A Journal devoted to research in Modern Languages and January, April, July, and October Studies in Cervantes. I. "Persiles y Sigismunda" The Authorship of "Sir Gyles Goosecappe". Cock and Fox. A Critical Study of the History and Sources of the Mediæval A Valuable Middle English Manuscript Romeo and Juliette Sources and Analogues of "The Flower and the Leaf." I. Chaucer's Use of Boccaccio's "Filocolo". E. P. Dargan 39 Chaucer and Petrarch: Two Notes on the "Clerkes Tale" G. L. Hendrickson Editorial communications and manuscripts should be addressed to Mr. Philip S. Allen, Managing Editor, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. Business correspondence should be addressed to The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. Subscription $3.00 per year. Single copies $1.00. 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When, on September 9, 1616, but a few months after the death of Cervantes, el Maestro Josef de Valdiviesso' penned the necessary aprobacion prefixed to the first edition of the Persiles y Sigismunda, he perhaps unconsciously gave to his opinion of the work a personal note which lends it a charm and value seldom or never found in the usually perfunctory official approval. The cheerful and buoyant spirit of the aged romancer was now no more, but he had left to posterity works which were destined to become thenceforward a part of the national life of Spain. Addressing his official approval to the king, Valdiviesso says: Por mandado de Vuessa Alteza, he visto el libro de los trabajos de Persiles de Miguel de Ceruantes Saauedra, illustre hijo de nuestra nacion, y padre illustre de tantos buenos hijos, con que dichosamente la enoblezid; no hallo en el cosa côtra nuestra Santa Fè Catolica, y buenas costumbres, antes muchas de honesta, y apazible recreacion, y por el se podria dezir, lo que san Geronimo de Origines por el comentario sobre los Cantares: Cum in omnibus omnes, in hoc se ipsum superauit Origenes; pues de quantos nos dexò escritos, ninguno es mas ingenioso, 1 Also written Valdivielso; an account of his life and writings may be found in Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature (London, 1863), Vol. II, p. 331; the single volume which contains his dramatic works is very rare, but the Imperial Library at Vienna has a copy. The title reads: Doce actos sacramentales y dos comedias divinas por el Maestro Joseph de Valdivielso (Toledo, 1622). Cf. Schack, Geschichte der dramatischen Litteratur und Kunst in Spanien (Frankfurt, 1854), Vol. II, pp. 491, 497, 651, and Obras de Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, edited by Don A. Fernández-Guerra y Orbe (Madrid, 1876), Vol. II, p. 467. mas culto, ni mas entretenido, en fin cisne de su buena vegez: casi entr los aprietos de la muerte cantò este parto de su venera(n)do ingenio. To us, no doubt, this exaggerated appreciation has little value beyond that of a friendly tribute; after a lapse of three hundred years its praise finds no echo, for no work by Cervantes has been so thoroughly consigned to an oblivion which, according to most critics, would appear to be well deserved. Yet the verdict of the aprobacion was justified, for a time at least, by an unusual demand for the book immediately after its publication.' Within the same year of the first edition (1617) six others appeared,2 and by 1629 ten editions had seen the light. Thus the Persiles 1A complete list of all the editions of the Persiles may be found in the Bibliografia Crítica de las Obras de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, por D. Leopoldo Rius (Madrid, 1895-1905; 3 vols.); cf. Vol. I, pp. 160 ff. The first edition was printed by Juan de la Cuesta, who had issued the Don Quixote. After that of 1629 there was no other until the eighteenth century, when eight new issues appeared. The romance, however, had been used by Francisco de Roxas Zorrilla in his comedia Persiles y Sigismunda, of which the earliest printed copy known is dated 1636 (cf. Barrera's catalogue, p. 685). In the nineteenth century there were twelve editions, of which one saw the light in New York (1827), and one in Paris (1835). Translations of the story were made almost immediately after its appearance (cf. Vol. I, p. 363, of Rius); two in French appeared in Paris, 1618, the first by François de Rosset, and the second by le Sieur D'Audiguier; and one in English, in London, 1619, by an unknown person. The title is of interest: "The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda. A northern history: Wherein amongst the variable Fortunes of the Prince of Thule, and this Princesse of Frisland, are interlaced many witty discourses, morall, politicall, and delightfull. The first copie was written in Spanish; translated afterward into French; and now last into English. London. Printed by H. L. for M. L., etc., 1619." Upon this English version John Fletcher based his play, The Custom of the Country, one of the vilest ever put upon the stage. When Alex. Dyce edited it (Vol. IV, p. 385) in the Works of Beaumont and Fletcher (11 vols., London, 1844), he was unaware that Cervantes' Persiles was the source, though the fact had been pointed out as early as 1818 by F. W. V. Schmidt, in his Beiträge zur Geschichte der romantischen Poesie (Berlin), p. 180 (cf. p. 5, n. 3). Ticknor, Vol. II, p. 133, n. 2 (cf. p. 9, n. 2) mentions some of the ideas and episodes which were taken from Cervantes by Fletcher, making it clear, at the same time, that the indecency is all Fletcher's own. I am not aware that any thoroughgoing comparison of the romance with the play has yet been made. Leo Bahlsen, "Spanische Quellen der dramatischen Litteratur, besonders Englands zu Shakespeares Zeit" (Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte [Berlin, 1893], Vol. VI, p. 155), repeats the gist of Ticknor's comparison. Cf. also Dunlop-Liebrecht, Geschichte der Prosadichtung, pp. 278, 493, 511; also Englische Studien, Vol. IX, p. 24, No. 37, "On the Chronology of the Plays of Fletcher and Massinger" (Fleay), and A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature (London, 1899), Vol. II, p. 722. Here Ward says that the actual origin of the play was first pointed out in 1875! Cf. also Fraser's Magazine, Vol. II, New Series, p. 592; Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson's, etc. (Erlangen und Leipzig, 1895), p. 65; The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Variorum edition (London, 1904), Vol. I, p. 480. A translation of the Persiles into Italian appeared in Venice in 1626. Various translations have followed since. The first edition of the Persiles y Sigismunda may be consulted in the Ticknor library in Boston and in Mr. Huntington's library in New York. The first English version is in the British Museum. In referring hereafter to the romance, I shall give the page according to the edition of Rivadeneyra, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Vol. I, Obras de Miguel de Cervantes. 2 No. 346 of Rius' catalogue is considered a counterfeit; cf. also the catalogue of Ticknor's library, that of the British Museum, and that of Salvá, No. 1755. |