In early modern Spain no novel more masterfully constructs a world moved by materialism or commodifies more thoroughly every aspect of life than Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina. From the opening act in which Calisto purchases Celestina’s skills to secure love to the final lament in which Pleberio shares his materialist vision of the universe, all the characters fully embrace a world defined by consumption and the commerce that surrounds it. Central to this commodified vision of the universe is the banquet scene of Act IX. At this point in the novel, Celestina is fully involved in manipulating the star-crossed lovers, Calisto and Melibea, and Calisto’s once faithful servant, Pármeno, has recently surrendered his loyalty to the old bawd demonstrating his conversion with a banquet. By contextualizing Rojas’s work with historical accounts of banquets and other literary markers such as cookbooks and dietary manuals, we begin to get a fuller picture of how food culture reflects social identity and what roles the characters play in shaping that very identity.
Twenty-first-century criticism is becoming increasingly aware of the fundamental role that material culture and, I would argue, food as a material artefact, have in expressing positions of social difference. Looking back, we know from the generative work of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mary Douglas, who both draw consistent analogies between food and culture, that food categories encode social events and that from the mundane act of preparing food and eating it we can learn about social values.2 Pierre Bourdieu added to the discussion that food habits, as an indicator of cultural consumption, legitimized social differences.
Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed. And statistical analysis does show that oppositions similar in structure to those found in cultural practices also appear in eating habits. The antithesis between quantity and quality, substance and form, corresponds to the opposition – linked to different distances from necessity – between the taste of necessity, which favours the most “filling,” and most economical foods, and the taste of liberty – or luxury – which shifts the emphasis to the manner (of presenting, serving, eating, etc.) and tends to use stylized forms to deny function. (1984, 6)
In the case of the banquet, subjects can project an image they want to present, for example, Pármeno who provides the food and invites the people, projects himself as host of the event and therefore, not just one of the group but a key figure. But, the banquet, as Bourdieu argues, is also “the systematic expression of a system of factors including, in addition to the indicators of the position occupied in the economic and cultural hierarchies, economic trajectory, social trajectory and cultural trajectory” (1984, 79). With this concept in mind, we can examine the reason the banquet was organized, the food Pármeno “acquires,” and the actions and words of those present, to understand the “trajectories” at play in the text.
Consumption is an act of material culture, one that allows us to gain insight into social relations.3 In early modern Spain, from the royal court to the pueblo, people celebrated rites of passage – birth, baptism, marriage, death – religious holidays, and public events with a banquet. Historiography recounts in detail aristocratic banquets like the one the president of the court in Valladolid hosted for the arrival of the new king Charles I.
Hablaros a lo largo de los diversos platos y servicios con que fue servido sería largo de narrar, ya que tantas viandas exquisitas había allí. Por esta causa, el Rey, Su Alteza y toda la nobleza fueron muy bien festejados y abundantemente servidos; y lo fueron todos, desde los grandes dignatarios hasta nosotros, los criados, que comimos en la cámara de retiro, en la que fuimos servidos con tantos y tan buenos platos que no había nada mejor.
[To speak in length of the many dishes and courses which we were served would take too much time, as there were so many exquisite delicacies there. The king, His Highness, and all nobility present were so well honoured and abundantly served, as all of us were, from the grand dignitaries to us, the servants, who ate in a side room where we were served so many and such excellent dishes that there was nothing better.] (Vital 1958, 352)4
Like this feast that honours Carlos I on his arrival in Spain, banquets confirm and celebrate the established social order.5 They are ritual sites of solidarity and communication that take the biological need for eating as survival and convert it into a site of feasting, social pleasure, and social order. Covarrubias defines banquete in the following way:
vale tanto como un festín, convite y comida espléndida, abundante de manjares y rica en aparato. Tomó nombre de las bancas, o mesas sobre que se ponen las viandas, como llamamos mesa franca el dar de comer a cuantos quieren sentarse a la mesa, que sean de las calidades que se requieren; y hacer plato el admitir un señor a su mesa de ordinario, el número de caballeros competente; de manera que debajo destos nombres banco, mesa y plato, se entienda el convidar en la forma sobredicha.
[It is equal to a feast, a dinner party with splendid food, abundant in delicacies beautifully displayed. The name comes from benches or tables on which food was placed; in the same way we say “open table” when anyone who wants to sit at the table is fed, as long as he has the necessary social standing, and “to make a plate for” when a nobleman admits the appropriate number of gentlemen to his everyday table; so that from these names “bench,” “table,” and “dish,” it is understood that one invites in the way explained above.] (1994, 162)
As Covarrubias explains, the table is the centre of the banquet and is as much defined by the food placed on it as it is by the people seated around it. Furthermore, the spectacle is filled with rules of presentation, etiquette, service, seating plans, and bodily censorship. Yet, at the same time it is a site of excess and ostentation that easily leads to opposing outcomes such as a breakdown of rules and corporal improprieties. In this way, the banquet is order and chaos, refinement and bacchanalia, bodily censorship and sensual gratification. The table brings community together but also forces hierarchies, webs of inclusion and exclusion. It is this disparate dimension that makes the banquet a perfect place for transformation and transgression. Comparing contemporary cookbooks, dietary manuals, and classical representations of banquets with that in La Celestina, we can understand more fully how Fernando de Rojas parodies the event of the banquet, its host, food, and even language in Act IX of Celestina. Here, he unravels the bonds of servant-master that might have been, exposes the materiality of love, and exploits the tensions that define class divisions. In his novel, the banquet becomes the site of transformation that ultimately leads to the tragic destruction of the text’s main characters.
If we consider the responsibilities of the banquet host – arranging the event, inviting the guests, procuring the food – there remains little doubt that Pármeno casts himself as host to the affair. The idea of the banquet is his alone. After spending his first evening with Areúsa, he is desperate to create a space where the two lovers can meet again: “Y aun porque más nos veamos, reciba de ti esta gracia, que te vayas hoy a las doce del día a comer con nosotros a su casa de Celestina,” [And so – that we may see more of each other – please accept my invitation to dine today at 12 at Celestina’s] (2004, 212; 1958, 130).6
But, the meal he plans is not only to regale Areúsa with another kind of oral delight; it is also the agency of recognition and celebration of Pármeno’s new identity. He understands that his passage into manhood must be shared with others. On his way home he muses:
Quál hombre es … más dichoso y bienandante, ¡que un tan excellente don sea por mí posseýdo, y quan presto pedido tan presto alcançado! …. ¿Con qué pagaré yo esto? O alto Dios, ¿a quién contaría yo este gozo? ¿A quién descobriría tan gran secreto? ¿A quién daré parte de mi gloria? Bien me dezía la vieja que de ninguna prosperidad es buena la possessión sin compañía. El plazer no comunicado no es plazer.
[What man is … happier or more fortunate? I cannot believe that so excellent a treasure should have fallen into my hands. No sooner asked for than possessed! …. How shall I repay all this? Almighty God! To whom shall I recount my joy? To whom uncover so great a secret? With whom share my glory? The old one was quite right to say that, in all justice, prosperity should be shared, for pleasure uncommunicated is not really pleasure at all.] (2004, 212; 1958, 130–1)
His fortune will not only be shared verbally as he recounts his exploits to Sempronio but also celebrated through food and drink and community with his newly bonded associates. In fact, the banquet also celebrates Pármeno’s decision to join the ranks of Celestina’s cofradía [association], and the society of con artists, thieves, and prostitutes that she epitomizes. María de los Ángeles Pérez Samper tells us,
El banquete tenía un importante papel de cohesión social, comer juntos indicaba formar parte del mismo colectivo, ya fuese un grupo de cortesanos o un grupo de personas que compartían el mismo oficio o profesión o pertenecían a la misma corporación o institución. Muy representativos de los banquetes de consolidación de grupo, clara expresión comunitaria, resultaban las comidas de las cofradías.
[The banquet played an important role of social cohesion; eating together meant that you were par t of the same collective, whether it be a group of courtesans, a group of people from the same trade or profession or the same institution or corporation. A clear expression of community, association meals turned out to be very representative of banquets of consolidated groups.] (1997, 76–7)
The banquet, then, is the site of multiple recognitions, most important among them, Pármeno’s self-identification as a member of Celestina’s cofradía.
As host, Pármeno is responsible for inviting the guests. After leaving Areúsa’s house, Pármeno first invites Sempronio and is sure to include Elicia as well: “Tú y ella [Areúsa] y allá está la vieja y Elicia; avremos plazer” [Oh, you and Areúsa … and of course Mother and Elicia, who are already there. We can have a lot of fun] (2004, 217; 1958, 135).7 Later in the text, as she drinks more than her usual share of wine, even Celestina recognizes herself as a guest at the feast: “no me harán pasar de allí salvo si no soy conbidada como agora” [I cannot be prevailed on to exceed that intake – unless, of course, I happen to be invited to dinner, as on this present occasion] (2004, 225; 1958, 143). As Pármeno plans to send the food in advance so that it will be prepared upon his arrival, Sempronio inquires what they will eat while at the same time implicitly acknowledging the reason for the social event: “¿Qué has pensado embiar, para que aquellas loquillas te tengan por hombre complido, biencriado y franco?” [What have you planned to send? You will certainly want the girls to think you are quite a man of the world – well-bred and free with your money] (2004, 217; 1958, 135). The idea of an accomplished, gracious, and generous host is a topos of banquet history. Perhaps the best literary model for Pármeno can be found in Trimalchio, the ex-slave of Petronius’s Satyricon, who is married to a former prostitute and throws lavish banquets to write himself into affluent society. But to understand more fully his decision to break his bond with Calisto and return to Celestina, we turn to contemporary cookbooks and dietary treatises, in which we find lessons on how to be virtuous and serve one’s master; these reveal key absences in Pármeno’s upbringing.
In 1423 Enrique de Villena authored Arte cisoria [The art of carving] at the request of Sancho de Jarava, official carver for Juan II of Castille.8 In his treatise Villena describes in detail the performance of carving and, drawing from the juridical authority of the day, Alfonso el Sabio’s Siete Partidas [Seven Partidas] (specifically, the Second Partida, title IX, law XI), Villena includes a chapter on the instruction of good servants: “Cómo deven ser criados moços de buen linaje acostunbrados, para tomar dellos para el ofiçio del cortar” [How boys of good lineage should be raised in order to be selected for the office of carving]. Villena asserts that both the boy’s unquestionable lineage (“de fidalguez non dudoso”) and apprenticeship are key to becoming an excellent servant. It is clear that Pármeno’s lineage is stained and, as such, he will need to rely all the more on good instruction. For Villena and, more generally, for aristocrats of fifteenth-century Spain, the master was responsible for instructing apprentices and fledgling servants in the necessary virtues: “onde por tales demostraçiones e criança … serán fechos por buen uso leales, entendidos, discretos, non cobdiçiosos, non enbidiosos, non yrados, que son las siete condiçiones que han menester” [where by such reason and upbringing … they will become with good practice loyal, knowledgeable, discreet, not greedy or envious or angry, which are the seven required conditions] (1984, 123).9 The first virtue, loyalty, should be modelled, praised, and rewarded: “que sean abezados a mantener lealtad, loándola simpre ante ellos, e contándoles de aquéllos que la mantovieron quánto prez por ello ganaron, e quán buen nonbre dellos quedó” [they should be praised for remaining loyal, continually extolling (its virtue) in front of them and reminding them of others who have remained loyal and were promptly rewarded and what estimation they earned because of it] (1984, 121). These instructions for being virtuous servants continue throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the cookbooks of Ruperto de Nola, Diego Granado, and Francisco Martínez Montiño.
In the case of Calisto and his servants, the modelling is misdirected.10 Calisto praises Sempronio for what Pármeno (and the reader) know to be greedy motivations and reproaches Pármeno, whose efforts to remain loyal are interpreted as strains of envy. “Quanto remedio Sempronio acarrea con sus pies, tanto apartas tú con tu lengua, con tus vanas palabras; fingiéndote fiel, eres un terrón de lisonja, bote de malicias, el mismo mesón y aposentamiento de la embidia” [All that Sempronio achieves with his feet in running about on my missions you nullify with your tongue and your vain and idle words. Pretending to be loyal, you are a mass of deceptions, a receptacle of malice, the very inn and lodging-place of envy] (2004, 136; 1958, 57). Pármeno continues to advise Calisto but feels trapped between his desire to serve well and the frustrations he encounters by doing so: “por ser leal padezco mal. Otros se ganan por malos, yo me pierdo por bueno. El mundo es tal; quiero yrme al hilo de la gente, pues a los traydores llaman discretos, a los fieles necios” [I am suffering now for being so loyal. Other people get ahead by being bad, but I – I lose because I try so hard to be good. Well, so goes the world. I must do what everyone else does, for the discreet are called traitors, and the faithful, fools] (2004, 137; 1958, 58). He recognizes the absence of sound council from his master: “Mas esto me porná escarmiento daquí adelante con él. Que si dixere comamos, yo tanbién; si quisiere derrocar la casa, aprovarlo; si quemar su hazienda, yr por huego. Destruya, rompa, quiebre, dañe; dé a alcahuetas lo suyo, que mi parte me cabrá” [But this will forewarn me forever against him. If he says, “Let us eat,” I will say, “Let us eat.” If he wants to tear down the house, I will say it is a fine idea. If he wants to burn down his property, I’ll run and bring him the fire to start it with. Let him break, destroy, damage, shatter! You may, sir, give your wealth away to go-betweens, but I can tell you that I intend to get my share of it] (2004, 137; 1958, 58). Beyond stealing from his master’s pantry, Pármeno formulates lies to explain the loss: “haréle creer que los ha comido … diré que hedían” [I will make him think he has eaten them … I’ll say they spoiled on us] (2004, 818; 1958, 136), and expresses his desire to distance himself from Calisto and further his betrayal for his own benefit, “y allá hablaremos más largamente en su daño y nuestro provecho” [There we’ll talk at great length about his troubles and the profit we are to share] (2004, 218; 1958, 136). With no lineage to stand on and no proper modelling from his master, Pármeno’s decision to organize a banquet, pilfer food, and celebrate a return to his roots is the ritualistic act that signifies his transgressions.
But what do we know of the food that Pármeno steals? He is specific in the quality and quantity that he will provide: “pan blanco, vino de Monviedro; un pernil de toçino … seys pares de pollos … [y] las tórtolas” [white bread, Monviedro wine, a gammon of pork … six pair of chickens … and the turtledoves] (2004, 218; 1958, 136). By distinguishing the bread by its colour, Pármeno reveals its quality. Piero Camporesi explains: “The hierarchy of breads and their qualities in reality sanctioned social distinctions. Bread represented a status symbol that defined human condition and class according to its particular color” (1980, 120). White bread was reserved for the upper classes while millet, rye, barley, and other supposedly “inferior” grains were used to make bread for the lower classes. Philip III’s doctor wrote that the best bread was one that was “más fácil de partir con los dientes, y partido se mostrare por dentro más blanco que rubio” [easier on the teeth and when broken the inside reveals a colour that is more white than blonde] (cited in Sánchez Meco 1998, 131). In early modern Spain, and generally throughout Europe, quality wine was tied to the name of the town from which it came.11 In other words, the fact that the wine Pármeno stole was labelled “de Monviedro” signified quality (and still does today). In addition, and just a few years later, Luis Lobera de Ávila, personal doctor to Carlos I, cited the wine of Monviedro as having specific medicinal properties in his dietary treatise Banquete de nobles caballeros [Banquet of noble gentlemen] (1996, 63). Beyond these social markers, bread and wine carry with them obvious spiritual significance as well. But at every turn in La Celestina, the sacred has been replaced with the material. The bread and wine at the last supper that Celestina shares with her followers no longer symbolize a sacred sacrifice but rather transgression (stolen food) and commercial enterprise (payment for sexual favours).
Meat, the third main food group of the early modern period, together with bread and wine, was consumed by those with money. By introducing “seis pares de pollos” [six pairs of chickens] (emphasis added) Rojas reiterates both the number of guests at the banquet, and the coupling of guests. Sempronio / Elicia and Pármeno / Areúsa are obvious but Celestina / Lucrecia are another pair as both stand witness to, but do not directly participate in, the sexual games around the table. Tórtola or turtledove, the bird that symbolizes amorous fidelity, is one of the many displaced signifiers in Rojas’s text. Covarrubias explains that this bird is “símbolo de la mujer viuda, que muerto su marido no se vuelve a casar y guarda castidad” [symbol of a widow, who, after her husband has died, does not marry again and remains chaste] (1994, 928–9). Seen through this lens, the readers can perceive Rojas’s sense of irony as fidelity and chastity certainly have no place at this table. Beyond these misfired signifiers, fowl was highly valued as was mutton, beef, veal, and pork (Valles Rojo 2007, 237–8). Like the white bread and labelled wine, its presence at the banquet, along with the pernil de tocino [high-quality ham] indicated excellence. Pork, consumed at all social levels, marked social differences by the different cuts and the pernil de tocino was among the most valued. Many authors signal the importance of this cut; for example, in Guzmán de Alfarache, “jamas dejó mi señor de tener gallina, pollo, capón o palomino a comida o cena, y pernil de tocino entero, cocido en vino, cada domingo”[my master never stopped having hen, chicken or capon at lunch or dinner and a whole, high-quality ham, cooked in wine, every Sunday] (Alemán 1969, 153; emphasis added).
For workers and the poor, meat was consumed in small quantities and lower grades: fat back and bones in stews, offal, and cured meat – as opposed to a whole ham or a dozen chickens – were mainstays throughout the year for the lower classes. In fact, an entire gastronomic social hierarchy existed that regulated certain types of food, including meat and fowl, for certain classes. Doctors of the day, for example Lobera de Ávila, claimed that eating food inappropriate to one’s rank would cause illness. In categorizing meats, he draws from several medical authorities and concludes that the best are mutton, veal, and kid (1996, 73). Although most of his decisions are based on the physiology of the humours, social class also plays a role: “Y por lo dicho, las personas de negocios, grandes señores o de muy alto estado, débense evitar del mucho uso de comer vaca o buey, máxime viejo; o si lo comieren, sea pocas veces y poco en cuantidad o con alguna salsa de mostaza, en que entre algo que reprima el humor melancónico” [And with that said, businessmen, grandees, and men of high rank should avoid eating much beef or ox that is particularly old, or if they did eat it, that it be infrequent and in small quantities or with some mustard sauce so that it is eaten with something that represses the melancholic humour] (1996, 74). According to this theory of nutritional privilege, “the relationship between ‘quality of person’ and ‘quality of food’ was not a simple fact tied to the chances of wealth or need, but rather a basic and ontological postulate: to eat well or poorly was an intrinsic individual characteristic (and hopefully unalterable), just as was social class”(Montanari 1996, 87). Later, during the festivities, the class divisions that the food items represent will be central to the conversations of the guests.
Although the food Pármeno supplies for the banquet reflects the wealth and abundance of the upper class, the actual event of its consumption is framed by images of hunger and punctuated with complaints of poverty. Upon arrival Pármeno speaks of the transformative power of hunger. “La necessitad y pobreza, la hambre, que no ay mejor maestra en el mundo, no ay mejor despertadora y abivadora de ingenios” [poverty, and need. And hunger too – the greatest teacher in the world. There’s nothing better to whet the mind than hunger] (2004, 224; 1958, 141). This hunger drives Pármeno’s transformation. It is not virtue or salvation that motivates him, or any other character in the text for that matter, but rather, hunger and carnal appetite.
Throughout the meal, Celestina is often described as gnawing on and gumming her food. Before her arrival Sempronio reminds Pármeno, “Quando ay que roer en casa, sanos están los santos” [When she is well-provisioned at home and has something to gnaw on, she leaves the saints alone] (2004, 223; 1958, 140). When recalling Calisto’s fast at the Church of Saint Magdalene, Pármeno reminds Celestina, “que puedas bien roer los huessos destos pollos” [you might enjoy gnawing on the bones of these chickens] (2004, 230; 1958, 145), comparing her physical gnawing with Calisto’s figurative gnawing of saints’ bones while he spirals deeper into his fit of love madness.12 Celestina herself suggests that she is all too familiar with the art of survival: “un cortezón de pan ratonado me basta para tres días” [(w)ith … only a crust of mouse-nibbled bread I can get along very nicely for three whole days] (2004, 225; 1958, 142), and that what remains of her capacity to enjoy food has been reduced to gumming leftovers of what the others have devoured: “la vieja Celestina maxcará de dentera con sus botas enzías las migajas de los manteles” [And old Celestina will with her empty gums greedily lap up the crumbs you leave upon your tablecloth] (2004, 232; 1958, 147). Beyond these images of meagre scraps of bones and stale bread, the meal that the servants and prostitutes share is best characterized by its absence. There are no references to the delicacies Pármeno and Semprono had previously pilfered, no elaborate courses, no staging of dishes, no homage paid to the exotic tastes and smells or the ostentatious surroundings of the meal, no desserts. In fact, the biggest event of the meal is Elicia’s refusal to eat, a physical manifestation of the nausea she feels provoked by Sempronio’s comment on Melibea’s grace and beauty.
The third element of any banquet, apart from the people and the food itself, is the language that shapes it. Often the strength of the banquet lies not so much in the food’s physical presence but rather the description of it. In early modern Spain there are abundant references to famous banquets including a Christmas celebration Francisco Martínez Montiño records in his 1611 cookbook, Arte de Cocina, pastelería, vizcochería y conservería [The art of cooking, pie making, pastry making and preserving]. Martínez Montiño spent his entire life in royal kitchens, beginning with the kitchen of the Infanta Juana in Portugal in 1553 and working his way up through the kitchen of Philip II to the position of cocinero de servilleta [personal cook] for Philip III and IV. In his description he, too, makes clear that the food itself is not enough, but that how it is presented is equally, if not even more, important. “Y daré á entender, como se han de servir porque en los banquetes, todo el toque está es saberlos servir; porque aunque se gaste mucho dinero en un banquete, si no se sirve bien no luce” [And I will explain how one should serve, because at banquets the difference is in knowing how to serve; even though one might spend a lot of money on the banquet, if it is not well served, it does not stand out] (1997, 9–10). After he finishes his instructions on how to serve a banquet, he proceeds with a list of dishes appropriate for a Christmas banquet that includes both pollos [chicken] and perniles [ham] as well as the following:
Olla podridas.
Pabos asados con su salsa.
Pastelillos saboyanos de ternera ojaldrados.
Pichones, y torreznos asados.
Platillo de Arteletes de aves sobre sopas de natas.
Bollos de vacia.
Perdizes asadas con salsa de limones.
Capirotada con solomo, y salchicas, y perdizes.
Lechones asados con sopas de queso, y azucar, y canela.
Ojaldres de masa de levadura con enxundia de Puerco.
Pollas asadas.
[Spanish stew.
Roasted peacock in its sauce.
Pastry-wrapped veal with Sabayon sauce.
Roasted pigeon and bacon.
Grilled poultry in a cream sauce.
Hollow rolls.
Roasted partridge with lemon sauce.
Cured pork loin, sausage, and partridge stew.
Roasted lamb in a cheese, cinnamon, and sugar sauce.
Puff pastry from leavened dough and pork fat.
Roasted chickens.]
(1997, 14)
The very titles of these dishes (only the first of four courses) stimulate the appetite and underscore the importance of language in the enjoyment of food.
The absence in Rojas’s text of these types of descriptions that are so vital to the pleasure of food parallels that of food’s primary role in creating community and strengthening fellowship. Without descriptions of the food, the centre of the feast is missing. It destabilizes the feast and signals the collapse of friendship much like other linguistic absences in the text. Like Melibea’s coy denial to Calisto, Elicia’s lies to Sempronio about another lover, Celestina’s contrived sympathies for Calisto’s circumstances, and Pármeno’s excuses for the food he stole, genuine descriptions of the characters’ feelings and motivations are absent. Because the central focus of the banquet is missing, the situation becomes unstable and sets up a space in which a threat to the order of the state develops. The banquet, a spectacle that traditionally reaffirms political power, here serves to destabilize it as this scene sets the stage for unravelling the accepted social order. It is no surprise, then, that this social affront be accompanied by Elicia’s jealousy, Areúsa’s anger, and Celestina’s frustration and acknowledgment of lost indulgences; as we will see momentarily this is the very direction the discourse takes that afternoon as their conversations break down and the seeds of destruction begin to grow.
Laurent Vital, the valet of Carlos I who recorded details of the king’s arrival in the capital, does take careful note of one important aspect of the banquet: the wine. In fact, similar to Celestina’s opening elegy to wine, in Vital’s account, it is the first and most visual element of the spectacle.
[H]abía mandado construir y edificar en medio de su casa una hermosa fuente sobre el suelo, de la cual salía vino por dos caños, a saber: por uno vino blanco, y por otro vino tinto; y tan bien estaba hecha la separación, que duró tanto tiempo como el Rey estuvo allí. A esta fuente todos podían ir a beber lo que querían y lo que no se bebía caía en una gran pila, por un conducto, iba a dar a una gran vasija en la bodega de este presidente… hubo mucha apretura por la multitud de gente que de todos lados abordaba allí y se adelantaba para beber en ella, a causa de lo cual hubo entonces tanto vino derramado como bebido, pero, pasada esa afluencia, todos bebían allí a su gusto.
[A beautiful fountain was ordered to be built and staged on the floor in the centre of the house from which wine poured forth from two spouts in the following way: white wine from one and red wine from the other. The separation was done so well that it lasted for as long as the king was there. Everyone could drink as much as they wanted from the fountain and what wasn’t consumed continued on into a basin, via a canal, and ended up in a great vessel in the president’s wine cellar … Among the multitude of people there was plenty of pushing around the entire fountain as all approached to drink from it and due to this there was as much wine spilled as drunk but after this influx, everyone there drank as they pleased.] (1958, 349–50)
While both Vital and Rojas privilege wine in its primary sequence in the banquet description and thus exemplify its central role in celebratory occasions at each end of the class spectrum, the sources for Celestina’s extended praise of wine are many and varied.13 From Hippocrates and Galen to Arnaldo de Villanueva and Lobera de Ávila, medical doctors throughout time have elaborated on its benefits (and detriments). Celestina begins her monologue on the warm nature of wine: “Pues de noche en invierno no ay tal escalentador de cama … esto me callenta la sangre” [On a cold winter night there’s no better bed-warmer … it warms my blood] (2004, 225; 1958, 142). Likewise, Lobera, drawing from Galen, begins his chapter on the warm nature of wine: “vinos hay blancos de una tierra, que son más calientes que tintos de otra, y tintos de otra, menos calientes que blancos de otra. Así como vinos de Pelayos y de San Martín, blancos, son más calientes que tintos de Escalona y de otras partes; y tintos de Pelayos y de San Martín son más calientes que blancos de Madrid” [there are white wines from some regions that are warmer than reds from another and red from another (region) that are not as warm as whites from another. For example, wines from Pelayo and San Martin, whites, are warmer than reds from Escalona and other regions; reds from Pelayo and San Martin are warmer than whites from Madrid] (1996, 61). It goes without saying that all wines, white and red, are characterized by their warm nature.
Celestina continues with a myriad of advantages that drinking wine offers:
esto me sostiene contino en un ser; esto me haze andar siempre alegre; esto me para fresca … Esto da esfuerço al moço, y al viejo fuerça, pone color al descolorido … saca el frío del stómago, quita el hedor del aliento, haze potentes los fríos, haze sofrir los afanes de las labranças a los cansados segadores, haze sudar toda agua mala, sana el romadizo y las muelas.
[it keeps me all together; it lets me get about merrily; it keeps me fresh … it imparts verve to youth and strength to age; it gives colour to the pallid … drives coldness from the stomach, erases the odours on the breath, makes potent the frigid, alleviates the toil of tillage, causes weary reapers to sweat out their noisome humours, and cures our colds and toothaches.] (2004, 225; 1958, 142)
Lobera also continues with multiple benefits of wine consumption, this time acknowledging as his authoritative text Aristotle’s De secretis secretorum.
[B]ebido el vino moderadamente, siendo bueno, claro y odorífico, no muy viejo ni nuevo, conforta el estómago, esfuerça el calor natural … ayuda contra la putrefación de los humores, que no se podrezcan tan aína; aprovecha a la cabeça, alegra el coraçon, causa bien color, hace experta la lengua, es de buen mantenimiento y de buena sustancia, engendra buenos espíritus y claros.
[Wine drunk in moderation, if it is good, clear, and with a pleasant bouquet, neither too old nor new, brings comfort to the stomach, improves natural colour … aids against the deterioration of the humours so they do not decay as quickly, improves the head, lightens the heart, gives good colour, makes the tongue sharp, and helps maintain good health and substance, breeds good and clear spirits.] (1996, 62–3)
Both Celestina and Lobera point to wine’s positive effect on one’s physical and mental health. It is clear that Rojas and Lobera draw from a long tradition of medical treatises. Of course all medical treatises and later moral and juridical ones include the dangers of drinking wine and the problems excessive drinking can cause, elements that Celestina sums up in one passing reference: “No tiene sino una tacha, que lo bueno vale caro y lo malo haze daño. Assí que con lo que sana el hígado, enferma la bolsa” [There is about it one disadvantage only, as far as I can see: which is that the good variety comes high and the poor kind is hurtful. Thus it is that – “Wine’s for the liver a soothing nurse, but it wreaks deep ravages on your purse”] (2004, 225; 1958, 142). Even one of the last remaining pleasures for Celestina, drinking wine, is reduced to an economic paradigm. If it is good wine, it is expensive.
As the banquet comes to a close, Celestina returns to the topic of wine. This time, in her nostalgic glance back to her glory days of fame and fortune, she recalls with pride the excellent wines she drank.
Pues vino, ¿no me sobraba? De lo mejor que se bevía en la ciudad, venido de diversas partes: de Monviedro, de Luque, de Toro, de Madrigal, de San Martín, y de otros muchos lugares, y tantos que aunque tengo la differencia de los gustos y sabor en la boca, no tengo la diversidad de sus tierras en la memoria, que harto es que una vieja como yo en oliendo qualquiera vino diga de dónde es.
[Had I not also wine in great abundance? I did indeed; the best ever drunk in this town. Many kinds of it, too, from all over: Monviedro, Luque, Toro, Madrigal, San Martín, and many other places too – so many, indeed, that though I still know them from the memory I have of their taste and bouquet, I no longer recall where they came from. It is too much to expect an old thing like me, when she smells wine, to tell you where it comes from] (2004, 236; 1958, 151–2)
Celestina, like Sancho in Don Quijote, had an expert nose and could tell where a wine was from simply by inhaling its aroma. Her wine list holds prestige with multiple authors of the day. Several Cancionero poets, Arcipreste de Hita, Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Tirso all cite “vino de Toro” [wine from Toro] as an outstanding wine (Valles Rojo 2007, 315). The same is true with the wine of San Martín to which Miguel Herrero-García, in his La vida española del siglo XVII [Spanish lifestyles of the seventeenth century], dedicates an entire chapter (1933, 6–12). Lobera de Ávila writes about the excellent white wines specifically from Madrigal and Monviedro, and the reds from Toro and San Martín (1996, 63). Wine from Luque, as well as most of the others, is included in the poem, “Coplas hechas por Alonso de Toro, cojo, sobre la abundancia del vino que Dios ha dado, en el año de XXXI y el el año de XXXII” [Stanzas written by Alonso de Toro, lame, on the abundance of wine God has provided in the 31st and 32nd years] (cited in Valles Rojo 2007, 298–300).
The power of language is not limited to the mere description of food and drink but extends to the conversation and stories Celestina, Pármeno, Sempronio, Elisia, and Areúsa share. Bearing in mind the classical tradition, we know that the banquet King Alkinoös hosts for Ulysses on his return to Ithaca is best known for the hero’s stories, not the food served. Likewise Plato’s Symposium is remembered for the guests’ speeches on the nature of love.14 The site of the banquet is a natural space for the power of language to explode as the primacy of orality, eating, speaking, and in the case of La Celestina, sexual activity, blend together. Pármeno’s sexual exploits lead to the feast of food. Celestina’s extended elegy on wine prompts Sempronio to remind her that they need to eat and not just talk. Words about Melibea’s beauty disrupt Elicia’s pleasure of eating and so on. One act of orality instigates another and becomes a destabilizing force in the text. A passing comment transforms into an argument on the nature of beauty and love, and the arrival of Melibea’s servant, Lucrecia, instigates an invective against the upper class. Far from the dialogue of love in Plato’s Symposium, here the lovers exhibit jealousy and anger while nausea and vomit become the dominant images the food provokes.
The discussion of beauty and love that the characters of La Celestina sustain during the banquet recalls the humanist debate on the banquet of senses. Some critics argue that Rojas would not have been familiar with Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Symposium (1496) or Lorenzo Valla’s De Voluptate [On pleasure] (1431) or Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine [On right pleasure and good health] (1474), but others have already noted the connections between them.15 Whether or not Rojas read these works, he was certainly familiar with the ideas of love, beauty, and the pursuit of pleasure that they addressed.
The very first book published on food, Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine contains 10 books that deal with such diverse topics as the science of cooking, diet, exercise, the nature of food, and the best ways to prepare and season one’s meal.16 His work draws from Valla’s theory that pleasure is the guiding principle of moral behaviour. It also responds to and in part corrects Ficino’s theory on divine, natural, and bestial love and how the first two can lead to a contemplative life while the third leads to dishonour as the senses take priority over the contemplative realm of reason. The importance of Platina, and humanists in general, is that his work defends the pleasure of eating as an honest virtue. In his introduction Platina writes: “Who is so stolid … that he is not suffused by some pleasure of body or mind if he has held to temperance in eating, from which comes good health, and to integrity and consistency in action, from which happiness arises? … I have written to help any citizen seeking health, moderation and elegance of food rather than debauchery” (1998, 101–3). For the first time, Platina defends what Nestor Luján calls “la honestidad de un placer discreto y deleitoso como es el del paladar” [the honesty of a delightful, discreet pleasure like that of the palate] (1997, 96).
In La Celestina no one ever ascends the Platonic rungs of the ladder in pursuit of beauty, or advances into the contemplative realm Ficino imagines. Rather, the characters indulge in a purely physical and material universe that embraces pleasure but surely not in the moderate terms Platina outlines in his text. After Sempronio’s comment, “aquella graciosa y gentil Melibea” [that gracious and lovely lady, Melibea] (2004, 226; 1958, 143), instead of contemplating a higher beauty or a more noble soul, Elicia responds violently. Her jealousy and rage are couched in terms of regurgitating food: “¡mal provecho te haga lo que comes, tal comida me as dado! Por mi alma, revessar quiero quanto tengo en el cuerpo de asco de oýrte llamar a aquélla gentil” [I hope you get indigestion for saying that. You have certainly spoiled my dinner. Honestly, I feel like throwing up everything I’ve got in my body – it makes me so sick at my stomach to hear you call her “lovely lady”] (2004, 226; 1958, 143). No longer able to stomach food from the table at which her lover is seated, words become Elicia’s food. She refutes Melibea’s beauty by stating that it is artificial, a product bought cheaply. In her commodification of beauty, Elicia compares Melibea with neighbours and finally asserts that she herself is more beautiful. Elicia’s food for thought prompts Areúsa to respond with more food metaphors of disgust: “Si en ayunas la topasses, si aquel día pudiesses comer de asco” [If you had ever seen her before you had had breakfast, you would get so sick at your stomach you couldn’t eat all day long] (2004, 226; 1958, 143). Areúsa exploits the economic argument and reiterates that women’s wealth can purchase beauty.
She draws on typical ingredients for cosmetics that provoke grotesque images, for example, her references to hiel and higas pasadas [bile and overripe figs]. In the anonymous Manual de mujeres en el cual se contienen muchas y diversas recetas muy buenas [The manual for women in which is contained many, very good and diverse recipes], written between 1475 and 1525, the main ingredient of “mudas para rostro y manos” [cosmetics for the face and hands] is a half pound of black figs and “para el paño del rostro” [for spots on the face], honey and bile are mixed together with other ingredients.17 But these commonly known beauty recipes do not allay the disgust that Areúsa communicates in her description.
Elicia begins to calm down and takes her seat at the table when the conversation changes to Calisto’s love sicknesses and his presence at Saint Magdalene’s Church. The contrast between those at the feast engrossed in carnal pleasures with the star-crossed lover fasting at the Church of Saint Magdalene, the repentant prostitute who sacrifices all carnal pleasure in pursuit of divine grace, exemplifies once again Rojas’s use of irony in the banquet scene. Celestina couches Calisto’s lovesickness in terms of the denial of food: “ni comen ni beven … que comiendo se olvida la mano de llevar la vianda a la boca” [They eat not, nor drink … their hands forget to bear their victuals to their mouths] (2004, 230; 1958, 146), sprinkling the central feast of the text with images of food’s absence.
As the afternoon wears on, Sempronio tries to appease Elicia by reminding her of sacrifices he endured to win her love: “Pero todo lo doy por bienempleado, pues tal joya gané” [But now I consider it was all for the best, for look what a jewel I have won!] (2004, 231; 1958, 146). But her rage continues and Celestina tries to cool her violent outburst with images of appetites both biological and sexual. Her suggestions to indulge in the culinary and sexual pleasures at hand lead to her own voyeuristic pleasures. Celestina must take up her sexual pleasure as a voyeur of the younger couples much in the same way that she can only gum the crumbs of their banquet. “Besaos y abraçaos, que a mí no me queda otra cosa sino gozarme de vello” [Oh, kiss and hug, you frisky young things! I’ll delight in watching you – for that’s all there’s left that I can do: just look on] (2004, 232; 1958, 147). Celestina’s rhetorical prowess is all that remains of her oral skills. No longer able to eat or engage in sexual exploits like the more youthful characters of the text, her language is able to kindle the flames of the lovers’ argument and pushes them to return to the pursuit of their bodily appetites.18
Lucrecia’s arrival at Celestina’s house sets off Areúsa’s diatribe on the upper class and how they treat those who serve them. Areúsa’s soliloquy at the banquet on how the wealthy treat their servants is the reader’s first sign of her vindictive, scornful personality that will be fully exploited as she plots the revenge for Sempronio and Pármeno’s death later in the text. For now, she concludes that her modest freedoms far outweigh the repression and captivity those who serve must endure. Celestina agrees with Areúsa and uses food metaphors to bring closure to the topic: “Que los sabios dizen que vale más una migaja de pan con paz que toda la casa llena de viandas con renzilla” [Wise men tell us that peace and a bit of bread are worth more than a house filled with quarrelling and victuals] (2004, 233; 1958, 149). However, Areúsa will later choose rencilla [quarrelling] over paz [peace] as she returns to images of poison, vomiting, and bitterness to describe her future interactions with others in the novel.
The food and sexual exploits shift to a remote past as Celestina recalls with nostalgia twenty years earlier when she ruled the world. Acknowledging the fickle nature of fortune, she describes the respect and control over others she exercised at the pinnacle of her career. She then turns to food images that magnify her success and describe the type of payments she regularly received for services rendered: “entravan por mi puerta muchos pollos y gallinas, anserones, anadones, perdizes, tórtolas, perniles de toçino, tortas de trigo, lechones … para que comiesse yo y aquellas sus devotas” [I began to receive presents of chickens and hens, geese and ducks, partridges and turtledoves, gammons of pork and wheat-cakes, and sucking pigs … so that the lasses they loved, and I, should dine well] (2004, 236; 1958, 151). Celestina’s past banquets, clearly more gratifying that the current one, are directly tied to her profession. She proves that her gift of orality is still fresh enough to captivate as Lucrecia responds, “Y assí me estuviera un año sin comer, escuchándote y pensando en aquella vida buena” [I could go without eating for a whole long year just to listen to you and imagine what a good life those girls must have enjoyed] (2004, 237; 1958, 152). But, this rhetorical prowess is also slipping away as the very next evening, when she struggles to talk her way out of her impending doom, the last of her oral skills will fail her.
In the banquet scene of Act IX, we witness the destructive force of materiality as Rojas’s description begins with optimism and a wealth of food before digressing into images of poverty and sickness. While the planning of the banquet anticipates abundance and fulfilment, the actual event is marked by the guests’ association of food with hunger, gnawing, and vomiting. The description of food’s allure is relegated to a distant past that can only be recovered through Celestina’s linguistic magic. But the banquet scene is more than just a collection of food metaphors that suggest social ills. It is a textual centre for Rojas’s examination of a repressive power structure and social injustice. It provides the only textual space where all the servants meet and carve their trajectories. Pármeno manifests his moral transgression by organizing the celebration and Sempronio is consumed by self-indulgent pleasures without regard for its effects on others. The banquet brings out Elicia’s volatile nature. Her responses to Sempronio’s understanding of beauty turn the event from one of camaraderie to verbal attacks that Areúsa continues and reveals what will later surface as her vindictive, violent nature. Finally, the banquet becomes Celestina’s last supper where she is portrayed as the drunk old bawd she is, whose oral indulgences are only enjoyed vicariously and whose power of language will soon fail her as well. The banquet celebration in Act IX does not reveal the lofty ideals of virtue recorded in the cooking manuals of the day, nor the pursuit of the Platonic banquet to which Ficino aspires, but rather it shows that the hunger to belong, to survive, to purge oneself of the repressive social structures, drives these characters and moves the text forward.
1 Research for this article was inspired by my participation in a 2009 NEH Summer Seminar at the University of Virginia, directed by E. Michael Gerli, called “Celestina and the Threshold of Modernity.” I am most grateful for Professor Gerli’s careful reading and helpful suggestions. Support for this article also came from an Artistic and Scholarly Development grant from Illinois Wesleyan University.
2 Since the groundbreaking work of Levi Strauss and Douglas, anthropologists have continued to examine food production and distribution, food’s relationship to health, its role in human relationships, and its effects on human relationship with the environment, social relations, and social structures. More recently, “modes of identification,” that is, the roles, motivations, and actions of agents in the identification process have begun to take on greater significance. Marcus and Fischer (1986) term these accounts “experimental ethnography” as they highlight the role of ethnographer in the problematique and exposition.
3 Miller, in his work on consumption and material culture, argues that a material culture approach does not reduce humanity by focusing on the object but rather the focus on the object helps us understand more deeply humanity and social relations, particularly by understanding the balance between what we acquire and what we relinquish (2006).
4 Except for selections from La Celestina, all translations are my own.
5 Some of the outstanding banquets recorded from the Habsburg dynasty include the banquet that Luis XIV’s ambassador, the Duke of Agramont, held for the king’s petition of the hand of María Teresa de Austria y Borbón in 1659, in which they serve 500 meat dishes and 300 starters and desserts (Cubillo de Aragón 1659), the Duke of Lerma’s banquet in Valladolid 1605 to honour Lord Nottingham, England’s ambassador at the court of Spain (Pinheiro da Veiga 1989, 117–18), or the banquet at Doñana that the Duke of Medina Sidonia organized in honour of Philip IV’s ascension to the Crown (Alonso 1995). For more on the history of the banquet and its social significance, see Jeanneret (1991).
6 All citations from La Celestina are from the Severin edition (2004). All translations from La Celestina are from the Singleton edition (1958).
7 Wilhite argues that Pármeno organizes the banquet to befriend Sempronio: “The final step in Parmeno’s transformation into a pícaro and a member of Celestina’s confederation is to confirm his friendship with Sempronio” (1976, 141).
8 As the son of Doña Juana, the illegitimate daughter of Enrique II, and of Don Pedro, a direct descendent of Jaime II of Aragon, Villena’s preoccupation with lineage is directly tied to his own history. In her article, “Chivalric Identity in Enrique de Villena’s Arte Ciscria,” Miguel-Prendes argues that the treatise was a manifestation of Villena’s desire to exert his influence in the political arena (2003).
9 While only six virtues are outlined here, another, sound upbringing, is laid out in detail earlier in the text.
10 Alison Weber examines both late fifteenth-century economic conditions and legal and moral discourses that explain the changing relationship between master and servant (1997). These misguided relationships were also rampant in other parts of early modern Europe. Fumerton, in her study on servants and apprentices in early modern London, explains that “[t]he master-servant bond was thus at best insecure and at worst subject to gross violation, unmooring apprentices and servants from any secure social, economic or physical place” (2000, 211).
11 For more on the quality of wine and the names of villages, see Valles Rojo (2007, 290–309).
12 In Act XI, Sempronio reproaches his master’s public behaviour. “Por Dios, que huygas de ser traydo en lenguas, que al muy devoto llaman ypócrita. ¿Qué dirán sino que andas royendo los santos?” [I beg you, do not become the subject of gossip. One who is too obviously pious is always deemed a hypocrite. It will be said that the saints are all weary of your presence here] (2004, 249; 1958, 165).
13 Piñero Ramírez suggests that the medical treatise by Bernardo de Gordonio, Lilio de medicina [Lily of medicine], may have been available to Rojas at Salamanca as well as many other scientific and philosophical treatises on the nature of wine (1995, 212). For more on the role of wine in the banquet scene, see Cull (2009).
14 Parilla and others have noted the classical sources for the banquet feast in La Celestina. She includes Cicero as a source for his treatment on the dignity of old age (2000, 71). For the treatment of Plato’s Symposium, see Larsen (1994) and for arguments on why Plato is not a source for Rojas, see Round (1993).
15 Burke discusses the five senses in La Celestina and how they relate to the humanist banquet of senses (2000, 103–20). He writes, “We certainly cannot be sure that Rojas would have known Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium, which was not finished until 1474–75, and many scholars have doubted that the author(s) of Celestina could have had much familiarity with the ideas of Plato” (2000, 115). Other critics – Larsen, Round, Brocato – are convinced that Rojas was familiar with Plato’s work (cited in Burke 2000, 115).
16 Although many cooking manuscripts exist from antiquity, the first printed publication that systematically treats food and cooking belongs to Platina.
17 Like Areúsa’s catalogue of edible cosmetic ingredients, the recipe also contains honey; another uses bile for removing blemishes. For more recipes, see Martínez Crespo (1995).
18 Palafox persuasively argues that during the banquet Celestina urges the guests to awaken their appetites for food and sex so that Pármeno and Sempronio might forget their desire to collect on their share of the 100 escudos (2007).
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