The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes
the author’s life.[1]
[1] Doubt has been thrown on the authorship, but without
sufficient reason. See Antonio, _Bib. Nov._ i. 291.
Don Diego Lopez, Lord of Mendoza, in 1170 married Doña Eleanor Hurtado,
heiress of Mendibil. She was the daughter of Fernan Perez de Lara
called Hurtado, son of Pedro Gonzalez de Lara and of the Queen Urraca
of Castille and Leon.
Don Lopez and Eleanor Hurtado had four sons: Inigo, Lord of Mendoza;
Diego, Lord of Mendibil; Pedro Diaz, who was ancestor of the Mendozas
of Seville; and Fernando, who founded the line in Portugal.
Inigo Lopez de Mendoza married Maria de Haro, and was father of Maria,
the wife of her first cousin, Juan de Mendoza, son of her uncle Diego.
Their son, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, in the time of Fernando II.,
married Maria Gonzalez de Aguero, and had a son Gonzalo.
This Gonzalo Hurtado de Mendoza married Juana Fernandez de Orozco, and
was the father of a very distinguished son--of Pedro Gonzalez.
[Sidenote: A Mendoza saved the life of King Juan I. of Castille.]
Pedro Gonzalez Hurtado de Mendoza married Aldonza, daughter of Fernan
Perez de Ayala. He was with Juan I., of Castille, at the battle of
Aljubarrota. In the flight the King’s horse was killed. Mendoza
dismounted and said to the King:--
El cavallo vos han muerto,[2]
Subid Rey en mi cavallo.
[2]
They have killed the horse of thine,
Save _thy_ life and mount on mine.
The King rode away. Mendoza was overtaken and slain. The date of the
battle was August 14, 1385. His father survived him, dying in 1405.
The son of this chivalrous knight and successor to his grandfather was
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, married first to Maria, daughter of Enrique
II., King of Castille, and secondly to Eleanor de la Vega. His son,
Inigo Lopez, was by his second wife.
[Sidenote: The Poet Marquis of Santillana.]
Inigo Lopez Hurtado de Mendoza was born in 1396. He served with
distinction at the battle of Olmedo, and was created Marquis of
Santillana in 1445. He was opposed to Alvaro de Luna, the famous
Minister of Juan II.
Born in the Asturias, the Marquis was a poet. Among his writings was a
little _Serranilla_.
Moza tan fermosa
No vi en la frontera
Como una vaquera
De la Finojosa.
En un verde prado
De rosas y flores
Guardando ganado
Con otros pastores,
La vi tan fermosa
Que apenas creyera
Que fuese vaquera
De la Finojosa.
TRANSLATION
The sweetest girl without compare
In all my days I’ve ever seen
Was that young maid, so lithe and fair,
On Finojosa’s frontier green.
In pleasant shade of beech and pine
A verdant meadow did appear;
And here she watched the browsing kine
With other girls, but none like her.
By nature deck’d and well arrayed
She looked like some bright Summer Queen;
And not a common village maid
Of Finojosa’s frontier green.
But the chief poetical work of the Marquis of Santillana was the
_Comedieta de Ponza_, founded on the story of a great sea-fight, near
the island of Ponza, in 1435, between the Aragon fleet and the Genoese.
At the request of King Juan II. he also made a _collection of proverbs_
for his son Enrique IV. This was the earliest collection of proverbs
made in modern times.
[Sidenote: Children of the Marquis of Santillana.]
The noble poet married Catalina Suarez de Figueroa, daughter of Don
Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, Lord of Feria and Zafra. The Marquis died
in 1454, leaving ten children:--
1. Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, first Duke of Infantado.
2. Don Pedro Laso de Mendoza, married to Ines Carillo, Lady of
Mondejar. They had two daughters:--
1. Maria, married to the second Count of Tendilla.
2. Catalina, married to Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medina Celi.
3. Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, first Count of Tendilla, of whom we
treat.
4. Don Lorenzo de Mendoza, first Count of Coruña.
5. Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Cardinal.
6. Don Juan de Mendoza, Lord of Colmenar.
7. Don Pedro de Mendoza, Lord of Sazedon.
8. Doña Mencia, wife of Don Pedro de Velasco, Count of Haro, Constable
of Spain.
9. Doña Maria, married to Don Ajan de Ribero.
10. Doña Eleanor, wife of Gaston de la Cerda, second Count of Medina
Celi, representative of the eldest son of Alfonso X. and therefore
rightful King of Spain; the reigning family descending from the second
son, the usurper Sancho.
Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza was created first Count of Tendilla in
1465. He was Captain-General of Andalusia. [Sidenote: The Counts of
Tendilla.] He married Doña Elvira de Quiñones, daughter of Don Diego
Fernandez, Lord of Luna. Their children were:--
1. Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, second Count of Tendilla.
2. Don Diego de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville.
3. Don Pedro de Mendoza, married to Juana Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.
4. Doña Catalina, wife of Don Diego de Sandoval, Marquis of Denia.
5. Doña Mencia, wife of Don Pedro Carillo, Lord of Toralva.
Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, second Count of Tendilla and first Marquis
of Mondejar, Grandee of Spain and Viceroy of Granada. He married his
first cousin, Doña Maria Laso de Mendoza, but had no children by her.
He married, secondly, Doña Francisca Pacheco, daughter of the Duke of
Escalona, by whom he had eight children:--
1. Don Luis de Mendoza, third Count of Tendilla, Viceroy of
Navarre, President of the Council of the Indies, second Marquis
of Mondejar, Captain-General of Granada.
2. Don Bernardo de Mendoza, slain at St. Quentin, 1557.
3. Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Peru, 1550.
4. Don Francisco de Mendoza, Bishop of Jaen.
5. Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, of whom we treat.
6. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, General of the galleys.
7. Doña Maria de Mendoza, wife of the Count of Monteagudo.
8. Doña Maria Pacheco, married to Don Juan de Padilla.
Veinte y tres generaciones
La prosapia de Mendoza
No hay linage en toda España
De quien conozca
Tan notable antiguedad.
LOPE DE VEGA.
DON DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZA, AUTHOR OF “LAZARILLO DE TORMES”
Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza was the fifth son of the Marquis of
Mondejar and Count of Tendilla, first Spanish Governor of Granada, by
Francisca Pacheco, daughter of the Duke of Escalona.
The Governor had a palace in the Alhambra near the Torre de Picos,
which is now demolished. But the smaller house of his esquire, Antasio
de Bracamonte, still stands in a garden, built against the exquisite
little mosque on the walls. There are three shields of arms carved on
the walls of Bracamonte’s house.
The palace and the esquire’s house, both within the walls of the
Alhambra, looked across the valley of the Darro to the Albaicín. Both
buildings were surrounded by gardens and fruit-trees. [Sidenote: Birth
of Don Diego in the Alhambra.] In this romantic spot Diego was born
in the year 1503, and he passed his early years with his brothers and
sisters there. Pedro Martir de Angleria was his tutor. At an early age
he went to the university of Salamanca, where he learnt Latin, Greek,
and Arabic, and studied canon and civil law.
[Sidenote: Don Diego at Salamanca.]
While he was a student at Salamanca Don Diego wrote _Lazarillo de
Tormes_.
On leaving the university Don Diego went to serve with the Spanish
armies in Italy. [Sidenote: His services in Italy.] He also attended
lectures at Rome, Bologna, and Padua, and was a profound scholar as
well as a statesman and a soldier. Charles V. appreciated his ability
and his acquirements. In 1538, at the age of thirty-five, he was
appointed Ambassador at Venice. He assisted and patronised the Aldi,
and Josephus was first printed complete from his library. Afterwards
he was for some time Military Governor of Sienna; and he was sent to
the Council of Trent to maintain the imperial interests there. His
next employment was at Rome, as special Plenipotentiary to rebuke and
overawe Pope Julius III., which he did.
Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza returned to Spain in 1554 at the age of
fifty. [Sidenote: The library.] He was not appreciated by Philip II.
and seldom came to Court, living, with his splendid library, in his
house at Granada.
In his retirement he wrote a good deal of poetry. But his great work
was the _Guerra de Granada_, a narrative of the rebellion of the Moors
in 1568-1570. [Sidenote: The _Guerra de Granada_.] He did the Moors
such impartial justice that his book could not be published until
many years after his death. Sallust was his model. The first edition
appeared in 1610, and the second more complete edition at Valencia in
1776. It is one of the finest pieces of prose-writing in the Spanish
language.
In his last years Don Diego found much pleasant employment in his
library. [Sidenote: Last days.] He corresponded with Zurita, the
historian of Aragon, telling him how the work of looking over his books
reminded him of many long-forgotten things, and supplied him with much
food for thought. While in Italy he had been diligent in obtaining
Greek MSS., and in other respects his library was quite unique. He
bequeathed it to Philip II., and it is now in the Escurial.
[Sidenote: Death of Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.]
Don Diego died at Madrid in April 1575, aged 72.
THE BOOK, “LAZARILLO DE TORMES”
Ticknor[3] describes _Lazarillo de Tormes_ as “a work of genius
unlike anything that had preceded it. [Sidenote: Ticknor’s opinion of
the work.] Its object is to give a pungent satire on all classes of
society. It is written in a very bold, rich, and idiomatic Castilian
style. Some of its sketches are among the most fresh and spirited
that can be found in the whole range of prose works of fiction. Those
of the friar and the seller of Indulgences were put under the ban of
the Church.” They were expurgated by the Inquisition in 1573, when
an expurgated edition was published at Madrid, and in the _Index
Expurgatorius_ of 1667.
[3] _History of Spanish Literature_, i. 469-71.
The first edition in Spain was published at Burgos in 1554.[4] It
is excessively rare. [Sidenote: First edition.] There is a copy at
Chatsworth, but none in the British Museum. The Duke of Devonshire
allowed the late Mr. H. Butler Clarke to transcribe his copy of
the first edition. This was done with great care, exactly as it was
printed. In 1897 Mr. Butler Clarke printed 250 copies at Oxford, with a
facsimile of the old title-page.
[4] Brunet mentions an Antwerp edition of 1553.
Many other editions followed the first of 1554.[5] In Mr. Grenville’s
library there is an Antwerp edition (12mo) of 1555, [Sidenote: Value
of copies.] for which he paid seven guineas. Colonel Stanley’s copy
fetched £31:10s.; Mr. Hanroth’s, £20:10s. The Paris editor of 1827
could only find a 1595 edition.
[5] At Tarragona, 1586; Zaragoza, 1595; Medina del Campo and
Valladolid, 1603; Zaragoza again, 1652, with Luna’s second part;
Madrid, 1664, without the second part. There was a new edition
published at Paris in 1847, with the second parts.
A second part, by some wretched scribbler, soon appeared, without any
merit. It makes Lazarillo go to sea in the Algiers expedition of 1541.
The ship founders, he sinks to the bottom, crawls into a cave, and is
turned into a tunny fish. [Sidenote: Spurious second parts.] He is then
caught in a seine, returns by an effort of will to the human form, and
finally goes to live at Salamanca. There was another second part by
Juan de Luna, a teacher of Spanish at Paris. It continues the story by
making Lazaro serve several other masters, and then become a religious
recluse. Both second parts are miserable rubbish, and ought never to
be reprinted.