In which our hero falls in love for the first time in his life, with a damsel with an extremely long name
After sailing for seven days, the Argos stopped at the island of Lanzarote, an obligatory sojourn, along with the rest of the fleet. The apprentices climbed the riggings to let down the sails and roll them up, singing happily, pleased to spend a night in port before setting back out into the open ocean sea, toward America, and the crew disembarked to stretch their legs and buy staples before the long voyage.
From the stern, Gregorio Izquierdo contemplated the hustle and bustle of the port as he chewed on an apple. Then he watched as, amid the havoc of people boarding and disembarking, a pedigreed woman boarded, dressed in fine clothes with a red velvet bodice, colorful embroidered silks, and a damask overskirt studded with silver and covered with a mantilla of white-blonde lace. She was riding a white donkey and kept the flies off with a fan in the Sevillian style, followed by a servant with thick hair cut in straight bangs and a lady-in-waiting with a peeved expression. Seeing her, Gregorio fell in love at first sight. Leaping on deck, he asked the first sailor he found who that princess was.
“She be no princess, she’s a noblewoman of known lineage and engaged to be wed,” replied the sailor. “Her name is Doña María Fernanda Esmeralda Brunilda Isegarda Sigismunda Regenta Magdalena Grande de los Cerros Medianos de la Onza, third daughter of the Governor of Tenerife, also known as ‘The Nun’ for her chaste, pure reputation. But take heed, she art accompanied by her fearsome, mannish dueña86, named Olga, who won’t let any man near her.”
The next morning, the Argos lifted anchors followed by two more Spanish caravelles, and the fleet entered the vast Atlantic, heading southwest to the sixteenth parallel, where the winds would push the boats toward the Lesser Antilles. As the ship rocked with a gentle sway, our hero could only think about being alone with Doña María, who was followed everywhere she went by the enormous Olga, her equally enormous shadow keeping the maiden safe from lascivious gazes and attempts by the sailors and officers to proposition her.
One evening, when Gregorio was wandering about on deck, he heard a sweet voice singing from the ship’s stern. There he went and there he found Doña María, sitting alone and melancholy, reciting in half-song a poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
But where does mine sweet fondness
For mine native land carry
Mine thoughts and divert
Mee from my subjecte?
Our hero, after making quite sure that the fearsome Olga was nowhere nearby, approached her and, continuing the poem of Sor Juana, declaimed:
“I daresay that mine intent be none other
milady, than to prostrate myself
at thine soles that I kiss
despite so many seas.”
“Who goes there?” asked Doña María, confused by his sudden appearance.
“Merely a well-read soldier,” said Gregorio. “But one thing be sure: a voice such as thine, those eyes the color of the heavens and thy pearly white teeth, milady, be worth more than the entire ocean and all its fish bathed in gold.”87
“Pish posh!” exclaimed the lady, fanning herself.
“What brings a distinguished lady such as thineself to a place such as this?”
“I wish’d to be a nun but couldn’t bear the thought of being locked up in a convent. Then I wish’d to be an actress and sing aria in the grand theaters of Europe, but didn’t have the requisite voice talent. As a girl I was only taught how to be a wife. As suche, I am headed to America to marry.”
“I hath heard telle that in those lands there be spiders as big as thine lovely head,” said our hero, inching closer to the lady.
“Deer mee … that’s horrid!” she exclaimed, making room for him where she was seated, as she nervously rubbed at a small stain on her skirt, which didn’t actually exist.
“And terryble fish they call ‘shark,’ with jaws big as a donkey’s that gobble up menne two by two,” he continued, putting his arm around her.
“The horror!” she said, removing the arm.
“And plagues of ynsects what rip your skin off in strips,” Gregorio went on, stroking Doña María’s hand.
“Stop it!” she shrieked, with a slight chuckle. “With all these monsters I shant be able to sleep tonight!”
“They’ve also discover’d the tomato, the yam, and the prickly pear, which are very ambrosial foodstuffs,” he said, trying to kiss her. “Almost as tasty as your lips, milady.”
“Go no further, insipid soldier, I don’t even know thine name!” she pulled away, acting offended but still playing along.
“Mine name be Jua—Gregorio Izquierdo, but since meeting thee, oh, Lady María!, I am aflame with love and sickness, whych are but one and the selfsame,” said our hero, and, following that briefest of incursions into the territory of more intimate feelings, kissed the woman’s hand. “Thine beauty, thine Christianity, and thine honor art worthy of a queen, a queen of this world and the plus ultra.”
“Take it eazy, soldier boy!” she said, pulling away her hand as one of her shoes slipped off and fell to the floor, whether in error or feigned error it was not clear. “I am on mine way to the Americas to enter into an arranged marriage with a criollo nobleman, the son of a conquistador. He may be ugly, but he shant be poor.”
“What goode be money without love?” he declared, picking up her shoe. “On all my travells round the sun, and travels through hell, I ne’er saw such solemn beauty as I doth now see befor me. These must be love’s deliriums, what maketh me see such perfect loveliness.”
“Ah, thou art verily a snake charmer! Thine focus is on conquering women, not landes and treasure troves!” she exclaimed, blushing with modesty and lifting her overskirt to her knees so that Gregorio could put her shoe on her foot. “However, thou must desist in thine aspirations of unbridled concupiscence toward me, for they be neither decent nor decorous.”
“Very well. Then yf I cannot have the tempting fyre of thine love,” he said, clambering up onto a ledge and preparing to leap overboard, “I shall end mine life this instant!”
“Madman … !” she shrieked, grabbing him by the pantaloons.
“Twixt decorum and fervour, what law be more just than the law of love?” said our hero, pretending he was about to throw himself into the ocean. “Fare thee well, for time is brief and I am nothing, milady, if I doth not please thee. Forgive my ruffling of thine chaste sentiments. And now, farewell … !”
“Don’t overleap!” she shrieked, immediately covering her mouth, surprised at herself. “Must I barter my willpower to save thine life?”
“Milady, thee mustest loveth me, by choice or by destiny,” he said resolutely.
“Thy path from the house of respect to the house of pleasure appeareth a shortcut. Doth thou aspire to employe sensu-ousness to put paid to mine chastity?” she asked, smiling and handing him her handkerchief as a token. “But if that willst save thee from death, sobeit. But don’t push thy luck, okay, soldier boy? I’m a proper lady!”
Our hero followed her to his cabin with the silk handkerchief at his nose, while the other soldiers and sailors watched him, sidelong and envious. His room was small and Gregorio hastened to remove the diamond-studded cross she wore around her neck, the bodkin that held up her hair, her pearl earrings, then lifted up her blonde-lace mantilla, tucked up her red velvet bodice and unlaced her corset, moving on to unfasten the false sleeves of her blouse and her embroidered gloves, unlacing her shoes quickly, lowering her damask overskirt and rigid pannier, removed her stockings, half stockings, and g-string … and when our hero, bursting at the crotchseams with passion at the glimpse of the intimate contours of the honest damsel, and just as he was about to consummate that amorous act, hastily lowering his drawers, there came a shout from the crow’s nest on the main mast.
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86. i.e. The role of dueñas, soubrettes, was often described by writers of the period, almost always satirically.
87. i.e. All these elements of courtly love are common to the Petrarchanism of the period.