Juan del Encina’s Égloga representada en la noche de la Natividad: Gift Giving in Search of Recognition and Recompense

As Robert ter Horst noted, Spanish Golden Age drama, the apogee of Spanish theater, began at court with Encina’s writing (qtd. in Greer 5). Although Encina has traditionally been labeled as the “patriarch of the Spanish drama,” his dramatic works have been largely overlooked in favor of Spain’s early-modern comedias (Crawford 18). Far from simplistic, static pieces, however, Encina’s theater is replete with characteristics that later would become hallmarks of the comedia in the following century – with one of the notable characteristics being that of metatheater. The dramatist’s use of metatheater often emphasized the dramatic space of the play – the Duke of Alba’s celebrated court. During his stay at the Duke’s court, Encina composed the majority of his dramatic pieces (8 of the known 14 works). Encina’s selection of “égloga” for the titles of six of these eight plays references the pastoral tradition that was predominantly religious in nature.¹ Breaking from this, Encina presents secular pastores that further develop a new dramatic genre that blends, as Augusto Arias describes, the contemporary Castilian rustic tradition with the Latin heritage established by Virgil’s Eclogues (312).² Although these characteristics are present in many of the dramatic pieces written during his sojourn at the ducal court, this essay focuses on Égloga representada en la noche de la Natividad, which serves as the princeps of his dramatic collection in the 1496 Cancionero. By analyzing this égloga and the repetition of its themes in the later eighth one, we better understand this young dramatist’s incorporation of the pastoral and the emerging dramatic convention of metatheater to establish himself as a dynamic court poet worthy of recognition and recompense.

Though Encina’s first égloga contains only 180 verses, there are two distinct sections. In the first shorter section (45 verses) there is one character from the play on-stage, a shepherd. The next section begins with the entry of another shepherd who converses with the first for the remainder of the play. Instead of presenting the traditional birth narrative with biblical shepherds, Encina breaks from liturgical and pastoral expectations to suspend the religious celebration and address issues of personal recognition and recompense. He then presents the more traditional birth narrative with the second égloga.³ As the first play opens, an unnamed shepherd enters and addresses the audience directly. We later discover that his name is “Juan,” representing the dramatist himself, who may have played this role.⁴ Juan then turns to praise the Duchess and Duke. In addition to offering flattering words about the Duchess’s beauty, the shepherd bestows her with a gift in a seemingly humble tone: “¡Miafé! Tráyole un presente / poquillo y de buenamiente. / Tome vuestra señorança” (7-9). After complimenting the Duchess, Juan then turns to his patron, the Duke, and praises him in a hyperbolic fashion, comparing his Maecenas to Julius Caesar and to Priam’s son, the Trojan Hector (19-27). He then proceeds to describe the fear that those in both France and Portugal feel in front of such a great soldier. Having the praise issued from the lips of a rustic herder demonstrates how the Duke’s fame is so great that it has traveled to the ears of this shepherd. With the two speeches directed to the couple, this first section has been seen by critics as overt praise, even to the point where its overall purpose has been dismissed as being only “a prologue to the second [Christmas eclogue]” (Crawford 24).⁵

We see, however, that the eclogue’s tone and focus change with the arrival of the second shepherd, Mateo. In the second section of the work, the dramatist utilizes the playing space to promote himself by silencing criticisms about his literary worth as well as his heritage.⁶ After Juan chastises Mateo for making rude remarks about his presence in the ducal palace, Mateo dismisses Encina’s literary merit: “Yo conoço bien tus obras: / todas...