Venereal Disease and the Gracioso: A Look at Moreto's El desden con el desden

35 Manuel Ruiz Lagos has written several essays on the importance of painting in Calder ón's theater, among which is "Una tècnica dramática de Calderón: la pintura y el centro escénico," Segismundo, 2 (1966), 91-104. VENEREAL DISEASE AND THE GRACIOSO: A LOOK AT MORETO'S EL DESDEN CON EL DESDEN Anne Fountain, Peace College One of the most intriguing characters in Moreto's El desdén con el desd én is the gracioso who goes by the two names Polilla and Caniqui.1 This comic figure who makes his appearance from the very start in Act I, Scene 1 as Polilla and then introduces himself under the assumed name of Caniqui in Act I, Scene 5 has a dominant role in the play. And since the comedy is noted for its meticulous construction and disciplined art"2 it is reasonable to conjecture that there may be some underlying and unifying significance to the two names of the gracioso . It is the contention of this paper that one concept which relates the various facets of Polilla-Caniqui to each other and to the drama as a whole is the lowly and stigmatic subject of venereal disease, something which stands in perhaps intentional contrast to the courtly setting of the drama and the nobility of the main characters. Before examining the Polilla-Caniqui role and why venereal disease may be a motif for the gracioso, however, it might be wise to review the action of the play. Carlos, the Count of Urgel, arrives with his servant, Polilla, at the palace of the Count of Barcelona, where he finds that Diana, the Count of Barcelona 's beautiful daughter disdainfully rejects all suitors. At first uninterested in Diana, Carlos, upon being spurned by her, falls in love and determines to win her hand. Eventually by meeting Diana's disdain with an equal, but feigned, disdain, Carlos succeeds, having been helped along the way by the maneuvers and manipulations of his servant, Polilla-Caniqui. Now let us look at the Polilla-Caniqui character more closely. In the very first scene of the play Polilla is found joking with his master in a fashion which points out the meaning of Polilla as "worry" or "care." Pues, señor, ¡polilla fuera! Desembucha tu pasión; y no tenga tu cuidado, teniéndola en el criado polilla en el corazón.3 Here the gracioso claims that with Polilla as a servant, Carlos need not have "polilla en el corazón." Later in the first act when Carlos and his servant are discussing ways in which Polilla can penetrate Diana's defenses and thus aid his master, Polilla replies to the question of whether he can infiltrate or not: "¿Yo Polilla no soy? ¿Eso previenes ? / Me sabré introducir en sus camisas" (542-543). In this way Polilla has, in a sense, made the promise to move from the "heart" of his master to the bosom of his mistress-to-be, and he has shifted from the meaning of Polilla as "care" to the meaning of Polilla as "moth." Further, the reference to Diana's "camisa" hints not only at the gracioso's salacious nature, but also at 23 the new name he is to invent, Caniqui. When Polilla does present himself to Diana, complete with costume as a "love doctor" and with comical attempts at Latin, he prefaces his appearance with the line, "¡Plegué al cielo que dé fuego mi entrada!" (646), and he establishes himself as one from the New World (Acapulco) who wishes to cure a "mal de amor." When Diana asks about the cure for "mal de amor" Pollila answers that he can cure "al que es franco" which means both "the French disease" (syphilis) and "generous in payment," with "ungüento blanco" which refers to both the mercury based ointment thought to be a cure for syphilis and to the silver coins called "ungüento de México."4 The thinking continues in the vein of the consequences of physical love when Polilla says: Amor es quita-razón, quita-sueño, quita-bien, quitapelillos también que hará calvo a un motilón. (711-714) Here Polilla...