcilaso de la Vega in M usic v © P roduced by M aria Carolina Oss-Cech Chiacchia University of Calgary, 2014. Voices: Julie Harris (Soprano); Monique Oliver (Soprano); Julie Freedman Smith (Mezzo-Soprano); Jerald Fast (Tenor); Paul Grindlay (Bass); Robinson Ayala Mejía (Poetry reading). Instruments: Carlos Foggins (Organ); Ralph Maier (Vihuela and Renaissance Guitar). Cd cover Image: “El Grande Orfeo,” in Luis de Milán, Libro de Música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro. Valencia: Francisco Díaz Romano, 1536. By permission of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Si de mi baja lira 284 Music inspired by Garcilaso de la Vega 1. Por ásperos caminos 2’10 Alonso Mudarra (ca. 1510 - 1580 ) - Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela 1546. 2. Flérida para mi dulce 1’55 (Anonymous) – in Diego Pisador’s Libro de música de vihuela. Salamanca: 1552. 3. Passando el mar Leandro 3”04 (Pedro Guerrero (ca. 1517 – c. 1586) – In Miguel Querol Gavaldá, ed. Cancionero musical de la Casa de Medinaceli (XVI century 4. Gracias al cielo doy 3’37 Juan Vásquez (ca. 1500 – c. 1560) - Villancicos i canciones de Juan Vásquez a tres y a cuatro (Sevilla: 1551) 5. En tanto que de rosa y azuçena 2’54 Francisco Guerrero (ca. 1528 - 1599) 6. O más dura que mármol a mis quexas 8’39 Pedro Guerrero (ca. 1517 – c. 1586) - Transcribed by Miguel de Fuenllana: Libro de música para vihuela Intitulado Orphenica Lyra. Seville: Martin de Montesdoca, 1554. 7. ¡Quan bienaventurado 2’15 Attr. To Rodrigo de Cevallos (c. 1525 – c. 1575) - Esteban Daza Libro de música de cifras para vihuela, intitulado El Parnasso. Valladolid: Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1576. 8. Escrito está en mi alma 4’58 (Anonymous) – in Estebán Daza’s Libro de música de cifras para vihuela, intitulado El Parnasso. Valladolid: Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1576. 9. Si de mi baja lira 4’16 (Anonymous) – in Ms. Magliabechiano CL XIX 109. Transcribed by Ralph Meier; Arrangement by Julie Harris. 10. Ode ad Florem Gnidi 4’34 Duet: Robinson Ayala Mejía (poetry) Ralph Meier (vihuela accompaniment: transcription from Ms. Magliabechiano CL XIX 109). Maria Carolina Oss-Cech Chiacchia © 2014. All rights reserved unathorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance, and broadcasting prohibited. 285 APPENDIX III: PERMISSIONS FOR COPYRIGHT Garcilaso’s Spanish verses from Poesía castellanas completas, Garcilaso de la Vega, edición de Elias E. Rivers, col. Clásicos Castalia, Castalia Ediciones 2010 – www.castalia.es. By Permission. English translation of Garcilaso’s Por ásperos caminos, in Juan José Pastor Comín, “Musical Transmissions of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poems in Cervantes’ Texts.” RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2005. Web. 30 Dec. 2013. By permission. English translations of selected poems by Garcilaso by John Dent-Young. Permission granted by the Chicago University Press. English translation of Garcilaso’s Passando el mar Leandro by Don Randel. Permission granted by Copyright Clearance Centre – Oxford University Press. English translation of Garcilaso’s Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte and Illustre honor del nombre de Cardona, by Richard Helgerson in A Sonnet from Carthage: Garcilaso de la Vega and the New Poetry of Sixteenth-Century Europe. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Excerpted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press. Image reproduction of Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, De Principe De Obediencia. Ms. 52 (Biblioteca Històrica. Universitat de València), v. 1475, by Cristoforo Maiorana, fol.r 26. By permission. Image reproduction of Magl. XIX 109 c.7v. Permission provided by Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Italy. Image reproduction of Don Pedro di Toledo, by Confano dell’Altissimo. Galleria degli Uffizi. Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo. Sopraintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Firenze Cd cover Image: “El Grande Orfeo,” in Luis de Milán, Libro de Música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro. Valencia: Francisco Diaz Romano, 1536. By permission of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. 286 Garcilaso’s Spanish verses from Poesía castellanas completas, Garcilaso de la Vega, edición de Elias E. Rivers, col. Clásicos Castalia, Castalia Ediciones 2010 – www.castalia.es. By Permission. 287 English translation of Garcilaso’s Por ásperos caminos, in Juan José Pastor Comín, “Musical Transmissions of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poems in Cervantes’ Texts.” RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2005. Web. 30 Dec. 2013. By permission. 288 English translations of selected poems by Garcilaso by John Dent-Young. Permission granted by the Chicago University Press. 289 290 English translation of Garcilaso’s Passando el mar Leandro by Don Randel. Permission granted by Copyright Clearance Centre – Oxford University Press. 291 English translation of Garcilaso’s Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte and Illustre honor del nombre de Cardona, by Richard Helgerson in A Sonnet from Carthage: Garcilaso de la Vega and the New Poetry of Sixteenth-Century Europe. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Excerpted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press. 292 Image reproduction of Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, De Principe De Obediencia. Ms. 52 (Biblioteca Històrica. Universitat de València), v. 1475, by Cristoforo Maiorana, fol.r 26. By permission. 293 Image reproduction of Magl. XIX 109 c.7v. Permission provided by Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Italy. 294 Image reproduction of Don Pedro di Toledo, by Confano dell’Altissimo. Galleria degli Uffizi. Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo. Sopraintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Firenze 295 Cd cover Image: “El Grande Orfeo,” in Luis de Milán, Libro de Música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro. Valencia: Francisco Diaz Romano, 1536. By permission of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. 296 297