On Garcilaso's Egloga I and Virgil's Bucolic VIII

Author(s): Darío Fernández-Morera

Source: MLN, Vol. 89, No. 2, Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1974), pp. 273-280
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2907482
Accessed: 27-12-2017 16:49 UTC

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 274 M L N

been pointed ou
been limited to
study of the s
only can incre
perhaps can ex
imitation.
Few commentators have mentioned this irregularity, possibly because
it is shown in all known manuscripts and editions, unlike the
case of the other irregularities in the text. El Brocense made no comment,
and neither did Azara. Only Tamayo y Vargas and Herrera seem to have
dealt with the problem. Among the modern critics, only Hayward Keniston
and Navarro Tomas have mentioned it, and they have limited themselves
to citing Herrera's and Tamayo's views.1 Tamayo proposed to delete a
verse, "y se quita la superfluidad, y aquel blanco pecho, que tiene algo
de lascivo, y se refiere la gloria a los cabellos, el dorado techo, sobre el
cuello, la coluna, con mayor encarecimiento." 2 Herrera thought that the
mistake was due to the previous one in stanza 19, 1. 263, where a
heptasyllable appears instead of the appropriate hendecayllable, and
thus he explained the extra line as a case of " one mistake usually follows
another." 3 Herrera's explanation is plausible. El Brocense, however,
following the Tomas de Vega manuscript, lost today, emended line 263
in stanza 19 to read " mas convenible fuera aquesta suerte," and the
Lastanosa-Gayangos manuscript reads fuera mas convenible aquesta
suerte."4 Thus at least two manuscripts offered a hendecasyllabic
reading for line 263 in stanza 19, somewhat invalidating Herrera's
explanation for the mistake in stanza 20. Nevertheless, it is still
possible that, for one reason or another, Garcilaso made a slip in this
stanza and came up with an extra line. A mistake of this kind is at
least more plausible than to ascribe it to a copyist or a printer, as has been
done in the case of many other irregularities in the text. Differences in
the number of syllables in a verse, in the choice of words, in punctuation,
and the like, may be ascribed to omissions or changes by copyists or
printers, but the presence of a whole extra verse in a stanza which has
perfect rhyme and sense is not so easily explained. And all known

1 Hayward Keniston, Garcilaso de la Vega: Obras (New York: Hispanic

Society of America, 1925), p. 289, and Tomas Navarro Tomas, Garcilaso: Obras
(Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1970), p. 18, n. 281. Even Alberto Blecua, in his excel-
lent study of the text, fails to deal with this matter (En el texto de Garcilaso,
Madrid: Insula, 1970, pp. 121-27).
2 Navarro Tomas, loc. cit.
See Antonio Gallego Morell, Garcilaso y sus comentaristas (Granada: 1966),
commentaries H-479 and H-481 to the Egloga I.
4 Gallego Morell, commentary B-119 to the Egloga I, and Blecua, p. 120.

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 M L N 275

manuscripts a
a rather obvio
poet so carefu
proportion of
Garcilaso's pe
Blanco and Ra
achieve.6 Furt
had read his m
obvious as an extra line in a stanza. In view of all this, the only
alternative explanation is that Garcilaso purposely wrote the stanza
with an extra line in it, and that by doing so he was consciously
imitating an analogous irregularity which exists in the formal model of
the Egloga I, namely in Virgil's Bucolic VIII.
In an historical perspective, the first structural model that should be
considered is, in fact, Virgil.7 Keniston indicated, without elaborating,
that the plan of the singing of two parts by two shepherds is the one
followed by Virgil in Bucolic VIII, although the theme of the second
5Ernst Cassirer remarks in The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance
Philosophy (New York: 1964), p. 51: "the speculative philosophical, the
technical mathematical and the artistic tendencies of the period converge in
the concept of proportion. And this convergence makes the problem of
form one of the central problems of Renaissance culture."
6 Of the Egloga I says Margot Arce Blanco in "La Egloga Primera," La
Torre, 4 (1953), 35: "La proporci6n se apoya en agrupaciones a base de la
multiplicaci6n de un nucleo de tres estrofas," " Perfecta simetria y proporci6n."
Of the Egloga II says Rafael Lapesa in La trayectoria poetica de Garcilaso
(Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1968), p. 104: "La autonomia del poeta se
manifiesta sobre todo en haber dado a su obra una disposici6n notablemente
simetrica, cuyo esquema puede verse en nuestra pagina 105."
7Garcilaso may have had some Greek, but this is doubtful. As Keniston
said in Garcilaso de la Vega: A Critical Study of His Life and Words (New
York: Hispanic Society of America, 1922), p. 38: "the Spanish Renaissance
was content to read its Greek in Latin or Castilian translation." Nor is
there any formal similarity between Theocritus' idylls and Garcilaso'
Both Garcilaso and Theocritus, however, share a greater "realism" than
Virgil, incidental as this similarity may be. Virgil idealizes Theocritus' more
earthy background, and Herbert J. Rose has wondered "Why is Virgil's
country-side not at all Virgil, but to a very appreciable extent Theocritus,
and Sicilian, or Koan, or some other kind of Greek? (The Eclogues of Virgil,
Berkeley, 1942, p. 22). Also, Virgil's shepherds are learned ones, unlike those
of Theocritus (Rose, p. 150). In the Egloga I, at least the mention of the
Tajo (1. 118) gives the countryside a Spanish flavor, rather than a foreign one.
The shepherds are also less learned than those of Virgil. Damon uses mytho-
logical allusions and foreign geographical references in his attack on love:
Pan (1. 24), Garamantes (1. 44), Orpheus (1. 55), Arion (1. 56), and Medea
(1. 47-50), but Salicio uses no mythological names (Galatea and Tityro pertain
rather to the bucolic tradition, apparently taken from Virgil), and his
geographical references are of his own land.

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 276 M L N

shepherd is not
the theme of th
as in the Egloga
is not mournin
a whole, cannot
in none of the o
forming part of
two themes from
Virgil took the
Theocritus and
have found a model for his dual thematic structure-in a more finished
form-in works such as I due pellegrini or the Question de amor.9
It may be seen from the diagram that the Egloga I follows exactly the
formal structure of Bucolic VIII, except for the final "block " of verses-a
stanza-in Garcilaso's work. Compared to Virgil's Bucolic VIII, the
Egloga I shows greater coherence. We know that some defects have been
pointed out in the structure of Bucolic VIII. Erich Bethe thought that
the two parts would be better off if separated, since their subject matter is
completely different, coming as they are from different Theocritean
idylls.o1 Although this objection may be met with Herbert Holtorf's view
of the "Allgewalt des Eros" as the unifying theme of the work," the
fact is that the two songs are different, one being a lyric song lamenting
unrequited love, the other being an incantation to bring home a
beloved one. Herbert J. Rose offered a different explanation for the
disparity of subject matter in the work. He believed that the incantation,
with its happy ending, was introduced to compensate for the tragic end
of the first part, where Damon is about to kill himself. Virgil would
be thus thematically "balancing" the work, with the addition of the
happily ending incantation theme.l2 On the other hand, the end of the
work perhaps seems too abrupt, for it simply ends with the last line of
the second shepherd, and not with a section that at the end might unify
the two different parts, as the introductory section does. Besides, although
it is a narrative eclogue, it is practically dramatic, since the narrator,
after the introduction and the brief two lines linking the two songs,

8 Garcilaso de la Vega: A Critical Study, pp. 240-41.

9Keniston (Garcilaso: A Critical Study, p. 241) and Marcelino Menendez
Pelayo (Origenes de la novela, II, 50, in Obras completas, Santander, 1943, vol.
14) have noticed this thematic similarity. Neither work resembles the
Egloga I, as far as the form is concerned, as closely as Bucolic VIII.
10Rh M, 47 (1892), 594.
11 P. Vergilius Maro: Die Gr6sseren Gedichte, I (Munchen: Karl Alber,
1959), pp. 211 and 212.
12 Rose, The Eclogues, p. 155.

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M L N 277

"- c o co ,
O

* . BcoiAlphesi hocus
0 - - C o ,

C
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- Damon's
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Song
Song
Song
. 0 o (v 17-61)
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(v64-109) <"*

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 278 M L N

does not app

between the
pleasure, the
even though
the " power o
unified them
character, an
namely the lo
and death in the other. In addition, at the end of the work, Garcilaso
clinches the eclogue with a bucolic touch, which is absent from the end
of Virgil's work, namely, the two shepherds ending their singing with the
end of the day, going home with their cattle as the sun sets. Those lines of
the final stanza are bucolic poetry at its best and round off the bucolic
character of the whole eclogue. Besides, by reintroducing the narrator at
the end, the Egloga I seems more consistently narrative. Finally, Garcilaso
has introduced the work not as a "certatio," but as a lamentation of
two shepherds, which is indeed in the work.
We have seen that the final " block " in the Egloga I seems to give the
work a greater coherence than we find in Bucolic VIII. This block also
perhaps counterbalances the introductory blocks with a final block after
the two songs of the shepherds, songs which constitute the body of the
work. It should also be noticed that Garcilaso's blocks are, in general,
more symmetrical. Otherwise, down to the asymmetry of having each an
extra line in the second shepherd's song, the form is the same in both
eclogues. The extra line in Bucolic VIII is caused by the fact that the
refrain " incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, versus" is absent from the
song of Damon after line 2, whereas in Alphesiboeus' song the refrain
" ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim " is found after line
75. This irregularity is found in all the Virgilian codices that show Bucolic
VIII, except in one.14 Nevertheless, since the number of verses in both
songs would be the same, were not for this, and since Virgil was so careful
a craftsman, editors have tried, as usual, to emend the text. G. Hermann
was the first who made a point of this irregularity. He believed that it
was necessary either to introduce the refrain " incipe.. ." after line 28, or
to delete the refrain "ducite. . ." after line 75.15 It was O. Ribbeck,

18 This and the following in Rose, pp. 147-48.

14The following are the extant Virgilian codices that show Bucolic VIII.
Codices maiores: M (Mediceus, V cent.), P (Palatinus, IV cent.), V (Vero-
nensis, IV cent.: only 1. 12-36). Codices minores: (Mediolanensis, XIII or
XVI cent.), a (Bernensis No. 172 and Parisinus No. 7929, IX cent.), b
(Bernensis No. 165, end of IX cent.), c (Bernensis No. 184, IX cent.),
r (Guelferbitanus Gudianus, IX cent.). Only the last one shows line 28a. See
R. Sabbadini, P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Rome: 1930), I, pp. 19-29.
15Godofredus Hermann, Bionis et Moschi carmina (Lipsiae: 1849), p. 46.

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 M L N 279

however, who
and 1868. His
codexr, whic
edition. After
H. Rushton F
(1959), etc., g
asymmetry. J
that a verse refrain has been introduced after line 75, and Andree Richter
(1970) agrees with him, proposing instead to delete both lines 28a and 76.
These disagreements among classical scholars are very interesting to
the bewildered student of the Garcilasian text, but what is more important
is whether Garcilaso knew the reading of all those codices that show the
asymmetry, or that of the only one that does not show it. What,
actually, was the reading accepted in his time? With a high degree of
certainty we can answer that it was the reading of all the other codices
and not that of the -. In the Renaissance, as in the later centuries,
up to 1867, when Ribbeck printed the work with line 28a, Bucolic VII
always showed an extra line in Alphesiboeus' song.16 This must have
been the reading that Garcilaso had in mind when writing the Egloga I.
We also know that a good deal of the merit of a Renaissance work of art
lay in its conscious imitation of a classical model. The imitation of an
irregularity in the model would perhaps be a source of additional
pleasure in the reading of the work, an endless source of satisfaction to
the "connoisseur." One difficulty in accepting this possibility is the
difference in form caused by the final " block " of verses in the Egloga I,
and by the greater symmetry of the blocks in general, which, quit
apart from the thematic details, account for a structure much superior
to that of Virgil's work, particularly if one considers the much larger
material handled by the Spaniard. If Garcilaso departed from his model
here, and probably improved upon it by doing so, why would he then
follow the model as regards the extra line, an asymmetry? The only
answer is that in one way Garcilaso was imitating his model "ia outr","
by making a replica of an irregularity in it, and that in another way he
was departing from his model by adding a concluding section which
seems to give his work a more balanced structure and by making the
blocks symmetrical. One way would not necessarily exclude the other
Just as he followed the model in the introductory and transitiona
blocks of the song, but nevertheless departed from his model at the end

16 As a matter of routine I have also examined a number of Renaissance

editions, and none of them showed verse 28a: P. Vergilii Maronis, Bucolica
(Strasbourg: 1516); Opera (Parisiis: 1532); Opera (Venetiis: 1533;
Universum Poema (Venetiis: 1541); Opera (Basileae: 1543); Opera (Venetiis:
1552).

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 280 M L N

and in the gre

the model in t
the model in t
All other "m
errors of the
not so easily e
number of li
whole stanza
possibilities. O
This is perhaps
prompted edit
they have trie
another, ascri
mistake as an extra line, moreover, could have been detected by the
friends who presumably read his works in manuscript, and who likely
commented on them to Garcilaso himself. The only other possible
explanation seems to be a purposeful irregularity, with a sort of " roman
a clef" meaning, that is to say, a secret, "ia outr6" imitation of the
model, an intentional blunder, the true origin of which was to be clear only
to those "initiated," or to members of a close circle of friends, or to
those who happened to come by the asymmetrical reading of the model.

DARIO FERNANDEZ-MORERA
Harvard University

From Plato's Cave to Segismundo's Prison:

The Four Levels of Reality and Experience
Calder6n de la Barca's La vida es sueno, one of the most famous dramas
of the Spanish Golden Age, derives its basic form and much of its
metaphorical beauty from the sixth and seventh books of Plato's Republic,
in which Plato gives fullest expression to the metaphor of the cave and
of man's ascent from the cave to the level of philosopher-king.
Similarities between the two works, once suggested with hesitation and
greeted with harsh criticism, have now been carefully established, and
the Republic as antecedent for the structure and poetry as well as much of
the philosophy of Calder6n's masterpiece can no longer be seriously
disputed.1 The degree of similarity forces a new task upon Calderonian

1 See especially Jackson I. Cope, " The Platonic Metamorphoses of Calder6n's

La Vida es Sueno," MLN 86 (1971), 225-41; and Michele F. Sciacca, " Verdad

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