16
‘Alisa, my love, we’re losing our grip on time: as people say, the days rush by like the waters of a river. Nothing passes us by as fast as life. Death pursues and surrounds us: we’re close neighbours and advance towards its flag, which is only natural. We only need think of our peers, brothers, sisters and friends: the earth devours them all as they lie in their perpetual sanctuaries. As we can’t be sure when we will be summoned and see the signs now and then, we should wash and clip our hair and prepare what we need to walk on this inevitable path. We shouldn’t let death’s cruel shout catch us unawares. Let’s order our souls in time: better to foresee than to be foreseen, give our wealth to our sweet heir, provide our only daughter with a husband to suit our status, and depart this world peacefully and without sorrow. We should make every effort in this endeavour, and bring to a conclusion what we have begun at other times. We must not let our negligence deliver our daughter over to guardians. She’ll be better off in her own house than in ours. We must shield her from common gossip: no virtue is so perfect it doesn’t attract slanderers and detractors. Nothing hallows a virgin’s fine reputation better than an early marriage. Who in the whole of this city wouldn’t like to be related to us? Who wouldn’t happily take this jewel as his companion? She is a young woman in possession of the four main things sought in marriage: first, understanding, reputation and virginity; second, beauty; third, good parents and lineage; finally, wealth. Nature has endowed her with all four. Anyone who asks will find all these conditions met.’
‘May God protect her, Pleberio, my lord, and enable us to see our desires fulfilled in our lifetime. I think it is more than likely our daughter won’t find a match, given your honour and pure blood, because there can’t be very many men on a par with her. But this is a father’s task and not a mother’s, and I will happily abide by what you command and our daughter will duly obey, as befits one of a modest disposition who has lived a chaste and honourable life.’
‘How you would see red, if you only knew the truth! The best is gone! It’s a bad year for old age! Calisto’s plucked the cherry! Now Celestina’s dead, there’s nobody to mend maidenheads. You left it too late. You should have thought of this before!’
‘Listen to me, Melibea, listen!’
‘Why are you skulking there, you fool, Lucrecia?’
‘Come here, my lady, and listen to how your parents are in a hurry to marry you off.’
‘Be quiet, for God’s sake, or they’ll hear you. Let them talk. Let them plot. They’ve done nothing but for the last month. It’s as if they’ve got wind of my love for Calisto and of everything that’s happened with him in that time. I wonder if they’ve heard me. I can’t think why they’re obsessed with this all of a sudden. But they labour in vain on my behalf, because the flag’s been raised . . . Who can take my bliss away or end my pleasuring? Calisto is my soul, my life, my master, my only salvation in life. I know he’s not deceived me: given he loves me, how else am I supposed to repay him? Debts can be paid off in a variety of ways but only love repays love. When I think about him, I’m happy. When I see him, it’s bliss. When I hear him, I’m ecstatic. Let him do with me what he wills. If he wants to cross the seas, I’ll go with him. If he wants to go round the world, he can take me. If he wants to sell me in enemy territory, I’ll not flee from his desire. My parents must be content with him if they want to be content with me. They should stop thinking of doing deals and arranging a marriage. Better a good lover than an unhappy spouse. They should let me enjoy my youth if they want to enjoy their old age. If not, let them get on and arrange my ruin and their own grave. My only regret is the time I wasted not enjoying and getting to know him, from the moment I first saw him. I don’t want a husband. I won’t soil the bonds of matrimony, won’t tread in the marital footprints of another man, like many women I’ve read about in ancient books, that have done cleverer things than I and come from a more exalted estate and lineage. Some were so beautiful they had reputations as beauties, like Venus, mother of Aeneas and Cupid, the god of love who, once married, broke the matrimonial pledge. And others, inflamed by greater passions, that committed nefarious, incestuous sins: Mirra with her father, Semiramis with her son, Canasce with her brother, and King David’s daughter, Tamar, who was raped. Others transgressed the laws of nature more violently, like Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos, with the bull. These were queens and noble women, and, next to their sins, mine seem quite moderate and not worthy of disrepute. My love had a just cause. It was requited, sought out, captured on its merits, pleaded by such a wily soul as Celestina, who faced deadly danger before I surrendered entirely to his love. And for the last month, as you’ve seen, he’s come every night and scaled our garden wall as if it were a battlement, and on many a visit he came in vain, and didn’t cause me any more grief or trouble. Now I’m the reason his servants have been killed, his luck has run out, and he’s pretending to everyone in town that he’s away. He’s confined to his house and every day looks forward to seeing me at night. I will harbour no ingratitude, empty words and deceit towards such a true lover, and I want no husband, no father, and no family!
Without Calisto, my life is a living death. I love him taking delight in me.’
‘Quiet, my lady, listen to them harping on.’
‘What do you think, dear wife? Should we speak to our daughter? Should we tell her about all her suitors, so she comes willingly and says which she prefers? The law gives freedom to men and women to choose in this respect, even if the father has the last word.’
‘What are you saying? What a waste of your time. Who will tell Melibea the big news and give her a fright? Do you think she knows what a man is, or, that if you get married, what marriage is or that children come from a husband coupling with his wife? Do you think in her innocent virginal state she can even faintly desire what she has no knowledge of and has never even heard about? Do you think she even sins in her thoughts? Don’t contemplate doing that for one moment, Pleberio, my lord. We shall order her to accept whoever it may be, red- or blue-blooded, ugly or handsome. It will be a joy for her, and she’ll take him with good grace, because I know I’ve brought up a well-behaved daughter.’
‘Lucrecia, Lucrecia, run quick, go in through the side door and stop their chattering. Interrupt these words of praise with some message you’ve invented, or I’ll start shouting out like a madwoman. I’m so upset by the idea they have of my presumed state of innocence.’
‘I’m on my way, my lady.’
