Educación Cívica Tributaria

The origin of the immensely popular theme of the test of the heroine’s chastity is not as obvious as that of the constancy test theme. Since it usually concerns a virtuous woman of low degree who finds herself desired by a man who is her social superior, the idea may be related to the story of Grissill. Perhaps the theme of testing, which captured contemporary feeling about the necessity for women to be always on guard to prove their virtue became adapted to demonstrate the most essential female. virtue, without which all the others were thought to be useless, that of chastity.

It seems that it has always been thought that the most accurate measure of a woman’s purity is the degree of resistance she offers a would-be seducer. Mosaic law’s criteria for judging women who had been seduced or raped depended entirely on the idea that a woman who valued her reputation would always raise sufficient outcry to summon help, if attacked in a populated area (Deuteronomy 22. 22-28), and even nowadays it is not uncommon for the moral character of rape victims to be assessed partly on the evi­ dence of how many injuries they were willing to incur in the process of protecting themselves. It is very likely that similar ideas existed during the Renaissance and this, allied to the convention of testing already established, may help to explain the appearance of the theme of the test of chastity.

The convention that the poor and virtuous heroine should be desired by a social superior, with sufficient power and authority over her to be able to persecute her if she re­ sists makes the testing yet more stringent. The heroine must demonstrate not only her independence of worldly ad­ vancement, but that she would rather undergo any privation, material or otherwise, rather than sacrifice her chastity.

The test reveals an ideology of chastity which is simul­ taneously pragmatic and idealistic: heroines object to sexual activity on the practical grounds that their suitors will tire of them eventually and no-one else will want to marry a dishonoured woman, and, at the same time, are pre­ pared to lose security, possessions, human contact and life itself in defence of their purity.

An early foreshadowing of the interest there was to be in this theme can be seen in the moral interlude Galisto and Melebea (1525), adapted from the Spanish novel La Celestina and published by John Rastell in 1530. The author comp­ letely re-worked this picaresque love tragedy into a tale of a test of chastity, sacrificing the earlier novel’s psychological complexity and humour in the process. Instead, he stylises the characters into a moral diagram. Melebea, in the novel a noble young woman who gradually acknowledges her sexual nature and warms towards the illicit love offered by Calisto, becomes in the interlude an exemplar of feminine virtue whose purity, although great, only just stands the test. Celestina, who in the novel is a rich character combining the skills of /’half a dozen trades - laundress, perfumer, maker of fards, mender of virginities, a bawd and a bit of a witch” is instrumental to Melebea’s temptation in the interlude, and is used to typify feminine vice. (915)

The very early date of this testing interlude means that its glorifying of chastity has a slightly different empha­ sis from that found in later plays, since contemporary religious attitudes tended still to venerate chastity as a value in itself, as an alternative to marriage, rather than a preparation for it.

The imposition of a religious ethic on the love story has very interesting consequences. Whereas formerly the story was one of romantic love ending in tragedy, rather like

that of Romeo and Juliet, with many racy low-life charac­ ters supplying humorous and ironic contrast and comment, the imposition of the mediaeval religious ethic makes love synonymous with sex, and therefore filthy, bestial and to be avoided. This is not as anachronistic as it seems: many of the Christian Humanists1 ideas were an odd blend of new Renaissance ideas and lingering mediaeval traditions, and views on women and sex were often in the latter cate­ gory, as a reading of Vives will testify. Therefore, the plot, instead of being a psychological study of Melebea’s gradual acceptance of Calisto’s love and rejection of her parents’ standards of purity, is one of chastity tested, threatened and finally saved, and the pervading theme is that of the opposition between religion and purity, and love/sex and depravity. Marriage is never even mentioned.

The character of Melebea, the female ideal, is ample evi­ dence of the interlude’s mixture of Renaissance and medi­ aeval ideas. In many respects, she is the humanistic ideal, unaffected by Calisto’s ”hygh estate", and rational in her attitude to her own beauty, which she regards not as a reason for pride, but for gratitude to God. Though sympathetic to Calisto’s sufferings which lead him "to stryve wyth hym self", she has a rational disdain for "those folysh lovers" because of her understanding of muta­ bility, which leads her to question the wisdom of exposing oneself to even more change than is inherent in the laws of nature. The author seems to have been especially concerned to portray Melebea as well educated, since he transferred quotations from Plutarch and Heraclitus concerning muta­ bility from the Prologue of La Celestina to Melebea’s speech in the interlude. It seems that Melebea’s learning is of the sort Vives recommended for young women because "the mind set upon learning and wisdom shall... abhor from foul lust, that is to say, as the most white thing from soot".

Despite her accomplishments and amiable nature, Melebea’s main virtue is chastity, which Vives thought encompassed all other feminine virtues and described as ’’the one treasure of woman”. She is convinced that all Calisto’s emotional pleadings spring from his ’’voluptuous appetyte”, and the mediaevalism of the play’s outlook is reinforced by the terms in which she phrases her resolution:

Shall I accomplysh hys carnall desyre? , . Nay, yet at a stake rather bren in a fyre!

She visualises herself as one of the virgin saints familiar in mediaeval lore, who preferred martyrdom to the threat of losing their purity.

Calisto’s passion, which threatens Melebea’s purity, has more in common with the courtly love tradition than the more obviously acquisitive lust of would-be seducers in later testing plays. His passion is implicitly condemned, however, by its blasphemous aspect and by comic under­ cutting .

Calisto’s addresses to Melebea are couched in the terms of C.S. Lewis found so objectionable in the Chevalier de la Charette. He pleads

0 God, I myght in your presens be able To manyfest my dolours incomperable! Greter were that reward than the grace Hevyn to optayn by workys of pyte.

Not so gloryous be the saintes that se Goddes face, Ne joy not so moch as I do you to see.

Like Lancelot in the early romance, who kneels to Guinevere as if she were a holy shrine, Calisto has adopted Melebea as a ”god of goddesses”. This aspect of courtly love must be completely opposed to the Church, since it substitutes the image of the beloved for God as the proper object of

veneration. The religious parallel is made extremely clear by Galisto’s declaration

I wold thou knewyst, Melebea worship I, ... In her I beleve and her I love,

which is a close parody of the Creed.

Apart from receiving implicit condemnation for its opposition to religion, Calisto’s passion and particularly his mastery of the language of courtly love is constantly undermined by comedy. Having admitted that "no tong is able well to expresse” Melebea’s beauty, Calisto asks Sempronio

I pray the, let me speke a whyle

My selff to refresh in rehersyng of my style,

and proceeds to deliver a very stylish formal descriptio of Melebea’s beauty from head to foot. Despite the author’s promise of plenty of ’’the craft of, rhethoryk”, the juxta­ position of doubt and extreme articulateness does seem to question the sincerity of Calisto’s words.

Calisto’s verbal skills are further undercut when it becomes apparent that he applies them not only to his ad­ mirable love, but to the less praiseworthy characters who may help him attain her. His extravagant rhetoric becomes particularly ludicrous when its object is dirty old Celestina the bawd, upon whom he lavishes the following praises:

0 notable woman, 0 auncyent vertew! , 0 gloryous hope of my desyred intent! Thende of my delectable hope to renew, My regeneracion to this lyfe present, Resurreccon from deth: so excellent Thou art above other. I desyre humbly To.kys thy handes, wherin lyeth my remedy.

But myne unworthines makyth resystence.

Yet worship I the ground that thou gost on. '

Celestina is unimpressed with this courteous address. Irritated and impatient to get down to business, she rallies Sempronio:

... can I lyff with these bonys That thy master gyffyth me here for to ete? Wordes are but wynd; therfore attons

Byd hym close his mouth and to his purs get,

For money maketh marchaunt that must jet. , I have herd his wordes, but where be his dedes?

Celestina makes Calisto’s raptures ridiculous, not only be­ cause she is an unlikely subject for poetic descriptions, but because his life-or-death passion is, to her, all in a day’s work, and nothing matters so much as being paid in advance. Calisto longs for ’’regeneracion to this lyfe present,/Reserreccon from deth”, and gives Celestina his cloak and chain as a down-payment. The introduction of money into the proceedings degrades Calisto’s idealism: the fact that he tries to buy Melebea through the offices of a bawd undermines the transcendental values with which he has dignified his desire for her.

It seems initially that the play will follow the course of the earlier novel, and that Melebea will gradually mellow towards Calisto. She pours righteous indignation on Celestina’s first approach to her, but when Celestina hastily retracts her earlier words, pretending that the ’’sekenes/Drawyng to deth” of which she was persuading Melebea to cure Calisto was in fact a severe case of tooth­ ache, Melebea seizes on the pretence with revealing alac­ rity. She is only too eager to send her girdle as a charm against this ailment, and promises a special prayer for it as well. Her suggestion to Celestina that she ’’come agayn secretly" to collect the prayer indicates that she is glad of the toothache story, since it gives her the respectable

pretext of pity through which she can indulge her growing interest in Galisto, which she could not ordinarily admit without losing her reputation. As she leaves triumphantly with the girdle, Celestina announces “Now know ye by the half tale what the hole doth mean", in case the audience has missed the significance of Melebea’s surrender of this

token.

At this point, just as the psychological interest of the romantic tale is beginning to develop, the adaptor breaks away from his source and ends the play with the dramatic equivalent of a palinode. Religious values re-appear with the arrival of Danio, who holds the combined authority of father, teacher and moral instructor over Melebea. He re­ counts a dream in which he saw "a hote bath, holsome and pleasyng", representing virtue and “a pyt of foule stynkyng water" or "vyse and syn", into which people fell and died,

and towards which he saw Melebea enticed by a "foule rough bitch". Instantly, Melebea becomes "pensyfe and sore abasshyd", and kneels, asking forgiveness for disobeying both God’s word and her father’s teaching. She confesses to Danio that because Celestina "had almost brought (her) here unto/To fulfyll the foule lust of Calisto", she has sinned in intention, and he agrees that "because ye were somwhat consentyng/Ye have offendid God therein". However, he advises her to pray for mercy, rejoicing that the habit of daily prayer he inculcated in his daughter has "kept her from actuall dede of shame" and even "preservyd her good name".

In this very early chastity test play, then, the heroine’s purity almost fails the test, but she is saved in the nick of time as the appearance of her father recalls her to the values he has taught her. The heroines of later plays need no such rescue, because they are shown to have successfully

The theme of the chastity test is touched upon very briefly in John Phillip’s Commodye of pacient and meeke Grissill, when old Janickle, not dreaming that Gautier could mean to marry Grissill, imagines that he means to seduce her and advises his master ”fly Venus wanton wayes/O mortifie your appetite, doe nought regard hir plaies”, and will hear no more until assured that Gautier’s intentions are honour­ able. Similarly, in another brief episode in Thomas Preston’s Gambyses (1561), the Lady attempts to discourage an apparently advantageous marriage with her cousin the King, pointing out that such an incestuous union ’’would the Gods displease”. The King, though, like Henry VIII, is de­ termined to crush all opposition to the match, proclaiming

who dare say nay what I pretend, who dare the same withstand Shall lose his head and have report as traitor through my ■

land, ^2)

and, even though married against her will, the Lady further proves her goodness by devoting herself to becoming a ’most obedient wife’. In both plays, the brief test of chastity is closely allied to the wider ideal of faithful perfor­ mance of the duties of wifehood.

2a Chastity as personal integrity

These plays, however, were followed by a series in which, although the test of the heroines’s chastity is related to its place in marriage, the drama focuses on its importance to the heroine as an individual - as a symbol of her per­ sonal integrity and moral and spiritual well-being. The first of these is R.B.s Tragicall Gomedie of Apius and Virginia (1564). It is based on a classical plot, known to the author in its mediaeval form in Chaucer’s Phisiciens Tale, which is the source of much of the play’s detail, including its interest in female education and virtue.(^5)

The play is simultaneously a glorification of virginity, "a rare example of the vertue of Ghastitie”, and of the broader ethic of family life and good upbringing suggested by the Epilogue, which exhorts the audience

... example do you take Of Virginia’s life, of chastitie, of duty to thy make Of love of wife, of love to spouse, of love to husband

deare Of bringing up of tender youth, all these are noted here.

(|0O)

Virginia is not only chaste, but ’’sober, meeke and modest too, and vertuous in lyke case”, in which she resembles Virginia in Chaucer’s Phisiciens Tale, who is presented not just as an example of chastity, but as an embodiment of all the virtues extolled by moral writers like the Knight of La Tour Landry. Virginia, Chaucer tells us

... lakked no condicion That is to preyse, as by discrecioun. As wel in goost as body chast was she; For which she floured in virginitee With alle humylitee and abstinence, With alle attemperaunce and pacience, With mesure eek of beryng and array. Discreet she was in answeryng alway;

Shamefast she was in maydens shamefastnesse, Constant in herte, and evere in bisynesse To dryve hire out of ydel slogardye.

... she wolde fleen the compaigne Where likly was to treten of folye,

As is at feestes, revels, and at daunces, That been occasions of daliaunces.

R.B. never leaves us in any doubt that Virginia’s chastity is a part of her preparation for eventual marriage, a mar­ riage which will reflect the harmony enjoyed by her parents. Her future husband would, like Virginius, rejoice in possessing ’’such a happy spouse, such a fortunate dame/ That no blot or staine can impayre her fame”. Virginia, like the ideal girl described by Vives, far from showing an essential lack of chastity of spirit by looking forward to

marriage, feels that she is too young for it, but entrusts the matter to her parents’ judgement, showing her obedience by submission to the man of their choice. She promises

When wedlocke doth require the same, With parents love and leave,

Yet obstinate I wyll not be, But willing will me yeeld

When you commaund and not before: Then duety shall me sheeld.

The exemplary nature of her attitude is emphasised by Virginius’ admiring outburst ”A Gods, why doo ye not compel eche Dame the lyke to showe?/And every Impe of her againe, her duty thus to know?”

The importance of the marriage ethic, and that of har­ monious family life, is introduced mainly through dialogue and songs, such as the one whose chorus sums up ’’The trustiest treasure in earth as we see/Is man, wife and children in all to agree”. Although the actual dramatic momentum is chiefly concerned with Virginia’s own moral dilemma, and her personal choice of death rather than dis­ honour, we are also made aware that part of the pathos of her fate is that she will now never have the husband or

family her careful upbringing prepared her for.

The vision of orderly family life is contrasted with the lewd brawling of the comic servants, and the chaotic house­ holds described by Haphazard the Vice as he muses

Hap may so hazard, the moone may so chaunge,

That men may be masters, and wives will not raunge. But in hazard it is in many a grange

Lest wives were the codpiece, and maydens coy straunge. As pecockes sit perking by chaunce in the plomtree,

So maides would be masters, by the guise of this countrey. (103)

That R.B. puts this speech into the mouth of Haphazard, whose name indicates the moral confusion he represents,