Melisendra's Mishap in Maese Pedro's Puppet Show

Author(s): John J. Allen

Source: MLN, Vol. 88, No. 2, Hispanid Issue (Mar., 1973), pp. 330-335
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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M L

330

as expressingCervantes'trueopinion; no doubt Cervanteswould not have

really sent Martorell to the galleys,any more than he would have really
placed the books dealing with the matierede France in a drywell. What
should be clear, is that there is in this passage no praise of Tirant lo
Blanch, on the part of Cervantes,21or of anyone else.
The CityCollege
of New York
CityUniversity

DANIEL EISENBERG

Melisendra's Mishap in Maese Pedro's Puppet Show

Among the most interestingand illuminating contributionsmade in
recent years to our understandingof Don Quijote, especially as this involves the establishmentof the complex relationsbetween author,reader,
and characters,is George Haley's article on "The Narrator in Don
Quijote." ProfessorHaley demonstratesconvincinglythat " Maese Pedro's
puppet show is . . . an analogue

to the novel as a whole, not merely

because the burlesque legend that Maese Pedro re-createswithpuppets is a

reductio ad absurdum of the same chivalric material that Cervantes
burlesques throughhis characters,but also because it reproduces on a
miniaturescale the same basic relationshipsamong storyteller,
storyand
audience that are discernible in the novel's overall scheme."1 I should
like here to focus on another facet of Cervantes' achievement in the
representationof thislittleplay withinthe novel, and to attempta modest
extension of Haley's analysis to include a furtherpoint of analogy with
the novel as a whole.
Haley's unraveling of the complex relations between Maese Pedro,
his narrator the 'trujaman," and his spectatorDon Quijote, establishes
the parallel between the puppet show and the novel as a whole:
21The other, briefer allusions to the Tirant in Don Quijote are no more
indicative of a favorable attitude on the part of Cervantes. Aside from the list
in Don Quijote's speech at the beginning of I, 20, the description in I, 13,
"el nunca como se debe alabado Tirante el Blanco," is ambiguous, and the
adjectives acomodado and manual used to describe him in II, 1 are frankly
insulting,despite Riquer's attempt in a note to his edition of the Qujote, 6th ed.
(Barcelona: Juventud, 1969), II, 548, to explain them away. Acomodado, in
the Diccionario de Autoridades, is "el que es muy amigo del descanso, regalo y
conveniencias"; manual, citing this very passage as its example, is " el hombre
que tiene el genio d6cil, y es muy ficil en hacer quanto le mandan."
1 George Haley, 'The Narrator in Don Quijote: Maese Pedro's Puppet Show,"
Modern Language Notes, 80 (1965), 148. Subsequent referencesappear in parentheses in the text.

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M L N

331

The relationship that the author-criminalGinds de Pasamonte bears

to the puppeteer Maese Pedro, and he in turn to the assistantis, in
its essentials,the same as that which Cervantesbears to his chronicler
Cide Hamete and he in turn to his translatorand interpreters.Ginds
de Pasamonte,the historicalselfwho is the subject of his autobiography,
has no place in Maese Pedro's puppet show. Nor has Cervantesleftan
explicit place for himselfas author of Don Quijote. His purpose for
excludinghimselffromthe text ... was not to elude ultimateauthorial
responsibility,as many seem still to believe, but rather to render his
creation artisticallyself-sufficient.
(pp. 161-62)
The two points that I wish to elaborate upon are: 1) Mease Pedro's
loss of control over his "characters" at one point in the show, and the
subsequent recovery,and 2) the extension of Haley's analogy-Maese
Pedro/puppets: Cide Hamete/Don Quijote-to include this factor. Considerationof these points leads one to conclusionswhich would seem to
differsignificantly
fromthose reached by ProfessorHaley.
Among the elements of the narration which Haley ascribes to the
trujaman's "search for the illusion of history" are "the kiss stolen by
the Moor fromthe lips of Melisendra,who spits in disgustand dries her
mouth on her sleeve, [and] the clumsydescent from the tower, during
which Melisendra's skirtcatches on the balcony railing and the princess
is leftunceremoniouslyhanging in the air by her petticoats." (p. 153) It
should be clear, however, that these details and emphases are not the
result of a "search for the illusion of history,"but rather simply the
accurate transmissionby a naive narratorof what he is actuallyobserving
on stage. They are appropriateand indeed indispensablefeaturesof this
silent production in which communicationof actions and emotionsmust
proceed throughthe exaggeratedgesturesthat the mechanical limitations
of puppets impose. Let us watch the action of what could only be a
puppet show:
Carlo Magno, padre putativo de la tal Melisendra . . . sale a refiir

[a don Gaiferos]; y adviertan con la vehemencia y ahinco que le rifle,

que no parece sino que le quiere dar con el ceptro media docena de
coscorrones ....

[Don Gaiferos] arroja, impaciente de la c61era, lejos

de si el tableroy las tablas."

In Sansuefia,in the tower:

<No veen aquel moro que callandico y pasito a paso, puesto el dedo en
la boca, se llega por las espaldas de Melisendra? Pues miren c6mo la
da un beso en mitad de los labios, y la priesa que ella se da a escupir,
y a limpiSrseloscon la blanca manga de su camisa."
The hero arrives,

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332

[Y] basta ver c6mo don Gaiferos se descubre,y que por los ademanes
alegres que Melisendra hace se nos da a entenderque ella le ha conocido, y mas ahora que veemos se descuelga del balc6n, para ponerse en
las ancas del caballo de su buen esposo.2
At this point in the show, the action takes a rather strangeturn. We
have become aware, throughthe trujamdn'sobvious descriptionof what he
sees before him on the stage, and throughMaese Pedro's admonitions"Muchacho, no te metas en dibujos; " "llaneza, muchacho; no te
encumbres" (pp. 731 and 732) -that the boy is not recitinga memorized
text,as Manuel de Falla's musicalre-creation,forexample,would lead one
to believe, but that he improvisesupon and embellishesa basic narrative
thread. The dependence of the boy upon his observationof the puppets
is underscoredby his repeated referencesto the on-goingproduction,as

opposed to its literary sources: "Adviertan . . . la vehemencia;" " iNo

veen aquel moro ... ;" " miren c6mo la da un beso; " " basta ver c6mo

don Gaiferosse descubre;" " se nos da a entenderque ella le ha conocido; "

"vemos que se descuelga." The " nos " of " se nos da a entender,"in fact,
fullyincorporatesthe boy into the audience. The narrationwhich follows
mustbe seen in thislight:
Mas, lay,sin ventural,que se le ha asido una punta del faldellinde uno
de los hierrosdel balc6n, y esta pendiente en el aire, sin poder llegar al
suelo. Pero veis como el piadoso cielo socorreen las mayoresnecesidades;
pues llega don Gaiferos,y sin mirarsi se rasgara o no el rico faldellin,
ase della, y mal su grado la hace bajar al suelo." (p. 732)
to accept thisincidentas an intendedfeatureof
It is reallyquite difficult
Maese Pedro's production. He had promised "una de las mejores y mas
bien representadashistoriasque ... en este reino se ha visto,"" sacada," as
the boy says," al pie de la letra de las cor6nicasfrancesasy de los romances
espafioles." (p. 723 and 729) The existenceof 'serious' puppet productions is clearlyreflectedin the connectionwhich Covarrubiasmakes in the
Tesoro between puppets and retablo: "Algunos estrangerossuelen traer
vna caxa de titeres,que representaalguna historia sagrada, y de alli les
dieron el nombrede retablos."3 The puppet show has not been presented
as a burlesque, although the naive transmissionof exaggerated puppet
gestureshas had that effect.This incidentburlesques automatically.It is
not in the main ballad sources, as Clemencin points out in his notes:
"Segin el romance, Melisendra no se descolg6, sino que se quit6 de la
ventana y baj6 por la escalera." The suggestionis neverthelesstherein the
ballad, and it mayhave givenCervantesthe idea:
2Don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. Martin de Riquer (Barcelona: Juventud,
1966), pp. 730-32. Subsequent referencesappear in parentheses in the text.
sSebastian de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana, o espanola (New
York: Hispanic Society of America, 1927), p. 139 (f.lOV).

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333
Melisendra que esto vido
conosciolo en el hablare
tirosede la ventana,
la escalerafue a tomare;
saliose para la plaza
adonde lo vido estare.4

Again, Melisendra's directdescent,outside the tower,is to be expected,

given the mechanicsof marionettes,but the skirtcatchingon the balcony
is clearlyan accident of this particularperformance." IDesastre tipico de
un teatritode marionetas!", is J. E. Varey'scommenton the skirt-catching
incidentin the discussionof Maese Pedro's puppet show in his Historia de
los titeresen Espaia.5 GuillermoDiaz-Plaja commentssimilarly:
Solo unos mufecos [manejados] desde arriba, pueden moverse en
direcci6nverticalcomo los del retablo,y todavia mas; s61o moviendose
asi es posible que a uno de los " personajes,"la gentil Melisendra,se le
prenda una punta del faldellin de los hierros del balc6n y se quede
c6micamentecolgada, hasta que Maese Pedro, con un habil tir6nde los
hilos,la coloca en los brazosde don Gaiferos.6
Quite apart fromthe violation of the intended tone of the performance,
it is unlikelythatMaese Pedro could affordto take thiskind of chance with
Melisendra'swardrobeat everyperformance.
Aside fromthe consequentheighteningof burlesque,similarin its comic
effectto the dangling of Don Quijote from the window of Juan Palomeque's inn in Part I, thisloss of controlby Maese Pedro over his characters
is, if we accept Haley's equation-Maese Pedro / puppets: Cide Hamete /
Don Quijote-, curiously analogical to the apparent autonomy which
AmericoCastro,Luis Rosales, and othershave ascribedto the Don Quijote
of Part II. The criticalelucidationsof this achievementof Cervantesare
well known; here we need only recall, for example, that Cide Hamete's
statementat the end of Part I that Don Quijote took part in the jousts at
Saragossa turns out after all to have been based upon Avellaneda's
apochryphalsequel, since the real Don Quijote decides in the real Part II
not to set foot in Saragossa,in open rebellion against authorial control.
Even puppets, it seems,are liable to elude theircreator'scontrolin the
interplayof forcesat work in the actions and events of the production.
But theseverysame circumstancescan be assimilatedinto the work of art
as new expressiveresourcesfor the expanding creation. Maese Pedro has
4El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. Diego Clemencin
(Madrid: Castilla, 1966), p. 1671, n. 18.
5J. E. Varey, Historia de los titeres en Espana (Madrid: Revista de
Occidente, 1957), p. 234.
Guillermo Diaz-Plaja, "El retablo de Maese Pedro," Insula, 204 (1963), 1.

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334

momentarilylost controlof his puppets,but he incorporatesthe lapse into

the fiction,by having Don Gaiferosrescue the princess,rather than disengaging Melisendra's skirtsfromthe balcony rail himself. In the same
way, Cervantesincorporatesthe intrusionof Avellaneda's sequel into the
fictionalworld of Don Quijote, and makesit part of the subsequentaction.
In the concluding pages of his article, ProfessorHaley identifiesthe
point of Cervantes' ingenious analogy between the relationshipsamong
author,reader,and charactersin the puppet show,and those in the larger
novel, as a significantstep in the "education" of the reader as to the
differencebetween fictionand history,and the proper distance which a
discreetreadermustmaintainbetweenhimselfand a fictionalaction foran
"appropriate aestheticresponse" (p. 165). But, as I have maintained
elsewherein more detail, the curiouslyambivalent effectof Don Quijote,
to which the
Part II, basis forthe extraordinarily
divergentinterpretations
novel has given rise, depends upon the reader's inabilityto maintain the
detachmentand distancefromDon Quijote which had been establishedin
Part I.7
I think Melisendra's mishap can be seen as an example of one of the
devices Cervanteshas used to manipulate distance in Part II. The reader,
and ProfessorHaley is representativehere,has failed to distinguishfiction
fromrealityat thisparticularpoint, that is, he has failed to see the difference between the fictionof Melisendra and Gaiferos and the accidental
circumstancesof the production. Haley points out that while the reader
is consciousof his superiorityover Don Quijote in not being taken in by
Maese Pedro's illusion, he "unwittinglyfalls victim to another illusion
mounted by Cide Hamete" (p. 159). Only later is the reader informed
that Maese Pedro is really Ginds de Pasamonte. "The reader has been
deceived,thenenlightenedby the chronicler.... The reader has just been
shown how easy it is to be taken in by one illusion at the very moment
that he mightbe satisfiedwith himselffor not having been taken in by
another" (p. 160).
The analysis is perceptive and illuminating,and the analogy of the
puppet showwiththe novel as a whole is clear and convincing.Why,then,
do so many readers fail to learn the "lesson," to preserve the distance
which ProfessorHaley deems necessaryfor an "appropriate aesthetic
response"? It seems to me that it is because Cervantesis always one step
away, with another "engano a los ojos" such as this mixture of fiction
and realityin the puppet show, or the massiveviolation of verisimilitude
involvedin the inclusionof Part I withinPart II, parodyinghis own style,
discreditinghis own fictional" authorities,"alwaysmaintainingthe reader
in that supremelydelicate balance which great fictionprovides between
Don Quixote: Hero or Fool?

(Gainesville: U. of Florida Press, 1969).

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335

M L N

objectivityand participation. That is to say that the distance necessary

foran " appropriateaestheticresponse" to Don Quijote is not a consistent
or even constantlyrenewed or finally resolved detachment from and
superiorityto the protagonist,but ratherthat it involvesan oscillation,in
the words of the novelist and critic Benjamin DeMott, between "permissible identificationswith other human beings and an attainable
detachment. . . ," throughwhich the reader is "elevated by the act of
judging deeds that aren't [his], but that are yet known to [him] from
within."8
Universityof Florida

JOHN J. ALLEN

The Sospirosof Sancho's Donkey

As Don Quijote and Sancho are leaving home in Part II of Cervantes'
masterpiece,their mounts emit certain sounds which both master and
squire take forfavorableomens:
. comenz6 a relinchar Rocinante y a sospirar el rucio, que de
entrambos,caballeroy escudero,fue tenido a buena serialy por felicisimo
agiiero; aunque, si se ha de contar la verdad, mas fueronlos sospirosy
rebuznosdel rucio que los relinchosdel rocin, de donde coligi6 Sancho
que su ventura habia de sobrepujar y ponerse encima de la de su
sefior...1
The passage has warrantedcommentaryfromsome of the foremostannotators of Don Quijote. Diego Clemencin calls attention to a previous
instancewhere Don Quijote has interpretedRocinante's neighs as a fair
sign 2:

Desde los relinchosdel caballo de Dario, que le valieron la corona

de Persia,3y los del de Dionisio el Tirano, que le anunciaron la de
Siracusa,4los agorerosy supersticiosostuvieronpretextosde considerar
como importantey prof?ticoel lenguaje de los caballos ...5
8
Benjamin DeMott, " The Clearer World of Fiction," Saturday Review, Oct.
19, 1968, p. 25.
Citations are from Francisco Rodriguez Marin's last edition of Don Quijote
(Madrid, 1948), IV, pp. 171-172.
2".
.. llegaron a sus oidos relinchos de Rocinante; los cuales relinchos tom6
don Quijote por felicisimoaguero .. .," Part II, chap. 4; ed. cit., IV, p. 111.
3 Related
by Herodotus, History, Book III, chap. 85.
'We have been unable to trace this reference.
6 Don Quijote, ed. Luis Astrana Marin, with Clemencin's commentary(Madrid,
n. d. [1947]), p. 1524, n. 12.

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