que apetezca el traje de hombre, That the clothing of a man attracts me
ya que no lo puedo ser. Since it is that which I cannot be.
(II.733-38)
Serafina explains that since it is Carnival, all the women dress as men, but Serafina’s desire to be a man seems to go beyond the
inversion available at Mardi Gras. Serafina as a mujer esquiva has rejected the idea of getting married and having to be
subservient to any man. Carnival entitles her temporary access to a world of action and freedom, even if that access is only
imaginary by means of playacting.
For Serafina the play has a kind of reality, not normally available for a woman of her station-a woman whose life is to be
arranged by her father and then by her husband. The play permits her as a performer to be the agent of action. What grants her
this power is the costume itself; clearly, Serafina wants to be a man since she declares she cannot be a man “no lo puedo
ser”-the next best thing is dressing like one. In the theatre, costume enables the performance of gender that leads Serafina to a
desired existence. Wearing “el traje de hombre,” Serafina begins to act as a man; her performance becomes so real to her that
at some level she forgets herself as a woman and becomes a man.
Appropriately, Serafina, the character who most believes in the transformative power of costume and theater, is the mouthpiece
for Tirso’s rhetorical defense of theatre, echoing the sentiment in Lope de Vega’s own manifesto Arte nuevo de hacer
comedias en este tiempo (New Art of Writing Plays in Our Time).5 Serafina believes that the play contains all that the audience
desires:
?Qu? fiesta o juego se halla What feast or game
que no le ofrezcan los versos? do the verses not offer?
En la comedia, los ojos In a play, do not the eyes
?no se deleitan y ven delight and see
mil cosas que hacen que est?n a thousand things
olvidados sus enojos? that banish trouble?
La m?sica, ?no recrea The music, does it
el o?do, y el discreto not beguile the ear?
no gusta all? del conceto And what connoisseur does not enjoy all
y la traza que desea? the ideas and designs?
Para el alegre, ?no hay risa? For happiness, is there not laughter?
Para el triste, ?no hay triseza? For melancholy, is there not sadness?
Para el agudo, ?agudeza? For wit, cleverness?
?????????..
De la vida es un traslado, The play is a translation of life,
sustento de los discretos, sustenance for the discriminating,
dama del entendimiento, a lady of understanding,
de los sentidos banquete, a banquet for the senses,
de los gustos ramillete, a bouquet for delectation,
esfera del pensamiento, a sphere of thought,
olvido de los agravios, oblivion to forget misfortune
manjar de diversos precios, a feast of precious amusements
que mata de hambre a los necios that kills the hunger of the fool
y satisface a los sabios. and satisfies that of the wise.
(II.749-61, 773-82)
For Serafina, every emotional and sensual level is affected by drama. All desires and imaginings can be seen and experienced by
the audience but also by the actor, perhaps even actor as audience for her own performance. Her performance allows her to
view herself in a particularly desirable way, at least for the duration of the play. Serafina does not specifically say that the play
offers women a chance to be men, but she demonstrates it in her own costume and her own actions. As the play is a lady of
understanding “dama de entendimiento,” the genre of drama itself is codified as female, one which is an enlightenment object.
Theater is a woman who understands interpollated signifies that an understanding lady is inherently theatrical, perhaps a lady
needs theatre to understand. To understand love, Serafina will eventually demand theatrical performance. The erotics are caught
up into what is theatrical. In this scene, the audience’s and Serafina’s “eyes delight and see” her as a man, and as a man Serafina
can banish the troubles surrounding the limitations of her gender. Certainly, Don Antonio, who watching the scene from the
bushes, and the actual audience in the theatre delight their eyes erotically with her performance and her costume.6
When she rehearses La portuguesa cruel, a condensed version of Lope’s La portuguesa y dicha del forastero, 7 the play
becomes the “traslado” of live. Translation and traslado descend from the Latin transferre, literally meaning to carry over or
across; it is a word connoting movement from one position to another. The Diccionario de Autoridades defines trasladar, as
“Llevar o mudar a una persona o cosa de un lugar a otra” [to carry or move a person or a thing from one place to another]. The
play or performance then encourages translations or movements of various sorts, including the translation from one gender to
another. This in turn gives us insight into the nature of performance in Spanish comedia nueva. Surely, la portuguesa cruel is
meant to identify Serafina’s personality in El vergonzoso; however, in her own presentation she primarily plays the male role of
Prince Pinabelo. In the first part of the play, the prince, who is in love with Celia, has gone into the woods to fight his rival, the
count. Serafina uses her maid Juana as both audience of and participant in her performance. First Serafina positions Juana as the
count; Serafina becomes so involved in her role that she nearly runs her maid through with a sword. Serafina loses herself in the
role so much so that Juana has to remind her that she is not the real count. Next, Serafina plays a love scene-this time placing
Juana in the character of Celia, the object of her desire. Here she is so swept up that she embraces Juana, as if she were truly
Celia and Serafina were truly Pinabelo. All the time Juana is amazed that Serafina can play the role of the lover so convincingly,
since she is not in love herself. What Juana does not question though is that she can play a man so persuasively. In fact, Serafina
is so convincing that Juana says that she herself could fall in love with Serafina as Pinabelo. Finally, Serafina, in a grand finale,
plays all of the roles in the drama, moving from one character to the next, just as Isabella Andrieini had played all of the
maschere.
What is implict in the scene is that performers begin to live their parts. Serafina happily acknowledges to Juana that she has
gotten completely carried away in her acting. She says: ” Encend?me, te prometo,/ como Alejandro lo hac?a,/ llevado del
instumento/ que aquel m?sico famoso/le tocaba. (II. 1040-44) [Acting inflames me, I promise you, just as Alexander was
inflamed when heard the famous music played for him.] She is affected by her performance so much that she loses herself. Yet,
she also associates herself with the audience, as she is like Alexander who is listening to the music, not playing it. Serafina is
translating life into the drama, as a good humanist would translate from one language to another-retaining the essence of the
original, yet creating something new. Serafina translates herself into a man of action, while maintaining an awareness at some
level that she is a woman. As in La pazzia d’Isabella, Serafina loses herself in her into the “madness” of the character who is
overcome by love. On step further shows us that the actual actress also had to translate herself into Serafina translated into the
character of Prince Pinabelo. The virtuosity of actress’s performance is that she moves from Pinabelo to the various characters
in the Shrovetide drama back to Serafina and like Isabella “demonstrated by her acting of this madness the sound health and
cultivation of her own intellect.” Serafina’s performance is also convincing to Don Antonio, as he will eventually becomes the
kind of man that she acts out. If he wants to win Serafina, Don Antonio must create his own drama and must take action as
Serafina does in her comedia.
The Performance of Audience
Learning from Serafina the power of theatre, Antonio transforms Serafina from performer to audience. Watching Serafina
from the bushes was also a painter whom Antonio had commissioned to depict her, dressed as a man. The painter only makes
alterations in the color of Serafina’s costume in the painting, changing her black apparel to blue and gold. With portrait under
arm, Don Antonio finally confronts Serafina to make his feelings known to her, but she rejects him outright. Upon leaving,
Antonio throws the portrait down at her feet. She, surprised, says:
?Un retrato! A painting!
Es un hombre, y me parece It is a man, and I think
que me parece de modo so like myself
que es mi semejanze en todo. that it resembles me completely.
Cuanto el espejo me ofrece It is a mirror in which I see myself;
miro aqu?: como en cristal as if in a polished crystal
bru?ido mi imagen propia my own image
aqu? la pintura copia here is painted a copy,
ya un hombre es su original. Yet a man is its original.
???????????.
No en balde en tierra os ech? Not in vain did he throw you to the ground
quien con vos ha sido ingrato, he who was so infuriated with you,
que si es vuestro original if the original
tan bello como est? aqu? is as beautiful as
su traslado, creed de m? its translation here, I believe
que no le quisiera mal. that I would not dislike you.
Y a fe que hubiera alcanzado And in truth he may have struck
lo que muchos no han podido, where others have missed,
pues vivos no me han vencido, though they live, they do not defeat me,
y ?l me venciera pintado. but he, the painted one, has conquered me.
Mas, aunque os haga favor, Though this flatters you,
no os espante mi mudanza, Do not be amazed of my transformation
que siempre la semejanza because always resemblance
ha sido causa de amor. has been the cause of love.
(III.809-17, 892-905)
What is attractive to her is the fact that the painting is so like herself-resemblance is the cause of love “siempre la semejanza
han sido causa de amor.” She doesn’t recognize the painting as herself vestida de hombre, even though Juana has given her
numerous clues that she is being painted. However, as Orgel has argued, “there are scarcely a handful of instances in which
anyone sees through a disguise in English Renaissance drama” (102) which also may be said of Spanish Renaissance drama.
When Serafina is dressed as a man she was not intentionally in disguise, as those who see her know that she is the woman
Serafina. Her costume only becomes a disguise when it is translated into a painted image, and only she is fooled by her own
disguise. As Orgel contends, it is clothing that truly makes the man. Costume is so convincing in gender determination that
Serafina cannot see through her own disguise once the painter has made slight color alterations to the costume. Serafina had
dressed like a man, because she could not be one, but costume does in an odd way truly transform her into a man, or at least a
believable image of one-believable enough to fool herself anyway. Serafina is in love with the stage-the only rival for this love
is for a painted image of herself-dressed in theatrical costume. The image in the painting becomes the manifested image of the
male character she portrays in La portugueza cruel. The painting, like the play, is also a “traslado” of life, one that Serafina can
love.
By having Serafina fall in love with the portrait of herself vesdida de hombre, Tirso transfers the male audiences’ erotic
response to the transvestite actress. Though Serafina remain