THE COUNT OF VILLAMEDIANA
397
superb male, although the latter notion has been glorified for cen–
turies in a literature nourished with glittering appearances, but not
always with human realities.
And, whatever has been said, Don Juan is not a Spanish proto–
type. He has no connection whatever with the most deeply typical
sexual attitudes of our race. Don Juan is not a Spanish, and still
less an Andalusian, creation. He was brought to Spain from other
European countries, by the rejuvenating but cynical whirlwind of
the Renaissance.
If
the Don Juan of literary mythology was born in
Spain, it was because the fecundity of Spanish genius coincided, in
that century, with a profound decadence of national morals.
Because the legend came to birth in Spain, it was linked, from
the start, with typically Iberian religious and funereal elements,
which were the immediate cause of its widespread success. But the
image of "EI Burlador" was soon stripped of these local and
ephemeral elements, and became one of the universal and eternal
myths of love.
Finally, it is probable that the living model who inspired Tirso
de Molina to write his drama was the Count of Villamediana, whom
the great friar knew well, and whose life exactly paralleled that of
"EI Burlador."
The Don Juan of the drama has been forgiven, as the King
forgave the Count. In Tirso de Molina's version, and in its suc–
cessors for two hundred years, an implacable Providence condemned
him to eternal fire. This was what prevented
him
from becoming
a completely popular myth. The people love the great scoundrel and
do not want him to be condemned. Zorilla, whose Don Juan parades
his
heroic madness in immortal verse, on the stage, every year on
All Souls Day, wrought the change which was to fix Don Juan for–
ever in the popular imagination. At the last moment, when only one
grain of sand is left in the seducer's hourglass, Dona Ines, through
her celestial innocence, wrests the sinner from Hell and restores
him to eternal grace.
Very well; we meddlesome professors must not be outdone by
kings .and poets. Let us say, with the rest of them, "May he rest
in
peace!"
(Translated from the SPanish
by
F.
L.
Ganivet)
