4 “La natural inclinación se olvida:” Animal Transformation in Cervantes

After the capture of Granada in 1492, the Catholic Monarchs prohibited the profession of any non-Catholic religion in the peninsula. As a result, Spanish Jews and Muslims had two options: conversion to Catholicism – whether sincere or insincere – or exile. Now, how was the authenticity of any such conversion to be determined? Who would rule on its authenticity and according to what criteria? To hold onto their identity, many of the Muslims and Jews who became Christians continued to practice their own religion in private throughout the sixteenth century, as well as their customs, many of which were shared by Christian Orthodox Spain (Fuchs 2009: 1). Spanish identity based on difference (the Old Christian is defined in opposition to the Jew and the Muslim) was difficult to determine in a world in which the exotic was often commonplace (Fuchs 2009: 11). An example that demonstrates the rejection of cultural and religious transformation is the case of the Morisco expulsion of 1609–13. The Moriscos were Muslims from al-Andalus who, after the conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs, were obliged to convert to Catholicism. Although they were technically Christians, the fear that the peninsula’s Moorish community, resenting their forced conversion, would participate as an ally in a possible Turkish invasion partly motivated their final expulsion from the peninsula between 1609 and 1613. This event, of which Cervantes is a witness, implied a clear mistrust of authentic transformation by the Spanish crown.

In this chapter, I analyze different scenes from Cervantes’ work that question this transformation or conversion of identity, social, ethnic and religious, of Spanish society in the period. To do so, I will focus on several episodes where the transformation of animals is raised. First, I will analyze the scene of the rented mule in “La gitanilla,” one of Cervantes’ most famous Novelas Ejemplares (1613), in which a group of gypsies discuss with the aristocrat Don Juan de Cárcamo the possibility of transforming a mule in such a way as to make it pass for another animal and thus to obtain an economic benefit.1 The Gypsy community (also known as Romani, Roma, Caló, Calé) originated in India, whence they emigrated at different times during the Middle Ages to occupy various places, mainly in Europe. In Spain, this group of people was initially welcomed, but “the hegemony of Christianity put an end to the more or less peaceful coexistence between different cultures and religions (Jews, Arabs, Christians) in the peninsula, which was replaced to a certain extent by fanaticism and repression” (Bravo Herrera and Moreno Escamilla 2011: 13). In this new context, the Gypsy community began to be seen as a threat incapable of being subjugated to the crown and therefore had to be persecuted and subdued. Thus began a long path of marginalization and rejection that continues to this day. Second, I will study different scenes from the novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1616) in which men or women appear transformed into wolves. These scenes of lycanthropy, submitted to the judgment of other characters, articulate, like the debate between gypsies and nobles in “La gitanilla,” a veiled discourse on the possibility of converting one thing into another. These references to the change in appearance of the animal world allude to the theme of “purity of blood” and question the rigid social and religious hierarchy of the era, dominated by the aristocracy and the Catholic Church, to the detriment of marginalized groups. Cervantes’ work recognizes a society marked by an obsession with identity and origins, where life, death or exile were decided, in many cases, on the basis of lineage. Being able to conceal one’s identity and change one’s nature thus becomes a question of survival. Furthermore, the scenes by Cervantes studied here suggest that a radical social change was taking place in Spain that recognized mixing as something desirable and desired, to the detriment of medieval discourses of purity, which were already obsolete in the face of a plural ethnic reality in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims – not to mention the multiracial unions that the Conquest of America entailed from 1492 – had been cohabiting for several centuries.

It should be noted that the animal analysis in this essay is strictly symbolic. True, the developing field of Animal Studies or zoopoetics demands and defends an affective reading of animals, in which a more egalitarian relationship is established between them and human beings. For example, Adrienne L. Martin’s essay, “Animales quijotescos: Una aproximación a los estudios de animales en Don Quijote,” provides some insight into the development of Animal Studies in Cervantes’s work. Likewise, Arturo Morgado García’s essay on the animal world in seventeenth century Spain represents an effort to overcome the moralizing and symbolic interpretation of the representation of animals in the culture of that time. It is true that understanding the reality of animals in their time and space, the way in which they were perceived, used or valued in their own context, enhances our knowledge and gives us a better understanding of the impact that their representation in literature could have on readers of the time. However, in this case I think that the personification of animals and their consequent metaphorical interpretation within the work allows the author to speak freely about certain topics, with less chance of being subjected to suspicion or persecution. Finally, it is important to look closely at Cervantes’ animals in order to uncover a veiled and critical message from Cervantes on the fiction of purity at a time when inquisitorial censorship was an unavoidable reality.

“La gitanilla” is a short novel included in the Novelas Ejemplares. The volume was published in 1613, between the publication of the first part of Don Quijote (1605) and the second (1615). This collection of short stories demonstrates the author’s knowledge and mastery of the different genres of novel of the time. It should be remembered that the title of Novelas Ejemplares refers more to an aesthetic than to a moral “exemplarity.” Each of these twelve stories serve as examples of how to write novels that are, however, difficult to interpret as beneficial models of conduct, at least of conduct in line with the conventional values of the time. In this way, Cervantes adopts an ironic and critical perspective with respect to the society of the time. Ultimately, in “La gitanilla,” as in other novels in the volume, deceit and simulation are developed in all their complexity as “virtues” of the protagonists.

“La gitanilla” is the first novel in a volume composed, as already indicated, of twelve novels. Halfway between a realist and an idealist novel, this hybrid story introduces us to Preciosa, a young gypsy girl who dances and sings in the streets of Madrid. One day, the young aristocrat Don Juan de Cárcamo falls in love with her and decides to dress as a gypsy to win her over. Preciosa imposes a series of conditions on her suitor for them to be together. Finally, the young woman’s noble lineage is revealed, she having been kidnapped by gypsies as a child and separated from her aristocratic family, while Don Juan also discloses his identity. The novel ends in a joyous wedding; the conventional order is restored; the transgression is forgotten. Nevertheless, Cervantes has had ample space throughout the story to question the social, ethnic and cultural hierarchies of his time, as well as to highlight the fluidity with which individuals from different backgrounds mix and mingle.

In this novel, we are particularly interested in the scene with the mule. Since ancient times, as Macías Villalobos has pointed out, the mule has been an object of interest in literature and the arts as a hybrid being, although less prominent than the marvelous and legendary centaurs, sirens, or manticores. For classical authors such as Pliny, Aristotle or Catullus, the mule stood out for being a hybrid animal, sterile, and endowed with proverbial strength (Macías Villalobos 2016: 318). For both classical and medieval authors, the mule was considered an instrument of labor, a utilitarian symbol that, moreover, was frequently associated with “foolishness and a lack of intelligence” (328).

In Cervantes and the Material World, Carroll Johnson analyses the mule scene in “La gitanilla” to identify the different economic systems represented by gypsies and aristocrats. At first, both systems seem opposed. Don Juan/Andrés does not seek any economic benefit from the reuse of the mule, while the gypsies intend to profit from the animal’s transformation. However, Johnson points out that the gypsies’ economic mentality is not as advanced as it seems (2000: 102–3). In fact, it is very similar to the sterile aristocratic economic system, at least with respect to men, as both men and gypsies exploit the wealth of others. In this sense, Johnson points out that the corruption that governs Cervantes’ male gypsies has more to do with the usurious, authoritarian aristocratic world, which represses women, than with the world of the gypsies. However, unlike their male counterparts, the female gypsies exchange their dances and songs for money, implying an economic system that encourages work and the production of capital (102–3). One might add that, in addition to a confrontation between economic systems, the mule scene alludes to the debate on the mutable nature of cultural and religious identity, a transformation that Spanish orthodoxy did not recognize.

In the novel, the nobleman Don Juan de Cárcamo is determined to win Preciosa over. To do so, he abandons his aristocratic life and, riding a rented mule, arrives at the gypsy camp of his beloved. Once there, he needs to kill and bury the innocent animal so that no one can identify it and thus discover its true lineage: “no hay mula de alquiler que no sea conocida de todos los mozos de mulas que trajinan en España” (Cervantes 2005: 133). In this sense, getting rid of the mule implies a defensive strategy against scrutiny, necessary even for a member of the aristocracy with unquestionable lineage. At another point, Preciosa demands that Don Juan prove the authenticity of his identity: “Primero he de saber si sois el que decís” (116). This moment, in which a gypsy demands that her noble suitor prove his lineage, illustrates that this attitude of suspicion touches all social classes. The rented mule symbolizes the debate about identity and “purity of blood” with the aim of questioning its presumed validity.

The gypsies try to convince Don Juan/Andrés of the benefits of selling the animal. They assure him that, by subjecting it to a transformation, the mule will be sold at a good price in the market without being identified: “¡Par Dios, señor Andrés! – dijo uno de los gitanos – que aunque la mula tuviera más señales que las que han de preceder al día tremendo, aquí la transformáramos de manera que no la conociera la madre que la parió ni el dueño que la ha criado” (Cervantes 2005: 133). Don Juan/Andrés refuses the gypsies’ proposal, which shows a lack of confidence in the transformation that he himself intends to carry out: “A esta mula se ha de dar muerte y ha de ser enterrado donde aún los huesos no parezcan … en ninguna manera consentiré – dijo Andrés – que la mula no muera, aunque más me aseguren su transformación” (133). His skepticism regarding the transformation coincides with the discourse that opposes social mobility. Nevertheless, Don Juan/Andrés insists on the need to bury the animal to preserve his anonymity. The gypsies then kill and bury the beast: “Llegó la noche, acocotaron la mula y enterráronla de modo que quedó seguro Andrés de ser por ella descubierto, y también enterraron con ella sus alhajas, como fueron silla y freno y cinchas, a uso de los indios, que sepultan con ellos sus más ricas presas” (141). On the one hand, the burial of the mule with all its treasures can be interpreted as a symbol of aristocratic economic sterility. Likewise, the text establishes a parallel between the burial of the mule and that of a possible adulterous gypsy woman. During the initiation ceremony held in honor of Don Juan/Andrés, an “old gypsy” extols the traditions of his people. He states that theirs is a fundamentally endogamous community, “entre nosotros, … hay muchos incestos,” suggesting an identification between purity of blood and perversion (135). An affinity between the “old gypsy” and the “old Christian” might also be seen, through their common rejection of racial intermixing and their obsession with keeping the group closed to any foreign or external person who could sully the community’s identity.2 Another parallel the narrator establishes is between gypsies and Indians through their shared funeral customs. This could indicate a reference to racial and cultural hybridism, the result of the arrival in the “New World,” which therefore contrasts and questions the affirmation of the purity of blood maintained by the gypsy patriarch. The patriarch describes women as the property of the husband, the sole “judge and executioner” of their destiny:

The destruction of a hybrid animal functions as an apparent rejection of cultural intermixing in a society that, however, believes and acts less and less according to the statutes of blood purity. Barbara Fuchs, in her book Exotic Nation, already cited in this essay, analyzes a passage from El Guzmán de Alfarache where she reflects on the implications of animal hybridism and exogamous desire in relation to cultural intermixing. In this context, the name Andrés Caballero is ironic. Don Juan needs to change his name to become Andrés, but the surname Caballero discloses the character’s the noble lineage, as well as his possession of horses. Likewise, the binomial Andrés Caballero/mule confronts two elements that are, in principle, antagonistic. The mule, a hybrid beast, results from the crossbreeding of two different species; the horse, on the other hand, is the result of a mating between two individuals of the same species. The uncontrollable desire that Don Juan feels toward a member of another social group (another “species”) would imply a transgression of his status as an “old Christian” and a stain on the lineage of his future descendants. And vice versa, Preciosa’s gypsy purity would be compromised by marrying Andrés, a “converted” gypsy whose name cannot hide his true origin. It is paradoxical that, in a world clinging to the purity of lineage, no one questions the authenticity of the interracial marriage between Don Juan and Preciosa based on simulation. Until shortly before the end of the work, assimilation turns out to be viable. What makes Don Juan worthy of the gypsy girl’s love is his progressive capacity to adapt to the new group; in other words, his transformation into Andrés:

Three years after the publication of “La gitanilla,” and one year after the death of Cervantes, the novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, historia setentrional (1616) was published. A work belonging to the genre of the Byzantine or Greek novel, this novel comprehends numerous fantastic elements, extraordinary adventures and mythical characters. Composed of four long parts divided into several chapters, the novel relates the adventures of two lovers – Periandro and Auristela – who, pretending to be siblings, escape from their respective homes in exotic and invented Norwegian lands and undergo a series of adventures and pilgrimages through various wonderful and remote places, over land and sea, until, after much suffering and sacrifice, they meet again and marry in Rome. Multiple secondary stories are interpolated into this main plot, starring characters who appear and recount their life stories to the rest, thus turning the work into a collective and choral adventure. Following the structure of the journey, Cervantes situates part of the plot in the north of Norway – a place sufficiently extravagant for the Hispanic reader of the time – in order to frame the fantastic events that he relates with a certain degree of verisimilitude. Starting from these remote and barbaric places in the north, the groups travel to the center of Christianity: Rome.

If in “La gitanilla” the relationship between different species of animals arises from the symbol of the hybrid animal par excellence, the mule, in Persiles, hybridity and the animal world come together in scenes of lycanthropy. The figure of the werewolf is universal in literature, and testimonies are found in texts as old as Gilgamesh (Freán Campo 2019: 48). There are several theories, already present among classical authors such as Plato, Pliny the Elder, and Herodotus, that explain the meaning and origin of this myth, still current in the popular cinematic culture of the twenty-first century. For example, there is the belief that equates lycanthropy with a disease known as “lupine mania,” which is associated with the melancholy diagnosed by classical authors. On the other hand, a certain tradition explains the lycanthropic phenomenon as a result of witchcraft and Satanism. In other cases, they are considered supernatural prodigies, devoid of human intervention. Likewise, these phenomena are sometimes taken as contextual occurrences influenced by social, economic, or other motives that would lead to identifying certain people as werewolves based on personal interests (50). Cervantes seems to have based the scenes of lycanthropy in his novel on two contemporary works that deal with this subject: Jardín de flores curiosas by Torquemada (Salamanca, 1570) and Historia de las gentes septentrionales by Olao Magno (Rome, 1555).

But before we move on to analyzing these werewolf scenes, let us turn our attention to one of the poems that appears in the novel itself. Rutilio, one of the characters in the work, sings, on board a ship and together with other people, a sonnet that exemplifies the use of animals and their relationships for ideological purposes which interests us in this essay:

In addition to the poem sung by Rutilo, in Persiles, an identification between different species is raised when the Spanish barbarian Antonio arrives at an island “despoblada de gente, aunque llena de lobos” (Cervantes 1999: 53). There, on the remote Norwegian island, a wolf speaks “si no quieres en ésta morir hecho pedazos por nuestra uñas y dientes” (53). The ambiguity with which Antonio cloaks his story is striking – a resource found in several of Cervantes’ works (Don Quijote, for example) as a literary mechanism that aims to question the reliability of what is being narrated. To begin with, before arriving at the island, Antonio dreams of being attacked by wolves and wild beasts, which makes the scene of the talking wolf seem like a dream. Moreover, the supernatural encounter occurs under “la dudosa luz de la noche” again calling into question its veracity (53). However, in the face of this accumulation of ambiguities, Antonio claims that his story “es la verdad” (53). Antonio wants to disguise with shadow and imprecision an account that he considers authentic. Finally, the other characters must evaluate the event, “a vuestra consideración lo dejo,” despite the fact that the story calls its own authenticity into question (53). Skepticism, suspicion, doubt, and disbelief are, for Cervantes, the filters with which he interprets the world. The important thing is not whether there is a transformation of people into wolves, but to spark a debate between the characters and the readers that is provocative and, at the same time, avoids censorship. This doubt in the face of the superstitious event allows for a discreet discussion of the existence of a reality beyond orthodoxy and convention.

A few chapters later, the identification of the human being with the wolf is repeated. In this case, the rogue-poet Rutilio tells his life story to the other characters. Among other things, he narrates his escape from Italian justice thanks to the help of a sorceress. Once in Norway, the witch transforms into a wolf and tries to embrace him “no muy honestamente,” a situation to which Rutilio reacts by stabbing her (Cervantes 1999: 69). Like Antonio’s story, the story of lycanthropy that Rutilio tells will be judged by the other characters, giving rise to a dialogue about the possibility of a being changing its nature and transforming into something else. At first glance and from the perspective of the literary genre, Rutilio’s story responds to the tradition of the Byzantine novel, full of supernatural events. However, seen from the historical context of Cervantes, the fantastic story of lycanthropy, as well as the dialogue and interpretation it provokes, questions natural limits, challenges known categories and participates directly in the debate about identity, lineage and their possible transformations.

The first character to respond to Rutilio’s story is an Italian compatriot living in Norway. He recognizes the existence “destas maléficas hechiceras, de las cuales hay mucha abundancia en estas septentrionales partes” (Cervantes 1999: 70). He claims that many of these witches “se convierten en lobos, así machos como hembras” (70). However, he is unable to explain this transformation: “Cómo esto pueda ser yo lo ignoro, y como cristiano que soy católico no lo creo, pero la experiencia me muestra lo contrario” (71; italics mine). Note the contradiction between the Christian precept of not believing in this type of “ilusiones del demonio” and the experience of the character who attests to the metamorphic phenomenon.

The perspectivism that dominates the discussion on the existence of werewolves is taken up again in chapter XVIII. In this case it will be the judicial astrologer Mauricio, one of the most manifestly Catholic characters and defenders of the true faith who travels on board the ship, who sets out to disabuse the common people of a belief in lycanthropy. He begins by stating that it is an “error grandísimo … aunque admitido de muchos” (Cervantes 1999: 119). Arnaldo, for his part, admits to being “uno de los crédulos de este error” and thanks Mauricio for having enlightened him on the subject (121). Clodio, an Englishman in exile who has a rebellious and pragmatic nature, comments on the matter, “soy un hombre a quien no se da por averiguar estas cosas un dinero” (120). Rutilio, on the other hand, more skeptical, states: “No sé … lo que sé es que maté la loba y hallé muerta a mis pies la hechicera” (120). From a rational standpoint, Mauricio tries to explain this superstition by referring to the “enfermedad a quien llaman los médicos manía lupina” and, using Pliny, refutes the belief in lycanthropy already circulating among the Greeks (121). He ends his reasoning by despotically stating: “y quede desde aquí asentado que no hay gente alguna que mude en otra su primer naturaleza” (121). Mauricio’s explanation echoes the exclusive dominion of the Catholic Church over supernatural phenomena, an exclusivity that Cervantes refutes in his work. In this sense, William Childers states that, “Cervantes’ use of the marvellous becomes a marker of resistance to the church monopoly over the supernatural – which is as much as to say, over what can be represented as real” (2006: 49). For his part, Rogelio Miñana points out in his book Monstruos que hablan. El discurso de la monstruosidad en Cervantes that, “By requiring an extreme and urgent process of interpretation, the monster brings to the surface the configurations of power inherent to every hierarchical society” (2007: 208). Although Miñana only deals with studying a few works by Cervantes such as El coloquio de los perros, El rufián dichoso and Don Quijote, some of his ideas about monstrosity can be used here to interpret the meaning of the werewolves or talking wolves in Persiles. In this sense, Mauricio’s almost violent and blunt reaction censures the perspectivism that stimulates Rutilio’s story and expresses the fear of the Spanish empire toward the chaos that interpretive differences would engender. As in the case of the mule in “La gitanilla,” the mutation of an animal into something else provokes dialogue and an exchange of opinions between the characters that, in this case, ends with the statement of Mauricio, the character in the novel who most aligns with the authorized conventional thinking of the time. In both scenes, the supposedly official discourse of both Don Juan de Cárcamo and Mauricio denies the possibility of change. However, although both characters represent social hierarchical authorities, at the same time their actions or words at different moments in the text contradict the values of this privileged position, calling into question the validity of the official discourse they embody.

However, whose discourse is more convincing, Rutilio’s or Mauricio’s? What prevails, personal experience or dogmatic belief? Which argument seems to have greater authority in the face of the threat of difference? Rutilio believes in transformation. For him, changing one’s nature is possible, and even becomes an act of survival. Therefore, he is consistent when he claims to have lived among barbarians for three years, after his arrival on the island with the sorceress, pretending to be one of them, “y aun pasara todos los de mi vida, sin ser conocido” (Cervantes 1999: 74). Coexistence – or survival – has been possible thanks to his own transformation. Mauricio, for his part, although he claims to be “cristiano católico, y no de aquellos que andan mendigando la fe verdadera entre opiniones,” recognizes that “la disimulación es provechosa” in certain cases (91). Surprisingly, the same Mauricio who denies the existence of “gente alguna que mude en otra su primer naturaleza,” confesses to having made “apariencias fingidas” with regard to the customs of his homeland (91). In accordance with the novel’s initial premise, based on the exchange of male and female roles between the lovers Periandro and Auristela, the work seems determined, precisely, to undermine Mauricio’s categorical denial of the possibility of transformation. Rutilio and Mauricio present contrary opinions regarding the existence of men who transform into wolves. However, both deliberately alter their true identity as a defense mechanism that allows them to survive in societies whose customs are contrary to their own. In this sense, Barbara Fuchs states that Persiles:

The transformation that Cervantes proposes in these scenes and the subsequent debates about their validity say a great deal about a society mired in a radical contradiction: on the one hand, the official discourse obstinate in preserving a purity that never existed and, on the other, a social reality that is protean and mixed by nature. Cervantes intentionally uses the mule and the werewolf, hybrid beings, ambiguous, conflictive in themselves, but that stand precisely as a reflection of a society in which it is no longer easy to distinguish the borders between one and the other. Associated with the concepts of hybridity and otherness, these Cervantine scenes of animals and the marginal characters associated with them – both gypsies and animalized barbarians – offer a positive vision of non-hegemonic, peripheral and decentralized identities.