Don Francisco de Quevedo | Page 7

true nobility and great energy. She was almost heroic in her efforts to
encourage and inspire with loyalty to the crown the troops garrisoned
in Madrid. She even sold her jewels to raise money for the campaign in
Aragon.
Philip, meanwhile, was traveling slowly northward with great pomp
and ceremony. Olivares was straining every nerve to prevent the king's
realizing the desperateness of the situation. The monarch was denied to
all visitors, and his attention was distracted by elaborate hunting
expeditions. As he progressed toward Aragon, the French, moving
southward, occupied Monzón.
December of 1642 found Philip again in Madrid. Portugal was
hopelessly lost, Roussillon was in the hands of the French, while
Catalonia and Aragon were in open revolt. Briefly sketched, this was
the political situation at the opening of our play.
* * * * *

While Spain was at this time economically bankrupt, the reigns of
Philip III and Philip IV comprise nevertheless the most brilliant
decades of the Golden Century. These are the years that are marked by
the greatest literary activity of Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and Quevedo.
Lope had made the theater national and had prepared the way for the
romantic genius of Calderón, while a throng of lesser lights, such as
Tirso de Molina and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, were delighting the capital
with plays in great profusion. For all this a great stimulus had come
from the theater-loving Philip III, who lavished money without stint
upon the gorgeous production of comedies, pageants, and masques.
Cervantes had shown the way to the novelists. In prose fiction true
characterization had developed to keep pace with extensive and
elaborate narrative elements. At the same time the outburst of lyric
poetry was no less striking. The ability to write verse had become truly
a necessary qualification for social success and even for political
advancement. Great magnates surrounded themselves with a retinue of
poets and men of letters who depended upon them for their support.
Don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, the central figure of our play,
was one of the greatest personalities in this brilliant court. He was born
in 1580. At barely twenty he left the University of Alcalá and plunged
immediately into the life of the magnificently corrupt court of Philip III
at Valladolid. When the capital was moved to Madrid in 1606 he had
already won fame as a poet. The manuscripts of his satirical writings in
prose and verse were eagerly sought and widely read. His thrusts were
aimed at the ridiculous aspects of court life. His own indulgence in a
career of thorough dissipation filled him with contempt for his
wretched companions. Intimate association with men in high positions
reached by either noble birth or corrupt influence made him familiar
with the vices of Philip's government and with the ineffectiveness of
the Spanish bureaucratic administration. In his "Sueños" (Visions) he
satirized unsparingly men from all the walks of life. His attacks were at
times mocking jeers at human weaknesses and at others outbursts of
desperate fury against current injustice and stupidity.
After a short period of retirement from the capital he became the firm

friend of Don Pedro Téllez Girón, Duke of Osuna, who had been
named viceroy of Sicily in 1610. The uncommonly strong bond of
friendship between these two men was founded upon mutual
admiration of common qualities of fearlessness and red-blooded dash
and spirit. In 1616 Quevedo followed Osuna to Naples, where he was
of great service to him as adviser and confidential emissary. These
years of semi-official activity brought Quevedo into the very midst of
the tangle of politics involving France, Italy, and Spain, and above all
into the bog of bureaucratic corruption. Osuna's business in Madrid
with the prime minister, Lerma, was managed by Quevedo. Now Lerma
and his creatures were amenable to reason only when accompanied by
bribes. Access to him was denied to all who brought no gifts.
Quevedo's disgust at these methods was boundless, but there was no
avoiding them.[10] In recognition of his distinguished services
Quevedo was made a knight of the order of St. James in 1618.[11]
[Footnote 10: No less a person than the Attorney General wrote to
Osuna of a prominent person at court, "Your Excellency may be quite
sure of M. He wants a carpet; send him two, and pray God that some
one else does not give him three."]
[Footnote 11: In the play there is a trifling anachronism according to
which we are to believe that in 1643 Quevedo had not yet received this
honor.]
In 1620 Osuna came to Madrid to answer the charge of having
conspired to make himself independent viceroy of Naples. On his
arrival he was thrown into prison, while Quevedo was held in custody
at a distance from Madrid. Osuna died in 1624