Mindy E. Badía Indiana University Southeast

Mindy E. Badía Indiana University Southeast

“Mirror, Mirror: Image and Authenticity in Los melindres de Belisa”

I have chosen to explore the metatheatrical aspects of Los melindres de Belisa and to examine such instances of role-playing as they relate to genre, gender, race, and class. Our discussion of Belisa’s melindres as fundamentally theatrical, as well as our comments about the play’s ambiguous generic classification, have stimulated my curiosity about visual representation as symbol of both accuracy and distortion. Within this framework, I wish to analyze the specific references to mirrors in the play, suggesting that they signify, paradoxically, both a desire for authenticity and recognition of its elusiveness.

In this talk, I look at three specific exchanges in which the word “espejo” is mentioned. Though other, less direct allusions to reflected images exist, I will only discuss these specific examples, emphasizing some more than others, in order to respect the time limits established by our group. With each example, I include a discussion of how the scenes were performed in a 1987 production of Los melindres de Belisa, brought to the stage of the Chamizal National Memorial by the Mexican theater group La columna de Aguascalientes as part of the Chamizal’s annual Siglo de Oro drama festival.

The first mention of a mirror occurs early in the play, as Eliso and his servant Fabio discuss Belisa’s reputation as the ultimate mujer esquiva. Among the various examples of her unfounded rejection of various suitors appears the following anecdote:

Eli. Mirando un novio muy galan un día,

dijo, viéndole limpio como un espejo:

<Más que dormir con este mentecato,

quiero comer, que es bueno para plato>.

To this, Fabio replies:

En Alcorón pudiera hacer Belisa

un desposado, que es famoso el barro.

In this instance, the word “espejo,” which ought to suggest an immediate identification of this gentleman as an ideal suitor, “limpio” and “galán,” actually blurs the image—muddies it, if you will—revealing the gap separating the social ideal from the human reality and exposing perception as perilously flawed. Belisa suggests that the gentleman in question he makes her hungry because his mirror-like substance, as well as his apparent cleanliness, would make a fine dish. The ambiguous meaning of the word plato, which could be both the food and the plate on which it is served, brings to mind the physical imperative for sustenance, reminding audiences that eating, like other bodily operations, satisfies both a desire and a need. Fabio’s reply connects the attempts that early modern women made to correspond to social ideals of beauty, ingesting mud in order to ensure a fair-skinned image peering back from the mirror, to our Adamic origins as creatures fashioned from earth, replacing the transparency of glass with the opacity of clay.

The first reference to a mirror in the production occurs at the same point as in the text, in which Fabio and Eliso discuss Belisa’s exaggerated insistence on the serious flaws of all her suitors.

CLIP

Here, the actors accentuate the theatrical character of Belisa’s scorn, adopting her stage persona instead of simply reporting what she has said. In a sense, they reflect an image of Belisa that distorts a distortion, augmenting the humor and encouraging spectators to adopt their ridiculing stance. However, remembering that Fabio’s financial distress creates the most obvious example of role-playing within roles, a metatheatrical recourse that also enables Felisardo to escape justice for the murder he believes he has committed, we must also judge Belisa’s histrionics within the context of a culture whose authenticity is based on seeming rather than being.

Later, Celia (now disguised as the Moorish slave Zara) and don Juan engage in a lengthy exchange that plays with the image of a mirror, and of sight in general, as the initial stimulus of love. As Celia performs don Juan’s toilette, both she and audiences are aware of the inappropriateness of such intimacies taking place between two noble characters, yet in her role as Zara, Celia is obligated to perform these tasks, and indeed intends to fetch a looking glass to ensure that she has performed convincingly as a servant:

Cel. Porque el serviros obliga

lo haré, pues os sirvo en ello.

Pero ¿quién habrá que os diga,

aunque yo acierte a ponello,

si está el cuello bien o mal?

Voy por espejo.

This literal reference quickly takes on metaphorical significance, as don Juan employs a familiar Petrarchan trope, comparing Celia’s eyes to a mirror:

D. Juan Eso no,

porque no habrá espejo igual

como ese rostro, en que yo

miro tan limpio cristal.

Retrátenme vuestras bellas

niñas, que bien puedo en ellas

decir que en el sol me vi.

Atad.

Paradoxically, the mirror image of don Juan correctly clothed by Celia would constitute proof of her skill as a servant, lending credibility to her acting abilities in the metatheatrical role of Zara. At the same time, don Juan’s language elevates her humble status, performing a courtship ritual that simply cannot take place between two people of such unequal standing. The sparkle in her eye, her limpieza, and the very relationship that he proposes would elevate Zara (falsely, of course) to his own social position, casting a non-Christian salve in the role of potential mate. In this context, his words reveal both deceit, since Celia’s performance as Zara tricks him, and truth, since in expressing his initial interest in Zara, don Juan uses language more appropriate for courting a woman like Celia.

Felisardo’s jealous reaction to Celia’s interactions with don Juan continues this interplay of the metaphorical and literal use of the word espejo.

CEL. Pues ¿es bien tartar en burlas

en tiempo de tantas veras?

Vuelve y mira dónde estamos,

pues en nuestra misma tierra

tú eres esclavo y yo esclava;

que si de mi honor recelas,

ofensa tuya es locura,

y para mi honor la ofensa.

Por ti, Felisardo mío,

soy esclava, tus quimeras

me trujeron a servir.

Si sirvo, ¿de qué te quejas?

She reminds Felisardo that she is playing the role of servant precisely because of his plan and, as such, her willingness to dress don Juan lends authenticity to the artifice that Felisardo has created. Her first reaction inverts the metatheatrical construct of their roles as Zara and Pedro, as she designates Felisardo’s genuine feelings of jealousy with “burlas” and, at the same time, emphasizes the serious implications of their theatricality, using the phrase “tantas veras” to refer to the peril in which the discovery of their true identities would place them.

Celia explains her actions as Zara, providing information to which Felisardo was not witness and emphasizing her unwillingness to serve don Juan in this capacity.

Salí con otra criada

a dar agua a quien quisiera

dar veneno. Es hombre y mozo,

dijome palabras tiernas,

que es la ocasión ligera,

pólvora el hombre y la mujer centella.

Mandó que trujese el cuello,

truje el cuello, até las trenzas,

hízome espejo, fui espejo . . .

In these lines, Celia exposes a peril that she and Zara share, though the implications for each woman are quite different. To an extent, both Zara and Celia are reduced to mere objects of don Juan’s desire, which casts any woman as prey in an unrelenting amorous hunt. Celia’s words also indicate that the very discourse of love forces these female characters into an untenable position in which they are forced to respond to demands of literary and social codes into which they are inscribed but in which they exhibit little active participation. If don Juan reads Zara/Celia as a mirror, she is a mirror, which suggests that by simply being, these women provoke the potentially transgressive sexual acts that they are expect to prevent. Class distinctions do matter, however, both in terms of the explicitness of don Juan’s demands and the powerlessness of Zara to deny his wishes. At the very least, a woman like Celia could hope for reinscription into a socially acceptable role as wife, an option simply not available to Zara.

Felisardo insists that he is correct in his jealousy, and Celia’s response offers yet another instance of equating the mirror with her theatrical ruse.

FEL. ¿Y eso no quieres que sienta?

CEL. No, porque luego que entraste,

como era vidrio y se quiebra,

cesó el espejo.

These lines offer a reminder of the reality of their situation and of Celia’s loyalty to Felisardo. The mirror, like their assumed identities, is easily broken by the appearance of her beloved; the shards of glass illustrating her fragmented identity and, at the same time her integrity as Felisardo’s intended. Not content with Celia’s profession of constancy, Felisardo replies:

FEL. Mejor

dijeras, Celia, por respuesta

que la mujer es espejo,

y que del dueño en ausencia

hace la misma lisonja

a cualquier rostro que le llega.

Here, Felisardo takes advantage of the literal and symbolic meaning of the looking glass, suggesting that, like a mirror, an unaccompanied woman reflects the desires of any gentleman who gazes upon her. Unaware of the irony of his metaphor, for surely the mirror is a passive object and does not engage in any actual looking, this imagery underscores the vulnerable position of women in early modern poetic discourse and offers, for careful readers and spectators, a view of male desire as the true stimulus of Juan’s fears.

The image of a mirror also figures prominently in the verbal exchanges between Pedro/Felisardo and Zara/Celia as they are performed in the Mexican staging, with much the same effect as in the text.

CLIP

As is the case throughout the production, the scene in which don Juan asks Zara to dress him opens with the sounds of Middle Eastern music, and the lights illuminate a set decorated with Oriental rugs. These exra-textual enhancements accentuate cultural and racial difference between and intensify the distortions inherent in the image of Zara projected by don Juan’s advances; the Moorish subtext asserts itself, even as don Juan’s amorous rhetoric would presumably undermine racial and social inequality. The aggressive manner in which don Juan “excuses” Flora and draws Zara to him underscores the fundamental inequality of the social positions that servant and master occupy, offering a physical demonstration of Juan’s dominance and Zara’s powerlessness to refuse. Later, when Felisardo rebukes Celia for the intimacies in which she has engaged with don Juan, Felisardo distances himself from Celia as he resorts to the all too familiar trope of woman’s inconstancy. As the two argue, their words emphasize the ambivalence of the looking glass as a signifier, an object that, for Felisardo, reveals Celia’s “true” nature as fickle but that, for Celia, symbolizes the artifice in which her genuine love for Felisardo has obliged her to engage. The pair’s embrace that closes the scene reassures audiences that Felisardo and Celia have been reinscribed within a discursive framework in which the depth and truth of their love excuses the shallowness and deceit of their plot.

Within this context, it is little wonder that Belisa opts to exclude herself from such exchanges, preferring, instead, to interpret literally, hyperbolically, and, in many instances, hilariously, the common tropes used to describe the dynamic of amorous desire. In a lengthy soliloquy, Belisa explains her melindres, blaming her eccentricities on her wealth and her upbringing. She notes the difference between her childhood and that of her brother, observing that don Juan, as a student, had money for tutors, pages, and books. Belisa, on the other hand, spent her parents’ sizable fortune on “espejos, pastillas and guantes,” items that, along with her wealth, made her too arrogant to accept any of her suitors. Curiously, Belisa’s soul-baring moment of truth offers yet another example of artifice, insofar as the that beauty she sees when she gazes in the mirror is the result of cosmetics and clothing, material goods to which her inheritance as granted her access.

Audiences become suspicious of Belisa’s apparent recourse to reason near the end of this same speech as she intensifies her odd behavior to the point of violence. When Belisa sees her amorous intentions towards Pedro/Felisardo thwarted, she resolves to kill herself. After Flora reminds her of the eternal consequences of such an act, Belisa opts to follow her servant’s advice, demanding that Pedro/Felisardo be branded on the face so that he will not run away. This command reiterates Belisa’s stubborn insistence on literality, in that she requires a physical mark to show that Pedro/Felisardo really belongs to her, both as a slave and as her love.

BEL. Esa razón

sola vence la pasión

con que desprecio el vivir.

Quiero tomar tu consejo

y hacer a este esclavo herrar,

como quien quiere quebrar,

por no mirarse, el espejo.

With these words, Belisa not only undermines her previous rejection of her eccentric nature, but also demonstrates the exaggerated lengths of her capriciousness. In a sense, “breaking the mirror” refers destroying the theatrical illusion of her melindres by her insistence on a physical manifestation of her possession of Pedro, an act that would move her excesses from the comic realm and, were it not for Tiberio’s intervention, place them perilously close to the realm of tragedy.

As the curtain opens to reveal the first scene of the second act in the Mexican staging, audiences witness a changed Belisa. The coincidence of plot and structure—the fact that the new Belisa first appears at a point of transition in the organization of the production--emphasizes the transformation that takes place in Belisa (without suggesting that she has abandoned her former excesses altogether.)