Diego de San Pedro From Manuscript to Print: The Curious Case of "La pasión trobada", "Las siete angustias", and Arnalte y Lucenda

DIEGO DE SAN PEDRO FROM MANUSCRIPT TO PRINT: THE CURIOUS CASE OF "LA PASIÓN TROBADA", "LAS SIETE ANGUSTIAS", AND ARNALTE YLUCENDA Dororthy S. Severin University of Liverpool The manuscript and printing history of Diego de San Pedro's "La pasión trobada" (= LPT) is one of the most interesting cases of the role of printing in the transformation of a manuscript text. The longer version of ZfZsurvives only in one manuscript witness, in the Cancionero de Oñate (HHl), which was the Ur-text of the Isabelline propaganda cancioneros (discounting another manuscript, MLl, which is a copy of the first printed text, 95VC) . ' A shorter version was adapted for printing and the ending was abridged and rewritten, perhaps because of the exigencies of the printed length, although this is not an entirely satisfactory explanation. The text was further cannibalised by the author and a "Siete Angustias de Nuestra Señora" poem was separately written (and possibly circulated in manuscript) , to be printed both within the text of the Tratado de amores deArnalteyLucenda (MN53, printed 1491), and as a separate poem (95VC, 13SA ) . Ofcourse the processjust might have been the other way around; the "Angustias" having proved popular in court, Diego de San Pedro might have decided to expand to a full Passion poem. The manuscript witness for the shorter poem exists only in an eighteenth-century copy (MN 19, ID 2895, Pero Guillen, no. 92), so ' See my edition ?? LPT. For Diego de San Pedro, Whinnom's three-volume Obras completas remains the authority (I, Arnalte, 1973 , II, Cárcel, 1971, III, poetry, ed. with me, 1979). Bibliographical information and siglascome from Brian Dutton's shorter version ofhis massive cancioneroindex, Catálogo-índice delapoesía cancionerildelsiglo XV. La corónica 29.1 (Fall, 2000): 187-191 188DororthyS. SeverinLa corónica 29.1, 2000 thejury is still out. Here he is listed as "San Pedro, criado del conde de Urueña", therefore he was not yet well-known. Finally, a good quantity ofthe textwas 'borrowed' by Alonso del Campo for his Auto dela Pasión, which survives in manuscript at Toledo cathedral (TCl), and was produced as a play not only in Toledo but elsewhere. And the printed text of LPTwas one of the most durable and best-selling Spanish chapbooks until the nineteenth century. 2 Diego de San Pedro's vivid and simply-told version of the Passion has all the ingredients which would give it mass appeal to a popular audience . Despite the original attribution to one 'Pedro de San Pedro' in the Oñate, it is undoubtedly by his hand, as the duplication ofverses in the "Angustias" demonstrates. More puzzling is the decision to scrap the original ending entirely (sts. 208-266) and to rewrite stanzas 208-236 of the manuscript text. Out goes the final scene of the gathering of the disciples at Mary's house after the Passion, but the crucifixion is also rewritten from the halfway point of Mary's lamentations at the foot of the Cross (but not the verses duplicated in the Arnalte, which might at least seem logical). The augmented lamentations of the Virgin, the "Siete Angustias", was considered a good choice for inclusion in the Arnalte as a balancing companion-piece to a panegyric to Isabel. There is littie mystery here; Diego de San Pedro had a definite interest in ingratiating himself with the new regime as he was a vassal of the disgraced Girón family. The implied comparison to the Virgin was discreet enough not to be offensive. He eschews all courtiy verse except the leitmotiv "este es la triste morada / del que muere / porque muerte no le quiere", a choice which is also followed in the Cárcel de Amor (1492), which has no courdy verse, and despite his reputation for difficult conceptista poetry which was still viable in Gracián's day, when the later writer praised "El mayor bien de quereros" in the Agudeza y arte de ingenio. 3 This is more evidence of my thesis, stated elsewhere, that courdy verse had fallen badly from favour in the 1480s and 1490s and was scarcely printed at this time. Diego de San Pedro was, however, always...