Note 160 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
The first edition of Persiles y Sigismunda was printed with the following title: “Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Historia Setentrional, por M. de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigida,” etc., Madrid, 1617, 8vo, por Juan de la Cuesta; and reprints of it appeared in Valencia, Pamplona, Barcelona, and Brussels, the same year. I have a copy of the first edition; but the most agreeable one is that of Madrid, 1802, 8vo, 2 tom. There is an English translation by M. L., published 1619, which I have never seen; but from which I doubt not Fletcher borrowed the materials for that part of the Persiles which he has used, or rather abused, in his “Custom of the Country,” acted as early as 1628, but not printed till 1647; the very names of the personages being sometimes the same. See Persiles, Book I. c. 12 and 13; and compare Book II. c. 4 with the English play, Act IV. scene 3, and Book III. c. 6, etc., with Act II. scene 4, etc. Sometimes we have almost literal translations, like the following:—
“Sois Castellano?” me preguntó en su lengua Portuguesa. “No, Señora,” le respondí yo, “sino forastero, y bien lejos de esta tierra.” “Pues aunque fuerades mil veces Castellano,” replicó ella, “os librara yo, si pudiera, y os libraré si puedo; subid por cima deste lecho, y éntraos debaxo de este tapiz, y éntraos en un hueco que aquí hallareis, y no os movais, que si la justicia viniere, me tendrá respeto, y creerá lo que yo quisiere decirles.” Persiles, Lib. III. cap. 6.
In Fletcher we have it as follows:—
Guiomar.
Are you a Castilian?
Rutilio.
No, Madam: Italy claims my birth.
Gui.
I ask not
With purpose to betray you. If you were
Ten thousand times a Spaniard, the nation
We Portugals most hate, I yet would save you,
If it lay in my power. Lift up these hangings;
Behind my bed’s head there’s a hollow place,
Into which enter.
[Rutilio retires behind the bed.
So;—but from this stir not.
If the officers come, as you expect they will do,
I know they owe such reverence to my lodgings,
That they will easily give credit to me
And search no further.
Act II. Sc. 4.
Other parallel passages might be cited; but it should not be forgotten, that there is one striking difference between the two; for that, whereas the Persiles is a book of great purity of thought and feeling, “The Custom of the Country” is one of the most indecent plays in the language; so indecent, indeed, that Dryden rather boldly says it is worse in this particular than all his own plays put together. Dryden’s Works, Scott’s ed., London, 1808, 8vo, Vol. XI. p. 239.