THE COUNT OF VILLAMEDIANA
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he bears a much closer resemblance to Saint Francis of Borgia. For
Mafiara was, I repeat, a mystic, whose turbulent youth, which in–
deed contained quite a number of donjuanesque characteristics, was
merely the preparation for his ultimate saintliness.
Don Juan in ancient times. The Renaissance.
Let us repeat
once more our conclusion: Don Juan is not a Spanish prototype,
still less is he an Andalusian prototype. Donjuanism is a product of
decaying societies, and our hero trailed his cynicism in the wake of
several declining civilizations while Spain was no more than the
embryo of a people, with no national structure. It is easy to find
perfect Don Juans in pre-Christian Greece and Rome. In Rome was
published the first, the most cynical and perfect manual of Don–
juanesque love ever written, the
Ars Amandi.
Ovid himself was a
Don Juan, with all the glories of a Don Juan, and with all the
squalor and sexual ambivalence.
The sturdy and fertile Middle Ages hardly provided propitious
ground for donjuanism. There were Don Juans in medieval Europe,
but they were eccentrics. Chivalry provided the kind of love typical
of those centuries : self-sacrificing, monogamous, overcoming even
death. Or else the absolute devotion, silent, mystical, almost sexless,
to a woman whom the lover had glimpsed rather than seen, such
as Dante's love for Beatrice. In short, nothing which suggests Don
Juan's kind of love.
Donjuanism reappears with new vigor during the Renaissance.
This formidable movement was characterized from its outset by the
element of moral decadence underlying its youthful energy. The
corrupt spirit of antiquity, which seemed to be dead, was merely
dormant; when it awoke it infused its influence, like a subtle poison,
into that great dawning of the world. This is not by any means the
only example in human history of a strong rejuvenating social force
which is born with a perverted spirit. One of the symptoms of that
perversion is donjuanesque love, which is really nothing but Machia–
vellianism applied to human love.
The Machiavellian morals- which allowed the Duke of Valen–
tinois to get rid of his enemies without the slightest qualm, are pre–
cisely those which Don Juan employs when dealing with the women
whom he seduces and deserts as a
condottiere
does his citadels, merely
