The White Knight: Tirant Lo Blanc | Page 4

of chivalry that preceded his work, stating that his book is no more than a "translation" from another language. (While, in fact, the authors of those books are simply advertising the next novels they intend to write in the series, much as the "Hardy Boys" or "Nancy Drew" series advertise in the final pages of each novel.) But in the Quixote the device has a far deeper purpose: Cervantes informs us that Don Quixote is a flesh and blood figure whose real-life adventures appear in several Arabic histories, and one in particular, by a certain Cide Hamete Benengeli. With the aid of a translator, Cervantes says, he is now bringing the story of Don Quixote's life back into the Spanish tongue. What we have here is, of course, a ploy to make the characters seem more real, and Cervantes makes this assertion with a broad wink, for while we are "suspending our disbelief," we also know that it is nothing more than his artistry.
And what of Tirant lo Blanc? According to Martorell's dedication, his book is also a translation: from the English original, he is translating into Portuguese, and from the Portuguese into Catalan. But where is the English original from which this book is simply a translation? There is no character in English literature or history named Tirant lo Blanc, and discounting the beginning pages, taken from the "Guy of Warwick" romance, there is no book in English from which this one has been translated. As for the translation into Portuguese, there is no book about Tirant in that language. So why does Martorell tell us all this? (Although, as we have noted, other novels of chivalry speak of themselves as "translations", all were printed after the publication of Tirant lo Blanc.) Is this novel then, which Cervantes so admired, also presenting us with a "true history" which has been "translated" in a way similar to the Quixote? Within Tirant lo Blanc we also find allusions to historians who have "originally" set these words down. For example: "Here the book returns to the emperor..." "Hippolytus... performed singular acts of chivalry which this book does not relate, but defers to the books that were written about him." Is there any difference between this and the statements of Cervantes about his characters? ("Here Cide Hamete Benengeli leaves him for an instant and returns to Don Quixote..." "The history goes on to tell that when Sancho saw...") But we are given no broad wink from Martorell. It is all true, he tells us, and there is nothing more to be said. That Martorell died before the work was published, and that Marti Joan de Galba may have made some additions before it was finally published, does not clarify the matter. For De Galba also affirms that the book is no more than a translation from the English to the Portuguese, and from that language into the Valencian tongue, and that he is merely finishing what Martorell was unable to complete.
There are no broad winks. But the characters belie the "history": They come to life as no straight-forward, factual history can bring its subjects to life. As Damaso Alonso so accurately puts it: this fifteenth century work "is precisely that whip that could excite Cervantes' imagination. Tirant was not yet the modern novel, but in it were many elements, and furthermore, essential elements of what would become the modern novel."(11)
Having read this novel, who could forget the characters that Martorell has brought to life? Who would not feel grief at the death of Tirant and the princess, no less united in soul than Calisto and Melibea in Spain (making their appearance a few short years later in Fernando de Rojas' masterpiece, La Celestina), than Romeo and Juliet in England, and no less tragic. And in remembering Tirant, who would not smile at the thought of him serving as a go-between for Prince Philippe and the infanta, Ricomana. Could anyone be more delightful than the forthright Plaerdemavida (whose name translates literally as "Pleasure-of-My-Life") -- surely one of the best delineated characters in any literature. Or anyone more villainous than the odious Widow Repose -- a figure stamped indelibly on our minds, wearing her ridiculous red stockings and hat in the bath.
As Cervantes says: "In (Tirant lo Blanc) knights eat and drink, sleep and die in their own beds, and make their wills before they die..." And his praise for Tirant is also borne out by the characters in the Quixote. For in many of that book's most memorable episodes, they too eat and drink (and regurgitate), they sleep (when someone or something does not awaken them to a new adventure), Don Quixote makes out his will (to the contentment of some of the beneficiaries), and finally he dies in his bed (and Cervantes warns