The Epic Mirror: Poetry, Conflict Ethics and Political Community in Colonial Peru 9781855663473, 9781800103573, 1855663473

Table of contents :
Front cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima
2 Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana
3 The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado
4 Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola’s Armas antárticas
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Colección Támesis SERIE A: MONOGRAFÍAS, 398

THE EPIC MIRROR

Tamesis Founding Editors †J. E. Varey †Alan Deyermond General Editor Stephen M. Hart Advisory Board Andrew M. Beresford Zoltán Biedermann Celia Cussen Efraín Kristal Jo Labanyi María E. López José Antonio Mazzotti Thea Pitman Julius Ruiz Alison Sinclair Isabel Torres Noël Valis MONOGRAFÍAS ISSN: 0587–9914 (print) ISSN 2633–7061 (online) Monografías publishes critical studies covering a wide range of topics in the literature, culture and history of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America from the Middle Ages to the present day. It aims to promote intellectually stimulating and innovative scholarship that will make a major contribution to the fields of Hispanic and Lusophone studies. Work on un- or under-explored sources and themes or utilising new methodological and theoretical approaches, as well as interdisciplinary studies, are particularly encouraged. Previously published books in the series may be viewed at https://boydellandbrewer.com/series/monografias-a.html

THE EPIC MIRROR POETRY, CONFLICT ETHICS AND POLITICAL COMMUNITY IN COLONIAL PERU

Imogen Choi

TAMESIS

© Imogen Choi 2022 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Imogen Choi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2022 Tamesis, Woodbridge ISBN 978 1 85566 347 3 hardback ISBN 978 1 80010 357 3 ePDF Tamesis is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library Cover image: Martin de Murúa, ‘Origen y genealogía real de los reyes Incas del Perú’ del padre mercedario Fray Martín de Murúa, also known as the Galvin Manuscript as the original belongs to Mr Sean Galvin of the Republic of Ireland, fol. 49 verso. Image reproduced by kind permission of the J. Paul Getty Museum

To my parents, with love and gratitude

CONTENTS Acknowledgements

ix



Introduction

1

1

Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima

23

2 Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana

39

3 The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado

96

4 Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola’s Armas antárticas

146



Conclusion

202



Bibliography

206



Index

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The origins of this book go back to 2011–12, when my first readings of colonial epic coincided with conversations and encounters which provoked a deep personal reflection on pacifism, community and the many means of resistance to conflict. This initial fusion of ideas was nurtured by Jonathan Thacker and Geraldine Hazbun, while I also learned much from David Hook, to whose enthusiastic bibliophilia I owe any competence in palaeography and history of the book. Rodrigo Cacho was a major influence on the research, from whose kindness, encouragement, intelligence and vast philological knowledge it has benefitted immeasurably. Louise Haywood and Gabriela Ramos also proved to be much valued and insightful interlocutors. Since then, many people have read, revised and helped to shape all or part of the book. I am particularly indebted to Mercedes Blanco, Annabel Brett, Alice Brooke, Karoline Cook, Luis Gómez Canseco, Colin Gordon, Andrew Laird, Giuseppe Marcocci, Rich Rabone, Alison Sinclair, Felipe Valencia, and Elizabeth Wright, who have posed important questions, opened up new perspectives, and inspired me with their own scholarship and wisdom. Many conferences and colloquia stimulated fruitful conversations that fed into the research. I would like to single out Mercedes Blanco’s research seminars at Université Paris-Sorbonne, and the symposia hosted by Lise Segas at Université Bordeaux Montaigne in 2016, and Emiro Martínez-Osorio in Toronto in 2019, which stood out for the quality of the scholarship presented and the exchanges on Iberian epic which followed. I have also been fortunate to enjoy two productive periods of research at the Huntington Library, California, and the Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., both facilitated by the funding of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am grateful to the staff and librarians at both institutions for their warm reception and guidance, as well as to the communities of scholars in residence. I would like to thank Megan Milan and the editorial team at Tamesis for their patience and diligence, as well as the anonymous reviewer of the manuscript for their comments. Finally, this book owes much indeed to the love and support of my family, particularly my parents, Catherine and Raul Sutton, and my husband, Youngchan Justin Choi. The former instilled a love of words and literature, while the latter has lived with this research from its beginnings, provided

x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

unwavering support, and kept me thinking, laughing and exploring. The final word goes to Aurora Morcillo, with whom I am thankful to have enjoyed a short but meaningful friendship before her untimely death in 2020. I trust that her contagious enthusiasm, generosity and hopefulness will live on in the many younger scholars whose lives she has touched. The epigraph in the introduction is a tribute to our unfinished conversations about poetry and history, with their reminder that there is always more to be learned.

Introduction Porque la poesía no va a captar lo que ya tiene ‘número, peso y medida’ […] sino que va a encontrar el número, peso y medida a lo que todavía no lo tiene.

María Zambrano, Filosofía y poesía (1939)

The Fluid Frontiers of Epic In the latter third of the sixteenth century and first decade of the seventeenth, three authors writing in Spanish penned epic poems on the recent history of conflict in their own times. Alonso de Ercilla (1533–94) published in Madrid a trilogy looking back to the Chilean frontier war between Spanish squadrons and Mapuche people groups (whom he calls araucanos, Araucanians) in which he had fought during his youth. The three parts of his testimonial epic La Araucana [The Araucaniad], painstakingly expanded and reworked over more than twenty years until almost the end of his life (1569, 1578, 1589–90), were among the bestselling works of the Spanish Golden Age. One of a number of authors to capitalise on Ercilla’s success, the young Pedro de Oña (b. 1570, d. after 1635), the son of an officer who had perished in the ongoing conflict in Arauco, wrote the first poem to be printed in Lima, Arauco domado [Arauco Tamed] in 1596. Even before the third part of La Araucana was printed, another military veteran, Juan de Miramontes Zuázola (1567–1610) may have begun work on his monumental Armas antárticas [Antarctic Arms] (c. 1608–09), a sweeping panorama of what he poetically termed the ‘Antarctic’ region, comprising the Viceroyalty of Peru and its Pacific waters, from the Inca Empire, to the wars of conquest and rebellion, to the defence of the coastline and the Isthmus of Panama against piracy and the threat from African maroon settlements. La Araucana soon formed part of the canon of Spanish Golden Age literature, and was emulated by Cervantes, Góngora and Lope de Vega among others, but these three epics are also integral to the formation of Latin American colonial literature. In these authors, writing in the most highly regarded poetic form of their day about conflicts that were bitterly fought but little known, the confines of the Spanish Empire take centre stage.

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The argument of this book, made up of three substantial case studies of each of the poems preceded by a synoptic historical chapter, is that these three poems form and dramatise a series of experimental and challenging ideas about warfare and political community. The poems attest to a fascination with how human societies become political, with the different forms of governance that emerge across an early modern globe which was increasingly connected, and in which several forms of polity might coexist within the same geographical space. All arise from contexts intimately conditioned by warfare and rebellion, and from debates about the ethics of war and its conduct, and their most insistent and consistent concern is with the ways that political communities are threatened, shaped, re-formed and broken apart in response to violent conflict within and among themselves. The two concepts, of conflict ethics and political community, haunted this era. The preoccupation with political community is one the poems have in common with other modes of intellectual expression such as juridical theories of natural law, humanist commentaries and political treatises, and many crónicas de Indias and histories of the world.1 It carried particularly high stakes in the Americas, still strongly marked by the legacy of the mid-sixteenth-century debates about the legitimacy of dominion and conquest which had partly hinged on the civil and political status of the Amerindian collective. The same might be said for the history, conduct and ethics of conflict, in an age in which the military revolution and its distinct forms of sociability had an incalculable impact on culture. Both themes have generated a large body of scholarship across various disciplines, but there is still need for a greater understanding of how the two concepts developed concurrently and influenced each other. In the poems in question, conflict and political community are closely intertwined, and this neglected dimension of their thought has implications for the study of both Golden Age and Hispanic colonial literature. The idiosyncratic ways in which literature confronts these political questions offers, in turn, a distinctive window onto the intellectual history of the era – and might also facilitate the decoupling of the latter from its traditionally Eurocentric parameters. The literary epic of this period is one way into these questions, but one which requires readers to immerse themselves in its own distinctive, imaginative and often slippery language to make any sense of them at all. These lengthy narrative poems, known in their day as poemas heroicos and 1

On natural law, see Annabel Brett, Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (Princeton, 2011); for ideas of political community in chronicles of the Americas (specifically the Andean region), see Sabine MacCormack, On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain and Peru (Princeton, 2007), chapters 3 and 4; on world histories, Giuseppe Marcocci’s The Globe on Paper: Writing Histories of the World in Renaissance Europe and the Americas (Oxford, 2020).

INTRODUCTION

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traditionally termed épica culta in modern criticism, constituted one of the most prestigious cultural forms of the Renaissance because of their association with the revered poets of the Greco-Roman canon: Virgil, Homer, Ovid, Lucan and Statius among others.2 Notable for their ‘permeability’ with other genres and their complex web of allusions,3 they tend to mirror questions obliquely rather than answering them directly, and something strange has usually happened to the reflection in the process. One question often feeds into another whose connections are not immediately apparent, but which this form of epic, which stretches all the way back to the classical canon of western literature and sideways to converse synchronically with other genres and media of its era, is expansive, encyclopaedic and eclectic enough to encompass.4 Such obliqueness is, then, partly in the nature of the form, but partly also because writers were still searching for adequate means of expression for new forms of political community and conflict which were a distinctive product of the early modern colonial and imperial experience over a globe whose contours were not yet fully known. The wars described and in some cases lived by these writers took place on the frontiers: frontiers that sometimes had clear coordinates, such as the river Biobío, which came to mark the effective dividing line between Spanish- and Mapuche-controlled territory in Chile and over which much blood was spilled, but which often existed in a space

2 The term épica culta, which originated as a means of distinguishing Renaissance epic from the medieval cantares de gesta and the romancero, both seen as forms of primary, oral epic, has its disadvantages. As Miguel Martínez points out, when used irreflexively it has often ‘favoured the understanding of the genre, without exception, as elitist, imitative and hypercodified by the classical tradition of epic’: ‘Prácticas y representaciones del imperio. Guerra, imprenta y espacio social en la épica hispánica del quinientos’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University of New York, 2010), p. 6. In the interests of concision, I directly translate this and other secondary sources into English without comment. 3 Stephanie Béreizat-Lang and Eugenia Ortiz-Gambetta, ‘El género épico entre Europa y América: Poéticas, ideologías y prácticas culturales’, Rilce: Revista de Filología Hispánica, 36.1 (2020), 7–21 (p. 8). 4 On the expansive quality of epic, see Thomas Greene: ‘The first quality of the epic imagination is expansiveness, the impulse to extend its own luminosity in everwidening circles’ (The Descent from Heaven: A Study in Epic Continuity, New Haven, CT, 1963, p. 10), and Margaret Beissinger: ‘the inclusiveness of epic – the tendency of a given poem to present an encyclopaedic account of the culture that produced it – also explains its political potency’ (‘Introduction’ to Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus and Susanne Wofford, eds, Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World: The Poetics of Community, Berkeley, CA, 1999, pp. 1–19 [pp. 2–3]). Already in the sixteenth century, Torquato Tasso speaks of epic’s ability to create a ‘picciolo mondo’: I ‘Discorsi del poema eroico’ di Torquato Tasso, ed. by Francesco Flora (Milan, 1951), p. 221.

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that, quite literally, had no place yet on the map.5 The outlying areas of the Spanish Empire whose governance was still undefined, the areas of tentative exploration and attempted expansion across the Americas and South East Asia, and the waters of the Indo-Pacific also acted as fluid and incalculable frontiers around and between this Antarctic world. These are also frontiers in a more conceptual sense. Ongoing, ill-defined and often inglorious, the conflicts of these poems are at the frontiers of history, rarely finding a substantial place in printed chronicles and other historiographical works. They are at the frontiers of Just War Theory, which tended to depend on a shared code of ethics and a defined declaration and cessation of hostilities remote from the realities of discontinuous and inchoate outbreaks of colonial violence. On these frontiers, new kinds of political community were taking shape and becoming visible for the first time: the Araucanians and other indigenous people groups who did not seem to fit the mould of Amerindian polities elaborated in the mid-sixteenth century; urban settlements and mobile groups of soldiers and others which formed the república de españoles around the Viceroyalty; the sea-borne communities of the merchant, naval or pirate economy; settlements of freed and runaway slaves. By and large, it was their actual or threatened conflict with the Spanish imperial project which made these communities visible to the European eye, and these were thus also extreme situations which tested the consistency and durability of these polities to the core. The language our writers found most adequate to describe them was an imaginative one, and, to reiterate the epigraph to this chapter, this perhaps made new depths of connection accessible. Zambrano suggests that poetry works best when it gives voice to ideas that are not yet stable or fully fledged, and which, in a sense, it creates: not in capturing ‘what already has “number, measure and weight”’, but in finding ‘“number, measure and weight” for what does not yet have it’.6 The Epic Mirror What was it that made epic poetry a particularly attractive vehicle for exploring concepts in the realm of political thought and conflict ethics? How did epic as a form shape the kind of questions poets could ask and the ways they might be answered?

5 For further reflections on the notion of frontier in the context of colonial epic, see Celia López-Chávez, Epics of Empire and Frontier: Alonso de Ercilla and Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá as Spanish Colonial Chroniclers (Norman, OK, 2016), pp. 7–10. 6 María Zambrano, Filosofía y poesía (Mexico City, 1987 [1939]), p. 88, itself written in the wake of the Spanish Civil War and on the outbreak of the Second World War.

INTRODUCTION

5

To situate these questions synchronically to begin with, sixteenth-century Iberian epic was a genre which offered freedom, flexibility and prestige to its practitioners. Renaissance epic in Spanish and Portuguese was heavily influenced by Latin epic, but from the mid-sixteenth century usually took its form from the Italian romanzi.7 These popular chivalric poems of adventure, which found their most canonical exponents in Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato (1483) and Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516) (and his more pessimistic and incomplete Cinque canti, 1545), had a very loose plot based on the legendary campaigns of Charlemagne, Orlando (Roland) and the Franks against the Saracens, with many amorous and magical interludes. They often had more than one part so were left open to sequels and continuation, and each part was divided into an unspecified number of cantos consisting of between 70 and 200 hendecasyllabic octaves known as ottava rima in Italian or octavas reales in Spanish, which had full rhyme in the scheme ABABABCC.8 Even this schematic definition makes clear that these poems were characterised by formal, and often narrative, openness and incompleteness. They posed no obstacles to long digressions and leaps across time, space, and between the natural and supernatural worlds, tied together mainly by an intrusive narrator who often interrupts the action with metanarrative comments. Although Ercilla and to some extent his successors write in a parodic and sometimes antagonistic relation to the romanzi, several features of the form well suit the political dimension of the narratives. Its loose and expansive structure allows the narrative to move freely through time and space, pairing and juxtaposing varieties of political community and theatres of war of very different complexion. Such dizzying leaps of imagination arouse the reader’s sense of marvel, but they are also ways of connecting worlds that would 7 The poems which are the subject of this book all share the formal characteristics set out here, which came to be especially associated with heroic poetry in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian from the 1560s onwards. Although literary epics occasionally adopted other metres, and, as familiarity with Aristotle’s Poetics increased, early modern writers on poetics also argued that an epic poem could be written in prose as well as verse, the octava real overwhelmingly dominates in the print market. Epic poetry in its broader, more modern sense need not of course be confined to this, and might include works from this period in a variety of forms and languages, oral as well as literary. In the Americas, the beginnings of ‘colonial epic’ are often traced back to the anonymous manuscript Relaçión de la conquista y descubrimiento que hizo el Marqués don Francisco Piçarro en demanda de las provincias y rreynos que agora llamamos Nueva Castilla […] (c. 1538), usually known as Conquista del Perú, which is written in coplas de arte mayor, a verse form in vogue in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 8 Spanish epics shortened and regularised this length somewhat, tending to fluctuate between 50 and 110 octavas per canto. The number of cantos within each poem or parte still varied hugely.

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usually be kept apart. The presence of an often ironic first-person narrator allows them to make narrative comments – usually brief and enigmatic – on these juxtapositions, especially in moral, philosophical and political reflections on the narrative that commonly constitute the first few stanzas of each canto. The rhyming couplet at the end of each stanza lends itself to pithy and aphoristic recapitulation and reflection on the action. These tendencies favour what I describe as the ‘epic mirror’, the ways in which one scenario is reflected in another with little apparent connection, but for which the narrative creates a series of correspondences. Sometimes it feels more like a distorted mirror or a hall of mirrors, with reflections bouncing disconcertingly and even comically in many different directions.9 These correspondences are not only the result of juxtaposition; sometimes a single episode implicitly reflects on other conflicts and communities, often those which are closer to home to its intended readership and the subject of fraught polemic. In turn, one allusion can evoke another, opening up a multiplicity of perspectives. Political ideas often become apparent through repeated formulae, allusions, similes, figures, turns of phrase and images – in other words, the works’ own distinctive poetic language – rather than through direct statement. This mirroring effect is, then, an indirect vehicle for political thought: epic is a genre which often says things without saying them. This might be taken to imply practices of reading which seem to us implausibly abstruse and speculative, and to limit the depth of the poets’ engagement with political ideas. It is not the purpose of this book to argue that all early readers would have framed the politics of these poems in the terms I suggest: they could be and certainly were enjoyed on many other levels, and more direct, explicit political statements also have their place in the works. Epic attracted a diverse readership, and horizons of reception are as a result varied.10 Such reading 9 This notion of a distorted reflection might be productively compared with Alain Viala’s metaphor of ‘prismatic effects’, although he applies it differently: ‘By prisms I mean those mediations, those realities, at once translucent and deformative that are formed by the literary codes, institutions, and fields interposed between the social referent and the text as well as between the work and its readers – those realities that determine meaning.’ Alain Viala and Paula Wissing, ‘Prismatic Effects’, Critical Enquiry, 14.3 (1988), 563–73 (p. 563). 10 The readership of sixteenth-century Spanish epic is investigated by, among others, Maxim Chevalier, L’Arioste en Espagne (1530–1650): Recherches sur l’influence du ‘Roland furieux’ (Bordeaux, 1966), and María José Vega, ‘Idea de la épica en la España del quinientos’, in María José Vega and Lara Vilà, eds, La teoría de la épica en el siglo XVI (España, Francia, Italia y Portugal) (Vigo, 2010), pp. 103–35, who give evidence for their being read by veterans and soldiers of all classes, nobles, and litterati with rhetorical and humanist interests (and suggest, incidentally, a primarily masculine audience). As the poems’ dedications show, the ‘Christian prince’ was often the ideal reader. Chevalier’s and Vega’s conclusions are mainly relevant to

INTRODUCTION

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practices were, however, not only possible but in many ways favoured by contemporary education and approaches to poetry. The core of the humanist curriculum was the Roman poet Virgil, and, as numerous studies demonstrate, the Aeneid was very often interpreted in political and imperial terms.11 With theories of imitation at the centre of poetic practice, readers were sensitive even to hidden allusions and enjoyed discovering and deciphering the layering of voices they created. Golden Age literary imitation tended, moreover, to be eclectic, drawing indiscriminately on a range of texts in different languages and from different periods, often those which are well outside our own literary canon.12 This book takes this approach to imitative practice for granted, but applies it to the poems’ treatment of non-literary as well as literary sources. The poets dealt with here, then, could not articulate ideas with the exhaustive rigour of scholastic dialectic, but, as early modern poetic theorists often noted, the aim of the epic poet is not to form a logical argument but to create a miniature world so vivid that it comes alive in the imagination, a quality expressed by the Greek term enargeia or Latin evidentia. As well as evoking other allusions and histories which add depth and complexity to the events portrayed, then, political ideas are actualised, dramatised and brought to life in the poems in what we might term thought experiments, testing out what might the Spanish reception of epic, and its reading elsewhere in Europe and in the broader Hispanic world merits further research. MacCormack suggests intriguingly, but with insufficient evidence, that European readers might have been more drawn to Ercilla’s literary merits, and American readers to his historical understanding (p. 218). My own investigations suggest that in the Americas soldiers, encomenderos and officials within the colonial bureaucracy at all levels were among the epics’ early readers. 11 In modern criticism, the notion that Virgil’s innovation in epic changes the hero’s cause from a personal to a moral and political one concerned with nation and empire goes back to C.M. Bowra, From Virgil to Milton (London, 1945), pp. 11–13. The political terrain of Renaissance epic is sometimes interpreted very broadly, as by Greene, The Descent from Heaven, pp. 17–18, for whom it encompasses the natural and spiritual as well as the human worlds, but a particularly influential reading is that of David Quint, who divides poets after Virgil into two camps, according to their relationship to imperial systems of government: ‘epics of the imperial victors and epics of the defeated, a defeated whose resistance contains the germ of a broader republican or antimonarchical politics’, in Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (Princeton, 1993), p. 8. Scholars differ on whether early modern readers tended to see a panegyric, imperialist Virgil straightforwardly at the service of rulers (as, until recently, was the convention for scholars of Spanish epic), or whether there was room for a plurality of voices as uncovered in the twentieth century by the ‘Harvard School’, applied to this era by Craig Kallendorf, The Other Virgil: ‘Pessimistic’ Readings of the Aeneid in Early Modern Culture (Oxford, 2007). 12 See Jesús Ponce Cárdenas, La imitación áurea: Cervantes, Quevedo, Góngora (Paris, 2016).

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happen to those ideas in the real world, or how they could be seen to have played out in historical events, but investing the outcome of the experiment with real emotional power.13 By the mid-sixteenth century, though, Spanish epic was already a plural genre with many adaptations of the romanzo form to different purposes. As early as the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, popular newsbearing poems known as guerre in ottava rima sang of recent battles whose gory realism and technological modernity was a deliberate riposte to the escapism and courtly ethos of the romanzi. Miguel Martínez has shown how between the 1560s and 1590s a number of Spanish poems composed by soldiers and those in military circles showed the influence of these guerre, a tradition for which, alluding to Michael Murrin’s classic study, he coins the name épicas de la pólvora or ‘gunpowder epics’.14 The two variants of the genre are characterised by sociological as well as literary difference: while the romanzi and books of chivalry were luxuriously produced and the reading of choice of the high aristocracy, the épicas de la pólvora on recent military history were quickly and cheaply printed in portable editions and circulated among the ‘soldierly republic of letters’.15 The first part of La Araucana certainly shows the imprint of the latter, with its stated aim to recount recent wars in an uncompromising style and to save the ordinary soldier from oblivion. Their influence on the subsequent parts of the poem is much weaker,16 but they do 13 Medieval and early modern Spanish epics are sometimes divided into verosimilista and verista ‘schools’, terms which were coined by Ramón Menéndez Pidal to delineate poems to which the Aristotelian notion of mimesis or verisimilitude might be applied from those which aspire to ‘an essential approximation between poetry and historical truth’: ‘Poesía e historia en el “Mio Cid”. El problema de la épica española’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 3.2 (1949), 113–29 (p. 125). As José Antonio Mazzotti points out, the boundaries between the two varieties are not clear-cut, and ‘Both Ercilla and Oña move between both tendencies, with different nuances and intensities’ (which might also be applied to Miramontes): Lima fundida: Épica y nación criolla en el Perú (Madrid and Frankfurt, 2016), p. 52. 14 Miguel Martínez, Front Lines: Soldiers’ Writing in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Philadelphia, 2016), pp. 67–85, and his ‘Género, imprenta y espacio social: Una “poética de la pólvora” para la épica quinientista’, Hispanic Review, 79.2 (2011), 163–87. The term is a tribute to Michael Murrin, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic (Chicago, 1994), the first systematic study of the impact of the military revolution on Renaissance literature, wherein Murrin coins the similar term ‘gunpowder poetics’. 15 Martínez, Front Lines, p. 1. 16 As Aude Plagnard demonstrates through a study of paratexts, while the first part of Ercilla’s epic affiliates itself with and materially resembles the ‘gunpowder epics’, subsequent editions of the second part also seek more aristocratic backing, while the third part implies an entirely different kind of sociability, with the exclusion of the prefatory material by fellow veterans in favour of pieces contributed by aristocrats

INTRODUCTION

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partly explain why Ercilla set a precedent of exploring the ethics of conflict in strongly empirical rather than theoretical terms. Warfare cannot be understood in Ercilla and his successors other than how it is actually fought in the present. In the last third of the sixteenth century, two further poems which would have a particular influence on the subsequent history of Iberian epic adapted the romanzo form to a more historically distant, classically informed and unified subject matter. Luis de Camões’s Os Lusíadas [The Lusiads] (1572), an account of Vasco da Gama’s first voyage to India (1497–99) and the foundation of the Portuguese overseas empire, came to particular prominence in the Hispanic world on Philip II’s annexation of Portugal and the union of the two Iberian empires in 1580.17 Also in 1580, the long-awaited magnum opus of Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, was published, a poetic reimagining of the First Crusade (1096–99) led by Godfrey of Bouillon and culminating in the Christian ‘liberation’ of Jerusalem. While the poets dealt with in this book show awareness of and react to these innovations, they do not adopt them as a model for their own poems. Tasso and Camões are a concealed presence within Ercilla’s and Miramontes’s works respectively, but the latter construct their poems in many ways against the poetics and values of these two predecessors.18 Oña and Miramontes pay homage to Tasso by incorporating a providential framework that situates their accounts of warfare within a Christian–Infidel matrix, but still owe more to Ercilla; like his poem and like the romanzo, their narratives are centrifugal, resist closure, and – despite cameo appearances of the divine and demonic – still remain firmly in the human, and political, sphere.

and other established poets, a process which developed in tandem with the increase of Ercilla’s literary prestige and his socio-economic status: Une épopée ibérique: Alonso de Ercilla et Jerónimo Corte-Real (1569–1589) [online] (Madrid, 2019), , ch. II, paras 49–52. I have not found evidence for direct influence of the gunpowder epics on Oña and the seventeenth-century poets. 17 See Eugenio Asensio, ‘La fortuna de Os Lusíadas’, in Estudios portugueses (Paris, 1974), pp. 303–24, and Miguel Martínez, ‘A Poet of our Own: The Struggle for Os Lusíadas in the Afterlife of Camões’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 10.1 (2010), 71–94. Three erudite translations into Spanish were published between 1580 and 1591, one of them by Enrique Garcés in Peru. 18 I argue this elsewhere in ‘La presencia oculta de Torquato Tasso en la Tercera parte de La Araucana de Alonso de Ercilla (1589–90)’, Bulletin Hispanique, 121.1 (2019), 73–101, and ‘Os lusíadas and Armas antárticas: Eros, Eris and the Art of Imitation in Colonial Epic’, in Rodrigo Cacho and Imogen Choi, eds, The Rise of Spanish American Poetry, 1500–1700: Literary and Cultural Transmission in the New World (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 222–38. Jaime Nicolopulos, The Poetics of Empire in the Indies: Prophecy and Imitation in ‘La Araucana’ and ‘Os Lusíadas’ (University Park, PA, 2000), discusses Ercilla’s response to Camões.

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Tasso and Camões are nevertheless informative points of comparison. Camões famously adopted the prophetic framework and divine machinery of Virgil’s Aeneid to elaborate a glorious vision of an early modern, global empire of navigation (albeit not without its ‘further voices’),19 and his work points to the importance of empire as another factor in the relationship between conflict and political community and to the significance of prophecy as a literary means of addressing it. The Gerusalemme, in turn, aimed to retain the fascination of the romanzi, with its unbounded imagination, varied digressions, larger-thanlife heroes and love stories across religious divides, but to subordinate it to an explicitly Christian and political purpose. The poem, the Allegoria which was usually printed alongside it, and the treatise on poetics which accompanied it, the Discorsi del poema eroico (1594; an earlier version dates to 1587), foreground the importance of allegory as a way of reading epic politically. According to the Allegoria, the conquest of Jerusalem is a symbolic analogy for the perfect political community: a Christian, monarchical one. In this, Tasso follows in a long tradition of allegorical reading frequently applied to Scripture but also to the classical Greco-Roman tradition, and shows how this could be adapted to an early modern concern with the body politic. While the poems dealt with in this book are not straightforwardly allegorical in this way, and the political communities they depict rarely fit Tasso’s mould, allegory is one filter through which a contemporary reader might have understood their mirroring effect. Through an allegorical lens, the historical subject matter is significant not only in its own right but as a symbol for broader ideas about the ascension and decline of political communities. Allegory, in turn, leads us onto one further criticism sometimes made (or more often assumed) about epic poetry during this period: that because it is a genre that relies heavily on literary formulae with a long past, it tends towards ‘formulaic portrayals of its objects’, fitting the subject to its conventions and incapable of real curiosity about differences in peoples and cultures.20 Such a criticism becomes particularly acute when applied to representations of Amerindian culture, at a time when early efforts to write of Amerindian history and ethnography were made, but often faced difficulties in achieving publication and dissemination. Epic poems were certainly not ethnographic masterpieces – although they did not always shy away from genuine recognition of cultural difference, either, and the representation of indigenous peoples in particular varied in depth according to the authors’ length of residence in the Americas and their degree of familiarity and interactions with native

19 An idea familiar to scholars of Classics through R.O.A.M. Lyne’s Further Voices in Virgil’s Aeneid (Oxford, 1992). 20 Rolena Adorno, The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative (New Haven, CT, 2007), p. 204.

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groups.21 In some ways, however, these limitations also favoured the kind of comparative approach to questions of political community and conflict ethics I have outlined. The works of this period were humanist, in the sense encapsulated by Terence’s maxim that nothing human is alien, and share the conviction of a fundamental common human nature across time and space. As Mercedes Blanco puts it, through this universalising lens, warfare too is ‘a stage or theatre which makes human beings and the peoples of the world actors in the same drama or figures in the same dance’.22 It is what permits the creation of the multiple mirrors and reflections I discuss, the perception of analogies as well as differences between the ‘republican’ community of Arauco and the restive Dutch republic, the indigenous frontier communities of a fabulous Cebu and infernal Antarctic, or the historical Araucanian warriors and the contemporary preoccupations of the province of Chile. Epic held other, more practical attractions for its practitioners too. Many epic poems and romanzi – Ariosto, Tasso, Camões and Ercilla included – were phenomenally popular, and perhaps the most commercially viable form of poetry of the period. La Araucana, for instance, went through eighteen different editions and reprints before 1600, some of them (incredibly, considering its length) pocket-sized, was translated into English and (in 1619) Dutch, was converted into shorter ballads, romances, to be sung and performed, and inspired a number of works of theatre.23 To compose such a poem was not 21 As Mazzotti points out, the writing of epic also carried different stakes for a chapetón author like Ercilla (a relatively short-term resident in the Americas), a criollo like Oña, born on the Arauco frontier, and a baqueano like Miramontes (a long-term resident); as he puts it, creole identity is fundamentally ambivalent, ‘a particular socio-political formation of Neo-European “ethnic” and racial prevalence within a radically heterogeneous and multiracial context’: Lima fundida, p. 15. 22 Mercedes Blanco, ‘La épica áurea como poesía’ in Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Anne Holloway, eds, Los géneros poéticos del Siglo de Oro (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 13–30 (p. 29). 23 In the English and Dutch translations, the war in Arauco is explicitly presented as an analogy for the English colonial venture in Ireland and the defence of the Dutch republic against Habsburg aggression, respectively, lending further support to the view that reading the conflicts as a mirror for other theatres of war and political communities came naturally to its early readers: see Patricia Palmer, The Severed Head and the Grafted Tongue: Literature, Translation and Violence in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 93–124, and Barbara Fuchs, ‘Travelling Epic: Translating Ercilla’s La Araucana in the Old World’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 36.2 (2006), 380–95. The Dutch translation by Isaac Janszonius still lacks a proper study but is briefly discussed in Martínez, Front Lines, pp. 160–61, Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 206–07, and Lisa Kattenberg, ‘Braving the Batavians: Classical Models and Countering Rebellion in the Spanish Empire’, forthcoming in Joris Oddens, Mart

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just a commercial venture, but strove for ‘what we would today call creating a myth’.24 In addition, for the most part, epics seem to have been peculiarly resistant to formal censorship, other than when they intervened very directly in the controversial political manoeuvres of their patrons.25 This is not entirely surprising; the Inquisition and its Index of Prohibited Books was, with a few signal exceptions, notoriously unconcerned with works of imaginative literature. It remains true, though, that even when the poems deal with sensitive topics which in other contexts might have been restricted information, such as the pre-colonial history of indigenous peoples and their religious customs, this does not attract official censure or impede their circulation. This is in stark contrast to works of history and ethnography on the Indies, which often encountered direct or indirect suppression, risking prohibition by the Council of the Indies in addition to the regular mechanisms of censorship, and remained in manuscript, at least during the reign of Philip II.26 Whether the poets could gain the necessary financial backing and patronage to see the work into print was another matter; writers in this period were still vulnerable in other ways, and Chapters 3 and 4 will discuss the difficulties faced by those such as Oña and Miramontes who lacked the resources to publish and publicise their poems themselves. It is arguable, though, that things could be said in an epic poem Rutjes and Arthur Weststeijn, eds, Discourses of Decline: Essays on Republicanism in Honor of Wyger R.E. Velema (Leiden). On the works of theatre inspired by La Araucana and Arauco domado, see my article ‘The Spectacle of Conquest: Epic Conflicts on the Seventeenth-Century Spanish Stage’, in Fiona Macintosh, Justine McConnell, Stephen Harrison and Claire Kenward, eds, Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century (Oxford, 2019), pp. 336–50. 24 Mercedes Blanco, Góngora heroico: Las ‘Soledades’ y la tradición épica (Madrid, 2012), p. 11. 25 This was the case for Oña, copies of whose poem were confiscated by the Archbishop of Lima and attacked by other local dignitaries, as I discuss in Chapter 3; and for Lope de Vega’s 1598 Dragontea on the death of Francis Drake, which was denounced to the Council of the Indies by the royal chronicler Antonio de Herrera, as Elizabeth Wright discusses in Pilgrimage to Patronage: Lope de Vega and the Court of Philip III, 1598–1621 (Lewisburg, PA, 2001), pp. 24–51. Even in these cases, interested attempts at restricting the poems’ circulation proved only partially successful. 26 Two informative studies of censorship in this period which focus on the unusual case of Jerónimo Román y Zamora’s Repúblicas del mundo [Republics of the World] (1575, 1595), with differing conclusions, are Rolena Adorno, ‘Censorship and its Evasion: Jerónimo Román and Bartolomé de las Casas’, Hispania, 75.4 (1992), 812–27, and Joan-Pau Rubiés, ‘The Concept of Gentile Civilization in Missionary Discourse and its European Reception: Mexico, Peru and China in the Repúblicas del mundo by Jerónimo Román (1575–95)’, in Charlotte de Castelnau-L’Estoile, and others, eds, Missions d’évangélisation et circulation des savoirs: XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Madrid, 2011), pp. 311–50.

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which might face more scrutiny in a chronicle, a scholastic disquisition, or a political treatise. One other form of writing with which epic often affiliated itself in this period, particularly when giving an account of recent wars, was historiography. The Neronian poet Lucan, who recounted the (relatively) recent history of the wars between Julius Caesar and Pompey in his Pharsalia or De Bello Civili [Concerning the Civil War], and who was adopted as ‘nuestro Lucano’ in Spain because of his birth in Roman Corduba, provided a prestigious precedent for blurring boundaries between the two genres.27 The widely read and abundantly annotated prose translation of the Pharsalia by Martín Lasso de Oropesa (c. 1538–40, with numerous subsequent editions) only added to this confusion, with its titling variously as La historia que escribió en Latín el poeta Lucano [The History which the Poet Lucan Wrote in Latin] or Lucano, poeta y historiador antiguo: En que se tratan las guerras Pharsalicas [Lucan, Ancient Poet and Historian: In which Are Narrated the Pharsalian Wars]. Epic poems often shared shelf space and a common readership with works of history in the period,28 and in the prologue to the first part of La Araucana, Ercilla makes the historical veracity of his narrative and its military subject matter his primary justification for publication: ‘considerando ser la historia verdadera y de cosas de guerra, a las cuales hay tantos aficionados, me he resuelto en imprimirla’ [considering that this is a true history about the business of warfare, which has so many followers, I have resolved to print it].29 Oña follows suit in describing his book as a ‘grave historia’ [serious history], one which sets out to make good Ercilla’s supposed omissions, and although the opening to Armas antárticas is a classical epic proem evoking Camões, Tasso and Virgil, elsewhere the poet muses on the challenges of striking a balance between truth and poetic fiction in a historia such as his own, and harks back to the ‘poetas coronistas’ [poet-chroniclers] of the classical past.30 27 In

Books of the Brave (Berkeley, CA, 1992), pp. 203–04, Irving Leonard demonstrates the frequency with which Lucan appeared on the inventory of books destined for export to the Indies, for instance, although not the preferred edition or editions. 28 As Vega argues, based on a study of libraries in ‘Idea de la épica’, pp. 103–35. 29 Alonso de Ercilla, La Araucana, ed. by Isaías Lerner, 2nd edn (Madrid, 1998), ‘Prólogo’, p. 69; quotations from the first two parts of the poem are taken from this edition based on that of Madrid, 1597, and designated by canto and stanza number, except where there is significant variation from an earlier edition or state, in which case the variant used is indicated in a footnote. There is as yet no reliable critical edition of the poem, although one by Luis Gómez Canseco is forthcoming in the Biblioteca Clásica of the Real Academia Española. Translations from the primary texts are my own. 30 Pedro de Oña, Arauco domado, ed. by Ornella Gianesin (Pavia, 2014), ‘Exordio’ stanza 17, p. 85: quotations from the poem are taken from this critical edition derived from the various states of the 1596 princeps, and designated by canto and stanza

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Admittedly, historia is a slippery term in Spanish meaning both ‘history’ and ‘story’, and in this period it was used both for factual histories in prose and for the Byzantine (or Greek), Moorish and chivalric romance in works such as Heliodorus’s Historia etiópica [An Ethiopian Story], the anonymous Historia del Abencerraje y la hermosa Jarifa [The Tale of Abencerraje and the Lovely Jarifa], or La historia del emperador Carlomagno y de los doce pares de Francia [The History of Emperor Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers of France], the first two of which were also significant influences on Miramontes in particular. Nevertheless, the poets’ insistence on the truth of their narratives, and their occasional references to their methodology, marks out their discussions as engaging to differing degrees with emergent theories of early modern historiography. La Araucana, especially, goes on to stress that various differing accounts of events which happened before the narrator’s arrival in Chile have been compiled and compared, and that thereafter Ercilla’s status as an eyewitness who professes impartiality gives ground for the reader’s trust.31 As this discussion implies, history in this period had a much broader meaning than it does today, and could encompass poetry, geographical descriptions and cosmography, for instance, as well as texts which are closer to the

number. Juan de Miramontes Zuázola, Armas antárticas, ed. by Paul Firbas (Lima, 2006), V. 369–72, X. 822–26, pp. 268–69, 388–89: quotations from the poem are taken from this critical edition based on the autograph manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional de Enpaña, MS BNE 3956, and are designated by canto and stanza numbers, which in this case are numbered sequentially throughout the whole poem rather than within each canto. 31 XII. 69–70. Ercilla’s sources are most likely a mixture of oral testimonies and, perhaps, relaciones: he also refers briefly (IV. 70) to a Latin chronicle of Chile and Peru by the humanist and former Latin tutor to himself and to the future Philip II, Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella (c. 1520–1593), probably the De rebus indicis, but this deals only with events up to 1542. He demonstrates a limited awareness of the only other chronicle of Chile known to be extant in 1569, Gerónimo de Vivar’s unpublished 1558 Crónica de los reinos de Chile [Chronicle of the Kingdoms of Chile], whether directly or through conversations with Vivar, as demonstrated by Giorgio Antei in La invención del reino de Chile: Gerónimo de Vivar y los primeros cronistas chilenos (Bogotá, 1989), and Gilberto Triviños in ‘El mito del tiempo de los héroes en Valdivia, Vivar y Ercilla’, Revista Chilena de Literatura, 49 (1996), 5–26. It is not clear whether he later read Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo’s 1575 Historia de todas las cosas que han acaecido en el Reino de Chile [History of All the Things that Have Happened in the Kingdom of Chile], which does, for its part, respond to Ercilla’s Primera parte; the chronicle remained unpublished until the nineteenth century but was sent to the Council of the Indies in 1576.

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modern definition.32 Models of historical writing were evolving with much experiment, and the points of contact between epic and historiography cannot be really traced without consideration of the particular forms that the latter took between the mid-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. One of these, which had a particular bearing on the poems’ treatment of political communities and the ethics of conflict, is the humanist vision of history as a tool for political education. Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose influence on the thought and literature of sixteenth-century Spain and Spanish America was profound, recommended in his 1516 mirror of princes that rulers peruse the Greco-Roman historians in order to find examples of moral virtue and vice in governance.33 Increasingly, though, the study of history came to be associated with a realist and empiricist understanding of the political art. When the Valencian humanist Fadrique Furió Ceriol affirmed in 1559 that the perfect counsellor must be ‘grande historiador’, a great historian, his maxim had very specific implications for the kinds of history that should be read – those of the prince’s state, its neighbours, allies and enemies – and of how they should be read. For him, the focus above all should be on changes of rulers and on ‘el alma de la guerra’ [the spirit of war]: how wars were incited, fought, maintained, negotiated and ended; the reasons for losses and victories; the causes, effects and resolution of rebellions. In this way a reader might acquire a mastery of all the ‘mañas’ and ‘dobles tratos’ [ruses and double-dealings] of war, superior to that which a veteran might obtain through experience alone.34 In this he coincides with Niccolò Machiavelli, who encapsulated ‘all that I have learned about the conditions of the world through long experience and constant reading’ precisely in the form of a commentary on the Roman historian Livy in order to redeem the corruption of governance from ‘people not having a true understanding of the histories’.35 In political treatises such as these, history 32 Plagnard and Blanco give nuanced analyses of the porosity of the boundaries between history and epic poetry in this period, and of the ways in which epic is distinguishable from history, in Plagnard, Une épopée ibérique, ch. II, and Blanco, ‘La épica áurea como poesía’, and ‘Sur les frontières mouvantes de l’historiographie et de l’épopée: L’Araucana d’Alonso de Ercilla (1569–89)’, in Paloma Bravo, and others, eds, La renaissance des genres: Pratiques et théories des genres littéraires entre Italie et Espagne (XVe–XVIIe siècles) (Dijon, 2012), pp. 241–65. 33 Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. by Lisa Jardine, trans. by Neil Cheshire and Michael Heath (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 62–64. The classic study of the influence of Erasmus in Spain remains that of Marcel Bataillon, Érasme et l’Espagne: Recherches sur l’histoire spirituelle du XVIe siècle (Paris, 1937). 34 Fadrique Furió Ceriol, El concejo y consejeros del Príncipe [The Council and Counsellors of the Prince], ed. by Henry Méchoulan (Madrid, 1993), pp. 32–35. 35 Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses, trans. by James B. Atkinson and David Sices, in The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli’s Discourses and Guicciardini’s Considerations (DeKalb, IL, 2002), ‘Dedication’, p. 13; ‘Preface B’, p. 22.

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is a storehouse of practical examples of how political communities rise and fall, how power is lost or maintained, and on the ways in which warfare plays out in these political contexts. This humanist understanding, and the Machiavellian paradigm in particular, are crucial to the way Ercilla constructs his own narrative of the wars in Chile as a mirror for broader problems of rebellion and governance in a composite empire. The sixteenth century also heralded a series of historical writings which expanded their vision beyond Europe. The trend began early with chronicles of the Americas, all of which, in Rolena Adorno’s terms, are concerned to some degree with the ‘polemics of possession’, the question of the legitimacy of the Spanish presence in the Indies and of the status of Amerindian peoples and societies.36 Against the background of these crónicas de Indias, the poetic representation of indigenous political communities, their relative status and their capacity for warfare is always highly fraught. Giuseppe Marcocci has recently added to these a series of histories of the world, which burgeoned into a variety of forms during precisely the same period as the compositions of Ercilla, Oña and Miramontes. In Marcocci’s view, this was a ‘brief season’ in which historians attempted to find alternatives to the limiting framework of medieval universal histories, seeking new ways to capture and connect the polyphony and multiplicity of pasts across the globe.37 In their own way, the historical epics of this book give expression to the same search. Situated in their local contexts, the poets nevertheless contemplate the globe as a whole: while critics have tended to read them along the axis of relations between Europe and the Americas, in fact they seek to incorporate political communities separated by both space and time across not only the Atlantic but also Africa and Asia, albeit following the trajectory of travel of Iberian imperial interests. Their particular focus on contemporary societies and recent conflicts shares with the most popular world histories and their readers a desire for novelty and an interest in the synchronicity of ‘news’ as it occurs.38 Unlike the historians, and despite their self-fashioning as impartial chroniclers, the poets need not be bound entirely in their narratives by what actually happened in the conflicts they recall, much of which, especially in the opposing camp, was of course unknowable. Even before the dominance of Aristotle’s Poetics, which drew a firm dividing line between historical and poetic truth, 36 Adorno,

Polemics, p. 4. The Globe on Paper, p. 5. 38 The plethora of poems published in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto are another compelling example of this trend. As their recent editor Sarah Spence puts it, ‘Lepanto’s immediate international resonance, amplified through broadsheets, letters, and printed poems, is the Renaissance news story that comes closest to a “news event” of our time’: The Battle of Lepanto, ed. and trans. by Elizabeth R. Wright, Sarah Spence and Andrew Lemons (Cambridge, MA, 2014), p. xx. 37 Marocci,

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poets could fill in gaps in their accounts, treat events selectively or invent new ones, play around with chronology and different ways of ordering episodes, and in general limit themselves only to what seemed credible, or verisimilar, and in some cases allow their imagination to roam even freer than that, all while still holding that what they wrote was in some way ‘true’. This means that at times the political and ethical questions that most vexed them emerge even more clearly than in their historical counterparts, because they are free to let them play out and repeat themselves, consciously or otherwise, in many different guises. Chapter 1, ‘Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima’, outlines the local and intellectual contexts to which the three poems were attuned. Marcocci observes that the authors of world histories often led ‘unusual lives’, and the same might be said for the writers of the historical epics considered here, two of whom are veterans themselves and all of whom are intimately conditioned by their position in the ‘contact zone’ between different cultures.39 The context of their engagement with conflict ethics and political community therefore needs to be reconstructed in detail. The chapter is attuned, firstly, to the intellectual context of the works’ composition, the background of sixteenthcentury debates over Just War Theory, political community and the Indies, which will allow for an examination of just what might have been meant by terms such as ‘empire’, ‘just war’ and ‘the republic’ in the period. As Quentin Skinner reminds us, ‘texts are concerned with their own questions and not with ours’, and this kind of framing is necessary if we are, ‘so far as possible, to see things their way’, bearing in mind that, especially in the case of poetry, the texts’ engagement with ideas may well be an attempt to ‘think out problems’ rather than elaborate a coherent doctrine.40 The chapter goes on to add to this linguistic context a local one: as Gabrielle Spiegel puts it, texts are ‘situated uses of language’, and each work emerges ‘within a local environment of social and political networks which it seeks to shape and which are being organized around it’.41 Ercilla had already returned to Madrid several years before publishing La Araucana, although he famously claims to have begun composing it during the Arauco campaign itself, but 39 Marocci, The Globe on Paper, p. xx. The notion of the ‘contact zone’ is Rolena Adorno’s, and first appeared in her introduction to Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica y buen gobierno, ed. by John V. Murra, Rolena Adorno and Jorge L. Urioste (Madrid, 1987), I, xviii. Mary Louise Pratt later popularised the idea (unfortunately without due attribution), in ‘Arts of the Contact Zone’, Profession (1991), 33–40, and in the introduction to Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London and New York, 1992). 40 Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, 3 vols (Cambridge, 2002), I, 88, 3, 78. 41 Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ‘History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, 65.1 (1990), 59–86 (p. 77).

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both Oña and Miramontes composed their epics while resident in Lima. Their poems are part of the beginnings of a literary tradition in the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and the chapter gives a sense of the vantage point this city offered them. The chapter engages with Lima as a ‘lettered city’ and a ‘global city’, coming into its own as a centre of policymaking for the Viceroyalty in this period. It was a place on which all kinds of interest group converged, and in which all kinds of debate could be had. The high degree of migration and mobility, Lima’s outlook on both the Indo-Pacific and the Andean hinterland as well as the Atlantic crossing to Europe, and the complex ethnic make-up of the city, influenced in turn the perspective of the literary community which was developing over the turn of the century. The remaining chapters constitute case studies of the three epics in question. In Chapter 2, ‘Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana’, I consider the long and complex publication history of the poem, and stress the importance – still rarely treated with any degree of seriousness by critics – of treating the three parts of the poem as distinct compositions, arising at different historical moments and asking different questions of their readers. There is a high degree of intratextual allusion and repetition which quite deliberately flags the ways in which the text evolves through the three partes. In the first part, the Araucanians are presented as an unlikely military republic, one with echoes of both contemporary Venice and republican Rome filtered through the lens of Machiavelli’s Arte della guerra [The Art of War] and Discorsi as well as Virgil and Lucan. As they move from a strategy of defence against Spanish conquest to aggressive expansion and territorial encroachment, they raise the question of republicanism and empire which was one of Machiavelli’s central concerns: can a republic remain within its bounds? Does expansion always lead to decline? In another volte-face, the reader realises that the Araucanians mirror the Spanish themselves as well as their traditional enemies, and that the question of empire reflects back on them. In the Segunda parte, the emphasis shifts more to rebellion than expansion; the Araucanian theatre of war is explicitly juxtaposed with other military fronts, most notably that of Flanders, and the problem of how far a war can be conducted ethically and won on multiple fronts without the physical presence of the monarch is raised. Finally, the Tercera parte presents an even more fragmented series of mirror images: the end of the war in Arauco which is actually not an end at all, the incipient conquest of ‘another new world’ to the south, the Carthaginian republic of an anti-Virgilian Dido, and the outbreak of hostilities between Spain and Portugal as Philip II prepared to annex the latter. This puzzling conclusion to the poem is, I argue, a deliberate eschewal of closure, which shows the ultimate failure of the Machiavellian logic tested out at the beginning, and expands the notion of political community to consider non-Christian republics more widely, with the Ottoman Empire particularly in mind.

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Chapter 3, ‘The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado’, shows how Oña, who was born in the frontier town of Los Confines de Angol in what is now Chile, rewrites La Araucana to respond not only to his explicit and self-interested commission by the outgoing viceroy of Peru and former commander of the Chilean campaign, García Hurtado de Mendoza, but also to the broader anxieties and hopes for the Chilean frontier felt by the settler communities there on the eve of another major indigenous rebellion. Ercilla’s Araucanian military republic is systematically deconstructed, but in its place a virgin land of promise and potential coexistence is erected, all the more poignant for its remoteness from reality. The consistent panegyric of García in his different roles, as capitán general in Chile, and as a viceroy faced with the threat of a tax rebellion in Quito and the incursion of the pirate Richard Hawkins into Pacific waters, also allows Oña to elaborate a kind of mirror of princes for colonial governors, their political virtues and interactions with the república de indios and de españoles; his text consistently portrays colonial rule as the search for a Golden Mean between extremes which in the last reckoning is more pragmatic than moral. Arauco domado also develops in much more detail than La Araucana a picture of the urban communities around the Viceroyalty, which are at once fragile and volatile and capable of concerted action when under threat. ‘Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola’s Armas antárticas’, the fourth chapter, picks up where Oña had trailed off, with the threat of English and Dutch piracy to the many coastal settlements of the Viceroyalty. While the scholarship often presents Miramontes, who spent most of his career as a soldier in Lima’s coastal guard, as a rather hawkish figure, banging the drum of the Counter-Reformation crusade against heresy, I argue that in fact the poem shows a consistent scepticism regarding imperial expansion, and advocates a military preparedness which is, in his own terms, purely defensive. This becomes apparent by various means: in Miramontes’s presentation of the frontiers of the Spanish Empire as a sinister no man’s land, in the pervasive language of frustrated erotic desire used as a mirror for colonial yearnings, and in the mysterious absence of Providence from a supposedly evangelical war. The geographically dispersed conflicts which populate the narrative also build up a picture of the república de españoles as a political community free from the vices which had troubled Oña’s portrayal, and of viceregal rule as a kind of middle way between republicanism and monarchy, or a Golden Mean between the two vicious extremes of despotism and liberty. The African cimarrones, at once within and outside this sphere, are paradoxically depicted as Christian and pagan, utopian and savage, African and colonial, in such a way as to hold up a mirror to the unspoken problem of slavery and the potential for rebellion. This trio of poems are only the tip of the iceberg of what Raúl MarreroFente has called the ‘ghost genre’ of Hispanic epic: out of more than a

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hundred penned during the Spanish Golden age, most are still in need of more scholarly scrutiny, better critical editions, and even bringing to light from the archives.42 Even restricting analysis to the decades dealt with here, and to Peru,43 other works could be productively considered, such as Diego de Hojeda’s La Christiada [The Christiad], completed around the same time as Armas antárticas, likewise dedicated to Viceroy Juan de Mendoza y Luna, and framed even more explicitly as a mirror of princes; Martín del Barco Centenera’s 1602 Argentina, recounting the exploratory expeditions and conflicts of the River Plate; or Diego Arias de Saavedra’s unpublished Purén indómito [Purén Unconquered] (c. 1602–04), attesting against Oña, with the urgency of a soldier and settler on the ground in Chile, that the indigenous communities there were very far from ‘tamed’. I choose to discuss fully a few outstanding examples rather than engaging more cursorily with the whole tradition: the works I select are particularly rich and complex in their thinking around politics and warfare, as well as being poems of significant literary merit. The fact that Oña was responding closely to Ercilla, and Miramontes to both previous poets, also makes a dedicated comparison of the three particularly productive. With the partial exception of La Araucana, they are little known except to scholars of colonial literature, and the detailed case studies are necessary to establish on solid ground a new framework for reading the epic of this period.44 It is hoped that they will encourage further research in this field as well as serving as a useful introduction to the individual works. It is hoped, too, that the book will prove valuable to scholars of Comparative Literature and the Renaissance, who might be more familiar with epic in other guises. Epic has always been regarded as an intensely political genre. The Roman poet Horace, in his Ars poetica, already delineates a set of eminently political topics for epic – ‘res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella’ [the deeds of kings and generals and grim wars] (73) – and, by and large, criticism on the politics of epic both comparatively and in the Iberian world has not strayed far beyond these bounds, with the addition of empire and emergent criollismo or proto-nationalism.45 This book opens up other avenues derived 42 Raúl Marrero-Fente, Poesía épica colonial del siglo XVI: Historia, teoría y política (Madrid and Frankfurt, 2017), p. 11. 43 My use of the terms ‘Peru’ and ‘Peruvian’ throughout this book is loosely descriptive rather than prescriptive, denoting the territories which constituted the Viceroyalty of Peru during the period rather than the modern nation state. 44 Elizabeth Davis reflects on the processes of canon formation, and the reasons for epic’s frequent exclusion, in her introduction to Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain (Columbia, MI, 2000), pp. 1–19. 45 One exception is Christopher N. Warren’s Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580–1680 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 32–61, which demonstrates how, in the context of early

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from the poems’ intellectual and colonial contexts. In addition to kingship, the poets were concerned with viceregal power and the problems of colonial governance, problems which did not feature in the mirror of princes tradition and which forced them to be creative in devising their own language and imagery for the evolving practice of viceregal rule. The conflicts of the colonial sphere often took new forms, too: rebellion, mutiny and dissent; pockets of ethnic resistance; piracy, and frontier campaigns, harder to define, harder to regulate and harder to win than the ‘grim wars’ of conventional pitched battles and sieges. Empire as a static formulation rarely appears in these poems, but Armas antárticas and La Araucana return insistently to what I call the imperial urge, a longing for territorial expansion conceptualised both in political terms, and as an insidious language of desire. Especially forgotten, though, has been another topic integral to the formation of political thought during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: that of political community. Unquestioned assumptions regarding the elitism of epic, a genre which launches itself into the sublime ‘plebe relicta | sub pedibus’ [leaving the crowds beneath his feet], as Marco Girolamo Vida’s De arte poetica (1527) pithily counsels the aspiring author, have obscured the extent to which the body politic itself emerges as a subject of interest, alongside its rulers, heroes and generals.46 For Ercilla, the fascination remains largely with military bodies and aristocratic republics, while in the civic environment of Lima a broader range of constituents of urban society, including those belonging to the lower strata, appear, a development which is in tandem with formal and generic experimentation. In studies of Hispanic colonial literature, the temptation has sometimes been to forget that problems of armed conflict persisted at all. Even during the apparent lull of the reign of Philip III (1598–1621), the pax hispanica remained more of an aspiration than a reality, even in the relative stability and prosperity of Lima. If the massive conquests and civil wars of the early period of the Viceroyalty had passed into historical memory, conflicts were still experienced in the Americas and evolved into quite distinctive, if equally troubling and ill-defined, forms, which the conventions and resources of the poetic imagination are employed to address. The final word in this discussion must go to the poets themselves, whose degree of agency to intervene indirectly in the complex ethical and political debates of their environments has not always been sufficiently recognised. The efforts, confusion and surprises which come of reading their works with these contexts in mind constitute part of the excitement of exploring how their thinking begins to grapple with an unfamiliar and uncharted political world. Their attempt to intellectually modern England, epic and international law developed in tandem, with epic being particularly well suited to considering ‘the hard case in the law of nations’ (p. 32). 46 The De Arte Poetica of Marco Girolamo Vida, ed. and trans. by Ralph G. Williams (New York, 1976), I. 6–7 (p. 2).

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accommodate new and unpredictable patterns of warfare and violence might, in some respects, resonate more with the uncertainties of this dawning third millennium than the scrupulous logic of the scholastics. The questions are theirs, of course – but they are also ours.

1

Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima Man is a political animal, and naturally desirous of forming a political community, both for pleasure and out of necessity. Thus went the neo-Aristotelian convention, based on generations of commentaries on Aristotle’s Politics, and one of the premises of this book is that there would be nothing inherently surprising to an early modern reader, at least in the Catholic world, about the idea that groups of people all over the globe, even those most distant and distinct from themselves, could form a properly constituted republic. This remained true even when there were differences of religion, and even when the community’s governance did not conform to the most widely recognised form of monarchy. If the political community, which might also be referred to as a republic or commonwealth (Latin res publica), a city (civitas, rather than the built environment of the urbs), a polity (polis), a kingdom (regnum) or the body politic (corpus politicum), terms which were not always strictly synonymous, was in accordance with nature, it was nevertheless also a work of artifice, something that is not given, but has to be built by human agency.1 To acknowledge its existence was only the beginning, and said very little about how any given political communities might act and interact. The body politic was a theme which preoccupied humanists and those who professed the scholastic tradition of natural law, but also writers and thinkers of many different hues.2 Annabel Brett shows how a concern with political community underlay all sorts of problems: some more obvious, such as why and how republics were founded, but others apparently unrelated, such as whether one should allow freedom of movement to beggars, which 1

See Brett, Changes of State, p. 1. On notions of urbs and civitas, see Richard Kagan, Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493–1793 (New Haven, CT, 2000), pp. 1–18. 2 On the broad differences between the humanist/oratorical and scholastic/ theological approaches (in this case applied to Just War Theory), see Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford, 1999), pp. 16–77.

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touched on the permeability of borders, and who falls inside and outside them; how laws bind individual humans; or the meaning of liberty and slavery, all questions which were dealt with at length by the Spanish Scholastics from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Another approach was that of the humanist authors of political treatises, among whom the figure of Niccolò Machiavelli loomed large. Analyses of the influence of Machiavelli in Iberia in both the literary and intellectual spheres have overwhelmingly focussed on the art of government as represented in Il principe [The Prince] (1513, published 1532), and seventeenth-century anti-Machiavellian rhetoric and reason-of-state approaches to sovereignty, despite abundant evidence that the works which most circulated in the sixteenth century were in fact the Arte della guerra [Art of War] (1521) and the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio [Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy] (c. 1517, published 1531), which were published in a Spanish adaptation and translation respectively.3 I analyse the impact of Machiavelli in more detail in the following chapter, but for now suffice it to say that the Discorsi, through the lens of the ancient Roman republic, are concerned with republics, republicanism, and the problematic question of how republics form and sustain empires, while the formation of the ruler is a secondary (if still important) concern.4 For writers who, like Machiavelli, examined the body politic in the real world, through the vicissitudes of history, the overwhelming impression was often one of its fragility. The Discorsi show how prone to flux the political form of a community is: beginning with anarchy, a people might progress through a cycle of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy (the three classic forms of government given by Aristotle) before cascading back until the result is anarchy again. Expanding a political community into an empire made up of various different nationes (meaning peoples, not ‘nations’ in the modern sense) carries even greater risk. For all the noise of Spanish imperial propaganda of Charles V and his successors, there was always a strand of thought acutely aware that empires are not irreversible, and do not last forever. Uncertainty regarding expansion was partly a consequence of the Aristotelian 3

This is the approach adopted not only in classic studies such as José Antonio Maravall’s ‘Maquiavelo y maquiavelismo en España’, in Estudios de historia del pensamiento español (Madrid, 1983), I, 39–72, and J.A. Fernández-Santamaría’s Reason of State and Statecraft in Spanish Political Thought (Lanham, MD, 1983), but also in Keith David Howard’s recent reanalysis The Reception of Machiavelli in Early Modern Spain (Woodbridge, 2014), despite its important insights in other respects. The material history of Machiavelli’s circulation in Spain is explored in Helena Puigdomènech, Maquiavelo en España: Presencia de sus obras en los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid, 1988). 4 On the interconnectedness of Machiavelli’s republican and imperial thinking, see Mikael Hörnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire (Cambridge, 2004).



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legacy, according to which the most natural political community was a city state. As I.A.A. Thompson has demonstrated, until well into the seventeenth century, the first expression of patria and community was in one’s city or home town, and the reality of its jurisdiction within larger units ‘did not lead to the acceptance of the kingdom, the monarchy, or the empire as a natural community obliging the same loyalty and sacrifice as its component parts’.5 The Spanish theologian Domingo de Soto (1494–1560), along with many of his fellow Dominicans, showed considerable scepticism towards notions of empire in particular: an empire, he contended, was in essence a very large commonwealth, necessarily limited in space as well as time, which made universal empire a practical impossibility.6 This prompts the question of how big an empire can grow before it can no longer function as a body politic. The analogy frequently drawn between the Spanish and Roman empires could be problematic and destabilising, and was even further complicated in the Americas by the widespread recognition that the Incas, too, had been empirebuilders, with much to be said in their favour.7 Little wonder, then, that for a writer such as Jerónimo de Román y Zamora, in his historical survey of (many of) the Repúblicas del mundo [Republics of the World] (1575, 1595), as he contemplated the many fallen empires of the world in contrast to the unique stability of Venice, ‘no está la felicidad de un imperio en tener gran potencia, mas en saberse conservar y yr de cada día en mejor’ [the felicity of an empire does not consist of having great power, but in being able to conserve and continuously improve itself].8 Survival, let alone prosperity, could not be taken for granted. The mid-sixteenth-century debates over the legitimacy of the wars of conquest and the rights of dominion over American territory and peoples introduced further uncertainty into what was otherwise a widely accepted convention that the formation of commonwealths was a universal human phenomenon. These controversies, which reached their apogee in the 1550–51 Valladolid Debate between the humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda 5 I.A.A. Thompson, ‘Castile, Spain and the Monarchy: The Political Community from patria natural to patria nacional’, in Richard L. Kagan and Geoffrey Parker, eds, Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World: Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 125–59 (p. 128). 6 Anthony Pagden, The Burdens of Empire (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 52–53; on opposition to world rule as a distinctively Dominican strain of thought, see Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace, pp. 68–70. 7 See David Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical Models in SixteenthCentury Spanish America (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006), and MacCormack, On the Wings of Time. 8 Jerónimo Román y Zamora, Repúblicas del mundo (Medina del Campo, 1575), fol. 371r.

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(1494–1573) and the Dominican Bishop of Chiapas Bartolomé de las Casas (c. 1484–1566), have often been cast as a polemic about race avant la lettre, largely because of Sepúlveda’s identification of the Amerindians with the ‘natural slaves’ written about by Aristotle.9 The two sides were, however, much less concerned with Amerindians as individuals than as a collective, and it was quite clear that the idea that Amerindian societies constituted true political communities to begin with was not self-evident. The issue, for Sepúlveda, was not so much that Amerindians were inherently inferior, physically, spiritually or intellectually, to the Spaniards – he admitted that they were fully human and even articulated a vague hope that a time might come in which the fruits of their new civility might lead to the Spaniards ‘mitigating their dominion’ – but that their customs and institutions went against the precepts of natural law.10 The crux of his argument was that the Amerindian polity was unsuited to self-government, and that the need for evangelisation and to prevent the crimes of human sacrifice and cannibalism justified the waging of war and usurpation of political authority by the Spanish Crown. In response, Las Casas stressed that the Americas were constituted of many diverse peoples and legitimate political communities, most of which were free from such defects. He also relativised the notion of barbarity by positing four categories of barbarism, into which even the Greeks, Romans and Spaniards with their unquestionably ‘political institutions’ might fall because they also practised barbarous customs, and asserted that Aristotle’s natural slaves, who ‘do not have a state nor a politically organised city [and] lack a prince, laws and institutions’, constituted a few nomadic peoples scattered in small numbers all over the world, who could not in any case, according to Christian morality, be compelled to submit by force.11 Although neither side ‘won’ the debate conclusively, Sepúlveda’s position on natural slavery and the absence of true Amerindian government emerged discredited. As has been argued recently, the upshot of the disputes was that

9 The classic exposition of this view is Lewis Hanke’s Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study of Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Chicago, 1959). Sepúlveda was not in fact the first to apply Aristotle’s idea – indeed, Tuck regards him as ‘an almost embarrassingly good example of an early sixteenth-century ultra-Ciceronian humanist’ in this respect (The Rights of War and Peace, p. 43) – and in reinventing it he had to attempt a reconciliation with the 1537 Papal bull ‘Sublimis Deus’ explicitly recognising the full humanity of the Amerindians and forbidding their enslavement. 10 Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Demócrates segundo; o, De las justas causas de la guerra contra los indios, bilingual Spanish/Latin edition by Ángel Losada (Madrid, 1984), p. 79. 11 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apología; o, Declaración y defensa universal de los derechos del hombre y de los pueblos, ed. by Vidal Abril Castelló and María Asunción Sánchez Manzano (Valladolid, 2000), p. 22.



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apologists for the Spanish imperial project were forced to accept the more moderate views advocated earlier by the Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, in his two Latin relectiones, or lectures, De indis [On the Amerindians], delivered in 1539 and first published in 1557.12 Vitoria’s interventions in the disputes appeared to lend support to both sides. On the one hand, he rejected most of the current justifications for the conquests, and went so far as to assert that ‘the Spaniards, when they first sailed to the lands of the barbarians, carried with them no right at all to occupy their countries’.13 On the other, his contention that a limited aggression was justified in order to secure the right of ‘travellers’ to enter, settle, and exploit a territory, and to preach the Gospel, ‘was seen at the time, and has been seen since, simply as a green light to imperialism and colonialism’.14 His approach to the Amerindian commonwealth was similarly ambivalent. Early on in the first lecture he takes for granted that the Amerindians meet Aristotle’s criteria for civility, including a system of laws and government, but later goes on to tentatively suggest that they might be close enough to a state of irrationality to be ‘unsuited to setting up or administering a commonwealth’ (p. 290). The debate over the Amerindians, then, left a number of gaps when it came to ideas of political community, leaving the theme open to further exploration and exploitation by later authors in a variety of genres. As the above discussion shows, in the Americas at least, the discussion of political community was inextricably bound up from the beginning with Just War Theory; in turn, the American context destabilised thinking concerning both. The official question to be debated at Valladolid was whether it was lawful for the king of Spain to wage war on the Indians before preaching the faith to them, and the full title of Vitoria’s second lecture was in fact De Indis relectio posterior, sive de iure belli [Second Lecture on the Amerindians, or on the Laws of War] and primarily took the form of a discussion of the Christian ethics of declaring and waging a just war, since, as he put it, the Spanish occupation of the Americas was ‘most defensible in terms of the laws of war’ (p. 295). Moreover, while the discussion might have taken shape at court and in the universities, it was also very present and immediate to soldiers fighting on the ground. Ercilla might have been familiar with the arguments of Vitoria and Sepúlveda through his upbringing at court as a page of the future Philip II, and through the legacy of his father, Fortún García de Ercilla, also known as Fortunius Garcia, a brilliant and prolific jurist whose career in the royal administration was cut short by his untimely death in 1534, and who

12

Rubiés, ‘The Concept of Gentile Civilization’, p. 328. Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings, ed. and trans. by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cambridge, 1991), p. 264. 14 Brett, Changes of State, p. 14. 13

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was acquainted with Sepúlveda from his studies in Bologna.15 Whether or not Ercilla had absorbed the arguments before his departure to Chile, though, he could not have failed to confront them during the campaign. One of the chaplains accompanying the army from Lima in 1556, Fray Gil González de San Nicolás, soon gained a reputation for fiery preaching inspired by the ideas of his fellow Dominicans Vitoria and Las Casas. No sooner had he set foot in Chile than he began to condemn the war against the Araucanians as unjust, first in a private admonition to the commander, García Hurtado de Mendoza, then in a kind of improvised Valladolid debate conducted with a Franciscan chaplain of opposing views, ‘their books before them’, and finally in writing and in repeated public sermons which held each of the soldiers personally responsible for their participation in and profit from the conflict, with an obligation to restitution.16 The turbulent priest was dispatched to Santiago de Chile after a few months, but in 1559 Ercilla, who by now had also fallen foul of Hurtado de Mendoza and was absenting himself from Chile after narrowly avoiding execution for an altercation with another soldier, would meet him again on their voyage from Valparaíso back to Callao. One imagines that the everyday conversations of soldiers at camp or at sea would turn to the opposing views on the war espoused by their chaplains and authorities, and there is evidence that such questions could weigh heavily for many years on veterans’ consciences. This was not least because priests in Peru would, at least into the 1560s, sometimes withhold absolution from veterans and arms traders unless they agreed to indemnify the natives for harms done. In 1568, for instance, Diego de Carvajal, who had fought in Chile in 1565, bound himself by a legal document to pay a sum of reparation to the indigenous peoples to be fixed by a panel of clergymen, ‘since at present it has not been determined whether the aforementioned war is just or unjust’.17

15

Diccionario Biográfico Español de la Real Academia de Historia [online] (henceforth DBE), . There is lengthy argument for Ercilla’s engagement with Vitoria in August J. Aquila, ‘La Araucana: A Sixteenth-Century View of War and its Effects on Men’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Indianapolis, 1973). 16 Alberto Cruchaga Ossa, ‘Ercilla y el derecho internacional’, in Homenaje de la Universidad de Chile a su ex Rector don Domingo Amunátegui Solar (Santiago de Chile, 1935), II, 155–75 (p. 160); DBE, . For a different reading, see William Mejías-López, ‘La relación ideológica de Alonso de Ercilla con Francisco de Vitoria y Fray Bartolomé de las Casas’, Revista Iberoamericana, 61.170–71 (1995), 197–217. 17 Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, MS Harkness 864 reel 5. A. Tibesar, in ‘Instructions for the Confessors of Conquistadores Issued by the Archbishop of Lima in 1560’, The Americas, 3.4 (1947), 514–34, demonstrates that this is not an isolated case.



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The Chilean frontier – and to a lesser extent the border regions of Tucumán in modern-day Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay, which also saw a drawn-out conflict with the Chiriguano (Ava Guaraní) – remained open wounds in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Viceroyalty. They proved an ongoing problem in a region whose principal economic interests in mineral exploitation and commerce depended on a certain degree of peace as well as easy access to indigenous and slave labour, although, as always, there was also profit to be made from the ongoing warfare.18 Soldiers, clergymen, merchants, administrators, settlers and lobbyists moved continuously between these frontiers and the metropolis of Lima, often bringing alarming news of further unrest, captures of Spanish residents and casualties, propagating their own ideas for military and social reform, importing indigenous slaves, and generally not allowing the inhabitants of Peru to ever lay the questions of just war and relations with the indigenous republics to rest. Chapters 3 and 4 explore how these questions evolved over the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the build-up to the devastating Curalaba Rebellion of 1598 which laid waste seven Spanish cities in southern Chile, and in renewed efforts towards a settlement with the indigenous insurgents in its aftermath. The wars in Chile and Tucumán were one of many topical issues which were freely discussed on the streets of Ciudad de los Reyes, colloquially known as Lima from the Quechua name for the river valley (Rímac or Limaq), the capital city or señoría of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Studies of colonial literature and culture have long focussed on the network of urban enclaves which tied the Iberian empires together. A particularly influential reading is that of Ángel Rama, whose classic study of the ‘lettered city’ sees the three factors of colonial power, the agents of written production and the city as inseparable. While the case for the interconnectedness of these elements is still a persuasive one, the mechanistic view of their interactions is less so. One corollary of Rama’s view is that colonial cities like Lima are ‘unreal, aloof from the needs of their environment, deep-sea submarines, which are, if not extraterrestrial, at least extracontinental’, ‘the periphery of a periphery’.19 This is difficult to sustain in the wake of more recent historical research. Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins, for instance, have expanded the notion of literacy, noting the interconnectedness of oral, visual and written media and different writing systems in this period, all of which leave traces in the written record reflecting a continuous negotiation between many different individuals and communities over meaning. As such, ‘it is possible to view literacy as a 18 For one example of this profiteering in Chile, where raids to obtain RecheMapuche slaves became crucial to the economy in the seventeenth century, see Nancy E. van Deusen, ‘Indigenous Slavery’s Archive in Seventeenth-Century Chile’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 101.1 (2021), 1–33. 19 Ángel Rama, La ciudad letrada (Santiago de Chile, 1984), pp. 50, 53.

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crucial arena within which colonial culture was contested and negotiated by native peoples and their Spanish overlords’.20 Lima itself housed indigenous intellectuals active in various arenas who acquired their education through formal and informal means, notably the General Interpreter who acted as an intermediary between curacas (hereditary indigenous leaders), indigenous petitioners and the Spanish authorities.21 Nor was ‘colonial power’ a monolith of coherent interests. The ruling classes of the viceroyalties were neither a homogeneous nor a harmonious group and, as Alejandro Cañeque puts it, ‘colonial agendas’ were by no means ‘self-evident’.22 Lastly, Lima was not in any meaningful sense disconnected from the broader realms of Peru or from wider global interactions. Alejandra Osorio demonstrates that the Lima of this period was in many ways ‘a most modern city’, and one firmly tied to the interior of the continent over which it presided.23 It was in fact its newness in which its inhabitants took pride, along with its greatness according not to traditional notions of an illustrious history, Aristotelian norms, or early humanist ideas of utopia, but to the innovations of late sixteenth-century thinkers such as Giovanni Botero. The latter stressed a city’s location, architecture, wealth, teeming population, religious and ceremonial life, noble residents, just laws and popular, cosmopolitan heterogeneity as among the criteria that made a city great.24 Another concept that might be productively applied to early modern Lima, as it has been recently to Renaissance Lisbon, is that of a ‘global city’. Like Lisbon, Lima could be said to ‘fulfil the same criteria, although not in exactly the same ways, as global cities of the twenty-first century’, namely: i) being ‘the centre of trade flows sending global products back and forth between different parts of the world’; ii) ‘a mixed population’ in terms of geographical origins and ethnicity; iii) some kind of ‘global consciousness’; iv) recognition by other cities and countries as a ‘global city’; and v) being at the forefront of ‘new

20 Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins, Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes (Durham, NC, 2012), p. 10. 21 Gabriela Ramos, ‘Indigenous Intellectuals in Andean Colonial Cities’, in Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis, eds, Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes (Durham, NC, 2014), pp. 21–38. 22 Alejandro Cañeque, The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (London, 2004), p. 46. Although the book is focussed on New Spain rather than the Viceroyalty of Peru, many of its insights remain relevant, not least because many viceroys went on from Mexico City to govern in Lima. 23 Alejandra Osorio, Inventing Lima: Baroque Modernity in Peru’s South Sea Metropolis (New York, 2008), pp. 1–2. 24 Ibid., pp. 4–7.



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knowledge, technologies and communications’.25 These claims are worth examining in more detail. The first criterion is not difficult to evidence. Lima had well-developed trading links with other parts of the Americas and Asia and received a steady traffic in slaves from Africa as well as being the first stop on the carrera de Indias, the first permanent transatlantic trade route in history, which conveyed silver from inland Potosí to Lima and its Pacific port Callao, over the Isthmus of Panama to Nombre de Dios or (from 1596) Portobelo, via Havana to Seville. The merchant community of the city was among the wealthiest and most powerful in the empire, operating seven banks and, from 1593, wielding considerable direct influence over policy through its Consulado, or Merchant Guild.26 Neither is the second. Lima’s population was among the largest in the Americas and highly mixed: according to the 1613–14 census, almost half the residents were of African descent, both enslaved and free, followed by ‘Spaniards’ (those of white European descent, regardless of their place of birth), indios from the regions of Peru and Chile, mulattoes and mestizos, and small numbers of East and South East Asians.27 Population figures consistently underestimate the number of indios (given at around 10% in the census), since this population was highly mobile,28 with regular influxes of temporary workers carrying out their mita, or forced tributary labour, in the city. These were intended to be accommodated separately in the walled-off reducción of Santiago del Cercado, set up during the reign of Francisco de Toledo (1569–81) and administered by the Jesuits, which was not included in the census.

25

Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and Kate Lowe, eds, The Global City: On the Streets of Renaissance Lisbon (London, 2015), p. 34. 26 Osorio, Inventing Lima, pp. 27–31. 27 Kenneth Mills and William B. Taylor, eds, Colonial Spanish America: A Documentary History (Wilmington, DE, 2002), pp. 165–66; Mariano Bonialian, ‘Asiáticos en Lima a principios del siglo XVII’, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, 44.2 (2015), 205–36. It is difficult to gauge the population of Lima in the period with accuracy. The 1614 figure of 25,454 is much larger than Archbishop Toribio de Mogrovejo’s estimate of 12,790 in 1593 and Viceroy Velasco’s 1600 estimate of 14,262, perhaps because of defining the area of the city differently or because the later census recorded a higher proportion of the inhabitants: see María Pilar Pérez Canto, ‘La población de Lima en el siglo XVIII’, Boletín Americanista, 32 (1982), 383–407. Lima did not have walls until 1687 so it was, in fact, difficult to tell where the city boundaries lay. The census also gives implausibly low numbers for ethnically mixed groups (744 mulattoes and 192 mestizos), suggesting that many were counted with one of the other groups. Contemporary chroniclers and observers tended to give much higher figures for the city’s population, which did indeed increase steadily during the seventeenth century. 28 Osorio, Inventing Lima, p. 24.

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However, while in theory Lima was a city of Spaniards, with other castas, or ethnic groups, segregated into different districts, this was never the reality, or even an aspiration for most residents. Afro-Peruvians and indigenous labourers were as likely to be found in the more prestigious central districts as Spanish households were in the outlying suburbs, households themselves often had mixed inhabitants (although mixed marriages were less common) and, in general, Spanish language, dress and consumer habits were shared among all these groups.29 This is one feature that sets Lima apart from other Spanish American settlements such as Cuzco or Mexico City, which were the sites of pre-Hispanic capitals and remained highly bilingual and bicultural. While what had been the major Ichma/Ychsma-Inca shrine and pilgrimage complex of Pachacamac, along with other pre-Hispanic sacred sites, were not far from Lima, and the valley was irrigated and hosted a sizeable population on the city’s foundation, the religious sites were ransacked and decisively abandoned in 1533.30 The site marked out by Francisco Pizarro in 1535 was in the jurisdiction of the most important curaca of the region, although not the site of a major urban settlement, but he and other local indigenous leaders soon found themselves relocated and marginalised. This happened in tandem with a rapid depopulation of the coastal valleys, and by the mid- to late sixteenth century, the vast majority of Indians living within the city originated from elsewhere. In this respect the city was a truly colonial creation and, like Madrid, a city of migrants. Given this vantage point, it is unsurprising that many kinds of discourse in Lima show signs of a ‘global consciousness’, and that civic concerns are often entangled with issues facing other parts of the Americas and beyond. Lima looked to its seaboard, to the other settlements of the coastline, frontiers and expanding interior, to the cities with which it competed for recognition, and to the South and East Pacific, as well as, of course, to Europe. Lima was also recognised as a global city in numerous ways. It came to assume a pivotal and increasingly autonomous role in policy and decision-making for the whole of Spanish South America, especially during the reign of Philip III (1598–1621).31 As Chapter 4 explains, Lima was the launching pad for a number of expeditions to explore and conquer the Terra Australis, the 29 Paul J. Charney, ‘El indio urbano: Un análisis económico y social de la población india de Lima en 1613’, Historica, 12.1 (1988), 5–33. 30 Juan Günther Doering and Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Lima (Madrid, 1992), pp. 35–47; Peter Eeckhout, ‘Before Lima: The Rímac-Lurín Area on the Eve of Spanish Conquest’, in Emily Engel, ed., A Companion to Early Modern Lima (Leiden, 2019), pp. 46–81. 31 See Pilar Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal en el Perú: Gobierno del marqués de Montesclaros, 1607–1615 (Madrid, 1997), p. xxiv, and José Manuel Díaz Blanco, Razón de estado y buen gobierno: La guerra defensiva y el imperialismo español en tiempos de Felipe III (Seville, 2010), p. 324.



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as-yet only conjectured new continent, which resulted in abortive attempts at settlement on the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and other South Pacific islands. In the wake of Francis Drake’s attacks on the Pacific coastline during his first world voyage in 1577–80, the city was also forced to take charge of much of the maritime defence of the region and the protection of the silver fleet, founding the Armada del Mar del Sur (South Sea Armada) in 1580. An unstable urban fabric, with frequent demographic shifts due to migration and epidemics, prone to earthquakes, and subject to numerous programmes of urban renewal, it must have felt for much of this period like a city under construction, boasting increasingly splendid architecture and ceremonial pomp as the seventeenth century wore on. As home to the viceregal court, the metropolitan see, which hosted three Church Councils in the sixteenth century, the University of San Marcos, and (from 1584) its own printing press, it was a major centre and generator of knowledge, communications and ‘news’. As Osorio puts it, ‘new technologies of empire’ of many different kinds were pioneered in these centuries, and conventional models of centre–periphery or colony–metropolis do not fully capture this more complex reality, as ‘many of the solutions to these new political challenges were introduced and (often) worked out in the New World context’ first.32 Recent studies of early modern Iberian globalisation have placed emphasis on the ‘multiple centers’ of this phenomenon, of which Lima as a global city was one.33 A number of recent studies of litigation, petitions and the process of law-making have shown how this might manifest in practice. For José Carlos de la Puente Luna, Lima was ‘the main gateway into the legal Atlantic’.34 Petitioners for recognition, justice and reward included many indios from different regions, who converged and solidified a sense of shared identity en route to present their case in Madrid. This not only contributed to the cosmopolitan feel of the capital, but also shaped a bottom-up model in which petitioners of many classes and backgrounds might feed directly into royal decrees and policies and ‘introduce new concepts and words into the empire’s legislative lexicon’.35 As home to the Royal Audiencia, which in this period had jurisdiction over the whole Viceroyalty, Lima itself was the destination of 32 Alejandra Osorio, ‘Of National Boundaries and Imperial Geographies: A New Radical History of the Spanish Habsburg Empire’, Radical History Review, 130 (2018), 100–30 (pp. 100, 105). 33 ‘Introduction: Iberian Empires and a Theory of Early Modern Globalization’, in Ivonne del Valle, Anna More, and Rachel Sarah O’Toole, eds, Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization (Nashville, 2019), pp. 1–21 (p. 5). 34 José Carlos de la Puente Luna, Andean Cosmopolitans: Seeking Justice and Reward at the Spanish Royal Court (Austin, TX, 2018), p. 92. 35 Adrian Masters, ‘A Thousand Invisible Architects: Vassals, the Petition and Response System, and the Creation of Spanish Imperial Caste Legislation’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 98.3 (2018), 377–406 (p. 395).

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many litigants, and saw the movement of legal specialists, from the highest judges (oidores) to more humble lawyers (abogados, procuradores) around different parts of the empire. The cabildos, or city councils, one representing the república de españoles and the other the república de indios, also settled more local disputes within the city, while the cabildo arzobispal heard cases related to canon law; in theory these worked in parallel, but conflicts between the various bodies were not uncommon.36 Thus, the city of Lima was a venue on which the most varied interest groups converged, and in which debates and grievances, litigations and controversies of all kinds might be aired with a considerable degree of freedom and participation – a distinctive form of ‘urban dialogue’, to use Jay Kinsbruner’s term.37 Such interventions show us how in practice the empire was ‘a construction of many and diverse subjects’.38 This period also coincided with the formation of a ‘republic of letters’ in the Viceroyalty, with Lima as one of its centres.39 Although literary production is as old as the city itself, at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it began to take on new forms and an increasing self-consciousness.40 One disputed creation of these years is the so-called ‘Academia Antártica’, or Antarctic Academy, which is first mentioned in the prefatory materials to Oña’s Arauco domado, as Chapter 3 explains, but about which most of our information derives from the 808-line poem, ‘Discurso en loor de la poesía’ [Discourse in Praise of Poetry], which presents itself as the composition of an anonymous female author based in the Viceroyalty, and was published in the preliminaries to Diego Mexía de Fernangil’s Primera parte del Parnaso Antártico de obras amatorias [First Part of the Antarctic Parnassus of Amatory Verse], a translation of Ovid’s Heroides and Ibis penned in Lima but published in Seville. The poem shows an intimate awareness of the poetic theory of the period, and gives a long and eulogistic catalogue of (male) poets writing in the Viceroyalty. Despite its intriguing glimpse into the literary life of the period, the work also acts as a reminder that caution is still needed in

36 Until recently, the indigenous cabildos of the Viceroyalty of Peru were little known because they did not record minutes or proceedings. Karen B. Graubart sheds light on their functioning in ‘Competing Spanish and Indigenous Jurisdictions in Early Colonial Lima’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History [online] (Oxford, 2016) . 37 Jay Kinsbruner, The Colonial Spanish-American City: Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism (Austin, TX, 2005), p. 120. 38 Masters, ‘A Thousand Invisible Architects’, p. 402. 39 Sonia Rose, ‘La formación de un espacio letrado en el Perú virreinal’, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 655 (2005), 7–14 (p. 8). 40 Raquel Chang-Rodríguez and Marcio Velázquez Castro, ‘Prefacio’, in Historia de las literaturas en el Perú, vol. 1, Literaturas orales y primeros textos coloniales, ed. by Juan C. Godenzzi and Carlos Garatea (Lima, 2017), pp. 6–39 (p. 33).



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drawing conclusions about it. Scholars disagree on whether the Academia was a formal literary society modelled on similar academies in Italy and Spain, or simply an aspiration by the lettered class of Lima to be recognised as such.41 Since many poets of the Viceroyalty also feature in Spanish catalogues of the time, such as Cervantes’s 1585 ‘Canto de Calíope’ and 1614 Viaje del Parnaso, and Lope de Vega’s 1630 ‘Laurel de Apolo’, this aspiration seems to have found a receptive audience in Europe. Nevertheless, many of the poets referred to remain shrouded in mystery, with most of their works – including other epic poems – no longer extant or at least awaiting further archival research. Moreover, despite the poet’s identification as a ‘señora principal d’este reino, muy versada en la lengua toscana y portuguesa’ [a noble lady of this kingdom, well versed in the Italian and Portuguese languages], her own identity, along with those of other female poets mentioned in the ‘Discurso’, is deliberately concealed.42 The canon it sketches out is, in any case, inevitably a partial one, exclusive of the oral and popular poetry and poetry in indigenous languages which are now recognised as important parts of the colonial literary landscape. As Rodrigo Cacho puts it, ‘locating Spanish American poetry is a work in progress’.43 In this light, the ‘lettered city’ of Lima cannot simply be construed as the ‘protective ring of power and the executor of its orders’.44 There was no consensus of opinion about issues such as just war, defence and the assimilation of diverse ethnic communities, and poets, like others who were able to intervene in written discourses, not all of them members of the elite, could seek to shape as well as be shaped by the plurality of attitudes around them. Unsurprisingly in this light, colonial epic ‘had room for many points of view

41 For a useful overview of criticism on the ‘Discurso’ and differing views on the ‘Academia’, see José Antonio Mazzotti, ‘“El discurso en loor de la poesía” y el aporte de Antonio Cornejo Polar’, introduction to ‘Discurso en loor de la poesía’: Estudio y edición [1964], ed. by Antonio Cornejo Polar (Lima, 2000), pp. ix–xxxix. The only book-length study of the ‘Academia Antártica’ to date remains that of Alberto Tauro Uriarte, Esquividad y gloria en la Academia Antártica (Lima, 1948). On the seventeenth-century Spanish literary academies, see Jeremy Robbins, Love Poetry of the Literary Academies in the Reigns of Philip IV and Charles II (Woodbridge, 1997). 42 ‘Discurso en loor de la poesía’, in Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, ed., Clarinda y Amarilis: Discurso en loor de la poesía / Epístola a Belardo (Lima, 2009), p. 83. 43 Rodrigo Cacho, ‘Introduction: Locating Early Modern Spanish American Poetry’, in Rodrigo Cacho and Imogen Choi, eds, The Rise of Spanish American Poetry, 1500–1700: Literary and Cultural Transmission in the New World (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 1–27 (p. 18). See also Cacho, ‘Writing in the New World: Spanish American Poetics and the Literary Canon’, in Gavin Alexander, Emma Gilby and Alexander Marr, eds, The Places of Early Modern Criticism (Oxford, 2021), pp. 125–42. 44 Rama, La ciudad letrada, p. 57.

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on the colonial and imperial experience and imaginary’.45 What we do know about the burgeoning literary community around the time of the Academia Antártica suggests that it was keen both to establish itself within the civic environment and to compete with and differentiate itself from comparable European and New Spanish movements – hence the proliferation of poetically resonant terms of classical pedigree which at the same time designate its geographic alterity: Antártico, Austral, ninfas del Sur [nymphs of the South]. The works associated with the Academia share certain characteristics, such as formal experimentation, a penchant for particular Italian, classical and Iberian authors, an interest in Petrarchism and Neo-Platonism and a concern with recording and embellishing the pre- and post-Hispanic historiography of the region and integrating it within world history.46 Broadly, the imaginative resources and genres of the Renaissance are deployed to construct a distinctive literary identity and to explore and elevate their surroundings. To study the epic tradition outside of this context misses out much of the richness that an (albeit still ill-defined) awareness of the works’ horizons of production and reception provides. For all their ambition and imagination, the poets of the Viceroyalty did face inescapable practical constraints. This is especially true of epic poets, the length of whose works tended to require publication to ensure a readership, whereas shorter pieces, depending on their genre, might circulate easily in manuscript, through musical performance or recitation, in multi-author anthologies, or through the many civic and religious celebrations and competitions at which poetry was performed in cities, which in turn were often commemorated in a subsequent publication. The shortage of paper and printers in Lima made the option of publishing there prohibitively expensive, and to print in Spain authors needed to travel themselves, appoint a dependable proxy or trust to a well-placed patron to negotiate smoothly the complex business of contracting printers and obtaining the appropriate licences. Aspiring authors also faced the threat of censorship: although exercised unsystematically, in Peru it was an activity in which ‘not only the political and ecclesiastical authorities participated, but also individuals of very diverse cultural and social condition’.47 This meant that when Oña’s first poem riled a number of 45 Paul Firbas, introduction to Épica y colonia: Ensayos sobre el género épico en Iberoamérica (siglos XVI y XVII) (Lima, 2008), pp. 9–21 (p. 9). 46 Some of these traits are explored in Alicia de Colombí-Monguió, Petrarquismo peruano: Diego Dávalos y Figueroa y la poesía de la ‘Miscelánea Austral’ (London, 1985). 47 Pedro Guibovich Pérez, ‘La censura de libros’, in Historia de las literaturas en el Perú, vol. 2, Literatura y cultura en el Virreinato del Perú: Apropiación y diferencia, ed. by Raquel Chang-Rodríguez and Carlos García-Bedoya (Lima, 2017), pp. 43–63 (p. 43).



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socially influential figures, they could conspire to ensure that most copies were withdrawn from circulation, as Chapter 3 explains.48 The underlying difficulty is that, in contrast to an author such as Ercilla, who amassed sufficient social capital and financial liquidity to be able to take control of the publication of his poems on his return to Spain, which in any case proved to be a runaway commercial success, writers of lower status resident in the Viceroyalty, such as Oña and Miramontes, had more limited options. Both were dependent on patronage, in this instance the patronage of the viceroy, to ensure their works’ publication and dissemination and to further their careers, but the viceroy’s rule in Lima was strictly limited, typically extending to no more than eight years, and was constrained by other powerful institutions and by the need to satisfy a juicio de residencia [trial of residence] at its conclusion.49 It was Oña’s need to push the political and personal agendas of Viceroy García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, which led to his poem stepping on so many toes, but by the time he ran into trouble, his patron had already returned to Madrid and could no longer offer him protection. Miramontes, on the other hand, had apparently destined his poem for different viceroys at various stages during its long gestation, who receive intermittent eulogies throughout, and the final version was clearly not aligned enough with the interests of his eventual dedicatee, Viceroy Juan de Mendoza y Luna, Marquis of Montesclaros. The autograph manuscript of Armas antárticas, carefully prepared for the press, seems to have remained undisturbed among the marquis’s papers on his return to Spain until it was rescued from oblivion in the twentieth century.50 Nevertheless, while it would be unwise to discount the direct and indirect pressures exerted on the poems by the necessities of clientage, it would be equally unwise to discount the agency of their authors as a result. Even the most panegyrical passages, those in which the viceroys are explicitly exalted as paragons of virtue and wisdom, do not exclude the potential to ‘read a hortatory pressure into the declarative statements’.51 It is not necessary to read suppressed resistance or subversive irony into these verses to argue that 48 For another case in which censorship of a work in Lima proved more stringent than in Spain, in response to local sensitivities, see Karoline P. Cook’s discussion of the reception of Pedro Mexía de Ovando’s La Ovandina (1621), in Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America (Philadelphia, 2016), pp. 138–62. 49 For a discussion of how vulnerable viceregal patronage (in particular) left colonial intellectuals, see Bernard Lavallé, ‘Los intelectuales de la época colonial entre la subordinación y el poder del discurso’, in Carlos Aguirre and Carmen McEvoy, eds, Intelectuales y poder. Ensayos en torno a la república de las letras en el Perú e Hispanoamérica (ss. XVI–XX) (Lima, 2008), pp. 115–20. 50 On the composition and material history of the poem, see Firbas’s introduction to his critical edition. 51 Greene, The Descent from Heaven, p. 133.

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their composers were engaged in seeking to shape, as well as to reflect, a particular image of viceregal rule, all the more so since this did not enjoy the centuries of accumulated convention which had accrued to mirrors of kings and princes. This concern with the figure of the viceroy adds one further layer to the complex political make-up of the poems: he is, after all, the head of the two legally separated repúblicas, de españoles and de indios, which have to be reckoned with in any understanding of colonial political community, and his opinion weighs heavily in decisions about which wars are just or unjust, and which deserve to be prioritised. Beyond the encomiastic passages, the political interests and agendas of Oña’s and Miramontes’s poems are highly variegated, and the spaciousness of epic allows abundant scope to explore them.

2

Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana In the first canto of the Primera parte of La Araucana, as Alonso de Ercilla first introduces the Araucanian people, he briefly mentions a beautiful spot where the caciques1 gather to vote on resolutions in times of crisis: Hácese este concilio en un gracioso asiento de mil florestas escogido, donde se muestra el campo más hermoso de infinidad de flores guarnecido; allí de un viento fresco y amoroso los árboles se mueven con ruido, cruzando muchas veces por el prado un claro arroyo limpio y sosegado, do una fresca y altísima alameda por orden y artificio tienen puesta en torno de la plaza y ancha rueda, capaz de cualquier junta y grande fiesta, que convida a descanso, y al sol veda la entrada y paso en la enojosa siesta; allí se oye la dulce melodía del canto de las aves y armonía. (I. 39–40) [This council takes place in an attractive site favoured with a thousand glades, where the countryside is at its most beautiful adorned with an infinity of flowers; there in a cool and pleasant breeze the trees rustle and sway, while criss-crossing the meadow flows a clear, clean and calm stream, where a cool and tall poplar grove through order and artifice they have planted around the plaza and broad circle, spacious enough for any assembly and great celebration, restful and inviting, which prohibits the sun from entering and passing through in the wearisome siesta; there is heard the sweet melody of the song of the birds in harmony.] 1

A cacique is an indigenous leader or, as Ercilla defines it in the glossary with which he prefaces the Primera parte, a ‘señor de vasallos’ [feudal lord], La Araucana (Madrid, 1569), fol. π6v.

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While Chile is defined at the outset as a ‘fértil provincia’ (I. 6), this is no ordinary geographical description. All its features, as a contemporary reader would instantly recognise, are highly stylised and recall similarly Arcadian landscapes in the eclogues of Garcilaso de la Vega, Ercilla’s much-admired lyric predecessor.2 Poplar trees, native to the northern hemisphere, are rather out of place in southern Chile, but very much at home in European bucolic, where they are often inscribed by sorrowful lovers. Sandwiched in between a terse summary of the cartographical, political and military features of Arauco, and a survey of Araucanian religion and physiology, the intrusion of this pastoral idyll into what Ercilla describes in the proem as a relación (I. 3) is something of a jolt.3 Standing out structurally as well as thematically with its (unusual) enjambment between the two stanzas, the passage signals to the reader that what is being described, for all its claims to historical truth, is nonetheless also the work of fiction. Not coincidentally, it is precisely at the point when we first enter the space in which the Araucanians gather alone and unwitnessed that we encounter this marker of a transition to the realm of the imagination; here, the poet is especially free to invent and explore. That the Araucanians’ political activity takes place in an Edenic setting, bearing none of the signs of urban or even agricultural life, might at first suggest that, for all the preceding descriptions, they live in something close to a state of nature, or at least do not constitute a fully fledged civitas. Yet this poetic excursus is not quite what it seems: one brief, postponed clarification reveals that the glade is, in fact, a feature not of nature, but of landscaping, ‘por orden y artificio […] puesta’. It is doubly the work of artifice: that of the author, and that of the Araucanians. Through their combined craftsmanship, this locus amoenus has been sculpted into a kind of plaza, the civic and political centre of every Spanish city. The Araucanians are not simply products of the natural 2 For Ercilla’s self-fashioning in relation to Garcilaso, see Luis Gómez Canseco, ‘Garcilaso y la construcción de La Araucana’, forthcoming in Revista de Literatura, which identifies no fewer than six imitations of the eclogues in the passage quoted above; Felipe Valencia, ‘Las “muchas (aunque bárbaras)” voces líricas de La Araucana y la índole poética de una “historia verdadera”’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 49 (2015), 141–71; and Felipe Valencia, The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora (Lincoln, NE, 2021), pp. 57–85. An álamo is most famously inscribed with Elisa’s epitaph in Égloga III. 30. 3 The relación, originally a legal document denoting an eyewitness account, expanded into a semi-official methodical description of new lands and peoples and then into a form of history in its own right in the sixteenth-century Spanish empire: see Ralph Bauer, The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: Empire, Travel, Modernity (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 35–36. Ercilla’s opening canto mimics several features of the new genre, such as its plain style, appeal to eyewitness authority, destiny for the eyes of the king, and some of its ordering (see also Rubiés, ‘The Concept of Gentile Civilization’, p. 335).



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environment but manipulate it in such a way as to make it into a political space comparable to, if altogether different from, the republics of Europe. So where does nature end and the city begin? This little interlude is typical of the kind of surprise Ercilla delights in springing on his readers. Often, as here, such disconcerting swivels of perspective are achieved thanks to the eclectic texture of the poem, which continually navigates between genres and models of imitation, including history, tragedy, romanzo, cartography, relación, travel writing and lyric, as well as the existing diversity of classical and Renaissance epic. This changeability, playfulness, inventiveness and ambition is often overlooked by critics who seek to impose a stern ideological interpretation on the poem, whether that be pro- or anti-indigenous, imperialist or anti-imperialist, or a ‘fractured subjectivity’ between the two, to name some of the divides across which the poem has frequently been read.4 Ercilla’s own statements about his epic, in the paratexts to its several editions and in metaliterary comments within the work itself, are notoriously sparing and equivocal. In the prologue to the Primera parte, he anticipates, in tortuously conditional phrasing, that ‘a alguno le pareciere que me muestro algo inclinado a la parte de los araucanos’ [it might just seem to some that I appear a little biased towards the Araucanians], before going on to justify his praise for them. When he gifts a custom-made copy of the 1578 printing of the first and second parts to his Habsburg patron, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, he gives a twist to the usual topoi of such dedications by declaring that the audaciousness of addressing such an illustrious benefactor is matched by the audaciousness of the poem itself: ‘juntándose con esto ser la historia toda de atrevimientos y osadías, se me ha pegado tanto de ella que oso poner delante de tan gran majestad este tributo’ [with the whole history being made up of audacity and daring deeds, so much of it has stuck to me that I dare to place before such a great Majesty this

4 Davis, Myth and Identity, p. 20, one of many critics to see Ercilla as fundamentally conflicted and ambiguous. Two of the most convinced advocates for Ercilla’s anti-imperial stance are Karina Galperin, ‘The Dido Episode in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana and the Critique of Empire’, Hispanic Review, 77.1 (2009), 31–67, and Ricardo Padrón, The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature and Empire in Early Modern Spain (Chicago, 2004), the latter of whom is also one of the few to acknowledge playful elements in the poem. The opposite view is taken by, among others, Nicolopulos, The Poetics of Empire in the Indies, and the poem’s two modern editors, Isaías Lerner and Luis Gómez Canseco, the latter of whom frequently attributes Ercilla’s ideological conformity to political and financial self-interest: see for instance ‘“Codicia fue ocasión”: Lecturas económicas de La Araucana (y una apostilla gongorina)’, in Federica Cappelli and Felice Gambin, eds, Poderoso caballero: Il denaro nella letteratura spagnola dal Medioevo ai Secoli d’Oro (Pisa, 2021), pp. 99–114.

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tribute].5 These ‘atrevimientos’ certainly seem to have been greeted by some early readers with surprise. Esteban de Garibay, a Basque historian, recalls how in 1570 the work was greeted with great acclaim but also with astonishment by those acquainted with the author, who was known for his extreme reserve: ‘como este caballero […] sea de tanto silencio y reposo en todos sus tratos, muchos dudaron que fuese suya’ [since this gentleman (Ercilla) is so quiet and composed in everything he does, many doubted that it could be his].6 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Flemish Jesuit André Schott noted in his literary encyclopedia that those who encountered La Araucana for the first time still read it compulsively and with shock: ‘ut cum stupore legunt, sic de manibus non deponunt’ [they read with such amazement that they cannot put the book down].7 This chapter takes the poem’s many surprises and contradictions as a starting point rather than an impasse. These are a hallmark of Ercilla’s style, and in part a consequence of the manner in which political ideas are dramatised, interrogated and made to evolve across the three parts of the epic. One of the many genres with which the poem interacts is the humanist political treatise, and in particular with one of its most provocative cultivators, Niccolò Machiavelli. There is often an assumption that Machiavelli’s ideas were taboo in Golden Age Spain, with disagreement over the extent to which they influenced the theory and practice of rulership despite official censure, but in fact the reception of his writings was complex, occurred in several stages, and responded in different ways to different aspects of his thought, as Chapter 1 sets out. The Spanish Inquisition did not include the Florentine on its Index of Prohibited Books until 1583–84, much later than its Roman counterpart, by which time his works had been circulating freely for decades. The Spanish translation of the Discorsi by Juan Lorenzo Otevanti (1552, 1554) went through two editions, was dedicated to the future Philip II and received the explicit approval of Charles V;8 the Arte della guerra was widely disseminated both in the original

5 This rare and possibly unique edition has only recently been uncovered and described by Luis Gómez Canseco, from whose article I quote: ‘Una impresión desconocida de La Araucana’, Nuevas de Indias. Anuario del CEAC, 3 (2018), 60–76 (p. 70). 6 José Toribio Medina, ed., La Araucana: Edición del centenario ilustrada con grabados, documentos, notas históricas y bibliográficas, y una biografía del autor (Santiago de Chile, 1910–18), vol. II (1913), p. 525. 7 André Schott, Hispaniae Bibliotheca, sev de Academiis ac Bibliothecis: Item Elogia et nomenclator clarorum Hispaniae Scriptorum (Frankfurt am Main, 1608), p. 322. 8 See the recent critical edition by Keith David Howard, ‘Discursos de Nicolao Machiaveli’: Juan Lorenzo Ottevanti’s Spanish Translation of Machiavelli’s ‘Discourses on Livy’ (1552) (Tempe, AZ, 2016).



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Italian and in Diego de Salazar’s popular Spanish adaptation De re militari (1536), and Puigdomènech cites evidence for the reading of the other major works at least until the 1580s and 1590s, particularly Il principe and the Istorie fiorentine. The ‘anti-Machiavellian moment’ in Spain, then, often highlighted in intellectual histories of the period, seems in practice to have been somewhat late in arriving, and less than uniform in its effects. Moreover, as we now know thanks to decades of rigorous historical research, Machiavelli’s thought was itself complex and multi-faceted; he gained just as much renown as ‘an exponent of a distinctive humanist tradition of classical republicanism’ as for his polemical thoughts on the art of government.9 Ercilla responds to both these strands, and it is partly through a Machiavellian filter that the themes of republicanism, kingship, war and empire loom so large in the poem. Needless to say, his interest is not a purely scholarly one; the poem’s fixation on such ideas always reflects on their actual implications for Spain’s dealings with its neighbours and possessions and the heterogeneous theatres of conflict with which Ercilla and his circles were directly or indirectly concerned. Political thought in La Araucana cannot be properly assessed unless its prolonged process of composition and publication are given due weight. With only a few, mostly very recent, exceptions, the complex material and editorial history of the poem is rarely considered in its analysis.10 The same might be said for the fundamental differences between the three parts of the poem, published more than twenty years apart and showing an evolution in style and thought over time, perhaps in dialogue with some of its readers. Having 9

Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli (Oxford, 1981), p. v. Notably Plagnard, Une épopée ibérique; Paul Firbas, ‘A Poetics of términos: Lexis and Moral Geography in Ercilla’s Expedition to the Extreme South in La Araucana’, in Rodrigo Cacho and Imogen Choi, eds, The Rise of Spanish American Poetry, 1500–1700: Literary and Cultural Transmission in the New World (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 189–204; and Miguel Martínez, ‘Writing on the Edge: The Poet, the Printer, and the Colonial Frontier in Ercilla’s La Araucana’, Colonial Latin American Review, 26.2 (2017), 132–53; all these draw, as I do, on Juan Alberto Méndez Herrera, ‘Estudio de las ediciones de La Araucana con una edición crítica de la Tercera parte’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1976), whose demonstration that the additions to the third part were authorial and the work of an author who continuously edited his poem was unfortunately not absorbed into subsequent scholarship. Plagnard and Gómez Canseco also bring to light further new aspects of the poem’s textual history: see Gómez Canseco, ‘Una impresión desconocida’; ‘Adiáforas y variantes de autor en La Araucana (1589–90)’, Janus, 8 (2019), 20–41; ‘Un documento inédito en torno a la impresión de la Primera, Segunda y Tercera partes de La Araucana de Alonso de Ercilla (Madrid: Pedro Madrigal, 1590)’, Etiópicas. Revista de Letras Renacentistas, 15 (2019), 9–24; and ‘El retrato de Alonso de Ercilla en La Aracana. Variantes y función’, Lemir: Revista de Literatura Española Medieval y del Renacimiento, 23 (2019), 255–62. 10

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enjoyed a privileged upbringing at court, Ercilla initially left for Peru to assist in quelling the rebellion of Francisco Hernández Girón, but was too late, and found himself fighting the indigenous rebellion in Chile almost by accident, at twenty-three years of age, with no direct experience of warfare. His stay there between 1557 and 1558 was brief, but would determine his identity for the rest of his life. While his self-representation as a soldier-poet and loyal servant of Philip II was undoubtedly a source of pride and prestige, the nearobsessive return to his memories of the Chilean war might also bear the hallmarks of a veteran still haunted by what he did and witnessed there, and by the weight placed by such figures as Fray Gil González on his conscience (see Chapter 1). Ercilla famously claimed that he had written the poem ‘en la misma guerra y en los mismos pasos y sitios, escribiendo muchas veces en cuero por falta de papel, y en pedazos de cartas’ [during the war itself, on the ground and in the same locations, often writing on leather for want of paper, and on scraps of letters] (‘Prólogo’). While certainly an example of ‘Renaissance self-fashioning’, modelling himself after both the authors of earlier ‘gunpowder epics’ and Garcilaso’s own profession of arms and letters, ‘la pluma ora en la mano, ora la lanza’ [now with a pen in hand, now with a lance] (XX. 24),11 occupying leisure time on a campaign with writing was not unheard of, and one former comrade-in-arms did indeed testify that Ercilla was seen ‘públicamente’ writing the poem during his period of service.12 Notwithstanding these early beginnings, the Primera parte was certainly extensively reworked by the time it appeared in print some twelve years later, albeit that this labour did nothing to assuage the author’s ‘miedo de publicarla’ [fear of publishing it], as he professes in the first sentence of the prologue. By this time, Ercilla had supplemented his experiences of the Chilean campaign with a spell in Lima in the viceroy’s guard (1559–61), spent time in Panama and the Caribbean, where he had planned to assist in crushing Lope de Aguirre’s rebellion, but found him already dead, and returned to Madrid with few means on his mother’s death in 1563. It seems that for several more years he may have harboured plans of returning to Peru,13 but in the meantime occupied himself with other matters, such as travelling to the imperial court at Vienna to accompany his sister to meet her new husband, 11 cf. Garcilaso, Égloga III, line 40, ‘tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma’ [taking up now the sword, now the pen]; for the notion see Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 2005). 12 Medina, La Araucana, vol. I (1910), p. 72. 13 Doubtless at Ercilla’s instigation, the Empress María wrote to Philip II to request ‘something in the Indies’ (an encomienda) as a reward for his service in 1564, but this never materialised: Medina, ‘Vida de Ercilla’, in La Araucana, vol. III (1917), p. 106. Despite such aspirations, the poem shows a relatively consistent hostility towards the settlers and encomenderos in Chile.



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administering her estate when she died shortly after, and seeing the birth of his only, illegitimate, son Juan in 1568, who would die young serving in the Spanish Armada. Even before his departure to the Americas, he had travelled extensively in Philip’s entourage, on his journey through Europe to Flanders (1548–51), and then to England for the marriage to Mary Tudor in 1554, and after his return he was frequently absent from Madrid on diplomatic, military and personal business around Spain, Italy, Germany, Bohemia and Portugal. This experience of different ‘naciones’ or peoples is another important part of the authorial identity on which he capitalises in the poem and, according to many political thinkers of the era, one that would make him well equipped to advise the king to whom he dedicates his work. Ercilla’s return to Spain saw his slow and steady rise to prestige and prosperity through a combination of royal favour, an advantageous marriage (in 1570), fortuitous inheritance and considerable profit as an informal moneylender, as well as the sensational success of the book itself. Each of the editions directly overseen by him contains his portrait, and from 1578 these proudly sport the red cross of the Order of Santiago, the stamp of the highest nobility and recognition, awarded by Philip II in 1571.14 Even by 1568–69, he was in a position to be able to finance the printing of La Araucana and retain the rights to publication for himself, and at least from 1580, he enjoyed an influential position as a royal censor responsible for aprobaciones de libros. As a result, he was able to profit more from and maintain a much tighter control over his work than most contemporary authors.15 All the evidence suggests that he utilised this control to continuously polish and edit, introducing frequent revisions before and sometimes during the printing process in the editions of 1574 (all the princeps copies had sold out by 1571), 1578 (in quarto and octavo), 1589 and 1590, which result in a plethora of different variants and states of the text. While the three parts of the work are not autonomous, they do represent distinct stages in its development, and one of the richest results of assessing them individually is the illumination of the complex patterns of repetition between them. As specific allusions, settings, scenarios and figures of speech recur, the reader is encouraged to compare and contrast, and thus to continually modify the conclusions drawn. In order to facilitate such an analysis, I therefore dedicate separate sub-sections to each of the poem’s parts.

14

Gómez Canseco, ‘El retrato’. See Luis Gómez Canseco, ‘Ercilla y el precio de La Araucana (1569–1632)’, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, forthcoming. 15

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‘De gente que a ningún rey obedecen’ (I. 2): The Military Republic of Arauco16 ‘The greatest and best of all forms of rule and magistracy is monarchy or kingship’.17 The confidence of Francisco de Vitoria’s axiom in his De potestate [On Civil Power] (first published in 1557) had prestigious authorities to back it, from St Paul, to St Thomas Aquinas, to Aristotle, whose admittance of the hypothetical superiority of kingship in book III of the Politics sufficed for most. After the revolt of the comuneros in 1521, there appeared to be few serious challenges to the ideological hegemony of the monarchy in Castile. There are indications, however, that republicanism resisted complete marginalisation in sixteenth-century Spain; indeed that there existed more of an overlap between ‘republican’ and ‘monarchical’ ideas than one might expect. While Vitoria dismisses the arguments of the republican school of thought as ‘madness’, he devotes several chapters of serious dialectic to doing so. If the Sevillian humanist Sebastián Fox Morcillo accords more space to the monarchist interlocutor in his dialogue De regno, regisque institutione [On the Kingdom, and the Education of the King] (1556), the polemic is never entirely resolved, remaining, intriguingly, ‘a genuine and continuing dialogue within the writer’s mind’.18 The ideal of the mixed constitution containing some combination of the three ‘true’ forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, was often recognised, especially in its Polybian or Ciceronian form, which proposed a harmony of all three. Thomas Aquinas’s vision of a ‘tempered’ monarchy with the implicit consent of the governed, given further impetus by Erasmus, also gained substantial credence, and it is perhaps in this sense that Vitoria alleged the Spanish monarchy to be a ‘mixed’ government in his own political writings. In Europe as a whole, Venice provided the most powerful living example of this ideal, with its Doge, Senate and Great Council: as William Bouwsma argued, the city uniquely represented ‘the central political values of Renaissance republicanism, which she made available to the rest of Europe in a singularly provocative and attractive form’.19 The most popular panegyric of several by humanist Venetian patriots, Gasparo Contarini’s De magistratibus et republica Venetorum [On the Magistrates and Republic of the Venetians] (1543), which represented the city’s institutions as a perfect organic harmony, went through at 16 Some of the argument of this and the subsequent section draws on my article, Imogen Sutton, ‘De gente que a ningún rey obedecen’: Republicanism and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 91.4 (2014), 417–35. 17 Vitoria, Political Writings, p. 12. 18 Ronald Truman, Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the Time of Philip II (Leiden, 1999), p. 68. 19 William Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley, CA, 1968), p. 445.



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least six editions in Italian translation, and was certainly known in the Peninsula. Román y Zamora is one example of this philo-Venetian sentiment: recalling with pride his many conversations with the former Venetian ambassador to Spain, Leonardo Donato, and referring to the works on Venice by Contarini, Pietro Bembo, Flavio Biondo, Bernardo Giustiniani, Pancrazio Giustiniani, Marcantonio Sabellico, and Andrea Mocenigo, his praise for the city republic is higher than for any of the other commonwealths he surveys: ‘La república de Venecia […] ha sido la más dichosa y de más ventura que todas las monarchias que ha avido desde Nino hasta hoy’ [the republic of Venice has been the most happy and the most fortunate of all the kingdoms that have existed from Ninus to the present day] (fol. 371r), because it has maintained its independence and prosperity longer than any other empire. Something of this sentiment certainly filtered through to a civic level, too: local historians often compared their own city to the ‘Serenissima’, and as Xavier Gil argues, municipal government was one of the spheres in which republican principles could persist within a broader monarchical framework.20 To regard the Araucanian government described by Ercilla at the outset of his epic as an ordered republic of any variety is at first sight paradoxical. In the proem he presents it as something of an outlandish prodigy, typical of the travel literature of the period: Cosas diré también harto notables de gente que a ningún rey obedecen (I. 2) [I will also tell of remarkable things about people who obey no king]

This is, in context, not surprising. That urban life constituted the first step towards a truly human (civic) form of existence and a prerequisite to political organisation was an axiom of the Renaissance, and a founding principle of citybuilding in the Americas. Ptolemy of Lucca’s well-known mirror of princes, which continued Thomas Aquinas’s unfinished work and was attributed to the saint in this period, assumed with Aristotle that republican rule is ‘characteristic of cities’, an assumption which went unquestioned by early modern thinkers as diverse as Machiavelli and the comunero sympathiser Fray Alonso de Castrillo in his Tractado de república (1521).21 The Araucanians, who live ‘sin tener en todo él [término] pueblo formado, ni muro, ni casa fuerte para su reparo’ [without a single town, nor wall, nor fortress to which to retreat in 20 Xavier Gil, ‘Republican Politics in Early Modern Spain: The Castilian and Catalano-Aragonese Traditions’, in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. by Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge, 2002), II, 263–88. 21 Ptolemy of Lucca, On the Government of Rulers / De Regimine Principum, trans. by James M. Blythe (Philadelphia, PA, 1997), p. 216.

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the whole of their territory] (‘Prólogo’) are by this analysis quite justifiably referred to as ‘bárbaros’. The idea that, as Román y Zamora put it, ‘todas las repúblicas comiençan en Dios, o sea verdadero, o sea falso’ [all commonwealths begin in God, whether a true God, or a false one] (fol. 355r), was equally ingrained. Ercilla’s shocking assertion that the Araucanians, while superstitiously reverencing the devil, have no creed, religion nor G/god(s) at all can therefore only bolster the impression of their lack of policía.22 When, in the second canto, the assembly convened to select a ‘capitán general’ for the forthcoming war against the Spanish colonists quickly descends into bravado and fighting as the drunken caciques begin to contend for supremacy, the reader might remember that the counterpart to ‘good’ democracy was the primordial state of anarchy. Even when Caupolicán’s election as leader is settled by a superior show of strength in the notorious ‘prueba del tronco’ [test of the tree trunk], in which no other cacique can hold the heavy piece of wood longer than him, the dispute over ‘cuál era el más valiente | y digno del gobierno de la gente’ [who was the bravest and the worthiest of governing the people] (II. 19) points towards at best a primitive form of society.23 In the cycle of republics in the third chapter of Machiavelli’s Discorsi, for instance, anarchy evolves first into a mutual gathering for the purposes of defence, in which people ‘began to look to the strongest and bravest one among them’ (p. 28), only after which does a regard for justice and wisdom gradually develop. As we saw at the opening of this chapter, however, the representation of the Araucanians is ambivalent from the outset. Shortly prior to the election of the ‘capitán general’ described above, Ercilla presents the reader with a catalogue of warriors in the style of classical epic. Immediately following the gigantic and ferocious Lincoya comes Peteguelén, the lord of the valley of Arauco, and with him an unusual epic simile: que el gran valle de Arauco le obedece como natural señor, y así el Estado este nombre tomó, según parece, como Venecia, pueblo libertado, que en todo aquel gobierno más florece, tomando el nombre dél la señoría, así guarda el Estado el nombre hoy día. (II. 16)

22 A catch-all term denoting the qualities of both political life and civility in this period. 23 As some ill-disposed contemporaries were quick to point out: the episode is satirised by Luis Zapata, whose Ariostesque epic Carlo famoso (1566) on the life of Charles V had been quickly eclipsed, in his Miscelánea (c. 1592), quoted in Medina, La Araucana, vol. III, p. 117.



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[the great valley of Arauco obeys him as its natural lord, and thus it seems that the State took this name (of Arauco), just as the Signoria took its name from Venice, the free and daring city, and the most flourishing in the territory, so the State preserves the name today.]

The stanza is concentrated and repetitive almost to the point of confusion: by the final line, the reader is left wondering which ‘Estado’ is being talked about, Arauco or republican Venice? It is tempting to read the incongruous comparison to one of the wealthiest and most culturally sophisticated city states of contemporary Europe as a fleeting jibe at Spain’s sometime rival, which remained defiantly independent towards the Spanish Crown. Not all notions of Renaissance republicanism conformed to the classical model of the city state, however. Works such as Tacitus’s Germania and Agricola provided a model of liberty-loving peoples who eschewed any form of urban settlement. Ptolemy of Lucca’s principle that different peoples, even within a larger commonwealth such as an empire, were naturally suited to different forms of government, could lead to more complex models of composite political communities. Furió Ceriol, for example, regarded Castile as a pure monarchy, Venice as an oligarchical republic, the Swiss as a plebeian one, Rome, Athens and the other Italian republics as a republic ruled by nobles and plebs, and Poland, Germany and his native Aragon as a true harmony of the three forms of government (p. 38). The poem’s juxtaposition of commonwealths as far apart as Arauco and Venice poses such questions from very early on. Ercilla’s initial geographical description of Arauco is also ambiguous in this light. His emphasis on its remote situation in the ‘Antarctic’ region, ‘la postrera que los españoles han pisado’ [the last that the Spaniards have set foot in] (‘Prólogo’) recalls the convention that the northern (or in this case southern) nations furthest from the equator are, as Ptolemy paraphrases Aristotle, ‘full of courage but deficient in intellect and art […] they persevere more in their liberty, but they do not live politically, and they cannot govern their neighbors on account of their lack of prudence’ (p. 105). Yet, we have seen that despite its location Ercilla stresses that Arauco is temperate, fertile and indeed potentially idyllic, a perfect location for Ptolemy’s city state. The significance of this emphasis is made clear by comparison with Bartolomé de las Casas, who dedicated the first twenty-two chapters of his unpublished magnum opus, the Apologética historia sumaria de las gentes destas Indias [Apologetic Summary History of the People of these Indies], to describing and extolling the physical setting of the New World. The following seventeen chapters demonstrate how these ‘causas naturales’, the position of the stars, the climate, the clemency of the seasons, the adequate means of subsistence and so on, combine to create a perfect environment for human rationality and true government, which the remainder of the voluminous work goes on to prove. As if to press home the point, Ercilla also stresses that Arauco is one ‘estado’ surrounded by many

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others, similarly bellicose and attached to freedom, who appear in relation to it at various intervals in this part of the poem, subdued and hostile or in productive diplomatic relations, neutral or in alliance with it or the Spanish enemy. In other words, Ercilla’s Chile is perversely like Machiavelli’s Europe, which ‘alone has had several kingdoms and infinite republics’.24 Returning to the scene of the pugnacious Araucanian assembly and the eventual election of Caupolicán, the initial suggestions of anarchy and barbarity are increasingly questioned as it progresses. First, the quarrels between chiefs are quelled, as ‘otros caciques se metieron | en medio destos bárbaros de presto’ [other caciques quickly separated these barbarians] (II. 27), implying that both ‘barbarous’ and ‘political’ elements exist within the same assembly. Then the elderly cacique Colocolo delivers a set-piece speech (II. 28–30), which partially paraphrases the opening of Lucan’s Pharsalia with its excoriation of civil war, and presents Arauco as a free ‘patria’ defending itself against foreign tyranny. The change of lexis at this point, as the ‘junta’ is described as a ‘parlamento’ moderated by ‘opiniones’ and ‘consentimiento […] acordado’ [agreement and consent] in the language of institutional procedure (II. 36), is further indication of the shift. All this prepares for the stroke of irony as Ercilla informs his reader – surprised, he imagines, that ‘una provincia poderosa, | en la milicia tanto ejercitada | de leyes y ordenanzas abundosa, | no hubiese una cabeza señalada’ [a powerful province, so militarily proficient, abundant in laws and ordinances, did not have a designated head] (II. 37) – that the Araucanian senate always elected a single leader. The current interregnum was due to the sudden death of the previous incumbent, whom the Spanish had allegedly poisoned (II. 38) – a textbook violation of both ius belli and ius gentium. Poisoning of political rivals is a charge frequently brought against the peoples of Chile by the earlier chronicler Gerónimo de Vivar (1558), and its transferral to the Spanish is a disconcerting reversal. The reader’s second ‘objection’, that ‘un senado | de tan gran diciplina y pulicía | pusiese una elección de tanto peso | en la robusta fuerza y no en el seso’ [a senate of such great discipline and policía should base such a weighty choice on physical strength and not on brains] (II. 60), is similarly answered by Colocolo’s ‘prudencia’, astute enough to realise that Caupolicán’s strength is

24 Niccolò Machiavelli, Art of War, ed. and trans. by Christopher Lynch (Chicago, 2003), p. 58. For the term ‘estado’, used almost exclusively by Ercilla in conjunction with ‘señoría’, see José Manuel Zavala Cepeda and Tom D. Dillehay, ‘El “Estado de Arauco” frente a la conquista española: Estructuración sociopolítica y ritual de los araucano-mapuches en los valles nahuelbutanos durante los siglos XVI y XVII’, Revista de Antropología Chilena, 42.2 (2010), 433–50. Luis Sánchez Agesta, in El concepto del estado en el pensamiento español del siglo XVI (Madrid, 1959), suggests that in this period the term primarily designated a republican form of government.



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only a means by which to ensure his election.25 Ercilla’s description of the leader (II. 47) introduces distinctly political virtues – his ‘autoridad, grave y severo […] áspero y riguroso, justiciero’ [authority, grave and austere, harsh and uncompromising, righteous] – alongside physical prowess. As Barbara Fuchs puts it, the ‘prueba del tronco’ is also a test for ‘hasty readers’.26 In fact, the order of government that now emerges has more than a passing resemblance to the institutions of Venice as they were understood in common parlance. That there is no truly popular element would be unlikely to surprise the sixteenth-century reader: Contarini had already manipulated the definition of the mixed government so that the (essentially aristocratic) Council and Senate formed a microcosm of the perfect political community in and of themselves. Here, then, the ‘senado’ seems to represent both democracy and aristocracy, while the sixteen caciques (apparently an innovation of Ercilla’s) who possess jurisdiction over the region may owe something to the prominence accorded the sixteen Savi or ‘Wise Men’ of Venice in Contarini’s account. Caupolicán’s authority, like that of the Doge, is clearly kinglike rather than kingly: although surrounded by an aura of dignidad anxiously maintained by ceremonials, on each occasion he must persuade the senate to endorse his directive with a majority vote ratified after a fixed interim (I. 35–37). In later assemblies, we see debates regulated by an elaborate ritual of courtesy, in which right of speech is accorded to various members in turn according to their seniority, as in Venice or republican Rome. This model also touches on the traditional controversy of virtue and nobility. This was particularly contested in Spain during the reign of Philip II, which saw the opening of important posts within the administration and the military to talent, as well as ongoing disputes in the Indies over the heritability of the encomiendas originally awarded for military service to the Crown. Arauco is a meritocracy taken to extremes: the leading offices ‘ni van por calidad, ni por herencia, | ni por hacienda y por ser mejor nacidos; | mas la virtud del brazo y la excelencia, | éste hace los hombres preferidos’ [are not awarded according to social standing, nor lineage, nor estates, nor good birth; but the virtue and excellence of the fighting arm, this is what makes men favoured] (I. 17). The Araucanian social structure even parodies the encomienda at some points, with caciques imposing manual labour on their vassals (the infamous ‘personal service’ which ignited controversy from the early stages of colonisation in

25 This stanza appears for the first time in 1578a, perhaps in response to criticism of the episode, but it also seems to be implied in 1569, with the slippage between the literal and metaphorical significance of the ‘pesada carga’ [heavy weight] resting on Caupolicán’s Atlantan shoulders. 26 Barbara Fuchs, Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam and European Identities (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 47–48.

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Chile), in return for indoctrination not in the Catholic catechism, but the art of warfare: Sólo al señor de imposición le viene servicio personal de sus vasallos, y en cualquiera ocasión cuando conviene puede por fuerza al débito apremiallos; pero así obligación el señor tiene en las cosas de guerra dotrinallos con tal uso, cuidado y diciplina, que son maestros después desta dotrina. (I. 14) [The only imposition to which the lord is entitled is the personal service of his vassals, and on any occasion, when it is needful he can impel them to their duty by force; but correspondingly the lord has an obligation to indoctrinate them in matters of warfare with such practice, care and discipline, that afterwards they are masters of the doctrine.]

This version of meritocracy is inherently militaristic, and in this regard, the same might be said for the Araucanians’ bellicosity as for their resistance to regal governance: in itself it is no argument for civilisation. Sepúlveda, for instance, argued that the combination of permanent warmongering among the Amerindians with lack of military ability attested to their inferiority.27 The well-known late Roman military strategist Vegetius, in line with the dictum of Aristotle and Ptolemy cited above, suggested that those peoples ‘remote from the sun’s heat […] are readiest for wars’, but wage them by sheer numbers, without intelligence or art, a point which is picked up by Machiavelli in his own military treatise.28 The Spaniards’ consistent success despite being heavily outnumbered is a recurring trope in this Primera parte, and one which echoes the accounts of Cortés’s conquest of Mexico. Nevertheless, Ercilla’s treatment is, again, ambivalent. In the first canto, the Araucanian army is presented as a citizen militia, in a dense series of stanzas that essentially fuse the structures of two of the best-known artes de la guerra of the period that advocate for such an institution, those of Vegetius

27

See, for example, Sepúlveda, Demócrates segundo, p. 35; Sepúlveda’s stance in his later work on the question of the Mexicas’ military virtue is analysed differently by Rolena Adorno, ‘The Warrior and the War Community: Constructions of the Civil Order in Mexican Conquest History’, Dispositio, 14.36/38 (1989), 225–46, and Lupher, Romans in a New World, pp. 299–301. 28 Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitome of Military Science, ed. and trans. by N.P. Milner (Liverpool, 1996), p. 12; Machiavelli, Art of War, p. 163.



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and Machiavelli.29 Beginning with a selection of suitable youths from among the citizens (I. 16), a levy conducted, as in Machiavelli’s Art of War, such that men are enrolled ‘neither forced nor altogether willingly’ (p. 159), the recruits are trained for a particular specialism in arms (I. 15–17) along with regular exercises such as foot races, drills and jumping (I. 27), as in the first book of Vegetius. A list of arms follows (I. 19–22), whose lexis is mostly contemporary and European (pikes, halberds, lances, etc.), with some elements added from the ancient Roman legions, and others from actual Amerindian practice (lassoes, cotton armour). The emphasis on defensive armour rebuts a common stereotype of the Amerindian fighter and corresponds to Vegetius’s evaluation of its importance (I. 20). In battle, the army’s formation is disciplined, divided into companies and squadrons (I. 23–24); the manoeuvre of one small row of infantry replacing another resembles the Swiss battalions of pikemen in Machiavelli’s modern equivalent of the phalanx, with sheltered bowmen interspersed among the pikes rather like European harquebusiers. The Araucanians’ fortification of camps, a practice whose fall into disuse is lamented by both treatists, accords with Roman practice in its demarcation and adaptation to aggressive sallies (I. 28), while the interior structure with towers and embrasures from which to shoot (I. 29) reflects Machiavelli’s preference. Both treatists, like the Araucanians, prefer mobile infantry warfare on open, broken ground to the colonists’ practice of defensive siege (III. 80). The strategic effectiveness of such preparations is seen repeatedly in the battles that follow, as the dense clustering of pikemen deters or surrounds the Spanish cavalry, for example (III. 23), or the hasty erection of a barricade blocks the enemy flight (VI. 39). More generally, the emphasis on the adaptability of the army, and the employment of ruses such as disguise from the very first battle (II. 68), reflects the high valuation of novelty, invention and prudent assessment of the enemy in both previous treatists, as well as the actual practice of the Spanish tercios described in earlier épicas de la pólvora. Like the virtuous ancient militia of Machiavelli, they require no payment incentive for their services, and cultivate valour through neither expecting nor showing mercy. The critical literature has a tendency to regard the Araucanians as uniformly idealised by Ercilla, whether as epic heroes, exemplars of chivalry or ‘a perfect republic of soldiers’.30 As will become increasingly clear in this chapter, however, the oscillation between a host of bárbaros furiosos and a model republic is, on the contrary, one of the central dynamics and tensions in the poem, and a constant challenge to the reader’s expectations. The Araucanians’ usage of violence is not always ‘consistent with civilization’, but contains a 29

See also Jorge Checa, ‘Los araucanos y el arte de la guerra’, Prolija Memoria: Estudios de Cultura Virreinal, 2 (2006), 25–51. 30 Martínez, Front Lines, p. 137.

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diabolical force of its own, constantly, in practice inevitably, threatening to overpass its sanctioned limits, whether moral or strategic.31 The question this ambivalence implicitly raises concerning the relationship between civil and military power, or laws and force, is one raised throughout Machiavelli’s writings. The latter’s assertion in Il principe that the strength of all principalities should ultimately be measured by their capacity for self-defence alone, that ‘if there are good arms there must also be good laws’, and that a ruler ‘should have no other objective and no other concern, nor occupy himself with anything else except war and its methods and practices’ are highly contestable premises, and it remains to be seen how Ercilla negotiates the ethical and literary challenges they present.32 Imperial Expansion and the Rise and Fall of virtud For Machiavelli, though, there was no single model of the republic. In the Discorsi, there are, in essence, two: ‘either a republic that seeks to form an empire like Rome or one for which it suffices to preserve its power. In the first case it has to act precisely as Rome did [entrusting the guarding of freedom to the plebs, at the cost of permanent internal dissent]; in the second, it can imitate Venice or Sparta [entrusting freedom to the nobles, but limiting either population or arms-bearing among the plebs]’ (p. 37). For all the allusions to Venice, Arauco does not fit entirely comfortably into the latter category: there are no limits to the growth of the population or the citizen army, and, despite the mere twenty leagues of its boundaries, the territory is neither ‘located in a strong place and fortified so that no one could believe he could quickly overwhelm it’ nor so small that it could not be seen as a threat (p. 41). Moreover, given Machiavelli’s dictum in the Discorsi that ‘men who are born in a country conform more or less to the same nature for all time’ (p. 370), the hint at the expansionist impulse of the Araucanians at the outset, ‘amigos de domar estrañas gentes’ [keen to subdue foreign peoples] (I. 45), is not incidental. Indeed, the observation that they live beneath the astrological influence of Mars, ‘donde el punto de la guerra | por uso y ejercicio más se afina’ [where the point of warfare is sharpest through use and practice] (I. 10), echoes a commonplace about the city of Rome. For Ptolemy of Lucca, ‘the Roman regions are situated under Mars, and so they are not as easily subjected as others’, nor is Rome ‘accustomed to be satisfied with its boundaries’ (p. 122). The observation 31 Beatriz Pastor Bodmer, The Armature of Conquest: Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America, 1492–1589, trans. by Lydia Longstreth Hunt (Stanford, CA, 1992), p. 220. 32 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. and trans. by Quentin Skinner and Russell Price (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 42–43, 51–52.



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is developed in a more negative light by Las Casas in the Apologética historia, who asserts that the Romans and the Spaniards were the ancient nations most devoted to Mars, ‘por inclinación natural que de sí cognoscían de infestar y turbar el mundo con guerras y batallas’ [through a natural inclination which they recognised in themselves to plague and trouble the world with wars and battles].33 The comparison between Arauco and republican Rome is frequent: in the third canto, for example, when the young Araucanian Lautaro turns his back on the Spanish whom he was serving as auxiliary to rally the flagging Araucanian forces he will shortly come to command, his courage is favourably compared with a catalogue of ‘famosos’, all from the Roman republican period and familiar from Livy (III. 43–44).34 The comparison is paradoxical, for the Araucanians also resemble those peoples the Romans fought, finding ‘in every least part of the world a league of republics very well armed and quite stubborn in defense of their freedom’, such that ‘without rare and extreme virtù the Roman people would never have been able to conquer them’, such as the Germans described by Tacitus.35 According to this analogy, it is the Spaniards who become the Romans. The slippage of reference is another of the productive tensions maintained across the work, and, as I will argue shortly, provides one means of reading the narrative dynamic of expansion and decline throughout this part of the poem. Ercilla’s scrutiny of the fall of Pedro de Valdivia, the conquistador of Arauco, may be understood in terms of a radical Machiavellian political pragmatism as well as a moral critique. His failure to act quickly enough on the outbreak of rebellion (I. 72), favouring his private interest above the common good and striking at the rebels too little and too late, deviates from the advice given to rulers in possession of a newly annexed and unstable territory in Il principe. In this, Valdivia deviates from his customary ‘presteza’, the capacity to act quickly, which with its counterpart ‘industria’ – according to Covarrubias’s dictionary, ‘la maña, diligencia y solercia con que alguno hace qualquier cosa con menos trabajo que otro’ [the knack/cunning, diligence and astuteness with which someone does something with less effort than others] – are the invariable qualities of success throughout the Primera parte.36 Both reflect the quick adaptation to necessità and occasione particularly prized in Machiavelli’s ideal commander or prince. ‘Presteza’ is also given a metanarrative twist as the 33 Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras completas (Madrid, 1988–95), chapter 148, vol. VII, ed. by Vidal Abril Castelló, and others (1992), p. 989. See also Lupher, Romans in a New World, pp. 262–63. 34 MacCormack also notes the Araucanians’ parallels with the early Roman republic and its passion for liberty: On the Wings of Time, pp. 215–16. 35 Machiavelli, Discourses, p. 167. 36 Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid, 1611).

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narrator in this part of the poem, quite different from the persona assumed in its sequels, constantly hurries on the narration, abandoning the defeated and chasing after the victors (e.g. IX. 37, 110–11). Ironically enough, for instance, for a work whose licence promised ‘las guerras y descubrimiento de Chile, y otras cosas’ [the wars and discovery of Chile, and other things] Ercilla condenses the whole history of these early explorations, attempted conquests by the Incas and Almagro, and successful conquest by Valdivia to a mere nineteen stanzas (I. 48–66). Valdivia is shown recruiting an army, crossing the Atacama desert, fighting innumerable battles during six years of hardship, overcoming the Araucanian leader Ainauillo, and founding seven prosperous cities in the blink of an eye before the narrative of the conquest is drawn to a close: ‘No quiero detenerme más en esto’, declares the poet wryly, ‘pues no es mi intención dar pesadumbre […] fueron tantas las batallas | que dejo de prolijas de contallas’ [I do not want to be spend any longer on this, since it is not my intention to bore you (…) there were so many battles that they are too lengthy to tell] (I. 63). In their place emerges the surprise ‘industria’ of the Araucanians, as the old virtues of Valdivia pass to Lautaro, ‘industrioso, sabio, presto, | de gran consejo, término y cordura’ [astute, wise, quick-thinking, of great counsel, balance and good sense] (I. 86). When Lautaro assumes command, his ‘industria’ manifests first in a reform of the Araucanian troops into a tighter and more disciplined unit. His innovations are both subtle –exchanging drums for the more sophisticated bugle to give out military signals, for instance (XII. 55), or instituting a less disorderly repartition of spoils (X. 10) – and far-reaching. To give only a few examples which again correspond with the military treatises mentioned previously, he acts always in total secrecy (XII. 4–5) and rarely reveals his true emotions; he exploits the features of the terrain (III. 80, IV. 93) and seasons (IX. 24); he knows the strengths and weakness of the enemy as he pre-emptively captures their artillery (V. 28); and imposes discipline of the most extreme kind (VII. 35–42). When he feigns precisely the sort of textbook error he has not fallen prey to in his false negotiations with the Spanish on the campaign towards Santiago – ‘gran necesidad de bastimento […] por orden mala y poco regimiento’ [a great shortage of supplies, through poor organisation and lack of discipline] (XII. 26) – the interim commander Pedro de Villagrá is left ‘maravillado del ardid astuto’ [in awe at the clever trick] (XII. 32). Indeed ‘astucia’ and ‘ardides’, while present from the Araucanians’ first battle, become particularly characteristic of Lautaro’s strategy as he exchanges the sudden, massive attack for a carefully orchestrated siege. This change of tactic is perhaps best exemplified in the appeal to his men as they attempt to lure the Spanish out of Santiago: Amigos, vamos engañados si con tan poco número de gente



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pensamos allanar los levantados muros de una ciudad así eminente; la industria tiene aquí más fuerza y parte que la temeridad del fiero Marte. (XI. 73) [Friends, we are deceived if with so few men we think to level the high walls of such an eminent city; industria here is more powerful and necessary than the boldness of fierce Mars.]

Taken as a whole, the evolution of the Araucanian army here has much in common not only with classical military wisdom, but also with contemporary calls for reform of the Spanish military around these years. One innovation of the sixteenth century was the role of maestre de campo or commander of a tercio (introduced in 1534), a rank to which even common soldiers of ability could aspire and second only to that of capitán general. Although never described as such (he is said to be capitán and teniente), Lautaro effectively seems to occupy a comparable role below Caupolicán’s supreme command. Fernando González de León among others argues that the reign of Philip II was a period of transition in perceptions of the military career, with increasing calls for technical specialisation and effectiveness in combat. The wars in Flanders from 1567 under the Duke of Alba stimulated a stream of popular works which he terms the ‘ideal officer genre’. While respecting the value of lineage, they call for a more meritocratic selection process for senior officers, including specific skills such as a command of artillery alongside the moral virtues needed for renewal.37 Although most of these works did not appear in print until the 1580s, their composition is contemporaneous with La Araucana and is echoed in other soldiers’ writings of the period. The tactics of the astute Indian captain, then, seem to be one way of addressing these questions while also keeping them at a distance. Overall, however, as the dwelling on Valdivia’s failure rather than his conquests already suggested, Ercilla appears to be more interested in this part of the poem in the decline of leaders and communities than their successes.38 The overall narrative arc of these cantos describes the gradual fall of Arauco, from the surprise victors of the opening to the slaughtered mass at the Battle of Mataquito in the final canto. One understanding of this decline might be 37 Fernando González de León, ‘“Doctors of the Military Discipline”: Technical Expertise and the Paradigm of the Spanish Soldier in the Early Modern Period’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 27.1 (1996), 61–85 (p. 85). 38 As Martínez points out, many ‘gunpowder epics’ also focus more on the aftermath of conquest (rebellion, mutiny, loss of possessions) than its achievements: Baltasar del Hierro’s 1560 Destruición de África, for instance, ‘refuses to sing the story of its conquest [of Mahdia] and offers, instead, the story of its self-destruction’, Front Lines, p. 100.

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to see history as represented in a straightforwardly Machiavellian sense, a contingent tussle between the arbitrary power of ‘fortuna’, articulated in the exordium to the second canto and often described, as in Machiavelli, with the image of a torrent of water, and the human will to master her. This is a conflict in which ‘en el fin de la vida está la prueba’ [the proof is in the end of life] (II. 3), a judgement which is not unequivocally eschatological. After the initial conquest, the Spaniards rely too much on their ‘fortuna próspera’, both prior to the rebellion and in Francisco de Villagrá’s impulsive response to it. ‘Dando libre la rienda a su destino’ [giving free reign to his destiny] (IV. 94), he leads his men through the narrow pass of Andalicán at the borders of Arauco into an ambush in a fateful move compared to Lucan’s Caesar crossing the Rubicon, another classical instance of a surrender to (in this case favourable) fortune. When Lautaro first resists Fortune (III. 46), she moves to the side of the Araucanians and ‘dio por justa | la causa y opinión hasta allí injusta’ [declared just the cause and opinion until then unjust] (57), and remains there (VIII. 5–6, X. 1–3) until Villagrá seizes her and the initiative again in the night-time assault on Lautaro’s fortress at Mataquito (XIV. 5). This final reversal is aided by the unaccustomed laxity of the Araucanian troops, who neglect their sentinel duty, and their commander, who has already abandoned ‘su usada presteza’ [his usual speed] as he settles down to bide time in his stronghold (XII. 55). ‘Aquella sola noche’ [that night alone] (XIII. 44), moreover, having sworn to forsake all pleasures until expelling the Spanish (XII. 41), Lautaro is discovered naked and in bed with his beloved Guacolda, complacently trusting for the first time in the constancy of his ‘fortuna’ (XIII. 51).39 Favourable fortune and a constant military alertness and proactivity, then, appear to be closely bound together. Nevertheless, this explanation is not entirely satisfactory. On the contrary, one of the complexities of La Araucana is the manner in which Ercilla allows for multiple layers of interpretation of the causes of historical events. In an ambiguous relationship with ‘fortuna’ are ‘hado’ [fate] and, even more removed and mysterious, Providence, which initially favour the Christians (I. 57–58, 69) but then permit the Araucanians to be an instrument of vengeance on the morally corrupt conquerors (I. 69, III. 33), before punishing in turn the offences of the ‘verdugo’ [executioner] (XIII. 44).40 Thus, it is arguable that 39 As Mercedes Blanco argues in ‘Fábulas de amores en la épica de guerra. De la Araucana al Arauco domado’, Bulletin Hispanique, 121.1 (2019), 17–54, this turn of events is tragic and does not detract from but rather enhances Lautaro’s heroic stature. In my view, while this is true and the Lautaro-Guacolda episode is treated in a lyric vein with pathos rather than censoriousness, one out of several possible understandings of Lautaro’s fall (see below) is within the overarching narrative of military strategy. 40 See Arnold Chapman, ‘Ercilla y el “Furor de Marte”’, Cuadernos Americanos, 37.6 (1978), 87–97.



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the decline and fall of both the Spanish and Araucanian armies happen on a moral as well as a strategic level and are susceptible to articulation in the juridical terms of Just War Theory. In the understated claim that the Araucanian military machine is geared towards ‘lícitas guerras y batallas’ [licit wars and battles] (I. 18), in fact, the question of the legitimacy of violence has been present from the outset. As we saw in Chapter 1, disputes over the justice of the Chilean wars continued in this period and were not without material and spiritual consequence for those involved. In this light, it is evident that while Ercilla does not go so far as to claim that justice was on the side of the indigenous rebels, his attacks on the Spanish settlers are unsparing. The Araucanians commit none of the ‘crimes against nature’ attributed to them by Vivar; the conquistadors’ intention to spread the faith is given short shrift, and the initial Araucanian surrender to Valdivia is motivated by fear (I. 64) and ignorance (I. 65), neither legitimate criteria in scholastic terms for true conversion or voluntary submission. Even Sepúlveda had suggested that were it not for their crimes against nature, idolatry and stubborn rebellion, the peoples of America would have a right to resist conquest (p. 118). A series of moral turning points follow, however. In the sixth canto, the Araucanians commit the first atrocity of the war, as they massacre the unarmed servants and camp-followers at Andalicán, including women and children (VI. 17–35). Their subsequent sack and destruction of the deserted city of Concepción is hardly commendable either, with its undisciplined greed and wanton violence. The mock-epic similes comparing the plunderers to the Greek destroyers of Troy so horrifically presented in the second book of the Aeneid (VII. 48), to Nero watching Rome burn (VII. 62) and to bees collecting honey (VII. 50) (ironically reversing an image associated from Aristotle onwards with the harmonious construction of a political community), emphasise the transition. The Araucanians’ actions also evoke explicitly the catalogue of atrocities recorded in Las Casas’s polemical 1552 Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias [Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies], except, of course, that it is the colonists who now find themselves the victims of Indians who are anything but innocent.41 There is a more definitive turning point in canto IX, in which an attack on the city of La Imperial is thwarted by a Marian apparition. Both Vitoria and Sepúlveda argued that, in the case of an evident miracle, there was a moral obligation to convert without the usual need for a lapse of time and persuasive arguments to be made. It is following 41 Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, ed. by Consuelo Varela (Madrid, 1999). The allusions are specific: Las Casas frequently uses the simile of a beehive to represent the abundant and contented populations of the New World prior to their destruction (e.g. pp. 74, 89) and alleges that during the massacre of Cholula the Spanish captain sang the well-known romance ‘Mira Nero de Tarpeya’ [Nero looks out from the Tarpeian rock] (p. 107).

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this – although the incident is never developed – that the Araucanians resort to the archetypal crime against nature of cannibalism when the land is struck by famine, apparently as a consequence of the vision. When they reconvene for a second, this time ultimately futile, campaign, the narrator takes on an unaccustomed tone of censoriousness as he describes the ‘borrachera’ [drinking binge] which precedes the political assembly as a ‘detestable vicio’ [detestable vice] (IX. 26). Finally, their uprising seems to be condemned by association, as the new viceroy of Peru, Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, arrives in Lima in canto XII and crushes the Peruvian rebels who had backed Hernández Girón; after this, the Araucanians are described in new terms, as a ‘rebelde pueblo libertado’ [restive rebel people] now opposing not settlers, but Crown (XIII. 24). As the book closes there is a sense that a new kind of war is beginning, one of more clearly delineated ethics, as a group of theologians (we recall Fray Gil González again) embarks with the narrator and royal forces, ‘necesarios […] para evitar insultos de la guerra, | usados más allí que en otra tierra’ [necessary to avoid abuses of the war, more common there than in other lands] (XIII. 31). What is interesting here is the way in which this more straightforward ethical dimension interacts with the ongoing dialogue with Machiavelli, for it is arguable that Arauco also undergoes a full evolution to Machiavelli’s second model of republicanism, the expansionist model, in the course of these cantos. The question of imperial expansion remained problematic for republican thinkers throughout the early modern period. Often associated with a cultivation of military virtue among the citizens, it also posed dangers of tyranny and corruption, the ills that had afflicted the Roman republic. Venetian contemporaries, even eulogists such as Contarini, expressed similar reservations about their state’s terraferma expansion.42 The dilemma of deciding between a policy of pure self-defence or pre-emptive attack presents itself frequently in the Araucanian councils of war.43 After their first victory, there is a popular proposal to push their advantage as far as Europe, ‘pasar la vuelta de España […] que fuesen cultivadas las iberas | tierras de las naciones estranjeras’ [journey back to Spain, that the lands of Iberia might be cultivated by foreign nations]. This is immediately perceived by Caupolicán to be a ‘vano intento’ [vain endeavour] (III. 73–76), and successfully thwarted. After a second victory, however, Caupolicán too is arguing for a European campaign (VIII. 16–20), and is with difficulty turned aside by Colocolo and Lautaro, who return the focus to immediate strategic needs. Encamped near Santiago, Lautaro also seems to have succumbed to the delusion of conquering Spain (XII. 13); although at this point he may simply be demonstrating bravado in 42 See Lester J. Libby, ‘Venetian History and Political Thought after 1509’, Studies in the Renaissance, 20 (1973), 7–45. 43 One of the central points of disagreement between the scholastic and humanist traditions of Just War Theory, according to Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace.



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an address to his Spanish listener, his regretful soliloquy in XII. 37 suggests that the promise of global domination was one made to his own people too. It goes without saying that the foolishness of such a proposal is in every case evident.44 It is one promoted by the impetuous younger warriors, and opposed in the eighth canto by the wise reasoning of the elderly and dignified Peteguelén and Colocolo. There is also a sense of fatal hubris about the Araucanians’ intent: it is at the very moment when the hot-tempered Tucapel boasts that ‘a guerra incitaré al supremo cielo’ [I will incite the supreme heavens to war] (VIII. 29) that the seer Puchecalco intervenes with a doom-laden prophecy. The hechicero [sorceror] is, admittedly, treated with mild irony by Ercilla, but when he is murdered by Tucapel, who turns against the whole ‘senado religioso’ as they try and fail to avenge the crime, there is the clearest indication yet of serious discord within the community. It is the second time that Caupolicán’s authority as leader has failed to prevail against abuse by influential nobles (the first being the killing of Valdivia), and although his dignity is preserved by disimulación (VIII. 59) in both instances, certain flaws in the elective model of leadership are apparent. His ultimate dependence for authority on the assembly that elected him means that even when his decisions are wise, the competing claims of important families and the army’s favour frequently leave him impotent to enforce them. Both failures to assert his authority also turn aside the two most significant moments of potential for a fair peace with the Spaniards. There is a suggestion, then, that this model of republicanism, with its inherent tendencies towards factionalism and aggression, is not only internally unstable but also prone to a destructive prolongation of warfare beyond what might be considered just and proper. One significant point, moreover, and one that has not to my knowledge been recognised by critics, is that there is a fundamental change around the mid-point of this book in Araucanian strategy from defensive to offensive and expansionist warfare. After the failed attack on La Imperial, the Araucanians are invited by the ‘pueblos comarcanos’ [neighbouring peoples] to expel the Spanish from their territories in return for a sum of money. Their action is described not in the language of patriotic self-defence, nor even of legitimate alliance, but that of a rather shady business deal, a ‘doble y solícito contrato’ [two-faced and solicitous contract] (IX. 36). The victory games that follow the second assault on Penco/Concepción show an expansion in Arauco’s sphere of influence, as they attract ‘naturales, vecinos y estranjeros’ [natives, neighbours and foreigners] (X. 13). On Lautaro’s next campaign, his 500 troops are motivated by gain rather than patriotism, and picked with no regard for their moral character or even, necessarily, skill: ‘mozos gallardos, de la vida 44

Several critics, from Quint to Martínez, have pointed out that this ambition does highlight the fragility of empire and the possibility that Chile might be lost, but the plan of driving back the conquest all the way to Spain is clearly hyperbolic.

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airada | por más bravos que pláticos tenidos’ [gallant young men and outlaws, reputed to be more hot-headed than they were experienced] (XI. 34). They behave, in fact, precisely as the sort of reckless professional mercenaries whose use Machiavelli consistently condemns: Perdidos por bullicio y disensiones, en el duro trabajo ejercitados, diabólicos, rufianes, desgarrones, a cualquiera maldad determinados, amigos de mudanzas y cuestiones, homicidas, sangrientos, temerarios, grandísimos ladrones y cosarios.45 (XI. 35) [Sunken in rowdiness and arguments, experienced in the hard labour [of war], diabolical ruffians, braggarts, ready for any kind of wickedness, partial to fickleness and fights, blood-soaked, reckless murderers, great thieves and pirates.]

As they march through neighbouring territories, they behave as aggressors rather than allies, demanding the submission of their caciques, tribute, weapons and recruits, as well as the requisite sustenance: La comarca arruinan y destruyen, talan comidas, casas y heredades, que los indios de miedo al pueblo huyen stupros, adulterios, y maldades por violencia sin término concluyen, no reservando edad, estado y tierra, que a fuego y sangre rota era la guerra. (XI. 37) [They ruin and destroy the region, wrecking crops, houses and property as the Indians flee in fear to the towns, committing rapes, adulteries and evils with uninhibited violence, sparing no one of any age, condition or land, since the war was one with no holds barred.]

The mention of a ‘guerra a sangre y fuego’ (literally, war of blood and fire), which is mentioned twice in this passage, is particularly shocking. The expression was usually used for a ‘total’ war against inveterate enemies, one that took no hostages and observed no codes, but it is here employed against peaceful indigenous neighbours who put up no resistance to the Araucanian advance, albeit in the overarching cause of a campaign against the Spanish. 45

Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñuga, La Araucana (Madrid, 1569), p. 274.



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The error is clearly strategic as well as moral, as Lautaro will later lament: after three months of campaigning, his ‘campo mal regido’ [undisciplined army] turns back having sustained nothing but losses (XII. 38), to a large extent through its own failure to observe orders. This context should also be borne in mind when considering Lautaro’s final downfall. There are, clearly, anomalous errors at Mataquito, as indicated above, and the peripeteia is, in literary terms, tragic. Contemporaries also made similar criticisms, however, regarding the corrupting effects of landward expansion on the Venetian youth: as Andrea Mocenigo put it in his history of the Italian wars, ‘weakened and enamoured of the land, they easily turned from labours to delights’.46 The crucial factor in the outcome of the battle is the treachery of ‘un comarcano bárbaro’ [a local barbarian], who does not feature in earlier sources, and who leads Villagrá through the mountains to Lautaro’s otherwise impregnable fort. Davis has interpreted this and other acts of disloyalty in La Araucana as an attempt to present Amerindians as inherently treacherous and deceitful (pp. 46–51). It is necessary, however, to read this incident, and the subsequent abandonment of the Araucanians by their allies (XIV. 20–22) against what has gone before. On one level, there is an evident social as well as political contrast between the indomitable Araucanians, who continue to resist to the point of annihilation, and the ‘baja y vil canalla’ [lowly and common rabble] who immediately abandon the fort. On another, though, in terms of the military strategists referenced above, Lautaro made a fundamental error in receiving so many auxiliary troops in the first place into what should be a predominantly citizen militia – again a consequence of rapid expansion. According to Machiavelli, there is perhaps a deeper error at stake too: in trusting that those whom he had injured in his earlier actions could be relied upon. The mistaken imperialism of Lautaro, read alongside his ethical errors, implicitly questions the sustainability of the republican militia eulogised at the outset of the poem. There is perhaps a suggestion, as in Machiavelli, that the self-contained republican state can exist only in the realm of ideas; in the real world, it is inherently prone to a cycle of expansion and instability, for ‘necessity leads you to do many things that reason does not’.47 In this case, the process appears to lead inevitably to decline, as Machiavelli predicted for a republic whose freedom was entrusted to the aristocracy rather than the plebs. There are, however, reasons to prevent the reader from understanding the narrative as a critique of republicanism alone. The notion of ‘vanidad’ occurs frequently in the poem, and poetically associates the imperialist impulse of the Araucanians, ‘vano intento’ (III. 76), with the ‘gloria vana y vanas 46 Andrea Mocenigo, La guerra di Cambrai fatta a tempi nostri in Italia [The War of the League of Cambrai Waged in our own Times in Italy], trans. by Andrea Arrivabene (Venice, 1544), p. 31 (my translation). 47 Machiavelli, Discourses, p. 42.

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pretensiones’ [vainglory and vain pretensions] of the conquering Spaniards (I. 67), and with the ‘vano intento de los Ingas vanos’ [vain endeavour of the vain Incas] (I. 51), who with their ‘fueros’ and standards in turn bear some resemblance to the Spanish: it is systematically applied, then, to no less than three would-be imperial powers in Arauco. For Quint, when the Araucanians parade in Spanish clothing (which was in fact a common practice) and threaten to conquer Spain, they are a source of humour, but also a mirror image and implicit interrogation of Spain’s own claims to lordship of the other pole (pp. 16–18). It is possible to develop, and nuance, this observation. To begin with, it is not the only point at which the Araucanians mimic Spanish colonial practice. The pseudo-encomienda system already discussed is another parody of this kind, and as Arauco’s military evolves, it adopts more and more elements of Spanish military culture. Lautaro trains his men to perform cavalry manoeuvres with the horses they have captured, for example (XII. 19), and begins to don European armour (XII. 8). In the diplomatic exchange with Marcos Veaz, he also makes a number of (false) demands which set out a tributary arrangement with the Spanish forces, rather than their complete withdrawal: mas si queréis en tiempo reduciros haciendo lo que aquí os será mandado, saldré de la promesa y juramento y vosotros saldréis del perdimiento […] Treinta mujeres vírgines apuestas por tal concierto habéis de dar cada año […] También doce caballos poderosos […] y seis diestros lebreles animosos en la caza me habéis de dar cebados: este solo tributo estorbaría lo que estorbar el mundo no podría. (XII. 13–15) [but if you wish to submit now, doing what will be asked of you, I will be free from my promise and vow, and you will be free from damnation (…) through the said agreement, you are to give thirty comely virgins every year (…) also twelve powerful horses (…) and six skilled and spirited hounds trained for hunting: this tribute alone would stop what the whole world could not.]

This is, of course, a carefully staged performance. Nevertheless, the mockery of Spanish colonial practice is explicit, complete with the same legalistic jargon and cultural preferences, albeit noticeably lacking in any demand for monetary tribute. The Spaniards’ surprise that such a small indigenous force



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should promise to achieve so much, against such superior numbers, and so far from home (XI. 39), is a further reminder of the reversed dynamic of conquest. Although Ercilla does not elaborate the point, there is an uncomfortable suggestion that the Spanish have to some extent given birth to the force that is now turned against them – and also experience here the negative side of the employment of auxiliaries such as Lautaro.48 The greed, cruelty and vainglory that emerge to plague the Araucanian army are as much a product of their imperial encounter, and their imperial ambitions, as of the nature of republicanism itself. The Araucanian political community thus represented is both the antithesis and the mirror of the Spanish. It must be remembered that in one sense the New World colonisers are also a people without a king, adrift and uncaptained rather like the storm-tossed ship that symbolically figures in the final canto. Time and again, they, rather than the Indians of Las Casas, are compared to sheep without a shepherd (e.g. VI. 4, VII. 15, IX. 109), abandoned by the ‘hired hands’ in charge and at the mercy of the Araucanian wolves. When the new viceroy reasserts royal authority in Lima, it is in a distinctly contingent and questionable sense. His methods might legitimately be described as Machiavellian: ‘sagaz y receloso’ [savvy and suspicious], he enters with a show of benevolence, but once his position is secured, he fills the tribunals with new occupants and ruthlessly eliminates the rebels, even those whose crimes had been pardoned (XII. 80–81), leaving the province in suspense, confusion and terror (XII. 83). Although Hurtado communicates ‘la voz del rey’ [the king’s voice] (XII. 93), this seems to extend only so far as the awe that the monarch inspires; Ercilla remits moral judgement to Philip alone.49 The appeal to the citizens’ inborn loyalty to their natural lord and king (XII. 97), too, is something of an afterthought; the analysis of human motivations overall is more cynical. The implication here seems to be that, far removed from the practical reach of the Crown, even its legitimate ministers are obliged to make use of cunning, ruthlessness and even immorality before ordered government can be re-established. Such questions would be both recognisable and uncomfortable for the poem’s early readers. Beset by the Morisco rebellion that by 1570 ‘had been the most brutal war to be fought on European soil that century’, struggling with English hostility in the Atlantic, at odds with France over religious 48

For an analogous argument regarding Shakespeare’s Caliban, cf. Stephen Greenblatt, Learning to Curse (London, 1990), pp. 16–39. 49 There is some ambiguity in the expression, which might refer either to the public cry or ‘voz’ ‘¡viva el rey!’ [long live the king!], which acts as a rallying point for the dissolution of the revolt, or to the symbolic embodiment of the king’s voice and presence by the newly arrived viceroy; the latter reading is perhaps more likely given that the phrase appears some time after the rebellion has died down.

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policy and the destruction of the Huguenot colony in Florida, shaken by the Vilcabamba Inca rebellion in Peru and the alleged conspiracy of Martín Cortés in Mexico, increasingly threatened by Turkish belligerence, and facing a new escalation of violence in Flanders, military resistance to the Spanish Crown by independent and radically different categories of political community appeared to pose an increasingly unavoidable dilemma. According to Henry Kamen, ‘at the time Philip must have seen 1568–1569 as possibly the worst year of his reign’.50 There seems to have been a sense of an almost ubiquitous threat to the stability of Europe and of the empire, both urgent and extremely hard to address or define. The courtier and captain Juan de Zúñiga observed in a letter to Philip II on 14 October 1569 that ‘parece que anda un clima de rebeliones en el mundo’ [it seems that there is a climate of rebellion at work in the world]; contemplating France in 1567, Philip himself wrote that ‘por todas partes cresce el fuego’ [the fire rages on every side].51 As Spain continued to stretch its already overburdened finances and population to fund an increase in its military capabilities, new circumstances posed new questions. This context perhaps adds something to our understanding of Ercilla’s claim that the poem’s dedication to the monarch, whom he wishes ‘acrescentamiento de mayores reynos y señoríos’ [the growth of greater kingdoms and estates], holds ‘algo escondido’ [something hidden]. We recall that Ercilla’s departure to the Americas was motivated by one rebellion (of Hernández Girón), and his return by another (of Lope de Aguirre), and in reminding the king of his service he speaks primarily in terms of the subjugation of rebellions. The sensitivity of this topic might illuminate the testiness of the enigmatic assertion in IV. 5 that no quiero meterme en tal hondura, que es cosa no importante y peligrosa; el tiempo lo dirá y no mi escritura, que quizás la tendrán por sospechosa; sólo diré que es opinión de sabios que adonde falta el rey sobran agravios. [I do not want to get out of my depth, since the subject is dangerous and not to the point, time will tell it and not my writing, which perhaps will be held to be suspect; I will only say that it is the opinion of wise men that where the king is absent harms abound.]

It is not until the Segunda parte of 1578 that the problem suggested here – the extent to which the king can be present in the distant reaches of empire, and of 50

Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain (New Haven, CT, 1997), pp. 131, 129. Luciano Serrano, Correspondencia diplomática entre España y la Santa Sede durante el pontificado de S. Pio V (Madrid, 1914), III, p. 165; Pedro Rodríguez and Justina Rodríguez, Correspondencia inédita de Felipe II con su embajador en París (1564–1570) (San Sebastián, 1991), doc. 70. 51



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whether different moral standards must come into play in such circumstances – is directly addressed, then by a more established aristocrat and poet, and, I suggest, with one particular analogy in mind, the rebellion in Flanders. ¿Adonde falta el rey sobran agravios? Philip’s Wars in the Segunda parte de La Araucana With its rewitten dedication, new laudatory verses of more prestigious authorship, a new prologue and a second exordium promising ‘nueva guerra’ and seeking again the favour of its royal patron, the second part of La Araucana is full of new starts and new promise. The narrative dynamic of the first seems to be reversed: as the ‘ejercitados’ soldiers (XII. 19) arrive in Peru under the new captain García Hurtado de Mendoza, with the young Ercilla among them, their forceful march forward obliterates the traces of the erratic retreat of their compatriots. Progressively regaining territorial control, they definitively rebuild and hold the site of Penco/Concepción so often lost and won (XVII. 24–28); cross the river Biobío over which Villagrá and his men had swum a panicked return; ride in file over the hill of Andalicán still white with Christian bones (XXIII. 20) into the Araucanian heartland; rebuild the fort of Tucapel that still recalls the ‘infame muerte’ [awful death] of Valdivia (XXVI. 38–39), and finally gain the heights of Purén used to the strategic advantage of Arauco at the outset (XXVIII. 66–67). While Fortuna is as present as ever, her favour of the Spanish remains relatively constant, and is, again, associated with rigorous military professionalism. In stark contrast to the impetuous attacks, panicked retreats and general tendency to scatter of the colonists, the Crown forces always represent an ‘ordenado campo’ [disciplined army]: time and again, they are shown positioning, quickly constructing and repairing a camp or fort (e.g. XVI. 34, XXII. 6); holding their formation on the march or under attack (XIX. 38; XXII. 5, 9; XXVII. 60), and applying a mixture of espionage and persuasion to gauge the intentions of their adversaries. ‘Presteza’ becomes, again, their defining characteristic (XVII. 22, XXI. 17, XXII. 16, XXVIII. 60), and the prospect of defeat now an ‘imposible’ (XIX. 30). By contrast, the defining dynamic of the Araucanians becomes one of deferral. Although when they do attack, it is with the same ‘presteza’ as ever (XVII. 30), more often they are seen dispersing or retreating in view of the superior, and continually reinforced, invading army. However ordered the retreat (XXII. 40–44) or ‘prudente’ the equivocal diplomacy and delay (XXI. 21–22), it never promises a restoration of their fortunes; as Machiavelli had put it, ‘wars cannot really be avoided but are merely postponed to the advantage of others’.52 The irony here is that, as a military republic, the strengths of the Araucanian community are as much in evidence as ever. Excepting one 52 Macchiavelli,

The Prince, p. 11.

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failure of discipline when they sack the baggage train at Purén (duly punished: XXVIII. 71) their militia is if anything more ‘ordenado’ (XXV. 17) than at the beginning, as the eulogy of their arte militar in the exordium to XXV suggests. The piquería still wreaks considerable damage in direct combat (e.g. XXII. 17), and they continue to devise invenciones to adapt to the new Spanish strategy of fortified camps and barricades, such as siege machinery (XXI. 16). Likewise, the political emphasis seems to shift from barbarity to policía, a reading that the authorial amendments made to the Primera parte in the first edition of 1578 also support, which tend to substitute ‘bárbaros’ and related terms for a more neutral lexis. The mannerisms of the wily ambassador Millalauco, for example, who rides up to the Spanish camp in a ‘góndola’ (an almost undocumented Italianism in this period) towards the end of canto XVI, and finishes his courteous speech with a flourishing bow, are unmistakably Venetian. Perhaps more significantly, while the ‘bestial’ (XVI. 16) tendency towards civil dissent remains in evidence, and is again decried by Colocolo in the opening canto, it is less and less evident that this necessarily obstructs political life or the capacity to take decisions that accord with the common good. The ongoing enmity between Rengo, newly admitted to the council of caciques for his acts of bravery in the Primera parte (XVI. 40), and Tucapel, for example, appears to mimic the constant power struggles between patricians and plebs of Machiavelli’s Rome. Yet if anything it strengthens the hand of Caupolicán, who succeeds in channeling the potential violence into a duel under his authority, and works to the advantage of the Araucanians during battle, as the two rivals watch each other’s backs ‘como si fueran dos hermanos’ [as if they were two brothers] (XXV. 72). The assumption seems to be, then, that even the most functional and patriotic of Machiavelli’s models of republic is ineffectual against the strategic and technological resources of their opponents, whose superior mobility and artillery power is very much in evidence. The two images of the Araucanians miserably attempting to conduct a siege with their ‘new’ inventions of Roman and medieval pedigree, no sooner created than withdrawn, and of the lord of Arauco, Peteguelén, rudely stopped in his feat of arms by a stray bullet in the first battle, suffice to illustrate the point. Indeed, one of the surprising features of the new dynamic is that it is anything but triumphalist. The wry ‘presteza’ of the poet of the Primera parte skipping over his battles and hastening after the victors reverts to the ‘dificultad y pesadumbre’ [difficulty and sorrow] of the weary soldier-poet (‘Prólogo’), who opens his new epic in a voice of lament, and explicitly refuses to ‘pasar tan presto’ [pass so quickly] (XXII. 18) over the bloody consequences of the conflict, protesting at the uninterrupted monotony of the slaughter (XX. 5) and lingering over the bodies of the defeated. Another significant change in this part of the work is its expansion to encompass explicitly the global Spanish theatre of war in a series of prophetic



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episodes that have been read as the most unambiguous panegyrics of the entire work. In the first of these, the poet-narrator has a dream-vision of the Battle of Saint-Quentin (1557), followed by a prophecy by the allegorical figure Razón (Reason) of subsequent events of Philip II’s reign; he later encounters a reclusive Araucanian mage, Fitón, who shows him his cave of marvels with a crystal ball which reveals the Battle of Lepanto (1571), and a vision of the globe. The prologue clearly invites the reader to consider these digressions in a parallel, comparative relationship: Acordé de no mudar estilo, porque lo que digo se me tomase en descuento de las faltas que el libro lleva, autorizándole con escribir en él el alto principio que el Rey nuestro señor dio a sus obras con el asalto y entrada de Sanquintín, por habernos dado otro aquel mismo día los araucanos en el fuerte de la Concepción. Asimismo trato el rompimiento de la batalla naval que el señor don Juan de Austria venció en Lepanto. Y no es poco atrevimiento querer poner dos cosas tan grandes en lugar tan humilde; pero todo lo merecen los araucanos […] [I determined not to change styles, so that what I say might be counted against the faults of the book, giving it authority by writing about the lofty beginnings that the King our lord gave to his deeds with the assault and capture of Saint-Quentin, since the Araucanians mounted another assault on us that same day at the fort of Concepción. Likewise I deal with the outbreak of the naval battle which Don John of Austria won at Lepanto. And it is no small daring to put two such great things in such a humble place; but the Araucanians deserve it all.]

The choice to focus on the victory of the Spanish, Dutch and Italian forces against the French army at Saint-Quentin shortly after Philip II’s accession to the throne is significant. Although the battle decisively recalibrated the European balance of power and was at the time of composition being commemorated in the new royal site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Kamen suggests that its repercussions in Spain were limited.53 There is, then, a deliberateness in Ercilla’s selection that goes beyond the coincidence of dates. The manner in which the narrative of the battle (XVII–XVIII) is made to mirror the Chilean frontier is illuminating. Although the situation is reversed in Chile, with the Spaniards defending rather than assaulting a ‘plaza fuerte’ [stronghold], there are superficial parallels to the Araucanian assault on Penco which rudely intrudes on the poet’s dream (XIX–XX). Both commence with the division of a numerous attacking army (‘grueso ejército’, XVII. 51; ‘gruesos escuadrones’, XIX.4) into three sections; in both, there is the 53 Henry Kamen, The Escorial: Art and Power in the Renaissance (New Haven, CT, 2010), pp. 29–45.

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hyper-realist detail of dead and dying bodies piling up; both Spanish victories eventually chastise the ‘arrogancia’ of the enemy. Battle narratives, of course, and particularly ‘set pieces’ such as the storming of a city, tended to share a number of tropes, and in this instance the parallel between the two highlights difference more than similarity, both in style and structure. While the narrator of Saint-Quentin maintains the panoramic scope of an artist, with only selected commanders picked out from the strategic movement of masses,54 the fighting at Penco quickly fragments into a series of individual feats and deaths in the idiom of classical epic. While Saint-Quentin falls into three clearly defined stages of preparation, storming and sack, the attack on Penco endures fiercely but inconclusively until the patchy Araucanian retreat. The comparison does not seem particularly calculated to add prestige to either. It is the final stage of the Saint-Quentin vision – the sack – that most clearly alludes to Arauco, except that the referent here is not the contemporaneous assault on Penco, but the abandonment of the city and its sack by the Araucanians in the Primera parte.55 ‘Penco’ and ‘Concepción’ are used interchangeably by Ercilla for the valley, the fort and the city, and the prologue’s reference to the newly erected Penco as ‘el fuerte de la Concepción’ seems designed to recall the narrative of the city’s destruction in canto VII. So, too, are verbal parallels such as the following: las encerradas vírgenes llorando por las calles, sin manto ni escudero, atónitas, acá y allá perdidas, a las madres buscaban desvalidas (VII. 14) [the enclosed virgins went weeping through the streets, with no shawl nor squire, stunned, scattered here and there, they helplessly searched for their mothers] Viéranse ya las vírgenes corriendo por las calles, sin guardia, a la ventura, […] y las míseras monjas, que rompiendo sus estatutos, límites y clausura, 54 Paul Firbas argues for the influence of sixteenth-century chorographic engravings here, in ‘El sueño en la trama épica: La visión corográfica de San Quintín en La Araucana de Alonso de Ercilla’, in Los sueños en la cultura iberoamericana (siglos XVI–XVIII), ed. by Sonia Rose and others (Seville, 2011), pp. 385–407. 55 I analyse the episodes in more detail in ‘“Adonde falta el rey, sobran agravios” (IV.5)? The Siege of Saint-Quentin and Two Worlds of War in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana’, in Stephen Boyd and Terence O’Reilly, eds, Artifice and Invention in the Spanish Golden Age (Oxford, 2014), pp. 173–84.



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de aquel temor atónito llevadas, iban acá y allá descarriadas (XVIII. 24) [The virgins can be seen running through the streets, without a chaperone, aimlessly, and the wretched nuns, breaking their statutes, limits and cloister, led by their stunned fear, went astray here and there]

The comparison looks back to one of the lowest points for the Spanish in the Primera parte, and is hardly a flattering one. It underlines what comes very close to a critique of the conduct of Philip’s campaign, which did indeed result in a brutal sack of the town by the German mercenaries, and the killing of all its defenders. Like the Araucanians, the Spanish troops are driven blindly by ‘furor indómito’ [unfettered fury], with the additional imputation of civil war (as Erasmus would see it, between fellow Christians) implicit in the allegorical presence of ‘Discordia’. The forceful latinism ‘furor’ and its counterpart ‘fiero’ and its derivatives are applied to the soldiers no less than twelve times in just over twenty lines, inaugurated by the ‘furor del gran Felipe’ [fury of the great Philip] (XVII. 56). The similes used to describe the attack – the dusty storm (XVII. 61), the river in spate (XVIII. 11) – are consistently applied to the unrestrained violence of Arauco, and our brief glimpses of the ‘muertes estrañas’ [strange deaths] are as horrific and paradoxical as any in Chile. When the ‘furor’ subsides, it is replaced by ‘insaciable codicia’ [insatiable greed]: they destroy all in their path in the search for plunder, ‘sin reservar lugares reservados’ [without excepting sacred spaces], ignoring, or rather incited by, the cries of women that, like those of the innocents killed by the Araucanians in canto VI, reach to heaven (XVIII. 22). Their comparison to flames consuming a neighbourhood (XVIII. 19) recalls the figures used for the Araucanians in VII, and soon becomes literal (XVIII. 25). ‘Barbarian’ passions and behaviour seem to be common to all forms of early modern warfare in this account. It is, however, necessary to nuance the view of critics who would regard the scene as uniformly condemnatory.56 When the commands of ‘el pío Felipe’ [the pious Philip] (XVIII. 23) intervene mid-way through the sack, they have a very real impact on the manner in which it is concluded.57 They prevent the development of dissent within the troops such as that which plagued the Araucanian plunderers; though the distress of the women may resemble those fleeing from Concepción or the massacred camp-followers, thanks to Philip’s orders to evacuate women and children, ‘aunque fueron sus casas 56

For example, Galperin, ‘The Dido Episode’, p. 41. As Ramona Lagos also points out in ‘El incumplimiento de la programación épica en La Araucana’, Cuadernos Americanos, 238 (1981), 157–91 (pp. 178–80), and Padrón in The Spacious Word, p. 200. 57

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saqueadas | las honras les quedaron reservadas’ [although their houses were sacked, their honour was preserved] (XVIII. 24); the besieging armies do not pursue fugitives, and the fires are swiftly put out by ‘del piadoso Rey la gran clemencia’ [the great clemency of the pious King] (XVIII. 28). Although Ercilla’s view is typically pragmatic – plundering, however unheroic, is the common soldier’s reward (XVIII. 17) – the emphasis is on limited harm. It is even more limited, in fact, than that allowed by Vitoria, who permitted the sacking and burning of a city ‘if necessary to the conduct of the war’ despite acknowledging the difficulties of applying any kind of restraint on the soldiery (p. 323). Indeed, Philip II’s hold over the moral conduct of his soldiers goes beyond even regular discipline. His command enables the soldiers to restrain even with their ‘primero movimiento’ [first inclination] (XVIII. 25) of lust towards the women, a term which is used frequently in Ercilla’s poetic language to signify the drive, especially towards violence, of man’s bestial nature rather than his rational soul.58 While several commanders warn against it, both Spanish and Araucanian, the moral power that makes Philip’s orders uniquely effective is, it seems, the difference in Ercilla’s eyes between royal and merely contractual or delegated authority. It seems to be largely the way in which this moral power is used to moderate the conduct of the war with France that facilitates its closure with a definitive peace agreement. Ercilla’s choice to narrate the siege and capture of Saint-Quentin, rather than the much larger battle two weeks before, is itself significant. It was the only battle in Philip’s reign, and as it turned out the last in the reign of any Spanish monarch, at which the king was present in person. According to much of the political theory of the sixteenth century, from Machiavelli or Fox Morcillo to the Jesuit scholastic Juan de Mariana, the prince had a responsibility not only to defend his realms but even to risk his own life in leading his armies.59 Interestingly, however, the king does not appear here in triumphalist mode as the conquering general, as for instance he had in the portrait in armour commissioned in 1557 from Anthony de Mor. In fact, he does not appear directly at all. Nor, perhaps more surprisingly, is there any hint of divine providentiality or of the intercession of St Lawrence, as the battle was commemorated in the Escorial. Instead, the monarch is present

58 From a different perspective, Cyrus Moore analyses the struggle between passion and reason in the poem in terms of Neoplatonic and courtly discourse, in Love, War, and Classical Tradition in the Early Modern Transatlantic World: Alonso de Ercilla and Edmund Spenser (Tempe, AZ, 2014), as does Juan María Corominas in Castiglione y La Araucana: Estudio de una influencia (Madrid, 1980). 59 See e.g. Machiavelli, Art of War, p. 239; Sebastian Fox Morcillo, De regni, regisque institutione libri tres (Antwerp, 1556), S1v–3v; Juan de Mariana, De rege et regis institutione (Toledo, 1599), III.vi, V4r–X1r.



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here in the abstract, not so much in physical symbols such as emblems,60 as by the directive force of his qualities and virtues, his righteous ‘furor’, his pietas, his ‘gran clemencia’. He does not so much lead the troops to victory – he was not, in fact, one of the commanders of the campaign, which was fought in the name of the ruler of Flanders – as preside over and condition the way in which it is won. In this sense Ercilla both affirms and fundamentally alters the dictates of contemporary political thinkers. While Philip seems to be the decisive factor in the battle, it is not through his power or bellicosity, but ultimately through his capacity to channel the violence towards peace. In this light, the apparent contradiction between the efficacy of Spanish military operations in Chile and the tone of reluctance and lamentation with which they are narrated becomes clearer. In tune with the ending of the first part, at the opening of the second the Spanish expedition seems to regain a sense of moral purpose. On their first landing at the island of Talcaguano, Hurtado reassures the inhabitants that his sole purpose is the ‘religión y salvamento | de la rebelde gente bautizada’ [religion and salvation of the rebel baptised people] (XVI. 29), and although in the event the negotiations are only an Araucanian stratagem, his response to their ambassador momentarily holds out the possibility of a fair peace as he promises: que en nombre del Rey satisfaría su buena voluntad con tratamiento que no sólo no fuesen agraviados mas de muchos trabajos relevados. (XVII. 14) [that in the king’s name he would repay their goodwill by ensuring that not only were they not aggrieved but that they would be relieved of many labours.]

His speech before the first pitched battle cannot be faulted, closely echoing the ethical principles shortly before embodied by Philip at Saint-Quentin: aunque os haya ofendido el enemigo, jamás vos le ofendáis a espaldas vueltas; antes le defended como al amigo […] pues es más dar la vida que quitalla. Poned a todo en la razón la mira, por quien las armas siempre habéis tomado, que pasando los términos la ira pierde fuerza el derecho ya violado […] 60 An argument made by Carlos Albarracín Sarmiento in ‘El poeta y su rey en La Araucana’, Filología, 21 (1986), 99–116 (p. 109).

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el rigor excesivo en el castigo justifica la causa del enemigo (XXI. 55–56) [even if the enemy attacks you, never attack him when he is fleeing; on the contrary, defend him like your friend (…) for it is a greater thing to give life than to take it away. Consider everything in the light of reason, which has always governed your taking up of arms, for when anger overruns its boundaries, the justice of the cause is violated and loses force (…) excessive rigour in punishment justifies the enemy’s cause.]

In practice, however, it soon becomes evident that his commands do not have the same weight as those of the monarch. At both Penco and Millarapué, the soldiers disregard the admonition not to pursue the defeated, and are explicitly condemned for this by the narrator: […] los nuestros hasta allí cristianos, que los términos lícitos pasando, con crueles armas y actos inhumanos, iban la gran vitoria deslustrando (XXVI. 7) [our men, Christian up to that point, by crossing the licit boundaries, with cruel weapons and inhumane acts, began to sully the grand victory]

When they fall prey to an ambush in their reckless pursuit, there is an implicit correlation again between ethical warfare and successful warfare. The dilemma here, however, is more complex than the link in the Primera parte between unethical warfare and military decline and defeat. Not only is the military success of the expedition beyond question, as we have seen, but in juridical terms its declaration and conduct are not precisely illicit either. Vitoria argued for a discretionary application of the laws of war depending on the nature of the enemy: in the case of infidels, ‘from whom peace can never be hoped for on any terms’, the rights to plunder, enslavement and killing of those who surrender can be exacted in full, but with rebels, or the Amerindians, such actions may well be disproportionate and ‘against the public good’, and in the case of fellow Christians can only ever lead to further conflict and ruin (p. 321). The Araucanians sit uneasily between these categories of combatants: like infidels or heretics, they have repudiated the Christian faith, and like rebels have broken their oath of fealty to the king; yet in their own perception they are themselves the aggrieved, endeavouring to punish the invasion of their sovereign territory (XVI. 44). The Galbarino episode (XXII–XXIII), in which an Araucanian cacique has his hands cut off to serve as a deterrent to others, but instead makes an impassioned speech which resolves the senate to continue the struggle, is one particularly acute



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dramatisation of these competing logics, or what twenty-first-century conflict theory might call ‘incompatibilities’. For the Spanish, such mutilation is an admissible and unremarkable punishment of a rebel leader, one which was commonly employed in colonial warfare. For Galbarino, it is a gratuitous abuse of a prisoner of war and an indication of complete disregard for the Araucanian body politic. Like the killing of Valdivia, it acts as a turning point in which an act of inclemency (or insufficient ‘rigor’, depending on one’s perspective, cf. XXIII. 1) results in the brief prospect of a negotiated peace, which the senate is debating precisely as the injured cacique arrives, being definitively excluded after his harangue. The scene contrasts with Ercilla’s treatment of his captive Cariolano, whose valour and despair are converted by his captor’s clemency into an advantageous loyalty, ‘doméstico el que indómito había sido’ [he who had been untamed was now domesticated] (XXVIII. 52), but this finds no analogy in the Spanish campaign as a whole. The real crux here is not so much the legitimacy or otherwise of a given action; it is the fact that, given the differences in perception and status between the two warring parties, the actions taken outside the royal control are ineffective even when they result in short-term success. It is here that, while still influenced by the empirical logic of Machiavelli, Ercilla begins to make the interrogation of his core ideas more explicit. In Il principe (and again in the Discorsi, I.20, II.2, etc.), Machiavelli suggests several methods for fully subduing newly acquired principalities with different languages, customs and institutions, particularly aristocratic republics. Once the movement of the ruler’s residence there is excluded, destruction and colonisation are the only real methods of leaving the new ruler in a secure position; ‘poor and scattered’, the injured parties can never strike back and will eventually lose their memory of freedom (pp. 9, 18). The difficulty here, though, is that despite the inherent instability of the Araucanian republic, it possesses a perverse capacity to survive and resist. In European terms, the inhabitants are ‘poor and scattered’ even before the Spanish arrive, and now occupy a landscape transformed by war from the locus amoenus of the Primera parte to a locus eremus of ‘campos incultos y pedregosos’ [uncultivated and stony fields] (‘Prólogo’). The gesture in the final canto, in which the caciques burn their own homes and estates so as to serve their ‘patria’ unimpeded, seems to prove that, although the imagery of devastation is taken from Las Casas, the outcome will not be the complete destruction of the Amerindian polity. In a republic whose identity resides not in a city but in a society, little or nothing will cause the inhabitants to weaken or lose their memory of freedom. This prospect of a bloody stalemate was already hinted at in the Primera parte, in which the Araucanians at Mataquito declare themselves ‘muertos, pero no rendidos’ [dead, but not surrendered]. At this point it appears more definitive, however: Fitón’s prophecy bodes well for neither side in the war (XXVI. 45), and the suicidal tendency of Arauco assumes a new prominence and a new

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rhetoric, paradoxically linked to the estado’s resilience. Towards the end of the book, the poet gives a further catalogue of Roman republicans who ‘por la cara patria han convertido | en sus mismas entrañas las espadas’ [for their dear fatherland have turned their swords against their own insides] (XXIX. 2), refusing to be beaten by either ‘hado’ or ‘fortuna’. The ‘fortuna’ of Philip is prominent in this part of the poem. In the opening canto, in a storm scene with evident allegorical overtones, it intervenes almost divinely to pull the poorly governed ship of the Spanish (expedition, poem, empire) out of the ungoverned wind and waves to which the Araucanians are so frequently compared; thereafter, as we have seen, ‘fortuna’ remains with the Spanish throughout. At the Battle of Lepanto, Don Juan suggests, in line with the fifteenth-century poet Juan de Mena in his Laberinto de fortuna [Labyrinth of Fortune], that fortune and ‘hado’ are simply synonyms for Providence; this simplification of the complex causalities of the Primera parte is one way of understanding the uniquely favourable fortune of Philip, wherever he is represented. At other points, however – the exordia to XXVIII and XXIII, for example, with the warning that from a single spark, a conflagration can burn us all (‘nos abrasemos’), a conventional figure for the threat of rebellion – the inconstancy of both ‘fortuna’ and ‘hado’ persist. Nor do those unfavoured by fortune, as demonstrated above, necessarily disappear. One might hypothesise that something of the caution with which the good fortune of the Spanish in Chile should evidently be treated transfers itself to other parts of the Spanish realms. The prophecy that follows Saint-Quentin is full of ambiguous combatants, returning threats and inconclusive conflicts that in one way or another mirror the paradoxes of Arauco. There is the barbarous, indomitable Turk (XVIII. 43), continually returning from defeat; in Flanders ‘los estados | desasidos de Dios’ [the states which have let go of God] (the first time the term ‘estado’ has been applied to a community other than Arauco), where ‘las cosas […] durarán gran término dudosas’ [things will remain uncertain for a long time] (XVIII.47); and the Morisco revolt, ‘con pretensión de libertarse’ [aiming to liberate themselves] (XVIII. 48), and not remedied quickly enough, resolved only by a literal depopulation of the region whose devastating outcome would again have been notorious to the reader (XVIII. 51). While Philip’s history appears to march forward teleologically, it is clear that many of these threats remain. Even the more ostensibly triumphant narratives of Lepanto and the mapamundi have been read in this light.61 The closing vision of the victors pursuing the surrendered 61 For example, Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 158–59, notes the parallels that turn Spanish into republican resistance and the Turks into the imperial forces of Caesar in the battle; Galperin, ‘The Dido Episode’, pp. 43–47, emphasises the dwelling on violence and lament and the avoidance of the paean of Fernando de Herrera; Fuchs and Padrón alike question the reliability of Fitón as a medium of the visions and note a cartography that dwells on fallen empires, although this reading has recently been



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Turks at Lepanto, who are depicted as a supremely professional and loyal fighting force, to a gruesome and almost total slaughter, is uncomfortable in the light of Chile. Of all these analogies to the conflict in Arauco, it is the rebellion of Flanders that is most prominent. I would like to conclude this section by suggesting that virtually every episode I have analysed here would have brought the ongoing conflict painfully to mind for an informed contemporary. Saint-Quentin is first introduced as a stronghold on the ‘confín de Flandes y de Francia’ [border of Flanders and France] (XVII. 52) before being named four stanzas later. The use of it to dwell on the moral and pragmatic consequences of the sacking of a city appears less than two years after the climax of the ‘Spanish Fury’ at Antwerp. By this time, the conduct of the irregularly paid Spanish troops on taking a city or fortress had become one of the most notorious liabilities for their commanders, the government in Madrid and civilians alike, and the 1576 atrocities led almost immediately to the subscription of the previously loyal provinces to the Pacification of Ghent, concluding an otherwise effective Spanish military campaign with a major diplomatic defeat in a reversal not unlike the narrative pattern of the Chilean wars in this parte. The debate over the future of Flanders was a public one. Advocates for a moderate and pragmatic settlement such as Furió Ceriol in his Remedios appeared from as early as 1573, once the damage inflicted by the brutal legacy of Alba was fully apparent, and a reading of the official correspondence of the late 1570s reveals a sense of crisis concerning the future direction of the conflict. The parallels this correspondence presents to the Segunda parte are remarkable. In his Relación de los servicios [Memorial of the Services] of Alonso de Sotomayor, a prominent commander and diplomat of this period, Francisco Caro de Torres prints a number of confidential letters and instrucciones exchanged between Philip II, his governors in Flanders, and nobles and diplomats in France between 1577 and 1579.62 The most frequent themes and concerns coincide with those addressed in the poem: the difficulties of maintaining diplomatic exchange between parties whose intentions are unclear, the question of imprisoned rebel nobles and clemencia, or lapses in discipline and the need for ‘pláticos’ soldiers, for example. So, too, does their imagery: the metaphor of the gathering storm applied to the growing rebellion (fol. 11r); the figure of searching for ‘otro camino diferente’ [another different path] to represent the need to change tactic (fol. 39r), like the poet-narrator’s reluctant continuance of his ‘camino tan desierto y estéril’ [barren and sterile

questioned by Luis Gómez Canseco, in ‘Ercilla, Giovio et la géographie du globe’, Les Langues Néo-Latines, 394 (2020), 11–25. 62 Francisco Caro de Torres, Relación de los servicios que hizo a su Magestad del Rey Don Felipe Segundo y Tercero, don Alonso de Sotomayor […] (Madrid, 1620), fols 4–44.

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path]; or the vision of the hoped-for peace as a safe port (fol. 34r). Like the Araucanians, the Dutch are presented primarily as rebels rather than as heretics, pursuing their ‘diabólica libertad’ and seeking to undermine not only Philip’s authority but monarchy in general (fol. 11r). In an exchange with the Duke of Parma, Philip II outlines several possible remedies, expressing preference for a comprehensive or partial peace treaty, accompanied by a reduction of troops and costs. If these fail, the third and final remedy is to ‘entretener la Guerra […] por tiempo largo’ [stretch out the war for a long time] (fols 43v–44r) – in other words, to prepare for a war with no definite ending point, rather like that glimpsed in the poem. The letter itself wilfully ignores several points of the report that prompted it, most notably Parma’s insistence (basing his authority, like Ercilla’s, on his presence in the field) that the only two points on which the monarch refuses to compromise – complete loyalty to himself and to the Catholic faith – are now the two on which the rebels will never negotiate. His implication is that only a de facto recognition of the independence of the northern provinces (fol. 34v) will offset an inevitable upsurge in both troops and costs. By the time the Jesuit chronicler Diego de Rosales wrote his Historia general del reino de Chile, Flandes indiano [General History of the Kingdom of Chile, the Flanders of the Indies] in 1674, the comparison between the two most prolonged and apparently unwinnable conflicts of the Spanish Empire was an obvious one. Almost a hundred years earlier, it must have been more shocking. Ercilla allows the two to mirror each other, as ever, indirectly, only allowing for a glimpse of his own stance as the reader follows through the logic of the empirical examples presented for their consideration and the poetic language in which they are framed. The tendency to represent conflicts of many hues in this part of the poem through the Lucanesque lens of civil war, in what Plagnard calls a ‘multiplex imitation’ – the allusions in Lepanto not only to Actium but also to Pharsalus, for instance, or the slippage between the Araucanians as republicans to Hurtado’s Caesar, or as proponents of an empire of equal laws, facing like Caesar or Octavian the massed hosts of the ‘últimas partes orientales’ [farthest parts of the East] (XVI. 42–43) – raises the question of whether the conventional standards of engagement between ‘non-civil’ opponents are appropriate, either morally or practically, for enemies whose expectations of war are not shared.63 If the Turks of Lepanto or the Indians of Chile can participate poetically in a shared civitas, might not the same be said for the heretics of Flanders, implying the necessity for a correspondingly different approach to conflict? At Saint-Quentin, the king’s presence indirectly conditions the conflict towards a peaceful resolution, but this, a large staged battle between two Christian European monarchies, was a model that no longer bore much relation to the heterogeneous conflicts fought on ill-defined fronts 63 Plagnard,

Une épopée ibérique, ‘Résumé’, para. 4.



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across the far-flung territories of the Mediterranean and Spain’s Atlantic empire at the end of the 1570s. It was exceptional in almost every regard: Philip’s personal distaste for the brutality of war was by now well known; even on a peaceful front, if demands continued to be made for his appeasing presence in the Low Countries, the hopes for their realisation had grown progressively thinner. The distinctive virtues that allow the monarch to bridge conceptual fractures and uphold a degree of restraint in the conglomerate mercenary forces of the period rarely transfer to the frontiers. In some cases, his authority is asserted at the cost of complete ethical integrity; in others, an attempt to impose the principles of reason and clemency is thwarted, and in either case the fundamental step from winning battles to winning wars is barred as a result. Vitoria’s brief examination of the possibility of a permanent war between fundamentally divided antagonists with full use of the laws of warfare is, in Ercilla’s narrative, dramatically actualised. The ‘third and final remedy’ is, however, implied but not inevitable; at this stage, alternative endings can still be postulated, and it is only in the Tercera parte that the trajectory is pursued to its bleak conclusions, as we shall see. ‘El furor del pueblo castellano’ (XXXVII. 1): Political Communities and the Problem of Wrath in the Tercera parte de La Araucana By the time Ercilla published the Tercera parte (1589–90) which concludes La Araucana, he had entered his fifties and, by the standards of the day, his old age. The year before, he had suffered the loss of his only son in the disaster of the Armada, and by the mid-1580s it seems that he had given up on his ambitions for greater royal favour and position and largely retreated into private life. The poet’s final years were thus tinged with grief and disappointment even as his literary fame and material prosperity rose to ever greater heights, and it is perhaps unsurprising that the final part of the poem is the most obviously disillusioned. It is also the briefest, the most fragmented and the most complex in terms of its editorial history. The primary narrative thread, the account of the defeat and execution of Caupolicán, is complicated by three long interpolated episodes: the ‘true’ story of Dido (XXXII–XXXIII); an expedition south towards the Magellan Strait in which Ercilla participates, which explored probably as far as the Gulf of Ancud (XXXIII–XXXVI); and the lead-up to Philip II’s declaration of war against Portugal in 1578–80 (XXXVII).64 The second of these was a late interpolation, added to some copies of the book as they were being printed.65 64 The route of the expedition has been debated; for a summary, see Martínez, ‘Writing on the Edge’. 65 Méndez Herrera, ‘Estudio de las ediciones’, pp. 309–404, decisively proves that all these additions are authorial and that the expedition and the exordium to the

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While the overall mood is bleaker, the poem still abounds in invention and surprise, with many flashes of the poet’s distinctive humour, and there is also considerable continuity with the political questions of the first and second partes. The eventual resolution of the poem is, however, conditioned in part by some intervening events, most of which have not been considered in the critical literature. Firstly, while it would be unwise to exaggerate the importance of Machiavelli’s appearance on the Index of 1583 – it neither marked the start of anti-Machiavellian discourse nor resulted in an immediate taboo on his ideas – it nevertheless represents an official change of attitude. Secondly, there is a change in perception concerning the security of the Spanish monarchy: as well as the rebellions discussed in the previous section, the overseas aspirations of England and the Ottoman Empire assumed a new stature within peninsular discourse and policy. Thirdly, there are significant innovations in literature: Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581) and the first edition of his Discorsi dell’arte poetica (1587) created a new model of Christian epic, while the last quarter of the sixteenth century also saw the rise of the commercial Spanish theatres, or corrales, and the zenith of the neo-Senecan tragedies which were some of the first plays to be performed there.66 These new impetuses are reflected within the poem in a number of ways, but for the purposes of this chapter I will focus on two: firstly, the conclusion of the Chilean wars interrogates more explicitly the Machiavellian ideas already explored in preceding parts; secondly, the narrative digresses from these in order to incorporate alternative models of external, infidel political communities with whom conflict is not the most appropriate pragmatic response. The early cantos are in large part the natural conclusion of the trajectory of the Segunda parte; they demonstrate more definitively than before the disjunction between military, and even administrative, efficacy and enduring success. Hurtado becomes the very embodiment of ‘presteza’ (XXXIV. 66), and is constantly on the move. As often happened with the narrative persona in the Primera parte, here again Ercilla ironically observes his difficulties in keeping up with him (XXXIV. 45). As Hurtado imposes law and order in the Spanish settlements (XXX. 28, XXIV. 45), founds the new city of Cañete (XXX. 29) and puts a swift stop to the ‘nueva codicia’ [new greed] (XXX. Dido episode were intercalated into some copies of the 1589–90 editions; quotations throughout this section refer to his facsimile with critical apparatus of the Tercera parte of 1589–90 rather than Lerner, though I modernise orthography. 66 The complex dialogue with Tasso is given considerably more attention in my article ‘La presencia oculta’, while the interaction with contemporary tragedy is explored in Imogen Choi and Felipe Valencia, ‘The Tragedy of Women in Power: La Araucana and Sixteenth-Century Neo-Senecan Theatre’, and Mercedes Blanco, ‘Un episodio trágico en La Araucana: La traición de Andresillo (cantos XXX–XXXII)’, both in Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, forthcoming 2021.



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31), he corrects the abuses of Valdivia’s reign while replicating his military initiative. As he breaks through the ‘términos vedados’ [forbidden borders] of Arauco all the way through to La Imperial (XXX. 25–34) and onwards to the ‘nuevas conquistas’ [new conquests] of undiscovered territory, his course is for the most part a consistent advance, accompanied by ‘los más diestros y pláticos soldados’ [the most skilled and experienced soldiers] (XXX. 30). The one engagement narrated in detail, the Spanish victory at the battle of Tucapel, demonstrates exemplary ‘industria’ and illustrates to the full the technological superiority and discipline of the troops (XXXI. 34, 43–45; XXXII. 11–12). Likewise, the decline of Arauco appears to be in greater evidence than ever. The duel of the warriors Rengo and Tucapel, which is resumed in the first canto after Tucapel is famously left for eleven years with his mace suspended in the air at the end of the Segunda parte, while entertaining, is deemed to be unjust (XXX. 7), and almost results in the death of both. In his condemnation of the practice of duelling, Ercilla coincides with the arguments advanced by his father some sixty years earlier and adds to the prevailing impression of disorder in the Araucanian republic.67 The loss of the Araucanian army at Tucapel is a massacre, with the first squadrons annihilated and only the rearguard fleeing to safety. At this point, Caupolicán implicitly recognises defeat, and the uncharacteristic fear and weakness of his remaining troops, ‘dando licencia a la cansada gente’ [putting the tired men on leave] (XXXII. 24). It is also the only battle, aside from Lautaro’s expansionist campaign, in which most of the aristocratic class refrain from joining the action. The two similes applied to the slaughter – a wind dispelling the clouds that threaten the sky (XXXII. 18), and a comparison between the firepower turned against the attackers and a mine destroying a city (XXXII. 9) – are clearly symbolic. The image of the storm is a motif throughout for the fury of the Araucanian militia and other rebels battering the boat of Spanish empire. That of the collapsing city reminds us of the earlier paradox of a republican civitas without an urbs, in line with Contarini’s truism that one should not ‘account a Citie to bee the walls and houses merely, but rather the assemblie and order of the citizens’.68

67 Fortún García de Ercilla, ‘Tratado de la guerra y el duelo’, in Carolina Nonell, Fortún García de Ercilla y su ‘Tratado de la guerra y el duelo’ (Bilbao, 1963), pp. 93–243. As Luis Gómez Canseco demonstrates in ‘Ercilla, la guerra justa y el duelo: Fuentes y razones’, Arte Nuevo. Revista de Estudios Áureos, 8 (2021), 47–83, Ercilla closely imitates sections of the treatise in the first and final cantos of this book, both in the exordium opposing duels in XXX, and in the disquisition on just warfare which precedes the conflict with Portugal in XXXVII. 68 Gasparo Contarini, The Magistrates and Commonwealth of the Venetians, trans. by Lewis Lewkenor (London, 1599), p. 5.

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This final battle also evokes the battle of Pharsalus in Lucan’s rendition in his Bellum civile. For Lucan, Pompey’s defeat in this battle, the climax of his epic as we have it, marks the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. Both Pharsalus and Tucapel open with the tragic topos of the sun and moon reluctant to rise and illuminate the slaughter (XXXI. 35), suggesting a war which is somehow unnatural and ungodly, and both end with the generals, Pompey and Caupolicán respectively, embarking on an erratic flight which will eventually culminate in their ignominious execution. The parallels between the two figures are made explicit in the exordium to XXXIV, which uses Hannibal, Pompey and Caupolicán as examples of a tragic fall from fortune, ‘Hombres famosos […] a quien la vida larga ha deslustrado’ [famous men, whom too long a life has tarnished]. Indeed, the critical attention to the brutal execution of Caupolicán after his deathbed conversion to Christianity, seated naked on a stake which lacerates his organs and then shot with arrows, with its contradictory overtones of hagiography and horror, has obscured the fact that prior to capture his moral and political authority has been constantly on the wane.69 We are told that he is subject to rumours and potential conspiracies (XXX. 35) and has lost the unanimous support of the governing class. As often happens, the information that the Spanish receive about him, although false (‘fingido’), is revealing: the Araucanian informants allege that only his ‘bárbara insolencia’ secures obedience while he remains in hiding (XXXII. 26), and he is, in fact, betrayed on at least three occasions. Fortune is repeatedly shown to be hostile towards her former favourites, and very much at work in the protracted and ignominious demise of their once-powerful leader (XXXII. 10, 25; XXXIV. 3, 30), united this time with Fate (XXXII. 6, XXXIV. 5–7). Following this logic, however, the main contribution of this part of the epic is to demonstrate, paradoxically but unequivocally, that however total the destruction visited on the Araucanian republic, it does not impede its survival or resistance. Likewise, however pragmatic and even licit the conduct of the conquerors, it neither justifies nor in the end brings to fruition their campaign. The duel of Rengo and Tucapel appears to confirm that internal dissent does not cripple the republic; again, Caupolicán intervenes and succeeds in re-establishing concord. In turn, his execution is clearly counter-productive, provoking not fear but a desire for vengeance, as he had predicted (XXXIV. 10): No la afrentosa muerte impertinente para temor del pueblo esecutada, ni la falta de un hombre así eminente (en que nuestra esperanza iba fundada) 69

For a provocative analysis of the execution in terms of the poem’s rhetoric of desire, see Ricardo Padrón, ‘Love American Style: The Virgin Land and the Sodomitic Body in Ercilla’s Araucana’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 34 (2000), 561–84.



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amedrentó, ni acobardó la gente, antes de aquella injuria provocada, a la cruel satisfación aspira, llena de nueva rabia y mayor ira. (XXXIV. 35) [Neither the humiliating and impertinent execution carried out to scare the population, nor the loss of such a prominent man (which was what our hopes were founded in), struck fear or cowardice into the people; instead, provoked by that injury, they aspire to cruel satisfaction, filled with new rage and greater wrath.]

The subsequent scene, in which the caciques convene to elect a new captain – the strongest candidate, moreover, being the intractable Tucapel – brings the reader back to the beginning of the epic. Outlining a new war, and a new poem, for which ‘fuera menester libro más grande’ [a bigger book would be necessary] (XXXIV. 37), it cuts off Colocolo abruptly on the verge of delivering another oration. The poem leaves the wars suspended with the hasty departure of the narrator, merely sketching out the innumerable battles that presumably follow the election of the new Araucanian commander (XXXVI. 35–36), only ‘en parte de provecho’ [partly successful]. This particular instance of repetition seems decidedly regressive, to borrow Quint’s term; as Caupolicán warned, ‘tentar nueva fortuna error sería, | yendo tan cuesta abajo ya la mía’ [to tempt fortune again would be a mistake, now that my fortune is declining so fast] (XXXIV. 10). Despite the obvious continuities with 1578, there is, nonetheless, a subtly different dynamic at work here, elucidated in part by patterns of intratextual repetition. Caupolicán’s final battle, given a prominence beyond its historical one by its climactic and exclusive position in Ercilla’s narrative, is in some respects an echo of Mataquito (XII–XV), Lautaro’s last. In both, alerted by an auxiliary of the opposing camp, an army approaches a fort by stealth at the hour of repose, believing in the assistance of fate and Providence (XXX. 61) in punishing a dissolute imperial aggressor. Both appear to discover its garrison manned by unreliable novice soldiers (XV. 20–22, XXX. 40–41) and, ominously, ‘en vino y dulce sueño sepultados’ [buried in wine and deep sleep] (XXXI. 23, repeating XIV. 5 and echoing the fall of Troy and exploits of Nisus and Euryalus in the Aeneid, as Moore notes). In both, the resulting carnage is almost total and described in similar phraseology, with no blow against the victims of fortune failing to draw blood, and ends with an Araucanian survivor suicidally hurling himself against the weapons (XV. 55, XXXII. 15).70 70

In at least one version of 1589–90, there is a further verbal echo in that the ‘comarcano’ who betrays Lautaro’s location to Villagrá is said to have left the camp ‘a robar’ [to steal], presumably to extract supplies out of the local populace (XII. 62),

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There is an ironic reversal, however, for in the later battle it is the Araucanian attackers who ‘al engaño | ciega, pensando de engañar venía’ [blindly came to be tricked, thinking to trick] (XXXII. 7). The decisive factor in their defeat, according to the narrator, is the double-dealing of Andresillo, a yanacona or Hispanicised indigenous servant in the Spanish camp who manipulates Caupolicán’s spy Pran into allowing him to orchestrate an Araucanian attack at midday, supposedly during the siesta but in fact leading the forces into a trap. Andresillo is depicted with a level of detail quite unlike any of the other shadowy, anonymous informants of the poem. His treachery against his ‘patria’ is unequivocally condemned, apparently exculpating Caupolicán for falling into a plot so execrable, ‘la más fea maldad y condenada, | que más ofende a la bondad divina’ [the ugliest and most condemnable kind of evil, the kind that most offends divine goodness], that it could not possibly have been foreseen (XXXI. 1–4). Here, Ercilla very deliberately distinguishes his approach from the tacit acceptance of the use of spies, informers and deserters by both Spaniards and Araucanians in previous parts of the poem, over what was in reality a very fluid frontier.71 Here it is doubly unsuccessful, both in the initial misleading reports provided by Pran about the strength of the fort’s garrison, and in the disastrous treachery of Andresillo, leaving Caupolicán’s faith in his two informants looking foolish. By contrast, the archaic and patently unstrategic ‘arrogancia generosa’ [noble arrogance] of the dissenting caciques (XXXII. 22–23), who refuse any participation in a battle based on trickery, ‘que el peligro en la guerra es el que honra’ [since it is the danger of war that brings honour], ensures their survival. The prudent and swift advantage the Spaniards take of their opportunity is equally condemned by the reluctant narrator-participant, who in this battle more than any other – in another echo of the Pharsalia – lingers in horror to ‘figurar las formas de los muertos’ [depict the shapes of the dead] (XXXII. 13), torn between ‘lástima justa y odio justo’ [righteous pity and righteous hate] (XXXI. 49–50), and intrudes a long exordium on clemency into the midst of the fighting: Excelente virtud, loable cosa de todos dignamente celebrada es la clemencia ilustre y generosa, jamás en bajo pecho aposentada: por ella Roma fue tan poderosa while the treachery against Caupolicán begins as Pran and Andresillo leave the fort together ‘a robar comida, | cosa a los yanaconas permitida’ [to steal food, something permitted to the yanaconas] (XXX. 47); another state reads ‘buscar’ for ‘robar’. 71 Indeed, in ‘Un episodio trágico’, Blanco notes that Caupolicán greets Andresillo in terms which echo his welcoming of another yanacona, Lautaro, in the Primera parte.



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[…] No consiste en vencer sólo la gloria ni está allí la grandeza y excelencia, sino en saber usar de la vitoria, ilustrándola más con la clemencia […] y es mayor la vitoria del clemente, pues los ánimos vence juntamente. […] y el correr del cuchillo riguroso mientras dura la furia es disculpable, mas pasado después a sangre fría, es venganza, crueldad, y tiranía. La mucha sangre derramada ha sido (si mi juicio y parecer no yerra) la que de todo en todo ha destruido el esperado fruto desta tierra; pues con modo inhumano han excedido de las leyes y términos de guerra, haciendo en las entradas y conquistas crueldades inormes nunca vistas. Y aunque ésta en mi opinión dellas es una, la voz común, en contra me convence, que al fin en ley de mundo y de fortuna todo le es justo y lícito al que vence. (XXXII. 1–5) [An excellent virtue, praiseworthy thing, worthily celebrated by all, is illustrious and noble clemency, never found in a lowly breast: it was because of clemency that Rome was so powerful (…) glory does not only consist in winning, nor does greatness nor excellence, but in knowing how to make use of victory, making it shine brighter with clemency (…) and the victory of the clement man is greater, because he also wins minds. (…) and the severe cut of the knife is excusable while the fury lasts, but when it passes into cold blood, it is vengeance, cruelty and tyranny. The copious blood that has been spilled (if my judgement and opinion do not err) is what has utterly destroyed the hoped-for fruit of this land; since with inhumane actions they have gone beyond the laws and bounds of war, committing in the entradas and conquests immense cruelties never seen before. And although in my opinion this is one of those cruelties, common opinion convinces me of the contrary, that in the end in the law of the world and of fortune, everything is just and licit for the one who wins.]

The passage is a powerful demonstration of the shift in logic in this part of the poem, which showcases the same Machiavellian and pragmatic approach

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to conflict of those preceding only to illustrate with greater clarity not only its moral illegitimacy, but also its inefficacy in its own terms of political survival, despite the obviously ironic endorsement of the last few lines. It is precisely these terms in which the passage makes its case for eschewal of the ‘injurias’ against one’s enemies and subjects seen by the theorist as inevitable. In addition, the image of ‘esperado fruto’ has evangelical overtones, and echoes not only symbolically with the devastated landscape, but also with the polemical language of Las Casas, as in this passage on the essential unity of mankind: cuando algunas gentes tales silvestres en el mundo se hallan, son como tierra no labrada que produce fácilmente malas yerbas y espinas inútiles, pero tiene dentro de sí virtud tanta natural que labrándola y cultivándola da fructos domésticos, sanos y provechosos.72 [When some wild people are found in the world, they are like unworked land which easily produces weeds and thorns, but which has in it such natural virtue that working and cultivating it yields domestic, healthy and wholesome fruits.]

The language of the failed harvest here not only underscores the practical and moral futility of the campaign but also places it within the broader framework of the Spanish evangelical enterprise. The particular emphasis on Caupolicán in this part of the poem, as the other caciques fade into the background after the first canto, adds further support to the notion of a more forceful critique of Machiavellian – and indeed Vitorian – pragmatics. In large part Caupolicán comes to exemplify the ideal ruler of Il principe, from his ‘prudente’ decision to ‘[dar] otro tiento a la fortuna’ [try his fortune again] and wage war with ‘presteza’ rather than seeing his position further decline, to the secrecy of his dealings with the senate and people, to his astute bolstering of his fading reputation, remaining feared and respected if not loved (XXX. 36–38). His degree of control over his citizens is demonstrated by their new oath of obedience, and the awe in his presence even as he is led to execution. The Spanish actions in the final battle and its aftermath are thus perfectly legitimate in one sense, given the Vitorian maxim that all things necessary to victory (at least against infidels) are permitted, including vengeance and exemplary punishment. Indeed, Caupolicán explicitly acknowledges responsibility for three of the most culpable atrocities of the war even as he appeals for mercy: the killing of Valdivia; the slaughter of the innocents at Purén; and the destruction of Penco. As we have seen, in reality 72 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ed. by Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1967), I, p. 258.



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these events are somewhat more complex: Caupolicán is inclined to grant Valdivia mercy but his hand is forced by an unauthorised intervention, and Penco and Purén occurred in his absence under Lautaro. His rhetoric, then, is calculated to appeal not to justice – he freely admits the injustice of his cause (XXXIV. 9) – nor even to the legitimacy of his sovereignty, but rather to the ‘esperiencia’ of his listener, persuading them of his sway over the Araucanians and thus his usefulness. The morality of his speech, such as it is, is a purely political one, the maintenance of ‘la paz común’ [the common peace], and clemency is made conditional on the fulfilment of his promises (XXXIV. 11). The irony is that here a Machiavellian logic, as well as a Vitorian one, would applaud the ‘rigor y priesa’ [severity and haste] (XXXIV. 17) with which the execution of a powerful enemy with abundant reasons for resentment is conducted. The final twist is that, despite seeing his moral authority reduced to its lowest point, in the most humiliating of ends the convict assumes the sympathy, dignity and even sanctity that most readers remember. A digression between the defeat of Caupolicán and his capture and execution, the ‘verdadera historia’ [true story] of Dido (XXXII–XXXIII) acts in part as a point of comparison between different models of rulership and republic. The episode, whose immediate inspiration is in Francisco de Enzinas’s additions to his Spanish translation of Livy’s history,73 but which is also influenced by contemporary tragedies on the Phoenician queen,74 recounts the story of Dido which preceded the inventions of Virgil. It tells of how Dido escapes from her brother Pygmalion, the king of Phoenicia, who had murdered her husband Sychaeus, and founds Carthage in North Africa. When a local king, Yarbas, threatens the fledgling city with destruction unless Dido accepts his hand in marriage, she commits suicide to preserve her chastity and protect her citizens. Ercilla’s version, among many other things, develops the underlying critique of Machiavellian ideas sustained throughout this part of the poem. Like Caupolicán, Ercilla’s Dido is nothing if not pragmatic and prudent, making skilful use of dissimulation and rhetoric in a series of speeches with which Ercilla embellishes Enzinas’s account. Yet this political wisdom is reconciled with a deliberate eschewal of force, outright deception, and injury. By contrast, her treacherous brother Pigmaleón, who is developed in more detail in Ercilla’s account than in any of his sources, is not simply morally corrupt, but veils his degeneracy with an astute show of virtue, concealing his murder of Sychaeus with poison, while all other sources refer to a violent death. In the exordium to XXIII, the overtones of this act are made explicit. The reader encounters another Machiavellian principe whose manoeuvrings prove vain: 73

As demonstrated recently by Luis Gómez Canseco, ‘Dido y Francisco de Enzinas en La Araucana’, Bulletin Hispanique, 122.1 (2020), 145–60. 74 See Choi and Valencia, ‘The Tragedy’.

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mayormente que entonces parecía el Rey a la virtud aficionado, que no hay maldad más falsa y engañosa, que la que trae la muestra virtuosa. Ésta no le salió como pensaba sino al contrario en todo y diferente, pues no sólo no vio lo que esperaba, pero perdió las naves y la gente (XXXIII. 3–4) [especially at that time the king appeared to cultivate virtue, for there is no wickedness more false and deceptive than that which has a virtuous façade. This did not work out as he thought but quite to the contrary, for not only did he not see what he hoped for [Sychaeus’s treasure] but he also lost his ships and people]

The ‘furor’ conventionally associated with Dido’s descendant Hannibal is also conspicuously lacking in Ercilla’s Carthage, which never engages in warfare or expansion; it is only Pigmaleón (XXXII. 82) and Dido’s aggressive suitor Yarbas (XXXIII. 17) who are characterised alike by ‘juvenil furia’, hardly a heroic quality in either. This is despite Ercilla clearly attributing a republican complexion to the new city, developing Enzinas’s suggestion but in contrast to other sources. Limited in size and ruled consensually by the queen in conjunction with her ‘senadores’, the subordination of ruler and officials to the law and to the commonwealth is made manifest during the debate over Yarbas’s proposal (e.g. XXXIII. 35), and after her death the transition to an aristocratic republic is complete (XXXIII. 54). Her suicide itself is not so much tragic as exemplary, the ultimate demonstration of the ruler and citizen’s subjection to the commonwealth. Despite her manifest failure to achieve the Machiavellian goal of political survival, like the death of Caupolicán her sacrifice has Christological overtones and strengthens, rather than weakens, the community left behind. This version of the Dido story, then, not only contests the Aeneid, but also presents the ‘true antiquity’ of Carthage as a model that might rival Machiavelli’s Rome, one capable of maintaining its prosperity without resorting to instability, aggression and expansion. The expedition to Ancud – which hints at its own fictionality for the ‘savvy reader’, as Padrón highlights – describes another example of a stable and peaceable republic.75 The amiable Indians of the ‘islas deleitosas’ [delightful islands] (XXXV. 41) of the lake at the edge of the known world are painted with unmistakable parallels to Venice. In the first glimpse the (land-bound) explorers have of them, Ercilla employs a simile comparing his companions to storm-blown sailors coming into harbour, most European travellers’ first view of the famous city (XXXV. 41). The native inhabitants are repeatedly described 75 Padrón,

The Spacious Word, p. 227; cf. p. 267, note 55.



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as travelling in ‘góndolas’, alternating with the caribe term ‘piraguas’. When a cacique appears (XXXVI. 7–8), his pale face, woollen robes and pointed ‘capelo’ [mitre] recall the ceremonial dress of the Doge with its distinctive corno ducale. Although the scene recalls the early history of La Serenissima in the Discorsi, before the trading city began to expand, the islanders are a living refutation of the principles of Machiavelli: they are absolutely faithful to their ‘promesa’, refuse to take anything in return for their gifts, and are so far removed from the use of violent weapons that we are told, somewhat fancifully, that the meat they offer to the Spanish has been hunted with their own nails. In addition, they voluntarily comply with all the criteria of Vitoria’s ius gentium as well as the precepts of natural law, freely offering the strangers food, water, a dwelling place in the territory, guides and hospitality, and thus removing any legitimate pretext for aggression. The ‘sincera bondad’ [sincere goodness] and ‘ley natural’ [natural law] of this community, then, bars the way to ‘la maldad, el robo y la injusticia | (alimento ordinario de las guerras)’ [wickedness, theft and injustice (the usual fuel of wars)] (XXXVI. 13), although there is a fleeting hint that the inhabitants would be capable of self-defence were it to prove necessary. One further dimension, moreover, is common to both episodes: they represent non-Christian political communities in a positive light. Galperin has already highlighted the provocative ‘connection between the Carthaginians and the Ottomans’ as Dido voyages through a benevolently portrayed Turkish Mediterranean to the hostile North African coastline of Ercilla’s day (p. 52). To this might be added a possible parallel to the Elizabethan monarchy, certainly prominent in Spanish minds after the defeat of the Armada.76 In addition, the story of Dido has certain features in common with that spun by the Syrian sorceress Armida before the Christian warriors in canto IV of the Gerusalemme. In both, the long speech allegedly aims to restore a queen’s honour and ‘fama’, and in both the usurping tyrant from whom she flees resorts to poison to achieve his ends. While Goffredo rightly ‘Teme i barbari inganni, e ben comprende | che non è fede in uom ch’a Dio la neghi’ [fears barbarian deceit, and understands well that one cannot have faith in men who deny faith to [the Christian] God] (IV. 65), however, Ercilla frames his digression with an insistence on ‘la verdad, que es la ley de toda gente’ [truth, which is the law of all peoples: my emphasis], and on the purity of Dido’s faith maligned by the Virgilian account (XXXII. 48–53).77 ‘Fe’, indeed, appears as one of Dido’s defining characteristics, not only towards Siqueo, but also 76 Elizabeth I was frequently compared to Dido in English literature of the period: see Deanne Williams, ‘Dido, Queen of England’, English Literary History, 73.1 (2006), 31–59. 77 Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, ed. by Lanfranco Caretti (Milan, 1979). I use this edition throughout.

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towards her own people and the North Africans with whom she interacts. This is despite numerous passages that underline the idolatry of the heroine: her husband’s priesthood to Jupiter (XXXII. 54); her own appeals to the Roman pantheon (XXXIII. 30); her worship after death by the Carthaginians (XXXIII. 15, 52–53). Ercilla here explicitly diverges from Tasso’s dictum that ‘where there is a false piety and a false worship of God there can be no perfection in prince or principality’.78 The effect is to bring into question the notion that either infidels or heretics represented political communities absolutely irreconcilable with monarchical Christendom, the only appropriate form of interaction with whom was warfare until an impossible meeting of minds, rather like the delusional marriage proposal of Yarbas. One of the many ironies of the expedition to Ancud is its demonstration that, in the absence of such a polarising conflict, the Spanish appear to be unable to relate to such political communities at all. The entire enterprise – repeatedly promised to the reader long before its eventual appearance – is consistently phrased in terms of conquest. The preparations of Don García, with the recruitment of experienced soldiers and ‘tumulto bélico’ [the tumult of war] (XXXIV. 47), seems to be a simple continuation of his rapid campaign through Arauco. This is certainly how the ‘horrible estruendo de la guerra’ [horrible din of war] is interpreted by the first Indians encountered. The difference here is that the gathering of this ‘noble compañía’ in council, under the sway of ‘Tunconabala plático soldado […] en la araucana escuela dotrinado’ [Tunconabala, an experienced soldier, trained in the Araucanian school] (XXXIV. 53), regards military resistance as an impossibility. Their tactic of avoidance of conflict and dissimulation is nevertheless singularly effective, leaving the ‘furia’ of nature to almost bring the soldiers to starvation. Faced with a political and friendly island republic, and an almost unnavigable gulf, the campaign comes to an abrupt and anticlimactic stop, and uneventfully retraces its steps back to La Imperial. Following Pastor’s reading that this is a deliberately constructed allegory of the conquest, ‘fictitiously returning to the beginning of a historical process now approaching its end’ (p. 258), the conclusion appears to be that without the conventional cycle of conflict and decline, the narrative of imperial expansion is thwarted before it can begin. In this light, the decision to turn to the war in Portugal at the culminating moment of the narrative is a significant gesture. Tasso had argued influentially that the most, if not the only, appropriate subject for a Christian epic was the war between a Christian monarchy and infidels. The final canto of Ercilla contains the only campaign of his poem, with the exception of Lepanto, that might meet such a criterion: Alcazarquivir. It is an enterprise unmistakably foolish, entirely committed to fortune (XXXVII. 35), unjustified, and 78 Torquato Tasso, Discourses on the Heroic Poem, trans. by Mariella Cavalchini and Irene Samuel (Oxford, 1973), p. 37.



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utterly destructive, ‘la ruina de un reino irreparable’ [the irreparable ruin of a kingdom] (XXXVII. 37), the only suffering being Christian. The ‘ardor juvenil y movimiento’ [youthful ardour and inclination] (XXXVII. 33) of Sebastian are an ironic echo of the young kings Pigmaleón and Yarbas, and to a lesser extent of the ‘acelerado’ [impetuous] young commander Don García. While the tone of lament and condemnation of the hubris of the venture find parallels with Fernando de Herrera’s well-known canción on the disaster, ‘Voz de dolor, y canto de gemido’ [‘Voice of Sorrow, and Song of Groans’], both the providential overtones of the latter and its promise that Spain will soon wreak a bloody vengeance are conspicuously absent. Instead, this final canto definitively turns away from the cosmological dimension of both Herrera’s Biblical allegorisation of Alcazarquivir or Lepanto and the ‘armi pietose’ [pious arms] of the Gerusalemme to return the theatre of conflict to the sphere of human affairs, ‘de derecho de las gentes’ [the law of nations] (XXXVII. 3), just where most of the scholastic tradition had placed it.79 It is thus that it is able to justify a war between Christians of the kind utterly condemned by Tasso as a rich potential subject for future epic poets. The crusading impulse, then, of Tasso, Herrera and to some extent Camões, an impulse not unrelated to certain factions within the Spanish court, is treated with scepticism or silence in a poem whose narratives of expansion are always firmly human. The presentation of the annexation of Portugal as a case which fully complies with the criteria for just warfare, however, creates problems of its own. The analysis, which is in line with the thinking of Vitoria and closely follows Fortún García de Ercilla’s Tratado, as we saw earlier, at times appears to contradict the preceding cantos: for example, the maxim that ‘todo al vencedor le es concedido’ [everything is permitted to the victor] (XXXVII. 7).80 There may simply be some degree of mismatch here, given Gómez Canseco’s hypothesis of a Tercera parte that is often carelessly composed. Nonetheless, I believe that two brief observations might clarify the final canto and relate it to the preceding analysis. The first is the exceptional nature of the conflict. The presence of Philip here, as at Saint-Quentin, is enormously 79

As the jurist Hermogenianus states, ‘of this law of nations, wars were brought in, peoples separated, kingdoms founded, properties distinguished, boundaries put on fields, buildings set in place, trade, buyings and sellings, lettings and hirings, and obligations instituted’, quoted in Brett, Changes of State, pp. 115–16. 80 Luis Gómez Canseco suggests that the account of the diplomatic negotiations preceding the invasion derives from a piece of Philippian propaganda disseminated in 1580 and which survives in a single manuscript, in ‘La anexión de Portugal en La Araucana: Fuentes, composición y lectura política’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 98.6 (2021), 581–96. In my view, the parallels do not prove this definitively, but they do demonstrate that Ercilla is drawing closely on arguments brandished by Philip II’s camp in Portugal at the time of the event.

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significant. He is shown to be in complete command of the whole process of the declaration of war against the Portuguese, and, no less significantly, of the prior initiatives to resolve his claim peacefully: ‘llamado del derecho y la justicia | contra el rebelde reino va en persona’ [called by right and justice, he goes in person against the rebel kingdom] (XXXVII. 15). This, in turn, is in accord with the emphasis throughout the preceding section on the exclusivity of the king’s authority to decide when and how to ‘justificar sus armas’ [justify the use of arms] (XXXVII. 13). All criteria, of course, which have proved not only lacking but demonstrably unrealisable at the other frontiers of empire. Likewise, the campaign is not seen as an expansion of empire, a motivation immediately denied (XXXVII. 14), but rather as the taking possession of a hereditary but rebellious state. Secondly, there is the implicitly conditional nature of Ercilla’s excursus. The campaign itself is never narrated, a campaign in which, under the command of Alba whose name is conspicuously absent here, ‘plunder, brutality and outrages occurred throughout’, investigations into which remained suspended at his death.81 Despite the promise of glories for the poet willing to take on the theme, the allusions to the imminent conflict, the fruit of ‘discordia’ and lamentable civil war (XXXVII. 27), have tragic overtones. Nor is there any glimpse as there had been after Saint-Quentin of a definitive peace; after the departure of Philip from Lisbon, the kingdom was indeed more unstable.82 Overall, it might be said that the discussion of the ideal war invites questioning precisely because of its idealism: it is entrusted exclusively to a king capable of judging ‘como un ángel sin pecado, | puesta en la causa universal la mira’ [like a sinless angel, his gaze fixed on the universal cause] (XXXVII. 6), assuming that he alone will be capable of restraining ‘furor’ within due limits and directing it always towards peace. In a poetic world full of ‘accidentes’ that complicate this juridical ideal, such a war – at least without the physical presence of royalty – has never been narrated. The work here definitively retains its Ariostesque openness, refusing to provide the resolution of narrative threads sought by Tasso in the conclusion of a heroic poem. Conclusion The expedition to Ancud concludes with a poetic snapshot that continues the travel narrative beyond the narrator’s return to La Imperial: Pasé y volví a pasar estas regiones y otras, y otras por ásperos caminos; traté, y comuniqué varias naciones, 81 Kamen, 82

Philip of Spain, p. 175. Ibid., p. 295.



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viendo cosas, y casos peregrinos: diferentes y estrañas condiciones, animales terrestres y marinos, tierras jamás del cielo rociadas, y otras a eterna lluvia condenadas. (XXXVI. 41) [I passed through and through these regions and others, and others again, by rough paths; I dealt and communicated with various nations, seeing strange things and events: different and foreign conditions, terrestrial and marine animals, lands barely dampened by the sky, and others condemned to eternal rain.]

It is a fabulous odyssey, which very deliberately alludes to the opening of Homer’s poem and sets the narrator up as the wandering and politically astute hero, but one that occurs after his return from the New World, in Europe, and after the end of his epic narrative – a typical surprise on the part of the author.83 Such reversal of expectations is, as I hope this chapter has gone some way to demonstrate, peculiarly characteristic of what we might call Ercilla’s thought experiments with the peoples he narrates, continually holding up the Araucanian rebellion (and, in the Tercera parte, the study of other political communities) as a mirror to the world as seen from Spain. Here, in a final irony, it is Europe that is made strange and worthy of consideration. The study of the three parts of the epic comparatively allows a clearer picture to emerge of how the poem arrives at this point, and several conclusions to be drawn, which in their turn enrich the reading of later poems in the tradition. Firstly, La Araucana is explicitly concerned with the nature of the political community, in the first instance the republican community. This is explored in terms of problems stemming directly from Machiavelli’s writings, primarily the Discorsi, which in their turn are played against more conventional juridical theories of just warfare represented by Vitoria: the relationship between laws and force; internal stability; the consequences of imperial expansion; and the suppression of rebellion. While the ideas of the Florentine hold an evident fascination for the author, they are never used passively. In 1569, there is an implication not only that the ideal republic must expand, as Machiavelli had insinuated, but also that this expansion will be accompanied by decline. 83 The Odyssey was well-known in Gonzalo Pérez’s translation, La Ulyxea de Homero (Venice, 1562), which is worth quoting here: ‘Dime de aquel varón, suave Musa, | Que por diversas tierras y naciones | Anduvo peregrino, conociendo | Sus vidas y costumbres, despues que huvo | Ya destruydo à Troya la sagrada: | Que navegó por mar tan largo tiempo | Passando mil trabajos y fortunas’ [Tell me of that man, gentle Muse, who through various lands and nations wandered, getting to know their lives and customs, after he had destroyed sacred Troy: who navigated a long time on the sea, experiencing a thousand labours and storms], fol. A1r.

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In 1578, the theorist’s advice on pacifying a newly annexed state is shown to be ineffective as well as horrifying. In 1589, the Machiavellian model of rulership and the evil act performed well again fails repeatedly to establish security. This critique of Machiavellian ideas, more definite in the final part than in the first, is devastating precisely because it is constructed on a shared ground of empirical, historical, pragmatic observation and experience. It is stimulated, I suggest, by the accumulating experience of Spain’s own difficulties in maintaining control over the frontiers of its empire. Such anxieties might well have been more acute in 1578 than 1569, during a period of crisis in Flanders, and more universal in 1589, with the threat of English and Turkish overseas aspirations. Secondly, while the physical presence of the monarch and his virtues is an alternative to permanent war, these are not capable of being fully or adequately transmitted to the king’s representatives. Thirdly, in tune with historical events, the interest of the poem shifts from rebellion, in the first two parts, to a more general consideration of the relationship between independent communities of differing religious and political complexions in the third. While Ercilla’s treatment is indirect, the parallels to contemporary concerns would be specific and accessible to at least some contemporary readers. Their logic increasingly suggests the barrenness of existing theories of conflict when faced with these more ill-defined threats; military success does not necessarily correlate to political success and often results in the prospect of a bleak, indeterminate prolongation of violence. While the Vitorian and Machiavellian vocabulary of legitimacy and historical contingency remains a powerful form of expression, then, both are shown to provide incomplete solutions to the contemporary dilemmas of war. An extension of tolerance and clemency appears to be not so much the most just as the most pragmatic alternative. Although this intellectual context deeply rooted in the humanist culture of the mid-sixteenth century does not altogether transmit itself to the poetry of Lima considered in the next two chapters, the analysis of this chapter establishes several productive ways of reading epic after Ercilla. Like La Araucana, these poems represent indirect forms of engagement with perceived threats to internal or external security. Particular scenes – the sacking of a city, the storming of a fort, the council of war among the citizenry – appear with conscious allusion to Ercilla in subsequent epics, which supports the hypothesis that certain motifs assumed a particular political as well as literary charge in their original, provocative treatment. The central questions raised by Ercilla often persisted in different forms in the colony, most notably the threat of rebellion; the nature of the political community; and the possibility of the ruler’s moral and practical intervention across large and heterogeneous territories, whether monarch or viceroy. Fundamentally, however, as a figure of substantial literary prestige after 1569, on a secure financial footing and at



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the periphery of courtly life, Ercilla possessed a level of independence and autonomy quite distinct from these later authors. The negative presentation of the influential García Hurtado de Mendoza in the Tercera parte, for instance, explicitly divulging the author’s resentment of the former commander who had sought to have him executed and using the character as one instrument of a sustained political critique, is a liberty to which they could scarcely aspire. At the turn of the century epic poets nevertheless still tended to rework these political themes directly, and often contested their predecessor, addressing problems that had by this time become part of a tradition.

3

The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado Like Ercilla, Pedro de Oña presents his first poem to the public ‘solicitado de […] grandes temores’ [plagued by great fears] (p. 548). He too was a young and untested poet, twenty-six years old when the Primera parte de Arauco domado was first printed in 1596, and his display of ‘authorial anxiety’ reveals his acute consciousness of just how high his illustrious predecessor had set the bar:1 demás del ordinario y justo recelo con que todos sacan sus obras a la almoneda de tantos y tan varios gustos, donde cada uno corta a la medida del suyo, tengo yo otros muchos particulares motivos para encogerme y temblar de sacar a la luz de los altos y claros entendimientos la escuridad y baxeza del mío, assí por ser en la era de agora cuando todo, y en especial el arte de la divina poesía, con su riqueza de lenguaje y alteza de concetos, está tan adelgazado y en su punto que ya parece no sería perfeción sino corrupción el pasar del término a que llega; como por suceder yo (si assí lo puedo dezir) a los escritos de tan celebrado y bien aceto poeta como don Alonso de Ercilla y Çúñiga […] (‘Prólogo’, p. 548) [In addition to the usual and proper apprehension with which everyone brings out their works to the auction of so many and various tastes, in which everyone cuts to their own measure, I have many other particular reasons to shy away and tremble from bringing to the light of superior and unclouded intellects the darkness and lowliness of my own, both because this is the era in which everything, and especially the divine art of poetry, with its rich language and elevated conceits, has reached a point of such refinement that it seems to be not perfection but corruption to pass beyond its bounds, and because I am the successor (if I might put it that way) to the writings of such a celebrated and well-liked poet as Don Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga]

1

As Raúl Marrero-Fente observes, such ‘authorial anxiety’ became a trope of colonial epic after Ercilla: Epic, Empire and Community in the Atlantic World: Silvestre de Balboa’s ‘Espejo de paciencia’ (Lewisburg, PA, 2008), p. 28.



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This sense of belatedness and indebtedness reappears in the verse dedicatio which – unusually – is a separate preface rather than being integrated into the poem. ‘Pues canto, mas cantar es devaneo, | después de tantos célebres cantores’ [So I sing, but to sing is delusion after so many famous singers] (5), exclaims the debutant in a false start which no sooner launches into the classic epic proem than it stops itself in its tracks. The formidable challenge of following Ercilla looms again as the dedication closes: ‘¿Quién a cantar de Arauco se atreviera | después de la riquíssima Araucana?’ [Who would dare to sing of Arauco after the priceless Araucana?] (20). Oña had other reasons for anxiety, unspoken but no less immediate, as the first copies of Arauco domado reached the bookstores of Lima. Unlike Ercilla, he had neither the wealth nor the social standing to write for himself. He was ‘a professional writer, insofar as this was possible at the time’, meaning that his whole career, which from 1596 onwards consisted of a series of well-lined appointments in the colonial administration, depended on patronage, and this patronage was largely the product of his poetic talent and his ability to turn it to good use in the service of his patrons.2 Arauco domado was the product of a commission by the outgoing Viceroy García Hurtado de Mendoza (r. 1590–96), Marquis of Cañete (from 1591), to whose son the poem was dedicated and addressed. Hurtado seems to have pressured his young protégé to turn over the nineteen cantos with incredible presteza in not much more than a year (probably 1594–95), an urgency which the poet apologetically references with veiled complaint several times in the work. Born and raised in the Chilean frontier town of Angol in the heart of Arauco, Oña had lost his father, the veteran Captain Gregorio de Oña, to a Mapuche ambush the same year he was born. His early years are obscure, but by 1590 he had moved to Lima and matriculated in the University of San Marcos. Soon after, Hurtado, under whom Captain Oña had served in Chile, seems to have taken Pedro and his siblings under his wing. The new Colegio Real de San Felipe y San Marcos, a college of the university founded by the viceroy in 1592 to sponsor the studies of deserving descendants of soldiers and conquistadors, numbered Oña among its first cohort. When he graduated, Hurtado arranged for the licenciado his first position as corregidor, magistrate, of Jaén de Bracamoros, some 600 miles north of Lima. Hurtado knew how to call in a favour, and had very clear ideas about what he wanted of Oña’s composition. Firstly, he was looking to vindicate his role as captain-general of Chile between 1557 and 1561, after the faint praise and occasional venom he had received in the Segunda and Tercera partes of La Araucana. This was partly a historiographical labour, and it is likely that Hurtado encouraged the Jesuit Bartolomé de Escobar’s contemporaneous 2 Mario Ferreccio Podestá, prologue to his edition of Pedro de Oña, El Ignacio de Cantabria (Santiago de Chile, 1992), p. 21.

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revision of the manuscript of Pedro Mariño de Lobera’s Crónica del reino de Chile [Chronicle of the Kingdom of Chile] (c. 1595) in this light. To really accomplish the task, though, he needed an epic capable of rivalling the popularity and prestige of Ercilla’s. It is not coincidental that while Mariño’s chronicle was not published until the nineteenth century, Hurtado made sure to see Arauco domado promptly through the process of permissions and licences, financed its printing in the workshop of Antonio Ricardo, the only printer of Lima at the time, took some 60–80 copies back with him to distribute in Spain, and gained the licence for a second edition in 1599, which eventually appeared in 1605. Secondly, though, Hurtado was also looking to his juicio de residencia, the formal investigation carried out at the end of a royal official’s tenure, and to his reception and hoped-for recompense when he returned to Madrid. Two of his achievements as viceroy were particularly in need of a heroic veneer: the quelling of a rebellion in Quito against the imposition of a new royal sales tax, the alcabala, in 1592–93, and the defeat and capture of the English pirate Richard Hawkins in the bay of Atacames in 1594 by an armada dispatched from Callao under the command of Hurtado’s brotherin-law, Beltrán de Castro y de la Cueva. Both events had caused disruption in the social fabric of Peru despite their felicitous outcome, and Hurtado’s conduct in their management led to a number of accusations in the residencia. For the historical material of his narrative, Oña was to follow closely the sources vouchsafed to him by the viceroy: Mariño’s chronicle, for Hurtado’s protagonism in Chile; Pedro Balaguer de Salcedo’s Relación de lo que hizo don Beltrán de Castro, y de la Cueva […] [Account of What Don Beltrán de Castro y de la Cueva Did] (Lima, 1594), as the official account of the victory over Hawkins; a written relación Hurtado gave him concerning the alcabalas; and the viceroy’s own verbal account of his entry into Peru, as Oña would later reveal when questioned.3 Hurtado knew that the epic would elicit strong feelings in some quarters. He made sure to avoid sending it to the Archbishop of Lima (now Saint) Toribio de Mogrovejo, for the ecclesiastical licence which was a prerequisite for printing. Relations between the two had been strained throughout Hurtado’s tenure, whereas those with the Society of Jesus were very cordial, so the Jesuit Esteban de Ávila provided the aprobación instead. Oña, too, must have had some inkling of the controversial nature of his account of events in Quito, and made a number of alterations to those folios at Ricardo’s workshop to tone down his criticism of the rebels.4 If the two hoped by these means to avoid 3 José Toribio Medina, Biblioteca hispano-chilena, 1523–1817 (Amsterdam, 1965), I, p. 50. 4 Victoria Pehl Smith, ‘Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado: A Study and Annotated Edition Based on the Princeps Edition’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1984), pp. 7–19.



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any backlash against the poem, they were mistaken. No sooner was it printed than the dean of the ecclesiastical cabildo, Pedro Muñiz, ordered all copies to be withdrawn from circulation on the grounds of the lack of proper ecclesiastical licence and its ‘palabras y razones inciertas, malsonantes y ofensivas y escandalosas’ [untrue, obscene, offensive and scandalous words and phrases].5 A number of other notable figures followed, pressing their own complaints and litigations against the author, printer and booksellers. Oña was detained for several months from leaving for Jaén, but eventually escaped any charges; the copies sequestered by the cabildo, however, were as far as we know never released back onto the market. For all these reasons – the tendency to compare the poet (usually unfavourably) with Ercilla, Oña’s readiness to lend his pen to exalt those in power, the panegyric of Hurtado’s crushing of Araucanian and quiteño rebels (the latter sometimes lauded as an early form of creole resistance to Spanish hegemony) – Arauco domado has usually been regarded in one of two ways. Critics have either dismissed the poem as a straightforwardly conformist work, reducing the nuances found in La Araucana to ‘an absolutist, Manichean text’,6 or emphasised the poet’s ‘dualidad criolla’, torn between his obligations to Hurtado and his sympathy towards Araucanians and creoles, and leading to fractures and even subversion as the narrative unfolds.7 Both readings suggest a reluctant, somewhat confined poet, whose creativity and commission often pull in different directions. In their totality, however, the paratexts of the poem tell a different story. The title page proudly declares the printer the ‘primer impresor en estos reinos’ [first printer in these kingdoms], and Arauco domado is the first 5 Medina,

Biblioteca, I, p. 48. Mario Rodríguez, ‘Un caso de imaginación colonizada: “Arauco domado” de Pedro de Oña’, Acta Literaria, 6 (1981), 79–92 (p. 82). Cf. also Elide Pittarello, ‘Arauco domado de Pedro de Oña o la vía erótica de la conquista’, Dispositio, 14.36/38 (1989), 247–70; Salvador Dinamarca, Estudio del ‘Arauco domado’ de Pedro de Oña (New York, 1952), and the introduction to Gianesin’s edition. James Nicolopulos, ‘Pedro de Oña and Bernardo de Balbuena Read Ercilla’s Fitón’, Latin American Literary Review, 26.52 (1998), 100–11, attributes a similar reading to Oña’s ‘unique encomenderista perspective’ (p. 109), but such a perspective must have been more of an aspiration than a reality, since Oña’s inheritance in Angol was never recovered and his career unfolded entirely under the patronage of the central authorities of Lima. 7 José Antonio Mazzotti, ‘Paradojas de la épica criolla: Pedro de Oña entre la lealtad y el caos’, in Firbas, ed., Épica y colonia, pp. 231–61 (p. 232), repeated in Mazzotti, Lima fundida, p. 52. Cf. also Mazzotti, ‘El mirador criollo: Secretos de la Araucanía y la autoridad del testigo en Pedro de Oña’, Iberoromania, 58.2 (2003), 171–96, and Roberto Castillo Sandoval, ‘¿‟Una misma cosa con la vuestra”? Ercilla, Pedro de Oña y la apropiación post-colonial de la patria araucana’, Revista Iberoamericana, 61.170 (1995), 231–47. 6

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substantial poem to be printed in Lima. It also contains possibly the first woodcut engraving, depicting the author proudly displaying the sash of the new Colegio Real with a caption affirming that it was made in his twentyfifth year.8 The nine laudatory poems in praise of the work and its patron by a dazzling range of local luminaries take the reader through the contours of the lettered culture of the city at the turn of the century. The verses, some of which are very accomplished, celebrate the youth of both poet and protagonist, and herald the coming of a new Golden Age in the viceroyalty. Francisco de Figueroa’s composition, for instance, adapts Horace’s Odes 3. 4 and 3. 29 to make the poet a new Virgil to García’s Augustus or Maecenas. While such emulative comparison between modernos and antiguos is standard for epic preliminaries, and the Virgilian Golden Age a commonplace of political panegyric, cumulatively these platitudes are taken a step further. Juan de Villela’s parecer on behalf of the Audiencia of Lima praises Oña’s innovations as a form of ‘natural’ poetry, at equal distance from both the Platonic model of divine inspiration and the Renaissance paradigm of imitation, verisimilitude and invention: ‘muestra su autor un natural facilidad, un caudal proprio y un no imitado artificio, con que, levantado en sus proprias fuerzas, descubre muchas lumbres de natural poesía, tanto más dignas en un hijo de estos reinos, cuanto […] tienen menos de cultura y arte’ [its author shows a natural ease, an innate abundance and an artifice without imitation, with which, raising himself up by his own strength, he reveals many rays of natural poetry, all the more worthy of a child of these kingdoms, in that they have less culture and art]. This sense of a new poetic culture recrafting a daunting, virgin landscape is captured with particular beauty in the canción of Diego de Hojeda, in a lyrical address to the rugged mountains, torrential river and dense clouds of Lima called to transform into a new Parnassus. It is in this context that Oña’s poem is best understood. As Chapter 1 explains, the turn of the century is the key period for the emergence of a self-conscious republic of letters in and around Lima. The Academia Antártica is first named as such in Gaspar de Villarroel’s prefatory sonnet to Arauco domado, and Oña was its youthful, prodigious poster child. The poem, then, arises from and seeks to meet the broader aspirations of the emerging lettered class of Lima, a group and space in which the poet spent the formative years of his education, which claimed him as its own, and to which he constantly returned and contributed in succeeding years. In this light, both the expressions of humility in Oña’s prefaces and his later apologies for the poem’s digressions and incompleteness, which might both be read in part as a form of captatio benevolentiae, bely an explicit celebration of the novelty and ingenuity of 8

José Toribio Medina, La imprenta en Lima (1584–1824) (Santiago de Chile, 1904), I, p. lxxi. For the prefatory material, which (aside from Oña’s own prologues) is unfortunately not included in Gianesin’s edition, I use Pehl Smith.



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his work. Oña’s rhyme scheme, while not completely unheard of in shorter forms of poetry, is a definite break with the Iberian epic tradition: he opts for ABBAABCC instead of ABABABCC, which as he observes gives a hesitant, halting rhythm to the stanzas. According to the prologue, this experimental choice is primarily for the sake of doing something different: ‘El nuevo modo de las octavas, por la nueva travazón de las cadencias, no fue por más que salir no de orden sino del ordinario’ [the new style of the octaves, because of the new connection between cadences, was done for nothing more than to be not out of order but out of the ordinary] (‘Prólogo’). In structural terms, the poem also migrates some way from its original premise. After the first twelve or thirteen cantos it digresses from the wars in Chile to introduce an unusually prolonged intermezzo in an Araucanian shepherd’s hut which provides a framework for inserting accounts of the two recent events of Hurtado’s reign as prophecies. The ending is then rather abrupt, trailing off with both Chilean campaign and naval battle pending the Segunda parte amid poetic expressions of insufficiency. This arguably owes as much to the romanzo and indeed epic tradition, and to Ercilla’s precedent, as it does to any particular angst on the author’s part, and the unfulfilled promise of a second part to tell Hurtado’s feats in full is a convenient pretext for allowing the poet to be selective with his material. Such changes of direction in the poem point towards a deliberate process of generic expansion, insistently exploring the possibility of incorporating new spaces, themes, styles and genres within an already flexible epic tradition. Oña is in constant dialogue with his epic predecessors, most notably Virgil and Ercilla, but in the later cantos moves more explicitly into the terrain of lyric and bucolic.9 Undoubtedly aware that, following the rota Vergilii, the aspiring poet should work upwards from the humble style of pastoral to the sublime peaks of epic, he includes both within the same poem but traces the trajectory in reverse, and adds a number of other forms for good measure. The complex stylistic texture of the poem is similarly showy and experimental. Weaving together colloquialisms and cultismos, producing at times striking dissonances of form and content, it is ebullient with displays of virtuosity, from strophes composed almost entirely of anadiplosis (XII. 93), questions and exclamations (II. 38), polyptoton (XI. 6, VIII. 36) or paronomasia (VI. 4), to the moral exordia accumulating images of all kinds to illustrate an axiom. The search for novelty is associated with Oña’s own self-fashioning as a creole poet of the frontier, a strategy also seen in other creole poets of this period. His origin in Angol is his source of authority to write about Chilean history, where Ercilla’s had been his military service and eyewitness 9

On Oña’s sophisticated imitative practices, see Sarissa Carneiro, ‘Arauco domado y la imitación articulada de la Eneida y La Araucana’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 69.1 (2020), 79–111.

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testimony. He takes pains to justify his inclusion of words from indigenous languages, for instance, building on a tradition begun by Ercilla with the inclusion of glossaries in La Araucana, and often stresses his familiarity with Araucanian culture. No doubt he was aware that the most respected poetic treatises –Vida’s De arte poetica, Tasso’s Discorsi, Aristotle’s Poetics – all counsel the avoidance of new, foreign and rare words, as well as strange countries, gruesome descriptions and sexual euphemisms, which also feature frequently in Arauco domado. All such admonitions are blithely ignored by the debutant, whose neologisms come not from Latin, Greek or Italian, but from the outlandish languages of Mapudungun and Quechua, yet are wryly justified by an appeal to the sacrosanct poetic axioms of verisimilitude, decorum and mimesis. Oña’s eagerness to strike out new paths in his poem is in tune with a more general optimism regarding the possibility of new achievements, of outdoing the revered poetic canon, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. In his Anotaciones a la poesía de Garcilaso [Annotations on the Poetry of Garcilaso] (1580), for instance, Fernando de Herrera affirms his own support for experimental lexical choices as part of a sustained claim that Spanish poetry, like the Castilian language, is a living organism, one still maturing and not yet at its zenith: osó Garci Lasso entremeter en la lengua y plática española[s] muchas vozes latinas, italianas i nuevas, i sucedióle bien esta osadía; i ¿temeremos nosotros traer al uso i ministerio d’ella otras vozes estrañas i nuevas siendo limpias, proprias, sinificantes, convinientes, maníficas, numerosas i de buen sonido i que sin ellos no se declara el pensamiento con una sola palabra? Sigamos el exemplo de aquellos antiguos varones que enriquecieron el romano con las vozes griegas i peregrinas i con las bárbaras mismas; no seamos inicuos juezes contra nosotros padeciendo pobreza de la habla.10 [Garcilaso dared to bring into the Spanish language many Latin, Italian and new words, and his daring worked out well; so will we be afraid to bring to its use and service other new and foreign words that are clear, fitting, significant, appropriate, magnificent, rhythmic and sonorous and without which the idea cannot be expressed in a single word? Let us follow the example of those ancient men who enriched the Roman language with Greek and foreign and even with barbarian words; let us not be harsh judges against ourselves and suffer from poverty of speech.]

10 Fernando de Herrera, Anotaciones a la poesía de Garcilaso, ed. by Inoria Pepe and José María Reyes (Madrid, 2001), p. 848. The poetic significance of this transitional period is also assessed in Arthur Terry, Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry: The Power of Artifice (Cambridge, 1993).



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Reading the poem as an ambitious work which responds to a poetic climate of novelty and experimentation and engages with the contemporary hopes and anxieties of the political class of Lima places some of its political concerns into focus. Firstly, while Ercilla could take advantage of the inaccessibility of the Arauco wars to a Spanish audience to broach indirectly some immediate European concerns, the political environment of Europe is unlikely to have been more than an abstract reality for Oña himself, whereas the Chilean frontier remained a divisive and difficult theme. García Hurtado de Mendoza had, of course, to be given his due in the poem for the provisional pacification achieved in his campaign of the 1550s, but over this acknowledged success hung the shadow of his later reign. While the early correspondence from Lima to Madrid shows the viceroy in an optimistic and belligerent mood regarding the prospects of drawing a close to the Chilean conflict, on his return to Spain the situation was more precarious than before, and the court in some uncertainty over where to place the blame. Two years later, in 1598, this gathering storm would break in the massive Curalaba rebellion, which threatened to sweep away the Spanish presence in Chile altogether. Secondly, the representation of the Indian more generally was a vexed issue for the institutions of the viceroyalty, who had agreed with the Third Council of Lima (1582–83) that the evangelisation of both new and existing territories had much still to accomplish, but had not yet established a stable consensus of opinion over past causes and future means, as the Jesuit missionary José de Acosta’s De procuranda Indorum salute [On Procuring the Salvation of the Indians] (1588) and its fraught journey towards publication makes clear.11 Thirdly, in contexts of rebellion and colonial governance more generally, the appropriate role and virtues of the viceroy, the ‘king’s living image’ as Cañeque puts it, were arguably both more pressing and less clearly defined than those of the king to the permanent inhabitants of Peru. With these qualifications in mind, then, in this chapter I first pay attention to the representation of the Chilean campaign and the Araucanian political community. Oña establishes an intensive dialogue from the outset with Ercilla with the intention of justifying the historical (and ongoing) campaign, but also relates the conduct of the Araucanians to the contemporary problems of colonial governance in Chile and the Viceroyalty more broadly. This in turn implies a new approach towards conquest, evangelisation and acculturation which owes much to the reformist discourse represented by Acosta and the Jesuits. As the poem moves on, the two levels of this dialogue produce an apparent ambivalence in the representation of the Amerindians, which poetically broaches on the one hand the entrenched resistance, and on the other the potential promise of the colonial enterprise in the region. The chapter

11

See Adorno, Polemics, p. 208.

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moves, then, to consider the poem’s hero, and the manner in which the arte militar of Chile overlaps with, evolves towards and differs from the mirror of viceregal rule, retaining a focus in both sections on the central themes of political communities, rebellion and conflict. With the guiding virtue of moderation, the Golden Mean, the poem’s attention moves towards internal governance of the república de españoles on the frontiers and within the city, a political community shown controversially to be both chronically unstable and capable of concerted demonstrations of loyalty and unity if managed with prudence. Chapter 2 placed emphasis on the development of La Araucana within and between each of its parts, and the ways in which structural, linguistic and topical patterns of repetition signalled this. Clearly, such an analysis cannot be straightforwardly applied to a single work subject to the haste and external pressures of Oña’s. Nevertheless, patterns of repetition are of importance: if Ercilla involves the reader in a series of questions whose boundaries shift dramatically during twenty years of composition, Oña’s is a poem which employs the same structural openness to stage its own process of evolution, from an epic of the frontiers to a novel and experimental poem of the metropolis. This internal development proves, in turn, an attractive but problematic inspiration for the subsequent directions taken by the aspiring poets of Lima. ‘La plebe y mal político gentío’ (II. 49): The Political and Military Community of Arauco While Arauco domado explicitly rewrites only cantos XII–XXIII of La Araucana, from the arrival of Don García’s father Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza as viceroy of Peru towards the end of the Primera parte, to the aftermath of the governor’s second victory in Arauco, the Battle of Biobío, midway through the Segunda, the poem incorporates material from all three of Ercilla’s books (probably without having seen the late additions to the Tercera parte). This generates a multiplicity and at times polysemy of allusion, and the gathering of the Araucanians for a ‘borrachera general’ in Oña’s second canto is a case in point. Chronologically, the assembly appears to correspond to XVI. 37–79 in Ercilla, in which the caciques debate the direction to be taken in the war against the new Spanish arrivals, though Oña displaces the meeting so that it occurs prior to the Spanish landing, circumventing the narrative of Lautaro’s death and the problematic victory at Mataquito which intervene in La Araucana, and retaining the focus exclusively on actions protagonised by Don García. In both assemblies, the chieftains recognise that the fortune which had accompanied them throughout most of the earlier battles has changed sides, and in both Tucapel boastfully disparages this inclination towards a settlement and clamours for an aggressive response.



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The scenes have more differences than commonalities, however, and both structurally and linguistically Oña’s canto also explicitly imitates the first Araucanian gathering in La Araucana II, with echoes of III, VIII and X–XI. Most of these assemblies are, in Ercilla, a way of exploring the paradoxical Araucanian republic, and the nature and extent of Caupolicán’s power in relation to the senado; they are exclusively the province of a male, aristocratic warrior class. The most striking feature of Oña’s version, by comparison, is the dissolution of the political system consistently, if provocatively, outlined in his model. In this first assembly, both the Doge-like Caupolicán and the orator-counsellor Colocolo, whose speeches go furthest in constructing the idea of a republican patria governed according to reason and prudence, are conspicuously absent; the only familiar characters to be mentioned by name at the very end of the canto are the hot-blooded Rengo and Tucapel, who will dwarf Caupolicán in the narrative to come. In this ‘plebe y mal político gentío’ [plebeian and unpolitical crowd] of both sexes, no social or political hierarchy is apparent. As we have seen, Ercilla surprises his readers with the information that the locus amoenus within which the caciques first assemble is an artificial creation, analogous to an urban ‘plaza’. For Oña, the space is once again a purely natural one: in the whole poem, in fact, the Araucanians only ever appear against a natural backdrop, whether pastoral idyll or woodland wilderness, never in a fortification, a gondola, a farmed field, or even a village; Arauco is, quite literally, virgin territory to the Spanish eye, and does not have a fully political community to speak of. While the ‘borrachera’, communal feasts and dancing, and a tradition of hechicería and augury, with variously exotic, classicising, or diabolical associations are present in La Araucana, Oña combines these features and makes them the exclusive focus of his Araucanian gathering. The assembly is thus not only apolitical, but also replete with vices and customs which were particularly prominent in contemporary discussions of Amerindian (in) civility. Dominating the scene is the hyperbolic representation of drunkenness: Oña’s Araucanians not only indulge in ritual inebriation, but prolong their bacchanalia for seven or eight days at a time, from dawn until dusk (II. 22), on any pretext (II. 13), until the air itself is saturated with alcohol (II. 20); in highly sensory language, the reader sees the revellers not only swaggering and quarrelling, but staggering, blurry-eyed, comatose, and ever thirstier. With chicha come the host of deadly sins (II. 21): first, a bestial gluttony, as attendees gorge on raw meat torn apart in a violent anaphora (‘desmiembran, descuartizan, despedaçan’ [they dismember, quarter, tear into pieces]) with a possible hint of cannibalism (II. 13). The lust which follows in its aftermath is similarly characterised by animalistic imagery, with an emphasis on seminakedness and euphemistic turns of phrase (‘desnudo el medio pecho y la rodilla, | al modo que las yeguas en la trilla […] penetra el dios alado con su vira’, [half-naked on top and from the knee down, just like mares at threshing

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season, the winged god penetrates with his arrow], II. 17–18). The whole scene, of course, is an elaborate demonstration of sloth. Moreover, the celebrations move seamlessly into a deliberately shocking description of idolatry and devil-worship. The effect is cumulative. At first, the reader is presented with an Araucanian dance. While the ordered chorus is a traditional symbol for the harmonious functioning of a political community, here it is the opposite: ‘un compás flemático y terrible, | confuso y ronco son desapacible’ [a sluggish and terrible rhythm, disagreeable, confused and harsh sound] (II. 15).12 This representation is very much in tune with the shift in official attitudes in Lima towards Andean music and dances such as the taki from around 1570: before this point, they were often co-opted into evangelising efforts, but they later became tantamount, as here, to drunkeness and idolatry.13 The relatively familiar superstitions of astrology (II. 23) and the consultation of prodigies (II. 33–37) follow, before a grotesque and seemingly gratuitous digression on indigenous necromancy, involving sordid underground mummification (the ‘ibunché’) and child sacrifice (II. 52–61). The climax is the hechicero Pillalonco’s conjuration of the devil, who utters a prophecy of Spanish victory.14 The disappearance of civic order is paralleled by the absence of the military order painstakingly set out in La Araucana. When the Araucanian forces do wage war, they are almost entirely divested of formation, strategy and efficacy. Not only is the battle one of the many against the few in overall terms, but also in individual combats, and while indigenous casualties are massive, the 12 The analogy appears, for instance, in Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, p. 91: ‘A choral dance makes an elegant spectacle so long as it is performed with order and harmony, but it becomes farcical if the gestures and voices get confused; similarly, a kingdom and city is an excellent institution if everyone is assigned a place and performs his proper function’. 13 See Javier Marín-López, ‘The Sonic Construction of a New Capital: Urban Soundscapes and Acoustic Communities in 16th-Century Lima’, in A Companion to Early Modern Lima, ed. by Emily A. Engel (Leiden, 2019), pp. 442–69 (pp. 451–52), and Juan Carlos Estenssoro, ‘Los bailes de los indios y el proyecto colonial’, Revista Andina, 20 (1992), 353–89. 14 As Nicolopulos points out, Pillalonco is a parody of Ercilla’s Fitón, ‘thoroughly deconstructing Ercilla’s elaborately fabricated reconstruction of the indigenous shaman as Renaissance mage’, ‘Pedro de Oña’, p. 109. Mazzotti, in ‘El mirador criollo’ and again in Lima fundida, pp. 57–86, regards Oña’s description of Araucanian religion as displaying an in-depth ethnographic knowledge, but in my opinion this is to take the poet too much at his word and results in some attempts to draw analogies with other sources of ethnographic information which are extremely stretched. While there are some (highly distorted) glimpses of actual Mapuche practice, notably the ibunché, most of the rituals as Oña describes them would not be out of place in any contemporary condemnation of Amerindian idolatry.



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only Spanish soldier to be killed is clubbed from behind in an act of treachery (X. 69). The only battle losses on the Spanish side, in fact, are those of indigenous (and occasionally African) auxiliaries, who are divested of the proactive role they play across the fluid frontiers of La Araucana and instead appear devoid of honour and initiative, whether as panicking messengers (VIII. 80), vindictive but clueless captors (XII. 16–28), or helplessly buried in the mud (XI. 66–69), completely unable to hold their own against their scornful compatriots without the protection of their Spanish overlords (XI. 70). While Ercilla’s extensive application of similes of animal activity to the fighting had portrayed the bestiality of violence as a universal phenomenon, Arauco domado applies such imagery only to the Araucanians. Where the patriotic zeal of the Araucanian republic and its commanders had elicited comparison to the heroes of the Roman republic in La Araucana, Oña finds no bestial or human savagery a true analogy to Araucanian cruelty: ¿Qué víbora, qué sierpe ni culebra se puede comparar al araucano? (XI. 67) [What viper, serpent or snake can be compared to the Araucanian?] ¿Qué tienen que hacer los masagetas? ¿Qué los caribes fieros? ¿Qué la fiera criada en la arenosa Lybia ardiente, con esta endurecida y cruda gente? (XI. 83) [What are the Scythians, the fierce Caribs, the beast raised in the burning sands of Libya, compared to this hardened and cruel people?]

The effects of this sustained parody of Ercilla are twofold. Firstly, and most obviously, it generates a binary division between the Christian and infidel forces which serves in part to eliminate any question over the justice of the Spanish campaign. As early as the second canto, the Araucanians spontaneously eschew any suggestion that theirs is a war of self-defence: sólo podrá ser causa de dolernos haber venido él antes a buscarnos, pues cuanto al cielo hiciéramos de ofensa, dirán que fue en razón de la defensa. Dirán, si le vencemos en la guerra, que fue por haber sido el cielo injusto y estar de nuestra parte el fuero justo que obliga a defender la propria tierra (II. 43–44)

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[The only thing that might grieve us is that he [Hurtado] has come to seek us out first, since the offences we do to the heavens will be said to be in our defence. They will say, if we defeat them in war, that it was because the heavens were unjust and we had on our side the right to defend our native land.]

In all the engagements that follow, the Araucanians always attack first, rejecting Hurtado’s initial offer of peace. While battle descriptions often follow Ercilla in their gruesomeness, the ‘compasión’ they produce in the spectator (e.g. VI. 10, VIII. 41–49) appears to take over only after death. The deaths themselves are often played for humorous effect and are also oddly divorced from their immediate cause by the steel and bullets of their adversaries. Paradoxically, they are presented as a form of self-inflicted, irrational destruction, in a bitter twist on Ercilla’s depictions of patriotic self-sacrifice, whether as a result of sheer delusion (VIII. 49) or simply through wanton neglect (‘¡Oh, cuántos desfallecen de heridas | por sólo no ligallas desangrados!’ [Oh, how many collapse from their wounds, only because they did not bind them up as they bled!], VI. 91). The figure of Tucapel is perhaps the most striking embodiment of this perverseness, diving from the battlements (VI. 95), repeatedly refusing to allow his wounds to be bandaged and continuing to boast even as his breath begins to fail him (VIII. 20) in an arrogance that is the source of much ridicule in the poem. To this systematic stripping away of the ethical complexities and the pathos of the Chilean wars in Ercilla, Oña adds, finally, a supernatural overlay drawn from Tasso’s Gerusalemme. In canto IV, the devil convokes an infernal council to set obstacles in Hurtado’s way, just as he had when Goffredo threatened to conquer the Holy City. The demonic intervention in the war clarifies that the storms, aggression and temptations that beset the Spanish hosts are purely the work of the Evil One. The comparison with the crusades also adds lustre, ringing the notoriously dirty wars of Arauco with an aureole of evangelical credentials. Secondly, the devaluing of the past history of the Araucanians is, as we have seen, explicitly related to the colonial present. In the second canto, for instance, the ‘borrachera’ is mostly narrated in the present tense, as a paradigmatic example of ‘los varios modos que los indios tienen de festejarse y celebrar sus banquetes’ [the various ways that the Indians have of revelling and celebrating their banquets] (II, title), with frequent reminders that such diabolical rituals persist, and that attempts at reform continue to be resisted by the stubborn, secretive and demon-enchained natives (II. 12, 59–61). This insistence might be productively understood in the context of contemporary discourse concerning evangelisation and its relationship to colonial institutions. In his influential De procuranda, Acosta emphasises the relationship between civilising and mission efforts: ‘first the barbarians must learn to be



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men, and then to be Christian’.15 While the Jesuit clarifies that indigenous languages and customs not contrary to Christian teaching should be maintained (chapter XXIV), certain mores attract particular censure, such as communal houses like those briefly glimpsed in Arauco domado (e.g. II. 49, V. 61). Particularly excoriated, however, is the Amerindians’ innate ‘otium’ [idleness], which is associated with the communal consumption of alcohol: ‘there is no defect more widespread, pernicious nor difficult to cure than their drunkenness’ (p. 544). As in Oña, drunkenness is the gateway to other vices and social problems such as poor health, premature death, antisocial behaviour, fighting and promiscuity, and is intimately associated with sacrilege and superstition: ‘nowadays they have no better way of protecting their ancestral errors and idolatry than by means of solemn communal drinking and dances’ (p. 562). Oña’s Araucanians, then, are presented with equivocal characteristics. On the one hand, they are past and present adversaries engaged in an unjustifiable war of aggression and without a legitimate republic, which answers many of the questions Ercilla had raised concerning the ethics of the war. On the other, they manifest many of the generic, unchristian customs ascribed to contemporary colonial subjects, and thus open up a new series of questions concerning the governance and reform of the Amerindian republics. The presentation of Caupolicán, delayed until the fifth canto, is a case in point. His first appearance, naked and carefree as he bathes with his beloved Fresia, is an unusual celebration of male beauty, in contrast to the ‘beautiful and immaterial body’ of the chaste Hurtado.16 The scene appears to take inspiration from the downfall of Lautaro in Ercilla, whose surrender to love is, as we have seen, swiftly followed by his tragic death, but also from Caupolicán’s first appearance in the ‘prueba del tronco’, in which physical prowess and political virtues are literally and symbolically intertwined. Here, only the former remain. Soon after, Caupolicán is stirred up by the disguised fury Megera to return to the battlefield. Megera’s speech leaves the reader in no doubt as to the leader’s status. Neither an elected general nor even a rightful king (though he is said to aspire to being a ‘famoso rey’ and ‘señor del mundo’ [lord of the world], V. 47, 55), he behaves to all intents and purposes as a tyrant, concerned only with the maintenance of his personal ‘estado’, glory and liberty (V. 48–55 – the anaphora of the second person singular pronoun is insistent), never that of Arauco. Possessed by the serpentine fury, 15

José de Acosta, De procuranda indorum salute: Pacificación y colonización, bilingual edition by Luciano Pereña and others (Madrid, 1984), p. 538 (my translation). Further references are given after quotations in the text. 16 Pittarello, ‘Arauco domado de Pedro de Oña’, p. 259. As Blanco puts it, the critical tendency to see Oña’s ‘eroticization’ of the Araucanian heroes as derogatory sometimes ‘says more about the Puritan mentality of contemporary critics than that of Pedro de Oña and his contemporaries’, ‘Fábulas de amores’, p. 31.

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he becomes like Virgil’s Turnus (to Tucapel’s Mezentius, VI. 20) rather than Lucan’s Pompey, and initially a neglectful one at that (V. 25). When he at last appears clothed and at the head of his people, he is notable not for eloquence or military strategy, but mainly for the description of his barbaric armour, with its serpentine crest evoking Tasso’s antagonist, the sultan Soliman, via Ercilla.17 The character, then, is definitively divested of the political and military virtues and the dignified ‘serenidad’ of his inspiration. At the same time, both his first appearance and that of the Araucanian community as a whole have one overriding feature in common: their ‘ociosidad’ [idleness] (V. 26) and its accompanying vices. As we have seen, the alleged ocio of the Indians is a given in the colonial discourse of this period, and a frequent justification for the occupation of land and the imposition of forced labour. It also suggests a subsidiary reason for Oña’s insistence on the plebeian status of most of the work-shy warriors, since indigenous nobles were conventionally exempt from such obligations.18 Notable also, in this light, is Oña’s positioning of the Araucanians within Acosta’s three ‘classes’ of barbarian, a schema by which the Jesuit reshaped Las Casas’s relativisation of the concept into a more palatable notion of hierarchy and degrees. The first, ‘those who are not far from a perfect use of reason’ (p. 60), whose high level of political and cultural sophistication is marred only by their paganism, are those of East Asia, who must be converted through appeal to their reason alone. Both the De procuranda and the very popular Historia natural y moral de las Indias [Natural and Moral History of the Indies] (1590) assigned the Indians of Chile and Peru to the second, intermediate class, lacking letters and ‘ciencias’ but with political and military order, fixed residency, and a certain dignity of religious practice, though still needing the guidance of a superior authority. In the opening cantos of Arauco domado, however, they appear to descend to the third class, who according to Acosta occupied the still unintegrated frontiers of the viceroyalty: ‘wild’ or ‘half men’, without law, king or magistrates, unclean and sometimes cannibalistic. Their position within the schema has implications for their treatment, for while the Jesuits, by this period, had explicitly condemned both the pretexts for and waging of the wars of conquest (though recommending a pragmatic silencing of the 17

Choi, ‘La presencia oculta’, pp. 84–87. See e.g. Acosta, De procuranda, VII, XIX, etc.; Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, p. 171, highlights the ubiquitousness of this trait in the ‘civilizing program’ of the period, in both secular and ecclesiastical sources: ‘certain customs (real or imagined) are peculiar to the Indians that define them as barbarians and must be eradicated by any means: incest, sodomy, idolatry, nakedness, idleness and drunkenness. All of these “vices” are closely related, as idleness, which is the root of all evil, leads to drunkenness, and this to all kinds of aberrations, both physical and spiritual’. 18



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sixteenth-century debates over the justice of the Spanish titles), a more limited use of violence was sanctioned in the case of this third class. If these, like petulant children, refuse the gentle persuasion of their ‘doctors’ and ‘teachers’, they may be compelled to their salvation by a proportionate use of force, in recognition that the ‘ancient and apostolic method of evangelisation’ has often proven in the Indies to be ‘extremely stupid’ (De procuranda, p. 307). The characteristics of such missionary entradas are, revealingly, retrospectively applied to the campaign of Hurtado. In Acosta’s terms, the Chileans have given abundant causes for an armed response (attacking a fortification, attempting to burn the ships, dealing deceitfully with their adversary and refusing to furnish provisions, among others); the Spaniards, in turn, are assured of undertaking only a limited, moral vengeance through the moderating influence of their Christian commander. Overall, then, the Araucanian community of Oña, in an explicit answer to the innovations of Ercilla, is a realm of anarchy or tyranny, rather than republican virtue; a furious horde, rather than a disciplined militia; mired in the most unnatural of diabolical sins, and inherently incapable of waging a just and defensive war. The campaign against these rebels executed by Hurtado (and, by implication, his successors) is, therefore, ethically sound, even according to the more stringent criteria for a legitimate use of aggression elaborated by Acosta in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The Araucanians are also, however, representative of the vice and pagan customs which allegedly persisted in the Amerindian communities under Spanish rule, and in this sense act as a microcosm for the examination of ongoing concerns over the future of their administration and evangelisation. It is this second element which is at the forefront of the apparent shift in characterisation when a handful of Araucanian nobles are taken from the battlefield after the first encounter and embark on a series of chivalric, pastoral and courtly adventures. If the opening cantos highlight the need for military intervention against the Araucanian community and the difficulty of rooting out entrenched and harmful customs, these subsequent episodes are addressed to a hypothetical post-conquest future, balancing the unwelcome tasks still to accomplish against the susceptibility of the indigenous inhabitants of Chile to peaceful and productive integration into the Spanish colonial system and the path of true (Christian) virtue. ‘Gentiles en la fe y en la belleza’ (VIII. 33): The Civil and Social Innocence of the Araucanian Nobility The Araucanian community of Arauco domado is not, it must be said, wholly devoid of the military valour and patriotic zeal of La Araucana. Orompello’s chivalric attempt to spare the life of a valiant adversary (X. 53–78), and the oratorical pyrotechnics of the mutilated Galbarino (XII. 11–44, XVII. 24–51) with his strident critique of Spanish greed and hypocrisy, are given

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structural significance in the narrative. As in La Araucana, the punishment and freeing of the latter turns aside the senate’s inclination towards peace and therefore prolongs the conflict to the cost of both sides, while at this point the Araucanian assembly itself takes on a decidedly more political character than that discussed in the previous section. The structure of Oña’s epic, like Ercilla’s and like much heroic poetry of the Renaissance, is open. As a result, not every contradiction within the poem’s fabric requires (or is capable of sustaining) a complete resolution. It retains, in Quint’s terms, the ‘epic curse’ with its capacity to trouble the calm current of teleology which carries forward the bulk of the narration, which often distorts or displaces latent anxieties, and with which the speech of Galbarino might be compared, though it is not a curse as such.19 Nor is the inclusion of particular episodes exclusively ideologically motivated: the fiery eloquence of the mutilated cacique is one of the most memorable episodes of La Araucana, and, like other contemporaries who embarked on the exacting adventure of composing an epic poem, Oña is not one to overlook a potentially iconic scene, especially one which offered such potential for outdoing his predecessor’s rhetorical prowess. This said, the potentially troubling power of Galbarino’s speech is nevertheless mitigated in a number of ways. Firstly, the character’s authority is already undermined prior to his celebrated oration. Now a commoner rather than a noble, his description leaves little room for ambiguity: Era este Galbarín de mal respeto, de mala inclinación, enorme y crudo, assí para lo bueno torpe y crudo, como en lo malo plático y discreto; de quien jamás se tuvo buen conceto, doblado, contumaz y cabeçudo, sobervio en condición, humilde en casta, y a todo bien ingrato, que esto basta. (X. 70) [This Galbarino was disreputable, ill-natured, huge and cruel, clumsy and inept for doing good, skilled and clever at doing ill, of whom one could always assume the worst, two-faced, stubborn and big-headed, proud of nature, humble of birth, and always ungrateful, which is enough.]

When he treacherously clubs down Hernán Guillén, the soldier spared by Orompello, the latter utters a prophetic curse which makes his compatriot’s 19 Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 99–130. Cf. also Paul Firbas, ‘Galvarino y Felipe castigados: Cuerpos indígenas y género épico en Pedro de Oña y Juan de Miramontes Zuázola’, in William Mejías López, ed., Morada de la palabra: Homenaje a Luce y Mercedes López (Puerto Rico, 2002), pp. 655–66.



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later mutilation an act of divine vengeance – another instance of the sustained attempt to distance acts of violence against the Amerindians from their immediate cause. Secondly, the killing of Guillén is accounted for in the perpetrator’s own terms in the language of Machiavellian necessità otherwise marginalised in Oña’s reading of Ercilla: ‘¿No miras, Orompello mal mirado, | que de los enemigos mientras menos, | y si en esto a mí no soy honroso, | a todos havré sido provechoso?’ [Cannot you see, disapproving Orompello, that the fewer enemies the better, and if in this I do myself a dishonour, I will have done everyone else a service?] (X. 74). Galbarino’s subsequent interventions in the loyalties of the Spanish auxiliaries and the deliberations of the Araucanian council are then, quite literally, a mutilated remnant of the much more extensive dramatisation of Machiavellian virtues in La Araucana, during a period which saw a decided hardening of attitudes towards the políticos. Finally, in common with many of the poem’s projections beyond its stated historical scope, Galbarino’s discourse acts to some extent as an explanation and a chastisement of the direction taken in the Chilean campaign after the departure of Hurtado. While, on the whole, the latter’s forces are free of the vices attributed to them in the speech, Oña’s patron was quick to criticise the self-interested and undisciplined ethos he believed to have taken over by the time of his return to Peru and which in his view was directly responsible for the unreasonable prolongation of the pacification of ‘unos pobres indios desnudos’ [a few poor naked Indians].20 Again, then, we see a characterisation of the Amerindian with an eye to the present state of the viceroyalty as well as the past. When not possessed by the infernal furies of war or engaged in borracheras and religious rituals – in other words, when in a private rather than a public capacity – the Araucanian warriors and their beloveds are represented with more unmistakably positive traits. They are, admittedly, always unproductively ociosos, but such ocio can on occasion take on the appearance of an enviable and cultivated leisure. The most sustained character development involves the couples of Tucapel and Gualeva, and Talguén and Quidora, whose separate forays into the forest after the battle of Penco and eventual gathering in a shepherd’s hut occupies much of the second half of the poem (VII–VIII, XII–XVIII), interspersed with the ongoing Spanish advance and later the prophetic visions of Quito and the pursuit of Hawkins. The shared, rustic dinner of warriors and shepherds (XIII. 101–03, XIV. 41–42), domestic, mostly vegetarian, replete with local foodstuffs and sampled with moderation and order, is an eloquent counterpoint to the opening, idolatrous feast.21 Like his 20

Roberto Levillier, ed., Gobernantes del Perú, cartas y papeles, siglo XVI: Documentos del Archivo de Indias (Madrid, 1921–26), XII, 151. 21 On the significance of shared meals in colonial epic, see Paul Firbas, ‘El banquete americano: Comida y comunidad en la épica colonial’, in Firbas, ed., Épica y colonia, pp. 61–82.

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predecessor, Oña deploys this instrument of surprise and apparent paradox for deliberate effect, setting up and then deflating his readers’ expectations. In this case, however, the target of this surprise is likely to be a local reader, resident in the Viceroyalty and familiar with the direction of contemporary discourse in the region, and the political ideas tested out through the excursus are primarily relevant to the problems of colonial governance on the ground, rather than the imperial ideology with which they intersect. The ‘fábulas de amor’ [love stories] (XVII. 2) of these Araucanian couples are, of course, ways of introducing entertainment, variety (XVII. 1–6) and novelty to Oña’s ‘primera labor’. As a mechanism for recounting the Quito revolt, they add an element of narrative distance from the controversial narration of the event. The increased attention paid to the love lives of the Araucanians in Arauco domado is reminiscent of the lyrical transformations Ercilla’s poem undergoes in its adaptation to the ballad form, the romancero nuevo, from the late 1580s. In these romances, the tragic union of Guacolda and Lautaro is repeatedly glossed and expanded and, as Patricio Lerzundi observes, ‘we find ourselves faced with a group of ballads which, using historical characters, takes them out of their real world and transports them to an ideal world. They sing not of history, but of love and death.’22 The bucolic framing of many of these scenes is also a form of ‘wishful thinking’, reminding us of their provenance in the modern, urban environment of Lima as outlined in Chapter 1.23 It draws inspiration from many such intermezzi in the epic tradition, perhaps most prominently here the sojourn of Erminia with the shepherds in Tasso’s Gerusalemme, as well as Ercilla’s own Garcilasian depictions of the Araucanian landscape. As Blanco points out, these pauses in the action often depict ‘the rustic hospitality conceded to a guest of lordly status’, with the moral (and aesthetic) intent of exemplifying ‘the happiness which is achieved (or not) in a laborious, modest and obscure form of life.24 In this case the sojourn is unusually prolonged, however, and the dispute between the shepherd and Tucapel over the merits of the pastoral and military life respectively (XIII. 103–14) very self-consciously stages the poem’s own process of generic expansion. The scene takes an isolated reference in La Araucana as its starting point, in which the poet stumbles during an information-gathering expedition upon ‘un gran arcabuco y espesura, | donde 22

Patricio Lerzundi, Romances basados en La Araucana (Madrid, 1978), p. 42. The extant romances were printed between 1589 and 1594 in various cancioneros. 23 Renato Poggioli, The Oaten Flute, ed. by A. Bartlett Giamatti (Cambridge, MA, 1975), p. 2; cf. p. 3, ‘the birth of the pastoral coincided with the decline of the ancient polis or city-state and with the appearance of a quasi-modern metropolis […] more of an orbis than an urbs.’ 24 Blanco, Góngora heroico, pp. 193, 189.



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la miserable y triste gente | vivía por su pobreza en paz segura, | que el rumor y alboroto de la guerra | aún no la había sacado de su tierra’ [a thick and impenetrable forest, where the sad and wretched people lived in safety and peace on account of their poverty, for the noise and tumult of war had not yet expelled them from their land] (LA XXIII. 23). Both scenes are set in a gloomy mountain, heavily wooded, and described otherwise in very similar terms (e.g. LA XXIII. 40, AD XIII. 11), and both destinations are the site of prophetic visions, except that the two trajectories are traced in reverse. In La Araucana, the poet-narrator immediately moves on from the humble settlement mentioned to the forest hut of the elderly hermit Guaticolo to the mountain cave of Fitón (with its palatial interior), while the three Araucanians descend from the dusky mountain, with its ghosts and prodigies, to the forest and finally reach the shepherd’s hut in which the remainder of the action will take place. Ercilla sets out on his journey at dawn and returns at nightfall; the three companions begin at dusk and Quidora concludes her story at midday. This allusive gesture is not without its significance for the political as well as poetic independence of the narrative from this point. To begin with, while Ercilla’s shepherds are among the few inhabitants of Chile secure from the ravages of war in their miserable poverty, those of Oña are neither miserable nor especially secure. There is an implicit, though subdued, tension, in the temporary accommodation of the pastoral and epic protagonists, ‘la maliciosa gente y la sincera’ [the malicious and sincere people] (XIV. 41), beneath the same narrow roof. The heated response of Tucapel to Talgueno’s praise of the ‘verdaderamente fortunado’ [truly fortunate] shepherd (‘Igual por cierto fuera que esta gente | de tan inútil vida se dexara’ [It would be just as well for these people to give up such a useless life], XIII. 113), and the injuries inflicted on the shepherd’s dog (XVI. 120, XVII. 7–8) – presumably by the warriormessenger who arrives to summon the party back to the battlefield – hint at the susceptibility of the bucolic harmony to violence. The injury of the dog has a certain symbolism despite its light-heartedness: the ‘guarda de su hato’ [guard of the flock] reflects the role of the shepherd himself, while his wife’s description of the pup’s signs of affection for her daughter (XVIII. 96–99) playfully anthropomorphises the pet by attributing to it the rustic courtship services conventionally rendered by the pastoral lover. In La Araucana, while the depredations of warfare come from all sides, the most vocal of the destitute, homeless and grieving victims of conflict owe their plight to the raids of the Spanish. In Arauco domado, by contrast, any nascent threat to the natural idyll appears to arise from the Amerindian warmongering itself. On the whole, however, the tranquility of this Antarctic Arcadia remains unperturbed, which in itself furnishes a response to the devastated landscape and dislocated communities of Ercilla’s Segunda and Tercera partes. I have already noted the persistent tendency in Oña to rewrite a history of the Chilean

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frontier which is oddly devoid of pathos,25 and the point might be expanded with regards to the female characters in both poems. While the Araucanian women of Ercilla serve many functions within the narrative, one of these in ethical and political terms is to act as a synecdoche for the civilian community. Their relationship to their husbands or suitors captures the reader’s attention, but it is not exclusive; these women are also mothers, daughters, kinswomen and actors in a broader social and political setting. On the one hand, they present a picture of broken communities grimmer with each rendition, whether as the victims or potential victims of the soldiery during a siege, or the tragic heroines who appear almost always as mourners, seeking to find their husbands only to bury them. On the other, their unshakeable ‘fe’ amid utter desolation, undivided in their purity and loyalty even after the death of their beloved, or – in the final case of the wife of Caupolicán – eschewing even the ties of family against the higher call of the ongoing struggle, symbolises the persistence of the republic’s resistance, however complete its losses. A similar analysis might be applied to Arauco domado with differing conclusions. The Araucanian casos de amor are, as in Ercilla, attractively presented: ‘gentiles en la fe y en la belleza’ [gentile in faith and charming in beauty] (VIII. 33), the lovers are entwined in the perfect innocence of the Golden Age. A ‘bienaventurada […] gente | de pecho limpio y ánimo sincero’ [blessed people of honest heart and sincere mind] (VIII. 5), their paganism is now of the inoffensive variety of Ovidian myth or pastoral romance rather than the horrifying idolatry of the opening. In stark contrast to La Araucana, however, despite the occasional allusion to star-struck couples such as Pyramus and Thisbe or Hero and Leander, the outcome of these requited romances is uniformly felicitous. Each lamenting lover is, in due course, serendipitously reunited with his or her beloved, and readers’ relative omniscience in this regard (we see the two missing warriors escaping the battlefield wounded, but alive) allows them to follow the plot intricacies which accomplish the happy ending with a degree of detachment and aesthetic pleasure in the narrative deployment of suspense. We are presumably expected to marvel with the internal audience to see ‘que aquella mísera tragedia | se concluyese en próspera comedia | allí, en su tosca y rústica morada’ [that that wretched tragedy should conclude in a prosperous comedy there, in their rough and rustic dwelling] (XIV. 44).

25 As Carneiro notes in ‘Arauco domado y la imitación’, this might also be said of much of Oña’s imitative engagement with the classical epic tradition, with his ‘neutralization of the tragic character of the ancient plots which he reelaborates’ (p. 93). Her subsequent conclusion that pathos is at ‘the core of [Oña’s] poetic exercise’, and an affective dimension which ‘weakens the explicit project of praising his patron’ (p. 103), is somewhat at odds with this foregoing analysis.



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Furthermore, for all their ennobling properties, the bittersweet passions of youth do not, in Oña, easily translate into the undying fidelity of a Tegualda or a Dido. Alongside the frequent poetic gaze upon the flawless Petrarchan or exotically orientalised bodies of the female heroines, there is in fact a humorous but consistent current of misogyny in the poet and his characters’ ironic observations on events. Women are, while utterly inflamed by erotic desire once resistance is overcome (VII. 1–6, XII. 91 – again with euphemisms for comic effect), as fickle as the sea (VII. 72). The mysterious appearance of the newly invented warrior Molchén, for instance, reared like many heroes of the chivalric romance far from his true estate, reveals an unrepentant and crafty adulteress married to a tolerant cuckold in an enredo presented as typical (XVII. 58–62). Stubborn (XIV. 49), fearful (VII. 67), pathologically jealous even of their closest friends (XIV. 40), motivated from childhood by the cold sway of self-interest towards their admirers (XVII. 1 ff.), women’s disdain is but a cunning mask for the desire to ‘ser en todo compelida […] porque sólo tiene fortaleza | en ocultar al ombre su flaqueza’ [be compelled in everything, for they are only strong enough to hide from men their weakness] (XII. 90, VII. 68). The maidens of Arauco appear more closely aligned in this regard to those of folkloric or Ovidian comedy than to the unfathomable mistresses of Petrarchan lyric, or even the warrior-heroines of Ariosto. The implications of this new emphasis on feminine changeability and pliability can best be demonstrated through an examination of the two characters who appear in both La Araucana and Arauco domado: Fresia and Guacolda, the consorts of Caupolicán and Lautaro respectively. The Fresia who in Ercilla shockingly spurns her son and her own womanhood in scorn of her captured husband (LA XXXIII. 73–82) appears in Oña as a totally conventional Petrarchan beauty within a totally conventional locus amoenus, coquettish, fearful, and as if childless (there is one, unelaborated reference to Caupolicán’s possible ‘hijos’). Although her furious departure looks forward to the rage of her counterpart in Ercilla’s Tercera parte, it is nevertheless subsumed into the familiar mould of Virgilian female frenzy – her womanhood is not essentially different from that of the European tradition. The reappearance of the distraught Guacolda who features briefly in the downfall of Lautaro towards the end of the Primera parte is even more poignant. In Oña we glimpse her indirectly through the voice of her late beloved’s ghost, reproaching her for having married a Spaniard: Al yugo de un hispano sometiste el cuello de que siempre me colgaste. ¿Assí la prometida fe guardaste y lo que aquella noche me dixiste? En vida solamente me seguiste, y en muerte, como sombra, me dexaste,

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que dura mientras luze el sol dorado, y acávase en haviendo algún ñublado. (XIII. 81) [To the yoke of a Spaniard you submitted the neck on which I always hung. Is this how you kept your promised faith and what you said to me that night? You followed me only in life, and in death, like a shadow, you left me, which lasts as long as the golden sun shines, but is gone as soon as a cloud appears.]

The language here – of yoked necks and ‘prometida fe’ – is highly charged, evoking for the reader a series of associations with the proverbial ‘cuello indómito’ of Arauco. The consensual Araucanian–Spanish marriage is striking. Such a wish for a harmonious union with the desired land is consistently frustrated in La Araucana, whose new worlds and peoples remain either stubbornly resistant or fruitlessly raped.26 In Oña, it seems, requited conquests are already on the horizon.27 This shift in representation of the female characters accomplishes what might be called an infantilisation of the civilian community of Arauco in political terms, even as in literary terms it often recalls the popular pastoral romances of the period. Always youthful, absorbed entirely in homage to each other’s beauty, living in leisured privacy in the pastoral age of gold which constitutes the most primitive (if idyllic) stage of civilisation, the couples of Arauco domado appear as if enthralled in a perpetual adolescence, childless and carefree, while the mature and elderly characters disappear. One might compare here the youthful faces of the Mapuche devotees of Our Lady of Arauco in the engraving in Alonso de Ovalle’s Histórica relación del reyno de Chile [Historical Account of the Kingdom of Chile] (1646);28 this is a people without history, childlike and immature, requiring ongoing tutelage in order to reach its promised potential. Yet this potential is at least clear, and the virtues, mutability and charm of those characters who are temporarily isolated from the terrains of warfare, political decision-making and the epic serve to suggest the plausibility of the opening prophecy (in the mouth of the compelled demon) that: […] ya pacífico el estado [el gobernador] ha de saber trataros de manera que lo que fuere entonces y lo que era serán como lo vivo y lo pintado; 26

See Padrón, ‘Love American Style’; Padrón, The Spacious Word, pp. 185–230. The slippage between the literature of love and colonial discourse in this period is explored by Roland Greene, Unrequited Conquests: Love and Empire in the Colonial Americas (Chicago, 1999). 28 Adorno, Polemics, pp. 196–98. 27



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lo que por fuerça fue será de grado, lo que de pedernal de blanda cera, y al que os hubiere dado mil enojos le lloraréis después con ambos ojos. (II. 79) [once the state has been pacified, he [Hurtado] will treat you in such a way that what will be then and what came before will be like real life and painting; what you did by force you will do willingly, what was made of stone will be soft wax, and he who would have grieved you a thousand times will be wept by you when he leaves with both eyes.]

This emphasis is, again, in tune with the paternalist rhetoric of figures such as Acosta, who, while repeatedly comparing the Indians of Peru to children, slaves or animals, nevertheless insisted that full conversion and civility were achievable, since their deficiencies were not inherent, but simply the force of custom. ‘There is no nation’, he insists, ‘however barbarous and stupid it may seem, which does not lay aside its barbarity and clothe itself with humanity and noble customs if it is brought up with care and a generous spirit from childhood’ (De procuranda, p. 150). They simply need to be taught – and made to work. While in general terms Oña’s approach is common to much of the reformist discourse of the period, it nevertheless takes on a different complexion when applied to the Chilean frontier at the time of composition. By the 1590s, some residents of Peru seem to have felt Acosta’s optimism concerning the evangelising and civilising mission to have been overstated. One might compare the exchanges of ‘conceptos elegantes’ [elegant conceits] by Oña’s Indians (XII. 81), their disputes over the respective merits of force or cunning in situations of rebellion or their application of logic to the enigma of the allegorical sea battle, with the encomendero Diego Dávalos y Figueroa’s own amorous dialogue, the 1602 Miscelánea Austral [Austral Miscellany], in which the two interlocutors explicitly engage with the ‘amorosas historias de los indios de Chile’ [love stories of the Indians of Chile] invented by Ercilla: [Celia] […] gustaré que me digais si la gente natural y propria de esta tierra, es rendida del amor, o por alguna vía subjeta a sus fueros, porque sigún los juzgo incapaces, no puedo creer conozcan su poder, ni obedezcan sus leyes. D[elio]: El umor de que los indios más participan es flema, en el qual pocas veces enciende el amor, y si lo haze, es porque otras calidades lo disponen y abilitan […] pues como todo esto falte en esta gente, no se puede creer sean heridos de amorosa flecha, con diferencia olguna [sic] de las bestias. Aunque sus defensores niegan esto, atribuiéndoles mil dulçuras […] afirmo ser todas conformes a sus ingenios, cuyos conceptos jamás se levantan del

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suelo […] al fin (salvo casos muy raros y particulares) todos son de poca más habilidad de los brutos […]29 [Celia: I would like you to tell me if the native people of this land ever surrenders to love, or is in any way subject to its decrees, because if they are as inept as I think, I cannot believe that they know its power, or obey its laws. Delio: The humour which most predominates in the Indians is phlegm, in which love can rarely ignite, and if it does, it is because other qualities dispose it to do so. Since all this is lacking in these people, one cannot believe that they could be wounded by the arrow of love, any more than could a beast. Although their defenders deny this and attribute to them all kinds of sweet sentiments, I affirm that they are all true to their nature, and rarely raise their thoughts from the ground. In sum (except for very rare and specific cases) they are all of little more ability than brute beasts.]

Such an outlook was not without its political impact. In the correspondence concerning the unrest in Quito during the 1590s, for instance, the Audiencia, townspeople and encomenderos of Quito vehemently disagreed with the oidor Manuel de Barros’s concern for the tributary Amerindians on the grounds that their irredeemable brutishness made any alleviating measures futile.30 Pedro Muñiz, in the case against Oña presented before the Audiencia, alluded to the potential damage the latter’s fictions might have on ‘gente tan flaca de entendimiento’ [people of such weak intellect] as the Indians of Peru, Chile or mestizos, who, he suggests, are intrinsically incapable of distinguishing truth from falsehood.31 Nowhere did this growing tide of pessimism weigh more heavily, however, than with regards to Chile. Contemporary documents attest not only to the interminable difficulties faced in securing the territory, but also to the perception of the southern frontier in much of the Viceroyalty, one by this point negative in the extreme. Time and again in his correspondence, Hurtado regrets the difficulty of recruiting and retaining men of quality to serve in Arauco, observing laconically that ‘el que en esta tierra comete delito quiere más que 29 Diego Davalos y Figueroa, Primera parte de la Miscelánea Austral (Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1602), fol. 154v. 30 The Memorial of Alonso de las Cabezas de Meneses sent from Quito condenses most of these arguments, presenting the Indians, much as in Oña’s opening cantos, as completely lacking in Christianity and policía, prone to hechicerías and borracheras, cannibalistic, dirty, malicious, infantile, corrupted by liberty and so on; the document is reproduced in Bernard Lavallé, Quito et la crise de l’alcabala (1580–1600) (Paris, 1992), pp. 52–58. 31 Medina, Biblioteca, p. 63.



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le enbíen a las galeras que no a servir en Chile’ [anyone who commits a crime here would prefer to be sent to the galleys than to serve in Chile].32 Two years after the publication of Arauco domado, on the outbreak of the Curalaba rebellion, the question would be raised over whether it was sustainable to maintain Spanish control of the territory at all. All things considered, then, while implicitly addressing the vexed situation in which the territory would find itself after Hurtado’s departure, Oña’s representation of the human and natural potential of the state of Arauco seeks to press on the reader the appeal of the region beyond the battleground. The prescient portions of this part of the text are inconclusive, and at times ambivalent. In part apotropaic, they implicitly recognise the failure of Spanish attempts to date to pacify the region and the remaining obstacles to doing so: a peaceful settlement is discarded; the ghost of Lautaro (of Ercilla’s epic?) admonishes the Araucanians to continue the struggle; the introduction of the warrior Molchén suggests rebirth; the very exceptionality of Hurtado and his command is at times an encouragement to his adversaries. When Tucapel expresses regret that Quidora’s dream shows Hurtado leaving Chile alive, Gualeva’s response is an open question, addressing the reader’s uncertainty concerning the colony’s future as much as its chequered past: y a mí me aflige el cómo quedaremos, si bien o mal, después de su partida; mas téngolo por plática perdida que más sobre este punto platiquemos (XVIII. 22) [what worries me is what will become of us, good or ill, after his departure: but these are wasted words, and we should talk of this no more]

Beyond this ‘plática perdida’, though, the framing of the Chile of Arauco domado is protreptic; it is a land to satisfy every colonial desire, with its Arcadian retreats, wondrous fertility, malleable maidens and youthful potential. In the later cantos, Chilean veterans are frequently shown in prestigious positions of command, a deliberate emphasis on the opportunities military service presented for heroism and advancement in a province the men of the viceroyalty seem to have so stoutly avoided. Allusions to the features of civilian life shared by Amerindians and colonists – the local peculiarities of natural history, gastronomy or custom – seem intended to bring the poetry alive and strike an immediate connection with the reader: ‘porque es la historia llana imagen muda | que habla, si la pintan de colores’ [because plain history is a mute image, which speaks, if it is painted with colours] (XVII. 7). The 32 Levillier,

Gobernantes del Perú, XII, 151.

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‘colours’ are arguably, in this scheme, not only nostalgic, but also reflections of the poet’s wish to render ‘un servicio a la tierra donde nací’ [a service to the land where I was born] (‘Prólogo’). Amid the increasingly divisive and despondent discourse surrounding the territory, Oña insists that the colonial and evangelical enterprise elaborated by reformers such as Acosta still has a future, that investing in the troubled frontier will more than repay the costs of its maintenance. His protagonists’ escape from the battlefield, all the more poignant for its obvious transience, is, like the halting rhythm of the stanzas, a symbolic refusal to allow Arauco to be exclusively defined by its conflicts and exclusively rendered in epic terms. ‘Del extremado en todo jóven tierno’ (I. 1)? Prudence, mañas and Means in Governing the Frontiers The latent potential of the virgin territory of Arauco, of course, serves its purpose only when paired with a governing presence capable of bringing it to fulfilment – one conspicuously lacking in La Araucana, and which therefore looms large in Oña’s representation of the youthful García Hurtado de Mendoza. As a historical revindication of the former captain-general who believed himself to have been unjustly neglected and maligned, Oña’s hero displays all of the virtues one would expect: perfectly ethical in the causes and conduct of the war; exemplary in military art and strategy; effective in command and control of his men. There are also some rather unexpected innovations, however: while Hurtado is capable of exerting a kinglike sway over the soldiery at certain times, at others the troops show themselves to be disobedient, and – more significantly – go unpunished. While the governor illustrates the full spectrum of cardinal virtues, rectifying the problems of injustice and inclemency which are decisive in La Araucana, these virtues are more frequently applied to ruling the wayward Spanish than the enemy, and are consistently redefined. It is here, again, that Oña’s surprising emphases stimulate a dialogue with contemporary colonial concerns, in the first instance as an implicit recognition of the complexities of frontier governance, but also establishing a particular image of political leadership which will be echoed and expanded in the subsequent elaboration of the role and virtues of the viceroy. As the previous sections clarify, the justice of the campaign in Arauco is expressed in part in the contemporary terms of limited, missionary-oriented entradas and pacification missions. As in La Araucana, the general exhorts mercy towards the defeated (AD IV. 23, VIII. 76–77). Unlike Ercilla’s Don García, he is able to make this command effective (e.g. AD XI. 111), to both moral and strategic advantage. The address to the viceroy in the exordium – ‘sin vos quedó su historia [de Ercilla] deslustrada’ [without you Ercilla’s history was tarnished] (19, my emphasis) – highlights this crucial difference: Ercilla’s notorious depiction of the blood-crazed army pursuing those who



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have surrendered uses a similar turn of phrase (‘iban la gran vitoria deslustrando’, LA XXVI. 7) when, as a result of ineffective leadership, the troops fail to comply with orders in the aftermath of victory. Likewise, while the armies of La Araucana were, in large part, the playthings of fortune, and the relationship between fortune, fate, Providence and Machiavellian virtù was not always transparent, in Arauco domado the cosmic struggle between the diabolic infidel and the captain of Christ is rendered unambiguously visible. The pious Hurtado, oblivious to hardships and temptation, curbs abuses, reaffirms orthodox religious devotion (III. 37–42), explicitly redirects the aims of the campaign towards the cause of the monarch and the dissemination of the Good News, and as a result is unflaggingly favoured by both fortune and Providence, in contrast to his morally frail predecessors: ‘Mientras sulcó el exército cristiano | en Chile el mar del vicio a vela y remos, | jamás gozó de próspera fortuna, | porque sin Dios mal puede haver alguna’ [While the Christian army in Chile sailed on the sea of vice, it never enjoyed prosperous fortune, because without God there can hardly be any] (XII. 8). While the ethics of the mission are beyond reproach, however, the relative weakness of the Araucanians in battle in Oña’s rewriting requires effort to establish a new kind of heroism on the part of the Spanish forces. As we have seen, this is partly accomplished in crudely numerical terms: the fighting sets not only the many against the few, but also the single Spaniard in combat against a number of Araucanian champions. The culto epithet ‘joven’ had already become associated with the youthful victories of Don John of Austria in works such as Juan Rufo’s highly regarded La Austríada [The Austriad] (1584), and Fernando de Herrera’s ‘Canción’ (1572), and Oña seeks to transfer some of its lustre to the precocious military virtues of his protagonist, who was twenty-one at the beginning of his governorship. At times such emulation is made explicit, as in the reference to the waters of Lepanto stirred at the superhuman blow of the hero’s aristeia (VI. 26). Hurtado also boasts an exclusive mastery of the various elements of the arte militar distributed in La Araucana between Lautaro, Caupolicán and the two armies as a collective. He is characterised in action, like Valdivia or Lautaro, by that highly prized quality presteza (III. 63, IX. 90, XI title), ever on the advance, but never impetuous in attack (V. 70). His own industria leads by example, literally marching ahead of his men (X. 15), keeping the army always busy, prepared (IV. 48) and disciplined (X. 1–7) and demonstrating for them the requisite qualities of wakefulness or courage as the circumstances require (VIII. 50). He shows a particular concern for selecting, building and repairing sites for fortifications (IV. 37, VIII. 39, X. 33), for an astute employment of artillery (IV. 22, VI. 82), and for the securing of reinforcements (IX. 17), carefully employing secrecy and surprise to leave both his own men and the enemy in awe of his ‘ardid extraño’ [strange trick] (X. 17) to cross the Biobío undetected.

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Such descriptions of successful strategy often have a contemporary sting, addressing the flaws not only of García’s predecessors but also, implicitly, of those who succeed him. The eleven-stanza digression on the dangers of stopping in Santiago (Mapocho) en route to Arauco (III. 68–78), comparing the city’s enervating effects to the monstrous diversions keeping Odysseus from Ithaca, is at first sight difficult to explain: de Mapochó se apartan los navíos, alvergue de holgazanes y valdíos, adonde el vicio a sus anchuras mora, y tierra do se come el dulce loto, que al filo de la guerra tiene boto. Es la vadosa Sirte, donde encallan o todos o los más governadores, y adonde, por hablar cosas de amores, las del guerrero adúltero se callan. (III. 68–69) [The ships keep their distance from Mapocho, the refuge of layabouts and idlers, where vice spreads itself out, and the land where the sweet lotus is eaten, which blunts the blade of war. It is the sandy reef on which all or most of the governors run aground, and where, for talk of love, the affairs of the adulterous warrior [Mars] fall silent.]

It comes into poignant relief, however, in the light of the difficult relationship between the viceroy and the long-standing governor of Chile, Alonso de Sotomayor (r. 1583–92), who often found himself berated for his extended spells in the region’s capital, where he had contracted an advantageous marriage with a local encomendera. In part, the ill feeling between the two generals is explicable in personal terms, compounded by muddled instructions from Madrid concerning the two veterans’ respective mandates over the region. As contemporary documents reveal, there was nonetheless also a larger dispute regarding the overarching strategy to be pursued in Chile, the primary point of contention being the extent of indigenous resistance. For the viceroy, the key to the war was the pacification of Arauco, and he repeatedly called for a full and immediate invasion of this district, following his own strategy of more than twenty years before.33 Sotomayor, on the other hand, was facing a loose confederation of polities across the region, with resistance concentrated in formerly tributary communities around the outskirts of many Spanish cities. Under pressure from the viceroy, he dedicated one campaign to Arauco, constructing a new Spanish fort, but also adopted a broader strategy centred on a scorched-earth policy around the cities, interpreted by Hurtado 33

For example, ibid., p. 103.



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as an indication of decadence in both troops and governor. The difference of approach was Sotomayor’s justification for leaving the battlefield to make his case in Lima, ‘considerando, que la población de Arauco no avía de librar de Guerra lo demás’ [deeming that the settlement of Arauco would not free the rest of the region from war], from where he was reappointed to Panama to lead the defence against Francis Drake, leaving the future direction of policy unresolved.34 It is significant, in this light, that the focus of Oña, as of his patron, remains exclusively on the risks and promise of Arauco. The other independent ‘estados’ who interact with the Araucanians in Ercilla disappear entirely, while the allied, auxiliary and tributary indigenous communities are presented as both loyal and utterly subservient, even servile, in need of protection rather than worthy of suspicion. The revalidation of Hurtado’s role in the campaign goes beyond a simple appropriation of the virtues and legitimacy conspicuously lacking in La Araucana, however, or an implicit statement regarding the future conduct of the war. The captain-general is not only a commander but also a ruler, whose actions serve as an exemplary picture of governance as well as of military strategy. One striking innovation in this light is that the authority of the leader is presented in terms exclusively reserved for the king in Ercilla. The regal quality of majesty, maiestas, attributed to Ercilla’s Philip II but at best partially transmitted to his distant representatives, is here not only fully reflected in the governor of Chile, but also appears to be an innate property, independent of the monarch. His physical person is not only ‘nebulous’ (in that it is never described directly),35 but mysteriously impressive too, inspiring awe in all who encounter his gaze (AD VI. 49, IX. 23). Even more significant is his infallible command of Fortune. The fortuna of Philip II, as Chapter 2 argued, plays a significant role in Ercilla’s Segunda parte. The storm of the outset shows the reader a literally and symbolically ungoverned ship, tossed without mercy by the rebellious winds (‘corriendo fortuna’, in nautical terminology) until the fortuna of Philip hauls the craft to a precarious harbour.36 In Arauco domado, the vessel has a ‘diestro piloto’ [skilled pilot] in the person of Don García (XII. 9), whose supplication secures salvation from the diabolical storm, and who not only literally steers the ship to safety (IV. 18) like Aeneas on the death of Palinurus, but also appears – next to God – to be the lord of the restless winds, ‘verdadero dios Eolo’ [the true god Aeolus] (III. 43). ‘El señor de las 34

Caro de Torres, Relación de los servicios, fols 46r, 49r. Cf. Pittarello, ‘Arauco domado de Pedro de Oña’, p. 259. 36 Santiago Fernández Mosquera points out that the topos of the storm in this period is usually more poetic than historical, and is most commonly ‘the representation of natural or human chaos’, La tormenta en el Siglo de Oro: Variaciones funcionales de un tópico (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2006), p. 31. Cf. also María Gabriela Huidobro, El imaginario de la guerra de Arauco: Mundo épico y tradición clásica (Santiago de Chile, 2017), pp. 90–102. 35

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venturas’ [the lord of fortunes] (VIII. 49) is, in fact, associated with fortune throughout the poem in a very special way: ever willing, in Machiavellian terms, to ‘dar un tiento | al pecho de la varia y ciega diosa’ [take a swipe at the breast of the changeable and blind goddess] (IX. 33), the divinely crafted shield of this new Achilles/Aeneas emblematically displays ‘la fortuna lúbrica rendida, | y a la Ocasión por el copete asida | con poderosa mano en ciego ñudo’ [mournful fortune surrendered, and Opportunity seized by her lock with powerful hand in a tight knot] (IX. 51). This allegorical transition takes on a particular significance when it is put into the context of the figurative slippage between the goddess Fortuna and fortunas at sea in both poems, between the maritime tempests and the tempestuous waves of rebellion across the empire. The colonial governor, in this sense, symbolically displaces the monarch within his own jurisdiction, the guarantor of Providential success and security and the locus of majesty on his own merits alone. At the same time, however, there is also a subtle shift towards a conciliatory stance in the manner in which this awesome power is wielded. In Ercilla, the heroic commander is the one who commands absolutely, since the army – any army – is a body ever liable to disorder, cruelty, greed and collapse. His Don García falls short in the Segunda parte not through poor intentions, but because his orders are not entirely obeyed by his men, just as the few moments of failure of Caupolicán’s sway over the senate and of Lautaro’s control of his army are significant in their demise. Only Philip II, it appears, has the ability to prompt and control the delicate balance of fury and restraint in his soldiers. This power of command is in most cases transferred to the youthful captain in Arauco domado, but not in all, and there are two particularly notable incidents of tolerated disobedience. In the eighth canto, a sentinel, Rebolledo, is caught asleep on two occasions by the vigilant general, condemned to death, but spared at the entreaty of the others. In the tenth, two soldiers leave the fort without permission to look for strawberries, leading to the death of Guillén mentioned earlier, and triggering a full battle from a weaker position when a member of the scouting party sent to investigate the disturbance also disobeys orders and leads a reckless charge, drawing out the entire army in their defence. While the incidents are relatively innocuous in comparison with the atrocities perpetrated in La Araucana, confined to a few common soldiers and narrated with a comic touch, like many humorous episodes in Arauco domado, they might be seen also as a way of indirectly engaging with some of the troubling questions raised by Oña’s predecessor. The fact that the episodes mirror in a lighter vein precisely the flaws that have such devastating consequences in Ercilla – disobedience, greed and impetuousness – as well as the contemporary problems of desertion, shortages and poor discipline; that the episodes are innovations in a narrative which otherwise closely follows Mariño de Lobera’s and Ercilla; that each is followed by a moralising discussion; and that collectively they do jeopardise the general’s



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position (‘estuvo por los suyos puesto a canto | de peligrar su crédito aquel día’ [he was on the brink of endangering his reputation that day on account of his soldiers], XI. 11) adds further support to this interpretation. What distinguishes Oña’s approach is that the correct response to such insubordination is pragmatic flexibility and an inclination towards mercy unprecedented in the military manuals, which tended to prescribe swift and exemplary punishment. In the first instance, this might be a response to Ercilla’s notorious allusion to his own near-execution by the ‘mozo capitán acelerado’ [impetuous young captain] (LA XXXVII. 70), but the language used opens broader questions. Hurtado’s decision to mitigate his initial verdict of hanging the negligent Rebolledo is presented in the very terms of the balance between clemency and rigour in the application of justice and in warfare which had characterised Ercilla’s ongoing concern with appropriate conduct towards the enemy: alcançó perdón mediante el ruego y la necessidad que havía de gente; que en tierra como aquella tan reziente no ha de llevarse todo a sangre y fuego como en las ya políticas famosas donde tan en su punto están las cosas. Usó con esto el joven de clemencia, sin cuyo acompañado la justicia apenas es virtud, porque se envicia con parecer crueldad o malquerencia; y es donde se requiere más prudencia, porque si de este medio el juez desquicia en un extremo viene a dar forçosso, si de remisso no, de rigurosso. De entrambos se apartó como prudente, siguiendo el justo medio don Hurtado [...] (VIII. 58–60) [he gained pardon through the request (of the other soldiers) and the need of men; for in lands recently won not everything has to be carried through as ruthlessly as it is in those already famous and civilised where everything is just as it should be. The youth made use of clemency in this, without whose companionship justice is hardly a virtue, because it is corrupted by seeming to be cruelty or malice; and it is where most prudence is required, because if the judge deviates from this mean he inevitably falls into an extreme, if not too remiss, too severe. Don Hurtado prudently avoided both extremes, following the golden mean.]

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Like Ercilla, therefore, Oña suggests the need for a differential ethics of warfare in remote and recently subdued provinces, in which the full application of the laws of war may be ineffectual. Instead of applying this reasoning to the incompatible perspectives of adversaries, however, he turns it back towards the exceptional demands of commanding the frontier forces themselves. In light of contemporary anxieties over the waywardness of the growing and increasingly permanent Chilean militia, the emphasis can hardly have escaped the attention of politically engaged readers in the viceroyalty. The concern with limits (‘términos’, ‘modos’) and with equilibrium is, as Chapter 2 demonstrates, an obsession in La Araucana. Typically, Oña introduces new if rather conventional concepts in order to resolve but in the process transform the nature of the dilemma: the cardinal virtues, and the Golden Mean. Naturally enough, Hurtado exemplifies the four cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, with a special emphasis on prudence. In itself there is nothing surprising here: the continuing presence of the classical virtues and the particularly high regard for prudence in sixteenthand seventeenth-century political treatises, referring back to Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, is a commonplace, and here it is again a response to the many imprudent youths who wreak disasters in La Araucana.37 The relative marginalisation of these virtues in the latter poem (prudence and fortitude, or ‘serenidad’, do appear, but in association with Dido and Caupolicán, while justice is more a point for discussion than a stable attribute) is one of the surprising features of its political make-up, and on a first reading Oña simply appears to be returning the Christian governor to the realms of political orthodoxy. However, such virtues became ‘problematic’ from the mid-sixteenth century, susceptible to conflicting and contradictory interpretations, polarised in their reading as secular or religious, even with their relevance to the modern prince brought into question.38 In this light, Oña’s particular application of the virtues to the difficulties of governance on the frontier takes a rather particular, and in some ways unusual, position. One crucial innovation here is that the practice of these virtues always adopts the Golden Mean, which guides the employment of clemency and justice discussed above and is first introduced in the moral exordium preceding Hurtado’s entry into his governorship: 37 Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s influential Tratado de la religión y virtudes que deve tener el Principe Christiano (Madrid, 1595), for instance, terms prudence ‘la guía y maestra de todas las virtudes morales del Príncipe Cristiano’ [the guide and master of all the moral virtues of the Christian Prince], and the ‘arte de la vida’ [art of life], encompassing eleven chapters of advice (XXIII–XXXIII), including those on the art of war. 38 Truman, Spanish Treatises, pp. 361–67; cf. also Jeremy Robbins, ‘Prudence and Baltasar Gracián’s Oráculo manual: Baroque Political Thought and the Thomistic Dimension’, in Boyd and O’Reilly, eds, Artifice and Invention, pp. 43–52.



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¡Oh cuánto se requiere, cuánto importa haver moderación y medio en todo, pues lo que va sin límite ni modo, ¿qué limitada fuerça lo soporta? Ni es bueno que la capa quede corta, ni que de larga frise con el lodo: virtud está en el medio como en quicio, y siempre en los extremos anda el vicio. (III. 1–8) [Oh how important and necessary it is to observe moderation and the mean in everything, since what kind of force could bear what is without limits or checks? It is no good for the cloak to be too short, nor to be so long that it drags in the mud: virtue is in the middle in its element, and vice is always in extremes.]

While this ‘justo medio’ was another commonplace inherited from Aristotle and the classics, like prudence, it was a ‘flexible tool’ and a ‘contested concept’.39 Oña sometimes employs it in its classical Aristotelian sense, in which virtue is the middle ground between two vices that represent extremes, but he also uses it as a more flexible poetic figure, as the appropriately moderate response relative to a particular situation. Hurtado uses it here both to reform the system of Indian tributes and encomiendas, which he moderates without overhauling,40 and to arbitrate between the two interim claimants to the captain-generalcy, Francisco de Villagrán and Francisco de Aguirre: ‘como la virtud, se puso en medio’ [like virtue, he positioned himself in the middle] (III. 46). While it is particularly associated with prudence, the aurea mediocritas applies in equal measure to all the virtues exemplified by García. His ‘justicia’ balances the need to punish but also conserve his forces and, united with clemency, avoids the extremes of either severity or permissiveness. His temperance corresponds to his imperviousness to temptations of the flesh, but also to a more holistic control of appearances: his show of emotions is always ‘templada’ [tempered], neither stoically impassive nor fully transparent (III. 11–12; cf. IX. 48). His ‘fortaleza’ strikes a straight course between boldness and timorousness as he awaits the right time to begin his campaign (IX. 1–7). As Rich Rabone has demonstrated, the myths of Icarus and Phaethon were often used

39 Rich Rabone, Moderation and the Mean in the Literature of Spain’s Golden Age (Oxford, forthcoming). Ethan Shagan’s The Rule of Moderation: Violence, Religion and the Politics of Restraint in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2011) explores how the concept of moderation might be appropriated for coercive and authoritarian purposes. 40 On Hurtado’s reforms to the encomienda system in Chile, which were in reality quite controversial and led to considerable tensions with the old conquistadors, see Mazzotti, Lima fundida, pp. 87–97.

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interchangeably to illustrate the Golden Mean: in the famous versions in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, their fathers Daedalus and Phoebus both advise their heedless sons to strike a middle course in their flight (‘medio tutissimus ibis’, Met. 2.137, ‘inter utrumque vola’, Met. 8.206) in phrases which were often paired with emblems. The doomed youths were also common examples of the dangers of entrusting rule to one too young. Oña almost certainly has this in mind when he makes of his young Hurtado an antidote to their recklessness, an emblematic embodiment of the mean in all his undertakings: No quiero yo dezir que el hombre sea un Ícaro sobervio y temerario para que, dando nombre al Mar Icario, entre sus ondas muerto al fin se vea; sino que, si jamás errar dessea, a nuestro joven siga de ordinario, al cual, sin ser altivo ni arrogante, no hay cosa tan terrible que lo espante. (IX. 5) [I do not mean that man should be a proud and reckless Icarus, so that, giving his name to the Icarian Sea, in the end he meets death in its waves; but that, if he desires never to err, he should make a habit of following our youth, who without being proud or arrogant, can never be alarmed by anything, however terrible.]41

These form a distinctly conservative set of virtues, ‘en cosa no mostrándose moderna’ [not showing himself to be an innovator in anything] (III. 35). Pragmatically flexible, they are consensual rather than absolutist in execution, always seeking and taking council (III. 24, XIV. 83, XVIII. 34). While maintaining them with constancy is the mark of a hero, they are in themselves emphatically human and even ordinary, a kind of ‘common sense’, as Oña’s tendency to illustrate them with homely proliferations of everyday images, colloquialisms, proverbs and folkloric wisdom suggests. While Oña’s terminology is impeccably orthodox, therefore, its application consistently avoids dogmatic generalisations; in a frontier which is shown to be inherently unstable and divided, threatened less by external forces or the miserable ‘indios de paz’ than by the negligence, ambition, greed and disorder of its own military and civil societies, a moderate, conciliatory pragmatism is the only effective approach. Here, too, there are parallels with the moderate reformism and acknowledgement of the difficulties and difference of government in the Indies present in much discourse of the 1580s and 1590s (in contrast with the hardening of 41 The passage is also an echo of Garcilaso, sonnet XII, which uses Icarus (and Phaethon) as figures for amor hereos, ‘cayendo, fama y nombre al mar ha dado’.



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attitudes in much political literature of the Peninsula towards the end of the reign of Philip II). The correspondence of this period increasingly attests to this recognition, with the insistence of the Crown, viceroy and delegated governors on the necessity of proceeding always gradually and gently with overseas subjects. Acosta’s insistence on the diversity, novelty and instability of ‘res Indicae’ (p. 54), the difficulty of reaching a consensus and even of finding the right political language in which to speak, leads him to argue for a new, pragmatic approach to both evangelisation and governance, the former moderate in its expectations and neither pacifist nor employing more than a necessary minimum of force, the latter working prudently within existing institutions, with caution, consultation and patience, and with as much attention to civil as to military affairs. One passage in particular is very similar in tone to Oña’s above (VIII. 58–60): The very state of the republic is so diverse and changeable, and so heterogeneous in itself, that what was held yesterday to be very correct and beneficial, today, if the situation changes, might be the most iniquitous and pernicious thing. (p. 407)

It is in this sense, then, that a moderate approach which in essence changes very little at all merits Oña’s governor the title of ‘gran legislador del nuevo mundo’ [great legislator of the New World] (III. 33). The pragmatism and empiricism of Ercilla’s political discourse remain, but the model which emerges is quite different. ‘El radïante sol de don García’ (XIV. 49): Piracy, Rebellion and the Viceroy’s Voice At the same time as it revisits Chile, Oña’s portrayal of its young governor, the puer senex, looks forward to his maturity as viceroy, and to the broader preoccupations of Peru. I have already suggested ways in which the poetic representation of the Amerindians, the captain-general and the Spanish frontier community incorporates the contemporary political discourse of Lima in both its general contours and a few specifics. Towards the end of the poem two interpolated prophecies directly address this dimension: the imposition of the alcabala with the subsequent rebellion in Quito in 1592–93 (cantos XIV–XVI), and the incursion of Richard Hawkins in 1594 (XVI– XIX). The requirement to include these two recent events presented its own challenges. Neither episode fitted comfortably within an epic framework. While the capture of Hawkins was a welcome success for Lima after the escape of previous corsairs, the protracted pursuit of a single, weary vessel by a well-provisioned trio of ships from Callao hardly benefitted from comparison with the grand naumachiae of epic. The viceroy’s blatant victory

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propaganda in both Arauco domado and the Relación of Balaguer de Salcedo is ruthlessly lampooned in the anonymous mock-epic known as La victoria naval peruntina [The Naval Victory of Peru], La Peruntina or La Beltraneja, a little-known satirical gem which appeared just after the publication of Oña’s poem. Here, the satirist contemplates the ‘terrífico terror terrificante’ [terrible terrifying terror] of the returning ‘Argonautas peruntinos’ [Peruntine Argonauts] acclaimed for their triumph over ‘un inglesillo malventurado’ [an unfortunate little Englishman]: Y viendo el susodicho impertinente las fiestas, procesiones, luminarias, parabienes y congratulaciones; relaciones impresas, apendices de domados Araucos (que aún ahora tan chúcaros están como la Musa que los canta domados, lisonjera) […] ya le parece para solo un güebo mucho el cacarear de las gallinas, y chico el santo para tanta fiesta.42 [And when the aforementioned impertinent [poet] saw the celebrations, processions, festival lights, compliments and congratulations, printed relaciones, appendices of tamed Araucos, who right now are just as wild as the flattering Muse who sings of their taming (…) it seemed the hens were clucking a lot over just one egg and it was a minor saint for such a big fiesta.]

The anonymous author leaves none of the protagonists intact, accusing the viceroy, the vicereine and Don Beltrán of cowardice, extortion, corruption and an unjust distribution of spoils in the affair in an echo of precisely the charges that would plague the by this time rather unpopular Hurtado’s residencia. Neither does he spare the hapless Oña, ingeniously hinting at the hotchpotch that results from levering the episode into the Chilean material (‘apendices | de domados Araucos’); taking to extremes the poem’s parade of erudition, technical virtuosity and experimental innovations; and creating a poetic persona which might just caricature the presumptuous licenciado (‘Un hombre ocioso, pobre y malcontento […] no hay cosa de que no sepa un poco’ [an idle, poor and discontented man (…) there is nothing of which he does not know a little], 1, 16) who hastens, ‘en verso burlimero, | llano, 42

Beltraneja, ed. by Juan Montero Delgado and Antonio Sánchez Jiménez (Lima, 2020), pp. 59–60, lines 38–44, 53–54, henceforth cited by line numbers. The poem is often attributed, plausibly but inconclusively, to Mateo Rosas de Oquendo.



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suelto, corriente y trompicante, | y a veces, con la priesa, salpicante’ [in verse which is just-jesting, plain, flowing, running and stumbling, and sometimes in its haste, bespattering] (76–78) towards a rather bathetic anticlimax. If Oña’s encomium to his patron’s defence of the coast lent itself to ridicule, however, it was his account of the opposition to the alcabala which elicited the most bitter and persistent hostility among his fellow citizens. As Pedro Guibovich puts it, the poem ‘enthused many and enraged many others’, and the most offensive passages were unquestionably those which touched on the difficult theme of rebellion in a province in which the civil wars were still within living memory, and, even worse, which threatened to perpetuate the memory of the unrest in print, defaming the urban residents of Peru indefinitely.43 The last-minute alterations Oña made during printing were concentrated on the folios describing the revolt, and mitigated their scathing criticism of the rebels, in particular eliminating any reference to the involvement of the clergy and religious orders. As well as Muñiz’s case against the poet, separate charges were pressed against the author, printer and booksellers by five regidores of Quito, eighteen notable vecinos of Lima, the Cabildo of Lima, and at least one official of the Audiencia, and were eventually taken up by the Audiencia and incoming viceroy and remitted to the Council of the Indies. Many of the complainants cited the offensive passages of the poem in detail, and they all concentrated on the cantos which describe the arrival of the viceroy in Lima, his correction of abuses, and the imposition of the alcabala. Muñiz attempted to add some more weighty theological charges to this based on Oña’s depiction of Lautaro’s ghost, but it is clear where the problem really lies. The collected documents relating to the case leave no doubt, therefore, that a wide spectrum of the elite of the viceroyalty was deeply vexed by the account of the recent unrest. As Bernard Lavallé makes clear, the affair had left gaping wounds in the urban social fabric. Hurtado came under criticism for his utter failure to anticipate, inform Madrid of and duly respond to the first stirrings of dissent in Quito when the tax was proclaimed, despite the fact that the factions and poverty of the city had already been brought to his attention and led to the dispatch of a visitador. Nor was the conflict cleanly resolved in the aftermath, as appeals against summary verdicts and petitions for mercedes (reward) dragged on, which left the region restive and fraught with tensions well into the seventeenth century.44 Moreover, the poet’s championing of such inflexible crushing of a tax revolt places him at odds with much of the scholastic and Jesuit tradition he 43 Pedro Guibovich Pérez, ‘El poder y la pluma: La censura del Arauco domado de Pedro de Oña’, in Aguirre and McEvoy, eds, Intelectuales y poder, pp. 47–64 (p. 52). 44 Lavallé, Quito, p. 188.

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would have imbibed in his university education in Lima, and to which he generally adheres. Treatists tended to uphold the commonplace of Aristotle and Ptolemy of Lucca that princes should seek to avoid novelty, and particularly the imposition of new laws and taxes, keeping the latter as low as possible, within their subjects’ capabilities; if taxes proved to be unavoidable, princes should impose them through gradual and persuasive means.45 Acosta applied the maxim to the Indies, warning with particular stridency that any tributes should be kept to a minimum and never changed without extensive consultation, for: The sovereigns and Christian lords who burden their subjects with new tributes, or crush them with even more exorbitant demands, have always been considered among the most serious cases to be reserved to the Holy See […] And the error of the viceroy or president [of an Audiencia] who, moved by partiality or negligence in assessment, or excessive confidence in his own judgement, errs in such a serious matter, will never be considered a minor matter nor worthy of pardon. (p. 496)

Such arguments were precisely those used by the defenders of resistance to the tax to whom Oña alludes (XVI. 60–61), particularly the religious orders.46 It is perhaps unsurprising in this light that the tone of these cantos is often hesitant and faltering. While agreement on the swift and ruthless crushing of rebellion had come to dominate in the political treatises of the Peninsula in the late sixteenth century, as attitudes in many quarters hardened towards Flanders, this outlook sits much more uncomfortably with the moderate, conservative, consensual approach carefully elaborated by Oña in previous sections of the poem.47 The steady increase of pace and tension throughout the escalation of revolt gives way to a decidedly anticlimactic ending, moving abruptly from the sudden dissolution of the rebel forces to the tearful spectacle of the reprisals, including the execution of a ninety-year-old man. Its apologetic sphragis, with the uncomfortable note of transaction as the story is ‘settled

45 For example, Ribadeneyra, Tratado, pp. 319–38. Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 73–77, particularly censures indirect taxes on non-luxury goods – such as the alcabala. More generally, as John H. Elliott cautions, one should be careful of seeking ‘an ideology of innovation’ in a society ‘dominated, as Early Modern European society was dominated, by the idea, not of progress, but of a return to a golden age in the past’, Spain and its World (New Haven, CT, 1989), p. 100. 46 Lavallé, Quito, pp. 122–23. 47 For the former, hard-line approach, see, for instance, Luis Valle de la Cerda, Avisos en materia de estado y guerra, para oprimir rebeliones, y hazer pazes con enemigos armados, o tratar con subditos rebeldes (Madrid, 1599).



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up’ (for the benefit of Hurtado?), abruptly leads the reader from a triumphant to an uncertain mood (XVI. 95–108):48 Con esto dio la bárbara hermosa remate, conclusión y finiquito al cuento o cuentas frívolas de Quito, que no devió de serle fácil cosa; a mí me ha sido bien dificultosa, por ser de cuanto falta y queda escrito el rebentón más áspero y fragoso, estéril, intricado y peligroso. (XVI. 108) [With this the beautiful barbarian wrapped up, concluded and settled up the tale or the frivolous accounts of Quito, which cannot have been an easy thing for her; it has certainly been most difficult for me, since out of everything written or left unwritten it is the roughest and most rugged hill to climb, fruitless, complex and perilous.]

The rebellion was, indeed, striking for the fact that the protracted psychological warfare of double-edged exchanges, threats and military preparations never resulted in an out-and-out clash of forces, but here the closing reminder to the reader of the dreamed and dreamlike nature of the entire sequence (which is told as the prophetic dream of Quidora) threatens to ‘dexar en opinión lo verdadero’ [leave the truth open to interpretation] (XVIII. 29), casting doubt over the whole rendition. Aside from hedging around these cantos with such apologetic equivocations, Oña’s first response to the formidable challenge of rendering this controversial dispute in epic terms is to distort the causes of the insurrection, turning it from a protest against unjust taxation or a defence against the besieging forces to a duplicitous and self-interested attempt to shed the yoke of Spanish rule altogether. To judge by the litigation which followed, this is one of the claims which particularly angered many of the poem’s early readers. At the outset, it is asserted that the tax is not in fact new at all, but that the monarch’s administrators had refrained from imposing it until that date out of fear (another provocative claim). The controversial president of the Audiencia of Quito, Manuel Barros de San Millán, who undoubtedly exacerbated tensions, is thoroughly whitewashed.

48 Mazzotti, in ‘Paradojas’ and Lima fundida, pp. 97–112, also notes the jarring descent from masculine triumph to feminine lament. Thomas Greene, ‘The Natural Tears of Epic’, in Beissinger, Tylus and Wofford, eds, Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World, pp. 189–202, reminds us that a lamenting ending is typical of epic.

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The provocative account of Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza’s restoration of royal authority in Lima in the Primera parte of La Araucana, already alluded to at the beginning of Arauco domado (I. 16), proves a useful model here, allowing Oña to bypass some of the problematic complexities referred to above. In both episodes, the uprising is figured in images of civil war, flames and a gathering of storm-clouds which in Oña’s version never break thanks to the foresight of the viceroy and the ‘mañas’ [ruses] of his general Pedro de Arana. The image of the storm, as we have seen elsewhere, figuratively connects otherwise disparate outbreaks of rebellion, and allows Oña to create some unsavoury parallels between the leaders at Quito and the discredited Araucanian caciques. In one passage, the rebel leaders are presented as fomenting their ‘libertad’ outside the city, in a communal feast in the midst of nature which bears some resemblance to the ‘borrachera’ of the second canto: Diversos conciliábulos hazían y espléndidos banquetes a menudo para fortalecer su intento crudo en los que enflaquescido lo sentían; allí sobre el negocio conferían con libertad y término desnudo, soplando Anesidora con Lïeo las llamas de su ilícito desseo. El cual se fue encendiendo a mucha priessa y a más de un combite celebrado que vino a hazerse fuera de poblado, en medio de un campo fértil y dehesa; allí boló más alta la pavesa del pecho en ambiciones abrasado, determinando alçar del yugo el cuello, no les moviendo más que el gusto de ello. (XV. 20–21) [They often held secret meetings and splendid banquets to strengthen the cruel determination of those who felt themselves wavering; there they conferred on the matter with liberty and naked intent, while Demeter and Dionysius fanned the flames of their illicit desire. The fire quickly blazed stronger and more than one feast came to be held outside the city, in the middle of a fertile country meadow; there the ash of the breast burning with ambition flew higher, resolving to cast off the yoke from their neck altogether, for no other reason than that they wanted to.]

The yearning for ‘libertad’ is thereby linked with lust, greed, amoral ambition, heresy and in general a regression from political order to a pre-political state



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of savagery – the extremes that form the poles of Hurtado’s Golden Mean.49 In a similar way, the aspersions cast on the intentions of Arana’s army, which, having recruited some undesirable elements during its transit, was thought to be preparing to sack the city, are here reversed and applied instead to the rebel forces (XV. 22–23), who in this way figuratively ‘sack’ their own city. While the comparison of rebellion or heresy to a sickness was topical, Oña takes the image to grotesque physical extremes, presenting the reader with pictures of the afflicted passing off the tax as a new cover for an old, festering wound (XV. 11), retching and vomiting the bitter contents of a damaged stomach (XIV. 104), and, like a silkworm (XVI. 75), pulling out their own intestines to weave their plots. Nevertheless, the presentation of the rebels is not typical in all respects. Ercilla does not distinguish the traitors of Peru according to type, but rather differentiates the king’s subjects simply by the criterion of loyalty or disloyalty. Contemporary accounts of the Quito revolt tended to take the opposite approach, isolating the unrest in a particular sector of society, particularly under-employed armed men (‘soldado’, soldier, is, in the documents, virtually synonymous with ‘gente valdía y vagamunda’ [idle and vagabond people]); mestizos (including the recently ordained mestizo priests), criollos and the lower classes in general, with some overlap between these categories.50 Arauco domado distances itself from both approaches. The seed of rebellion is, in the poem, not planted only in socially suspect soil, but is equally liable to take root in any estate. While the ‘vulgo novelero’ [fickle multitude] responds quickly to the ‘primero movimiento’ of dissent, the narrative voice goes on to insist that the plebs tend to follow their head (XVI. 30), and that ‘No hay para qué culpemos la rudeza | del bando popular, sino del grave’ [we should blame not the boorishness of the popular bloc, but that of the important people] (XVI. 32); oidores, women, senior citizens, lawyers and priests are all singled out for criticism at various points. Divisions between criollos and peninsulares, or according to ethnic status, are never even mentioned. Often, the ambiguous status of the urbanised indio (as opposed to the rural labourer), the ladino, mestizo or yanacona, led to suspicions of only surface-deep Christianity, compounded with deceit, disloyalty and a number of social vices, an attitude which is reflected in documentary accounts of the revolt.51 Oña, by contrast, makes no distinction between the two indigenous groups: both are abused and their abuses redeemed in cantos III and XIV respectively in passages 49 Covarrubias’s Tesoro defines ‘conciliábulo’ with explicit reference to heresy: ‘El Concilio no convocado por el Romano Pontifice, sino por particulares, cismáticos y revoltosos’ [the Council not convened by the Roman Pontiff, but by schismatic and rebellious individuals]. 50 Lavallé, Quito, pp. 83–89. 51 Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, pp. 186–205; Adorno, Polemics, pp. 23–25.

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which employ a similar and highly emotive language; the comparison of the domestic service of the urban Indians to slaves serving in the galleys was read with particular horror by the poet’s various prosecutors. The rebellion is, in Oña’s rendition, entirely a Spanish affair. Finally, and again controversially, the boundaries between loyalty and disloyalty are disconcertingly permeable. Other cities are said to have been as liable to revolt as Quito, had the news not been suppressed by the viceroy, while only a minority of the population fall neatly into either camp: most ‘ni eran bien traidores ni leales, | sino del tercio género: neutrales’ [were neither treacherous nor loyal, but of the third kind: neutral] (XIV. 88). Within this uncommitted sector, the attribution of guilt or innocence is inevitably tentative: individual reactions are often impossible to decipher, with many revealing sentiments at odds with their inner convictions or ‘disimulando’ entirely (XIV. 86–88). The urban communities of the viceroyalty, then, are portrayed by Oña as at once inherently unstable and extremely complex, with the motivations and loyalties of each individual, let alone each ‘estado’, ambivalent, unpredictable and constantly subject to change. Little wonder that the narrative so perturbed much of its immediate audience. In Ercilla, as we have seen, one problematic feature of the Peruvian rebellion is the question of how far the justice and authority of the king might be communicated through the representative who transmits his ‘voz’, whose methods are effective but decidedly Machiavellian. In Arauco domado, the problem is twofold, residing firstly in the question of how justice might be applied and unrest fully quelled in the tangled scenario described above, and secondly in the fact that, in this case, the distant epicentre of the revolt and the multiple provinces in which its quakes are felt are inevitably beyond the physical reach not only of the absent monarch but also of the viceroy. The creative response to these dilemmas moves us further from the conventional representation of dissent in this period. Beginning with the first issue, Oña leaves the reader in no doubt that the resolution of the affair is not merely a triumph on Hurtado’s part, but is in fact the most powerful demonstration of his heroic virtues of fortitude and wisdom (XIV. 79). The dispute between Talguén and Tucapel over whether it was Arana’s ‘fuerza’ or ‘maña’ that won the day (another ‘justo medio’) makes the viceroy’s deputy a foil in this regard. However, while the account employs many of the topical preliminaries of the epic battle – from the ‘borrachera’ cited above, to the spectacle of gallantly decked soldiers gathering in Lima, to the heroic catalogue of warriors, their stormy voyage and steady march by land – the carefully laid expectations of civil war are never met, and thus the usual arena for the display of heroism is conspicuously absent. The portrayal of these virtues, therefore, has a distinctive emphasis. The very embodiment of epic ‘furor’, Tucapel, reinterprets the fortitude of the protagonists as their courage to patiently wait for the onslaught of a vastly



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superior number – a virtue somewhere mid-way between stoic imperturbability and traditional valour. ‘Maña’, likewise, has less to do with military strategy than with an astute assessment of and interaction with both potential supporters and adversaries during the unrest, and is characterised not by ‘presteza’, but by the slowness and caution of the hero’s course of action. Following the moderate, conciliatory model already put to the test in the militia and frontier communities, both the viceroy and his general proceed consensually as far as possible, convoking juntas at each step, never advancing without ‘común consentimiento’ (XIV. 83) and thereby eventually avoiding recourse to ‘sangre y fuego’. The image used in the conclusion is a striking reworking of the conventional advice to cut off the cancer of rebellion as swiftly and completely as possible: ¿Qué médico tan médico supiera hazer que una postema tan hinchada, ya por algunas bocas rebentada, con bien de la salud se resolviera? Y sin que sangre o fuego interviniera, ni punta de lanceta ni lançada, ¿quién la dexara limpia y tan vazía de cuánta corrupción en sí tenía? (XVI. 110) [What doctor could be skilled enough to make such a swollen abscess, already oozing in several places, recede without harm to health? And without blood or fire intervening, nor piercing with a lancet nor lance, who could have left it so drained and empty of all the corruption it had inside it?]

In a society in which the diseased and healthy flesh of the body politic is no longer always possible to separate, it seems that non-invasive cures are necessary. One final subtle shift in allusion also seems pertinent in this light. Hurtado is throughout most of the poem presented as a new Caesar, with analogies both to the Pharsalia and to the Caesar of the Gallic Wars, and in the war in Chile as a new Aeneas (comparisons to other figures such as Ascanius, Achilles, Ulysses, Hercules and Mars also appear, but are less consistent as epithets or structuring elements). As Arana approaches the port of Guayaquil, a voice reassures him that ‘no podrá ofenderte cosa alguna | en fe de don Hurtado y su fortuna’ [nothing can harm you, trusting in Don Hurtado and his fortune] (XV. 67), transforming the hubris of Lucan’s Caesar, who declares on a stormy crossing that no harm will come to the pilot because of his own fortune, into a Providential admonition. In the midst of the rebellion itself, however, the terms of reference are unexpectedly reversed, as the lukewarm attitude of those in authority permits that ‘el pecho y ánimo plebeyo | a César

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se inclinase y no a Pompeyo’ [the plebeian heart and mind inclined to Caesar and not to Pompey] (XVI. 32). The just cause here, then, is Pompey’s. In a narrative in which shared decision-making, cautious delay and moderation largely displace ‘presteza’ and ‘fortuna’ in the eventual outcome, the imperial conqueror of Chile behaves among his viceregal subjects as a republican ruler, first among equals. By contrast, the symbolic impact of the king is much weaker. When the oidores call for aid in the plaza by raising ‘por el rey la voz en alto’ [their cry for the king] (XVI. 18–19) they do succeed in rallying the citizens to their ‘natural señor’, like birds to ‘el silvo de su madre verdadera’ [the whistle of their true mother], but with only ephemeral efficacy. The scene is placed not at the conclusion of the revolt, but during its course; the fearful judges fail to take advantage of the opportunity, and the turbulence increases rather than dying down. Far more strongly felt, by contrast, are the fear and awe inspired by the king’s representative. In Chile, Hurtado’s majesty is very much associated with his physical presence. In the events in Quito, it is instead communicated through his ‘voz’ (a term ambiguously employed, as in Ercilla). At the outset of his reign, this ‘voz’ extends throughout the entire territory of Peru and beyond, and it is the decisive factor in the sudden vanishing of the storm, ‘a polvo y luego a nada reduzido’ [reduced to dust and then to nothing] (XVI. 76): Y aquella voz terrible y espantosa no es fuera de razón llamarle trueno, si luego que la echó el virrey del seno rasgó la nube densa y procelosa […] Apoderose el miedo afeminado mediante aquel sonido bravo y fuerte en los rebelados ánimos, de suerte que el más fogoso estava más helado (XVI. 77–78) [And that terrible and awful voice might be rightly called a thunderbolt, since no sooner had the viceroy uttered it than it tore through the dense and stormy cloud (…) a womanly fear took hold of the rebel minds through that courageous and strong sound, so that even the fieriest one turned to ice]

If the viceroy’s voice is the thunder that penetrates the clouds of rebellion, his entire person is the sun whose light and heat definitively dispel them. The solar imagery is so ubiquitous in the characterisation of the viceroy in Oña – both García and his father – that it seems superfluous to cite examples, but its application is revealing. On several occasions, it is used to demonstrate the permanence and power of the sun even when hidden before dawn or behind clouds (I. 13); it suggests the Apollonian splendour of the regent’s person (I.



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52); it illuminates and dispels plagues and social ills (XIV. 62); and it sends its rays to the distant extremes, with no corner being reserved from its light (I. 23, XIV. 14).52 The symbol of the sun was associated with divine and earthly kingship from the Middle Ages, and came to increased prominence in the wake of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory. The emphasis here, however, is not so much on all things being drawn towards the sun’s sphere, as on the universal reach of its rays. If the viceroy’s interactions with the republic are decidedly civic and conciliatory, then, the imagery which symbolically ensures their effectiveness is regal. While it is easy to dismiss such images as poetic ornament, in this period symbols were often the very substance of power, and in this case prove a powerful and poignant means of illustrating the substantive effect of the ineffable quality of viceregal majesty across the vast extent of the New World. If the painful narrative of the rebellion in Quito showed the urban communities of the viceroyalty at breaking point, the response to the incursion of Hawkins, as if in compensation, demonstrates their strength. The viceroy remains, of course, a prominent presence, overseeing preparations in person and demonstrating his prudent foresight and evident command of the mechanisms of naval warfare, but, perhaps surprisingly, the cantos largely move away from the symbols and recourses of epic. They also, intriguingly, suggest and then dispel the alternative approach of presenting the triumph obliquely, as a victory ode in the style of Herrera: the ‘enigma’ of Quidora’s vision of a dragon emerging from its cave to confront a lion explicitly alludes to the biblical allegory of Herrera’s ‘Canción en alabança de la Divina Magestad por la vitoria del señor don Juan de Austria en la batalla de Lepanto’ [‘Song in Praise of the Divine Majesty for the Victory of Don John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto’], before its interpreter is pointedly cut off by the poet’s own voice, ‘arrebatándole el cuento de la boca’ [snatching the tale from her mouth] (XVIII, title). No longer a sun, a lion, or a new reincarnation of an epic hero, the viceroy’s measures are effective on much more concrete and mundane grounds. The change of tone certainly owes itself in part to an extremely close adherence to Balaguer’s official Relación of the event, the first piece of ‘news’ to be printed in Lima, but this in itself is a significant gesture. As we have seen, variety and an experimental testing of the boundaries of epic are integral to Oña’s poem, and here entertain the reader by detailing in very prosaic style, beginning with the exact date and time, what might have lent itself to the trappings of an epic naval battle (although the latter does begin to emerge in the final stanzas).

52

Intriguingly, Osorio notes that the image of the sun behind clouds was also used to represent the viceroy restoring Lima in the triumphal arch which welcomed him to the city at the beginning of his reign: Inventing Lima, p. 65.

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The effect of this shift is to place a particular emphasis on the victory as a community endeavour, even a shared public spectacle (XVIII. 64), very much centred in the everyday environs of Lima. The one notable innovation Oña makes on his source with his inclusion of an epic storm differs from the previous two elaborations of the topic in the conspicuous absence of Hurtado and his ‘fortuna’: instead, the poet’s lengthy appeal to God places emphasis on the crew’s representation of the entire community, the new Israelites of the Christian people (XIX. 33–41), as well as postulating that the tribulations come so that Don Beltrán might emerge stronger from the test (XIX. 46). At the same time, while the corsairs are undoubtedly heretical, and with a ‘sed hiposa de oro y plata’ [dropsical thirst for gold and silver] (XVIII. 9), their overall presentation is not outrightly diabolical, nor as repulsive as that of the rebels of Quito. The focus instead is on the human, empirical dimension of the conflict, in which the adversary’s virtues ‘según moral filosofía’ [according to moral philosophy] (XVIII. 41) are very much to the fore. The emphasis falls, therefore, on the remarkable spectacle of Lima as a centre for the pursuit of heroism and the military art. The complexity of the crowd’s portrayal in the Quito affair, and the afflictions of the frontier forces of Chile, here give way to a united display of discipline and valour on the part of the volunteers. The point is reinforced by allusions to Hawkins’s own under-estimation of Callao, whose fleet he is said to have disregarded, and its novelty noted again in the poet’s voice: Buelvo a dezir que es cosa extraña y nueva el ver acá en las Indias despachada, no más que a buelta de ojos, una armada como esta, con la máquina que lleva. ¿Qué gloria, pues, havrá que no se deva, por más delgado estilo celebrada, a quien por su cuidado fue bastante para salir con obra semejante? (XVIII. 101) [I say again that it is a strange and new thing to see here in the Indies a fleet like this dispatched in the blink of an eye, with all its equipment. How could the glories of the one who with his care was capable of carrying off such a feat not deserve to be celebrated with finer style?]

In the first instance the triumph is, of course, Hurtado’s, and relates to the general shortage of up-to-date artillery and naval equipment in the Pacific part of the viceroyalty and the manner in which this had been addressed with such presteza, and thrift. It also responds, however, to a widespread perception of Lima as a city of wealth, negocio and peace since the reign of Francisco de Toledo. Peruvian soldiers seem to have been held in very low esteem in



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administrative circles as well as in the popular imagination.53 The new thrust of the final part of Arauco domado suggests an alternative vision of a unified and effective civic militia, needing only the careful stimulus of a providential viceroy, which, while largely implicit here, will be of considerable significance to Miramontes, as Chapter 4 will demonstrate. Overall, then, in his accounts of the tax revolt and the defeat of Hawkins, Oña builds on his depiction of Hurtado’s governance of the frontier in order to construct an image of both ruler and political community which, while utilising many of the commonplaces of conventional scholastic discourse, is increasingly independent in their application. The power, majesty and imagery consistently associated with the king in Ercilla and in the mirror of princes tradition is transferred in its entirety to the viceroy, who thereby almost completely displaces the monarch. In the process, this allows the poet to obviate some of the difficulties of the effective rule of a far-flung empire which repeatedly trouble his predecessor; empire as a concept, in fact, never really disturbs the local, grounded vision of governance of Arauco domado. The urban and frontier communities over which the governor-viceroy rules, in contrast, while capable of uniting against a common threat, be it internal rebellion or foreign incursion, prove heterogeneous, unpredictable and ever liable to repudiate the ties to their natural lord. If the authority wielded over them is in essence unquestionably regal, these communities are shown to be best directed, and most effectively chastised, through a manner of exercising it which is consensual, civic and republican in practice. Conclusion The ship without a pilot, and the sheep without a shepherd, are two of the abiding images of the first two books of La Araucana. Both are intimately related to the nature of kingship in a scattered empire, and to the conflicts lying somewhere between rebellion and full warfare which unite the troubles of the metropolis and its frontiers. While the storm-tossed vessel is ever skilfully steered in Arauco domado, the sheep threatened by wolves continue to reappear, as an isolated Spanish soldier by the fort in Arauco (X. 77) or a stampeding horde of his companions (XI. 5), as a mass of Araucanian corpses (VIII. 49) or a cluster of terrified oidores sheltering from the winds of unrest in Quito (XVI. 58). They are a reminder that even the herded sheep have a tendency to wander, and that the most diligent shepherd cannot avoid the battering of storms. On one level, Arauco domado is a poem very much about the shepherd, García Hurtado de Mendoza. The panegyric of this hero has tended to be viewed as a restriction on the poet; this chapter suggests that it

53

For example, Díaz Blanco, Razón de estado, pp. 85–86.

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is also an opportunity. It allows Oña not only to praise but also to shape the image of a viceregal prince his protagonist is made to embody, whether as the mobile captain and governor of a turbulent frontier, or the steady hand at the urban centre. Oña’s hero is a man of many faces: the Christian general, powerful warrior and master of strategy to the Araucanians at war is father and protector to the Amerindians who serve; a locus of majesty, immense in reach, to the sickening rebels and wayward soldiers, he nevertheless exercises a mitigated, contractual, clement authority over the Hispanic communities. Both as viceroy and as captain-general, his role is marked by an essential ambivalence reflected in the diversity of interacting epithets which describe him, both Pompey and Caesar or Aeneas, both royal sun and fellow citizen, both executor of just punishment and peacemaking healer. To suggest ambivalence here is not to suggest conflict; it is rather the dynamic tension which gives direction to his power, a prudential balance between extremes which accords a special centrality to the middle course between them, the ‘justo medio’ or Golden Mean. While his cardinal and heroic virtues are standard in the mirrors of princes, therefore, they evolve to fit a subject whose exercise of them meets challenges which are essentially new. The fundamental novelty of colonial governance is a leitmotif within the poem. Oña’s self-consciousness, his wry dashing of generic expectations and dizzying shifts in mode and style force the reader’s involvement in a work which is ostentatiously in progress. At the same time, its emphases reflect on and forge their path within the broader context of the political debates and literary innovations of turn-of-the-century Lima. Thus, Oña opts for the reformist, experiential and pragmatic model of the Jesuit call to acknowledge both the potential and the pressing need for a renewed evangelisation among the Amerindians, above either the crushing negativity of many encomenderos or the older idealism of the scholastic disputes. His Araucanians, too, are ambivalent, horrifying in their collective barbarity and idolatry, but often admirable as individuals, primitive creatures of nature and exemplars of amorous refinement. The overlaying of past and present in the poetic recreation of Chile contributes to much of this oscillation, as the historical triumph of the joven milagroso is made to accommodate the failures and the promise of the future. Its progressive pull away from epic gestures towards shared identity in a distinct and beautiful landscape which had become a byword for division, at the cusp of the region’s descent into renewed violence. On another level, Arauco domado is a poem very much about the sheep, turning the fixation of La Araucana on the political community of the other back towards the emergent self-definition of colonial urban society. The complexion of the viceroyalty is shown to be one of distant but connected civic societies, an urban web which is at the same time extremely fragile and volatile, and capable of astounding demonstrations of unity in a common cause. In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising that the immediate reception of



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the poem in Peru was characterised by ambivalence too, for while responding to the nascent ambition for a republic of letters which distinguished itself from the Spanish academies, its presentation of the pervasive threat of unrest across regions and social strata, and of the complexity of individual loyalties, touched on deeply rooted anxieties. While both the provincial city and the frontier militia are sites for the development of a sense of political community in the work, the city of Lima assumes a new prominence as both civic and military centre, while Europe and the king become increasingly abstract. This attention to the metropolitan collectivity is an important precedent for the subsequent evolution of the epic tradition in the viceroyalty, and is seized upon and expanded by Miramontes in particular.

4

Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola’s Armas antárticas Armas antárticas y hechos de los famosos capitanes españoles que se hallaron en la conquista del Perú [Antarctic Arms and Deeds of the Famous Captains who were Present at the Conquest of Peru] (c. 1608–09) is, from the outset, more ambitious in scope than the two Arauco epics analysed thus far. Moving beyond the war in Chile, it attempts to encompass in twenty cantos the history of conflict across the ‘Antarctic’ sphere of the Viceroyalty of Peru, from the Magellan Strait to the jungle of Panama. Chronologically, the narrative commences with Pizarro’s overthrow of Atahualpa in 1532, and ends with the exploits of Thomas Cavendish in 1587, with one extended flashback to the pre-Hispanic past and several flash-forwards to ongoing military encounters along the frontiers and coasts of the Viceroyalty. Within this broad panorama, the narrative focus and expectations continually shift as one conflict gives way to another. A reader led by the poem’s full title to expect a poem centred on the wars of conquest would soon be disappointed. Only the opening two cantos, which promise to recount ‘Las armas y proezas militares | de españoles cathólicos valientes’ [the arms and military prowess of valiant Catholic Spaniards] (I. 1), cover the conquest of the Inca Empire and the civil wars between Spaniards that followed. These wars are recounted with a verve and complexity which bring many of the underlying questions of Ercilla and Oña to a new context. Debates surrounding the justice of the conquest and its conduct, the problem of rebellion, and the sway of fortune, virtue and Providence in human affairs are all aired in concentrated form. No sooner are the questions raised, however, than they find an equally summary closure: the second canto ends with the cycles of both conquest and rebellion complete and the realms of Peru serenely enjoying the fruits of peace. In the third canto, the poem starts afresh, with a new epic proem, an invocation of the muse Erato, and an epic question: ‘¿quién perturbó al Pirú de paz el trato, | quién guerras incitó y Marte sangriento?’ [who disturbed the peace of Peru? Who incited wars and bloodthirsty Mars?] (III. 197). The answer is given indirectly, as the narrative moves to London, where Francis Drake is outlining to Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament his plan to emulate Magellan’s



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circumnavigation of the globe and despoil Peru of its riches. From the fourth canto on, the central subject will be the new war against piracy inaugurated by Drake’s venture. Anachronistically, the voyage of Drake (1577–80) and John Oxenham’s (or Oxnam’s) expedition to Panama (1576–78) are treated as part of a coordinated pincer attack on the Spanish Pacific.1 While Drake’s Golden Hind crosses the Magellan Strait, Oxenham traverses the Isthmus of Panama with the help of an African maroon community, the cimarrones, which had established itself there in the jungle, and builds and launches a vessel into the Mar del Sur. Halfway through the poem, this sequence too comes to an end with the escape of Drake and the defeat of Oxenham. The narrative then takes a new direction again when Oxenham’s captor, the veteran maestre de campo Pedro de Arana, is asked to recount ‘algún notable caso sucedido | en el Pirú’ [something notable that has happened in Peru] (X. 936) to while away the return voyage to Callao. His story, which in the event takes up no less than seven cantos (XI–XVII), recounts the tragic love story of two Inca nobles, Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor, in an undefined pre-Hispanic past. Returning abruptly to Lima, the poem embarks on a new series of thwarted epic proems, invocations and other beginnings, detailing Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa’s catastrophic mission to found a colony on the Magellan Strait in 1581–87, the passage of the English privateer Thomas Cavendish through the Strait in 1587, his rescue of a survivor from Sarmiento’s settlement, and subsequent pursuit by Spanish forces on land and sea. The work ends abruptly and inconclusively with a bruised Cavendish disappearing beyond the reach of the Lima search expedition which ‘por su rastro se derrota, | mas no deja en el mar rastro la flota’ [sets its course to follow his trace, but the fleet leaves no trace in the sea] (XX. 1704). As with the previous two epics, then, Armas antárticas draws attention to its own openness and narrative fragmentation. With such dizzying twists and turns, the poem has, understandably, lent itself to piecemeal analysis, most of it subsequent to Paul Firbas’s 2006 critical edition. The themes of piracy and navigation have been best served by critics, although the representation of the cimarrones and the interpolated tale of Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor have also attracted some attention. Most analyses conclude that while the war against piracy is lauded, the pirates themselves are ambiguous and in some ways attractive antagonists who might act as a ‘prism’ for other concerns.2 While the mastery of cosmography that 1

The two captains did in fact join forces in a 1572–73 expedition to Panama, in which they allied with the cimarrones, attacked Cartagena and Nombre de Dios, and captured a mule train carrying silver across the Isthmus; Miramontes’s imagined alliance between them might be inspired by this previous voyage. 2 Lise Segas, ‘Le cycle de Drake: Fortune littéraire d’une épopée transatlantique au tournant du XVIIe siècle’, Bulletin Hispanique, 117.1 (2015), 231–58 (p. 250). See also Segas, ‘El error y la errancia: El pirata “luterano” épico en las Indias’, Les

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underpins the navigations of this era is presented as a heroic pursuit, it is not an unproblematic one,3 and the focus of the action on the spaces joined by a chaotic sea has been posited as an explanation for its ‘poetics of errancy’.4 Miramontes’s fixation on this theme has been convincingly related to his own career.5 Born in Spain in 1567, on his arrival in the Indies at the age of nineteen in 1586 he already had military experience in Europe, and his steadiest employment thenceforth was in the defence of the Peruvian coastline. He served for many years as an alférez [ensign] conducting the annual convoy of silver from Callao to Panama in the ‘Armada del Mar del Sur’; spent a brief spell as sergeant major of the coastal fort of Arica, which was also en route from the mines of Potosí, and joined the defence efforts against Drake in 1586, Cavendish in 1587 and the Dutch pirate Olivier van Noort in 1600, without sighting any of them. From 1604, he enjoyed a more comfortable honorary position in the viceroy’s guard, which allowed him to settle permanently in Lima in his final years, apparently unmarried but with two black female slaves, one creole and one Angolan. Unlike Oña and Ercilla, however, Miramontes does not make much of his personal experience of his subject matter: the poem’s narrative of the struggle against piracy concludes at precisely the moment in which Miramontes himself entered the arena. Likewise, the intrusive first-person narrator of his predecessors, with their Cahiers de Framespa, 20 (2015) ; Nina Gerassi-Navarro, Pirate Novel: Fictions of Nation Building in Spanish America (Durham, NC, 1999), pp. 47–52; María Gracia Ríos, ‘British Piracy and the Origins of a Colonial Imaginary in 16th-Century Lima’, in Emily A. Engel, ed., A Companion to Early Modern Lima (Leiden, 2019), pp. 385–403; Jason McCloskey, ‘Mythologizing Greed and Betrayal in the Strait of Magellan in Juan de Miramontes’s Armas antárticas’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 90.6 (2013), 665–78; Javier Navascués, ‘Alteridad y mímesis del pirata en la épica colonial’, Hipogrifo, 4.1 (2016), 43–63. 3 Jason McCloskey, ‘Cosmographical Warfare: Secrecy and Heroism in Juan de Miramontes’s Armas antárticas’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 21.2 (2020), 171–85. 4 Lise Segas, ‘La navigation dans l’épopée Armas antárticas de Juan de Miramontes (1607–1610): L’odyssée d’un monde colonial à la dérive’, in Valérie Joubert-Anghel and Lise Segas, eds, Contre courants, vents et marées: La navigation maritime et fluviale en Amérique latine (XVIIe–XIXe siècles) (Pessac, 2013), pp. 153–78 (p. 156); see also Giuseppe Mazzocchi, ‘“Las armas antárticas” di Juan de Miramontes’, in Paolo Laskaris and Paolo Pintacuda, eds, Intorno all’epica ispanica (Pavia, 2016), pp. 121–42. 5 The most up-to-date biographical information for Miramontes is given in Firbas’s edition, pp. 17–20. Elio Vélez Marquina argues that the poem was a bid to garner support for the Armada del Mar del Sur and win the favour of the viceroy as a military adviser on such matters, in ‘Poemas para un Monte Claro: Discursividad política de la épica americana del siglo XVII’, in Firbas, ed., Épica y colonia, pp. 287–308.



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frequent metapoetic interventions, moral exordia and reference to first-hand testimony and knowledge, almost entirely disappears in favour of a much more self-effacing presence. The texture of the epic is as a result somewhat more classicising, with structuring imitation of Virgil, Lucan and Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica as well as the more contemporary models of Tasso and Camões, among others. While Miramontes relied on viceregal patronage, it was not in quite the same way that Oña did. Many of his appointments were in the power of the viceroy: he describes himself in a letter sent from Arica in 1590, which was intercepted and survives only in Richard Hakluyt’s English translation, as a ‘dere friend’ of García Hurtado de Mendoza, and his later employment in the viceroy’s guard was a direct result of Luis de Velasco’s favour.6 All the indications, though, are that these promotions were primarily in recognition of his military service, no doubt aided by his hidalgo status (although little is known of his origins, he titles himself ‘Don’), rather than his poetic talent. He is never mentioned as a member of the Academia Antártica, the elusive literary grouping of this period discussed in Chapter 1, and any further connections he may have had with the literary community of Lima are not known to date. Similarly, nothing is known of whether parts of his poem circulated in manuscript before the autograph copy was given to Viceroy Juan de Mendoza y Luna, Marquis of Montesclaros, not long before the author’s death in 1610.7 As such, although the figure of the viceroy looms large, the poem is not especially wedded to the reign or deeds of any particular one, which perhaps explains why it never found its way into print. Like Ercilla, then, and unlike Oña, this gave Miramontes the luxury of time to mould his epic. Firbas suggests that the poem’s fragmentation might be largely due to its gradual process of composition, which may have begun soon after he arrived in the Indies, making Armas antárticas a poem nearly two decades in the making. Notwithstanding the notoriously disjointed, episodic nature of the poem, this chapter sets out a case that it is most profitably considered as an interlocking whole. The various episodes of the wars against piracy, the cimarrones, and the interpolated tale of Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor are constructed in such a way as to shed light on each other. As in the case of La Araucana and Arauco domado, mirroring and repetition mark the poem’s process of internal evolution and particularly its development of political ideas. As we saw with Oña in the previous chapter, the poem’s digressions and moves away from epic often constitute its most explicit engagement with colonial realities beyond the battlefield. The theme of piracy is thus bound up with (displaced) concerns 6

The documents are quoted in Firbas’s edition, pp. 117–21. The now accepted dating of the poem (1608–09) is Firbas’s, which is based on references within the poem to Montesclaros and the inclusion or exclusion of important contemporary events. 7

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relating to the indigenous world, to the ongoing dilemma of the Chilean and other frontiers, and, in a more obvious way, to the presence of mixed racial and ethnic communities of unstable social and juridical status within and beyond the cities of the viceroyalty. When the intellectual context of the poem is mapped out more fully, it becomes clear that, at the turn of the century in Lima, these questions were not in fact independent at all. They are given some coherence by the poem’s spatial and geographical positioning. While the reader’s eye is on occasion conducted inland – to the Elizabethan parliament, to the early conquests and civil wars, to the ancient marvels of the Inca heartland and the verdant cornucopia of the palenque – these episodes share an element of the distant and fabulous. Weaving them together, in precise relief, is the American coastline and the seas which permit the poem’s fluid trajectory around the Hispanic world. If cartographic analogies seem inevitable after Francis Drake recounts to his queen the exploits he wishes to emulate with a map in hand, one must surely imagine a portolan, or a nautical world map, with its densely delineated coastline and sparse, fabulous interiors, rather than a terrestrial chart. Latasa Vassallo points out that the documentary history of the Viceroyalty in this period presents us with ‘a misshapen America’ (p. xxiii), in which the Pacific coast and neighbouring highlands occupy a disproportionate prominence in comparison to the neglected territories of the Atlantic and the interior, and the same might be said of the poem. The wandering paths around this maritime world, however, also converge on a natural centre: the city of Lima. The scene of the dispatch of troops from the viceregal capital, with all its embellishments and gallantries, is introduced already in La Araucana (XIII. 15–35) and becomes a standard motif in subsequent poems of the materia de Arauco. It reappears not only in Oña, in typically colourful style, but even in Diego Arias de Saavedra’s Purén indómito (c. 1601), a poem which is otherwise claustrophobically fixated on the spiral of catastrophes in Chile. In all these, however, the abiding impression is of a welcome, ephemeral diversion from the grim ongoing conflict elsewhere. Here, by contrast, the narrative is largely one of the city’s transition from a disarmed mercantile polis (I. 193) to the very epitome of a warrior community, in which Todo es armas, pertrechos, todo es Marte, prevención, vigilancia, todo avisos, todo, enseñar milicia y bélica arte a los galanes jóvenes narcisos; todo, limpiar en ésta y otra parte los tersos, acerados hierros lisos; todo, alterada y sin quietud la tierra, tratar y platicar cosas de guerra. (XIX. 1653)



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[Everything is arms, ammunition, everything is Mars, prevention, vigilance, briefings, everything is about teaching the art of war and militia to the gallant young Narcissuses; everything about cleaning here and there the polished, sharp and even blades; everything, now the land is perturbed and restive, dealing with and discussing matters of war.]

If the perspective is therefore very much an urban and civic one, this by no means excludes a deep preoccupation with the broader geopolitics of the viceroyalty and the Spanish Empire. As Chapter 1 explains, the city was emerging at this point as the centre of policy-making for the entire region. The debate over any individual issue – the defence of the coastline, say, or the Chilean frontier – was inevitably bound up with myriad others on both a local and imperial scale in sometimes unpredictable ways, which the mirroring scenes and conflicts of the poem are well situated to address. From this complex positioning, then, this chapter assesses how Miramontes departs from the preoccupation with the indigenous political community in Oña and Ercilla. Noting the silencing of the pre-conquest Amerindian oracles in the very first stanza of the poem, Firbas affirms that the work begins from a conclusive ‘silencing of the indigenous world’.8 While there is some truth in this, I suggest that contemporary concerns with the position of the Amerindian community within colonial society subsist in what might be better described as a definitive separation between the assimilated (and largely silenced) Andean communities and those of the frontiers. The effective marginalisation of both indigenous groups allows the emphasis to be concentrated on the simultaneous struggle against both piracy and heresy in the coastal waters and ports of the viceroyalty. While this is clearly framed as a just and defensive war, some perennial questions about clemency and the ethical conduct of conflict also emerge. All these themes are united by the serious doubts they raise about the possibility of future conquest and settlement, whatever its motivations, a preoccupation which I relate to debates over the so-called guerra defensiva and potential future expansions being conducted with intensity in Lima at the time of composition. The pivot towards a defensive war essentially eliminates the concerns about the latent restiveness of both frontier armies and Spanish urban communities never entirely dispelled in Oña and Ercilla. As a result, the governance of these criollo polities is considered at greater length, with an effectively mixed model of governance emerging. The viceroy plays a crucial role as head of these communities, and is a final incarnation of the essentially pragmatic and empirical approach to rulership we have seen formulated in diverse contexts throughout the poetic discourse explored in this book. Finally, however, concerns with unrest and rebellion are arguably displaced rather than 8

Introduction to Armas antárticas, p. 165.

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disappearing entirely. The cimarrones, whose intervention in the narrative sees a complex and often disconcerting interplay of discursive traditions, represent a political community at once slave, free and outlawed, of uncertain status and troubling implications. ‘Teatro de trágicos sucesos’ (XIII. 1190): The Silent Centre and the Intractable Frontiers of the Indigenous Antarctic World As Drake skims over the shores of Chile in a vision of his projected voyage to the lands Magellan would have seen had he directed his route northwards, his voice blurs into that of the poet in an (anachronistic) homage to the bards of Arauco: Viera en Chile tragedias lamentables de qu’es común teatro aquella tierra, por los valientes indios indomables que dentro de sus límites encierra, cuyas industrias y hechos memorables en los frecuentes casos de la guerra celebran dos espíritus de Cumas: Oña y Ercilla, con heroicas plumas. (III. 223) [He would have seen in Chile lamentable tragedies of which that land is the common theatre, on account of the valiant indomitable Indians which it encloses within its boundaries, whose memorable cunning and deeds in the frequent vagaries of war are celebrated by two spirits of Cumae: Oña and Ercilla, with heroic pens.]

The stanza holds up the prospect of an encounter between the corsair and the Araucanians, and perhaps a resumption of the now traditional materia de Arauco, which is held in suspense for some seven cantos more. As the Golden Hind emerges intact from the storms of the Magellan Strait, the narrator purports to hear the clashing of arms in Chile (VI. 482), and when this strand of the narrative eventually resumes, Drake is warned that fortune has spared him the perils of the sea only ‘para que vieses el soberbio Arauco’ [that you might see proud Arauco] (VIII. 627). In the event, however, such carefully raised expectations are abruptly and rather bathetically dashed; only two stanzas later, Drake has arrived uneventfully at Valparaíso (VIII. 629), without even a glimpse of the Araucanians. This wry evasion of the staging ground of Miramontes’s predecessors is characteristic of the poem as a whole. While the wars in Chile are occasionally alluded to, they are never developed as an independent narrative strand. There is a suggestion that this evasion is in large part because since the 1598–1604 Curalaba rebellion, the region is now a hopeless prospect for Spanish victory, and the degree of parity between forces necessary for an epic retelling has



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been destroyed. When the 1598 revolt is described in the prophecy of the Inca sage Rumiñave during the story of Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor, the violence appears both widespread and virtually irremediable: Entonces los armígeros chilenos, soberbios tucapeles y lautaros, purenes, mareguanos y talguenos, rengos, anganamones, pelantaros, usando ya de adargas, lanzas, frenos darán con peregrinos hechos raros, entre otra singular gente española, muerte a Martín García de Loyola. Qué teatro de trágicos sucesos será el suelo araucano en tiempos tales, qué de torpes estrupos [sic], qué de ecesos cometerán sus fieros naturales. Veráse el campo blanquear de huesos sin sepulcros ni obsequias funerales; oiránse los lamentos de doncellas llegar rompiendo el aire a las estrellas. Ellos subir al cielo determinan cerros de su soberbia amontonando, y por la fuerza de su brazo inclinan los hados favorables a su bando; conque insignes ciudades arruïnan, templos y monasterios prophanando, sin que su audacia y bárbara osadía tema del español la valentía. (XIII. 1189–91) [At that time the arms-bearing Chileans, proud Tucapels and Lautaros, Purens, Mareguanos and Talguenos, Rengos, Anganamones, Pelantaros, now using shields, lances and reins, will put to death Martín García de Loyola, with extraordinary and rare deeds, along with other prominent Spanish men. What a theatre of tragic happenings the Araucanian soil will be in such times, what shameful rapes and atrocities the savage natives will commit. The field will grow white with bones, unburied and without funeral rites; the laments of maidens will be heard breaking through the air to the stars. They determine to reach the sky amassing the hills of their pride, and with the force of their arm they incline the favourable fates to their side; thus they lay waste illustrious cities, profaning temples and monasteries, with audacity and barbaric boldness that has no fear of Spanish valour.]

Where, as we saw in Chapter 3, Oña had followed his patron Hurtado in confining the heart of the conflict to the district of Arauco, Miramontes here

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sketches out a new reality in which a plethora of ethnic groups and territories are united in their assault on the Spanish. The proper names of Araucanian warriors and the toponyms of districts are melded together and confused, leaving the impression of a nightmarish, formless recurrence of violence which lacks both narratability and progression. The superiority of Spanish might – either in fact or in potential – is far from clear, as the native armies, now equipped with cavalry capabilities, sweep across land and cities with impunity. No attempt is made to justify the Araucanian war effort, as the native inhabitants perpetrate atrocities on civilians, leave the dead unburied, indulge in gratuitous sacrilege, and continue to tempt heaven with their hubris. Yet the fortunes of war no longer seem to oscillate according to a discernible moral compass, as they had done to differing extents in both Oña and Ercilla. Although the prophecy duly concludes with a promise of new peace and prosperity under the forthcoming reign of Montesclaros, the claim in passing that ‘Ya el armígero bárbaro araucano | en el valiente pecho miedo imprime’ [fear is now impressed into the courageous breast of the arms-bearing Araucanian barbarian] (XIII. 1212) seems decidedly less forceful than the apocalyptic visions which preceded it. This unfettered pessimism regarding the Chilean frontier reflects the broader climate of public opinion in the wake of Curalaba. While, as Chapter 3 discusses, such pessimism was mounting throughout the reign of Hurtado de Mendoza if not before, the devastating rebellion proved a decisive watershed. The loss of the governor, Martín García Óñez de Loyola, of large numbers of men and of seven cities south of the Biobío – a territory never fully recuperated during the colonial period – was shocking and conclusive proof that the campaigns conducted in the region over the course of nearly half a century were not quelling resistance, indeed that the whole of Chile might yet be lost.9 At the same time, Miramontes’s description of the conflict must be read in light of what followed these disasters. The first, unprecedented response of the Crown was to dispatch a surge of peninsular troops and funds to supplement the local forces, an emergency measure which soon proved to be a regular and costly fixture, and which gave Madrid an additional reason for concern with the pace of pacification in the region. Initial optimism met with another shock in 1606 at the coal mine of Paloseco, when an ambush on Spanish forces led to a hundred deaths, the abandonment of the territorial gains made, and a new rebellion against the now dangerously depleted army. Meanwhile, an alternative proposal was taking shape. Even before the turmoil of 1598–1604 had fully subsided, voices from Santiago began to clamour that Mapuche 9 Martínez discusses the ‘lastimosas relaciones’, the popular pamphlets detailing terrifying reports of casualties from the Chilean frontier which proliferated in the cities of the viceroyalty around these years and helped to foment the atmosphere of despair, in Front Lines, pp. 150–52.



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intransigence was the direct result of the injustices perpetrated by the colonists, most notably the servicio personal rendered to encomenderos. In 1603, a junta in Lima including the oidor Juan de Villela and the Jesuit Luis de Valdivia formulated a plan, endorsed by the viceroy, to phase out the personal service of Amerindians (and replace their labour with imported black slaves), abolish the enslavement of prisoners of war and extend a general pardon to the rebels.10 This initial plan met with resistance from the governor of Chile and was not successfully implemented, but the initiative was reformulated in 1607–09 and eventually ratified by the Crown in 1612 under the rubric of guerra defensiva, defensive war. The new proposal was to set the reforms on a more permanent basis by establishing a fortified frontier or raya along the Biobío, across which the only parties to pass would be the peaceful envoys of Church and commerce. The final phase of composition of Armas antárticas, then, coincided with the most intense period of debate in Lima over the future direction of policy in Chile, a period in which representatives on both sides arrived to make their cases. Miramontes’s approach to the Chilean conflict cannot be understood in isolation from this context, and his silences in this regard are often as eloquent as his emphases. One salient observation is that, while piracy and the Chilean frontier tended to be intimately connected in the popular and official imagination, in Miramontes they are not. The coincidence of the Curalaba rebellion with the Dutch attack on the island of Chiloé fostered fears of heretical forces gaining a foothold in the region and expanding northwards from there, and one persistent argument of those who argued for a continuing war of (re)conquest to the south of the Biobío was the need to secure the territory against foreign interference.11 In Miramontes, as we have seen, the two threats are entirely separate, with no breath of an intended Araucanian–English alliance or foreign settlement of the region. The frequently voiced fear of a ‘domino effect’, that the effective achievement of independence by the southern Mapuche might foster unrest or emigration among the settled native groups, and extend from there into Peru, is equally dismissed. While the ravaging of Chile is tragic and horrifying, it is nonetheless a space firmly confined ‘dentro de sus límites’ [within its boundaries]; the threats to leave Arauco and mount an invasion of Spanish territory periodically uttered by the caciques in Oña and Ercilla do not feature here. Finally, there is no suggestion that Chile affords any promise of riches, social advancement or display of heroic virtues. Cumulatively, therefore, for all that Miramontes studiously avoids direct engagement with 10 On the extent of the enslavement of indigenous Reche-Mapuche during the seventeenth century, which was not confined to prisoners of war, see Van Deusen, ‘Indigenous Slavery’s Archive’. 11 For example, Luis de Valdivia, Señor. El Padre Luis de Valdivia de la Compañía de Iesus […] ([Madrid(?), [1610(?)]), fol. L2v.

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the contemporary polemic concerning the guerra defensiva, his rhetoric allows little advantage, and less feasibility, to its alternative. The Araucanians are not the only indios de guerra who feature in the poem, however, and the brief appearances of other frontier peoples suggest that the implications of Miramontes’s approach extend beyond the Southern Cone. Shortly after recalling the wars in Arauco, Drake mentions the ‘sangrienta guerra’ [bloody war] with the ‘fiero zacateca’ [fierce Zacateca] at the northern end of the Pacific coast (III. 232), alluding to the prolonged Chichimeca War of northern New Spain (1550–90), but in the event he sails swiftly past this conflict too. Later on, Fasquindia, one of the indios urabaes or Sinú peoples of present-day Colombia (X. 911) has a cameo part in the final battle between Oxenham and his cimarrones and the Spanish troops. The character is a gross caricature of a people which in fact possessed one of the most sophisticated material cultures of the region. Gigantic, demonic and hungry for human sacrifice, his trunk-like mace, tiger skin and grotesque combat with the Spaniard Campomanes are a deformed echo of the Araucanian–Spanish combats of Oña and Ercilla, except that the ‘monstruoso cuerpo’ [monstruous body] (X. 916) of the cacique, and presumably the people he led, is dispatched uneventfully to Hades in a matter of some six stanzas. The last such people to appear are the inhabitants of the Magellan Strait, at the very extreme of the Antarctic world, who prove bellicose, treacherous, mired in diabolical practices, monstrously gigantesque, and, in sum, entirely ‘intratables’ (XVIII. 1569). Feigning friendship with Sarmiento and his men only to mount a violent attack on the newcomers, they are easily scattered by the Spanish firearms, but remain unsubdued. The peripheries of Panama, Patagonia and New Spain, then, are at once as unpromising a prospect for the colonial project, and as inconsequential in the larger struggle to defend it, as those of Chile. As Díaz Blanco demonstrates (pp. 169–71), the guerra defensiva in Arauco formed part of a broader shift in overseas policy during the government of Philip III and his favourite, the Duke of Lerma, with whom Viceroy Montesclaros was closely aligned. The term was applied not only to Chile, but also to the armistice with Holland (1607), and corresponded with treaties with France (1601) and England (1604). This new direction began even earlier in the Americas. In 1585 measures began to de-escalate the Chichimeca War, scaling down a long and costly guerra a fuego y sangre in favour of a ‘peace by purchase’ programme, which continued under the reigns of Gáspar de Zúñiga Acevedo, Luis de Velasco and Montesclaros, who carried their ideas to Lima when they were reappointed after their term in New Spain as viceroys of Peru.12 Comparable initiatives followed in present-day Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay in the Chiriguano (Ava guaraní) conflict, which had similarly reached 12 Horacio Zapater, La búsqueda de la paz en la guerra de Arauco: Padre Luis de Valdivia (Santiago de Chile, 1992), pp. 50–57.



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its zenith between the 1560s and 1580s. In 1584, Philip II granted an unusual licence for total war, but the turn of the century saw concerted efforts to defuse tensions. An intense debate over just war in Tucumán in fact coincided with the polemics concerning Chile, as Montesclaros saw himself obliged to restrain the expansionist ambitions of its governor, the Chilean veteran Alonso de Ribera.13 Contemporary commentators certainly noted parallels between these various initiatives.14 Such changes of tack were united, as Díaz Blanco puts it, by the conviction that ‘if a war could not be swiftly brought under control, it was preferable to sacrifice a little patrimony and reputation rather than eternally shoulder a slab which not even the most powerful monarch on earth could endure’ (p. 169). In sum, a continuing, expansive war on the margins of the Viceroyalty is regarded with decided scepticism in Armas antárticas. These spaces are dystopian centres of violence, whose inhabitants are brutish and intractable, but not liable to cause any serious disturbance beyond their own frontiers. If the perceived challenges presented by the indios de guerra of the frontiers are thereby isolated and marginalised, those of the indios de paz at the centre of the Viceroyalty are effectively silenced altogether. As we have seen, the opening canto resumes an account of the ‘cosas de guerra’ which so fascinated Ercilla’s early readers, although transplanted from Chile to the conquest of the Inca Empire. The battle of Cajamarca is dense with allusions to the battle narratives and lexis of La Araucana, from the weapons of the indigenous warriors, ‘de pica, dardo, maza y flecha armados’ [armed with pikes, darts, mace and arrows] (I. 17), to the suggestion that the warriors sprout up from the soil itself (I. 18), to the characteristically gratuitous violence and bombastic turns of phrase (‘furibundo aliento’ [furious panting], ‘horrendos golpes desiguales’ [dreadful, fearsome blows]). As in many of the Chilean battles, the combat eventually turns into a massacre, with the barbarian army dismembered, decapitated and spilling out palpitating organs when confronted with the cavalry and artillery of the Europeans. There is, as in Ercilla, a clear social divide between the ‘común poblacho amedrentado’ [common, fearful masses] and the loyal nobles (I. 37), who resist until their king is captured. Nor are questions over the justice of this conquest muted. The capture of Atahualpa is said to be permitted by God as the only means of allowing the Gospel to be sown (I. 15–16), and accompanied with prayer, prodigies and a detailed summary of the Requerimiento (I. 19–31). His execution, however, is not. The hapless Inca’s insistence on the injury inflicted to his sovereignty (I. 27) is taken up again with the ‘epic curse’ of his traitor Felipillo (I. 52–61), who traces an uncomfortable analogy between himself and Pizarro.15 13

Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal, p. 627. For example, Valdivia, Señor ([1610(?)]), fols K1v–2r, L2r. 15 Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 99–130; Firbas, ‘Galvarino y Felipe’, pp. 655–66. 14

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The crucial difference between this account and the conflicts of La Araucana is that in contrast to the latter, whatever nagging doubts remain over its original justification, the conquest of the Inca Empire is conclusive. A definitive line is drawn between the pre-Christian past and evangelised present of the region, and any suggestion that the independent spirit of the noble Inca warriors will persist despite defeat, or that the mantle of Atahualpa will be assumed by a successor, is decisively excluded. Moreover, just as the demonic oracles and voices of criticism of the conquest fall silent at the pass of the conquering army, so too do questions concerning the subsequent governance of the Amerindian community. Given the contemporary concern with the depopulation of the Andes and resettlement initiatives, with the corruption of curacas and officials and the poor levels of Christianisation, and with the perceived problems of ethnic intermingling and mestizaje, which were about to coalesce in the so-called extirpación de las idolatrías [extirpation of idolatries], Miramontes’s silence on such issues is itself significant.16 Whether irrelevant from his urban and maritime outlook, or deemed too dangerous to broach (perhaps with the censorship of Arauco domado in mind), the overall effect is to suggest that no such complexities exist. This approach also excludes the anxiety that Amerindian discontent with Spanish rule might lead to a willingness to ally with the corsairs. This was a spectre frequently raised by the English themselves, and one that emerges both in other poems, such as Castellanos’s Discurso del capitán Francisco Draque (c. 1586–87) and Martín del Barco Centenera’s La Argentina (1602), and in contemporary documents.17 In Armas antárticas, by contrast, at the only moment in which the tributary Amerindians do intervene in the struggle against the pirates, when Cavendish lands on the island of Puná near Guayaquil, they are noted only by their absence. Dutifully withdrawing from their village to provide a bait for the greedy English (XX. 1679), they show no inclination either to aid the invaders or to participate directly in defending their territory, quite literally vacating the scene to allow the Spaniards of Quito their moment of glory. The fleeting appearance of the Indians of Arica, glimpsed on 16

See, for example, the strident condemnations and apocalyptic warnings of the impending consequences of abuses of the Amerindians in Miguel de Monsalve, Reducion universal de todo el Piru, y demas Indias, con otros muchos avisos, para el bien de los naturales dellas, y en aumento de las Reales Rentas […] ([Madrid(?)], 1604). 17 For instance, the only survivor of Sarmiento’s colony, Tomé Hernández, who was rescued by Cavendish, claims repeatedly that Cavendish and Drake planned to colonise parts of South America, confident that the Amerindians would aid them: José Miguel Barros, ‘Primer testimonio de Tomé Hernández sobre las fundaciones hispánicas del Estrecho de Magallanes’, Anales del Instituto de la Patagonia, 9 (1978), 65–75 (pp. 72–73).



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horseback from a distance with canes in their hands to fool and intimidate the approaching English, has a similar effect; the riders are visible only as a hazy silhouette, passively partaking in the stratagem of the Spanish captain (XX. 1671). This virtual invisibility of the Amerindian population in post-conquest Peru is one of the most striking changes in comparison to Miramontes’s predecessors. As José Antonio Mazzotti notes, they are apparently missing from the coastal militias, which were in reality ethnically mixed;18 to which it might be added that, aside from the two incidents mentioned above, they do not seem to be present either in metropolis or ports at all. There is, of course, one major exception. In the story of Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor, whose source is unclear but which has parallels with a similar story included in Miguel Cabello de Balboa’s 1586 Miscelánea antártica [Antarctic Miscellany] and with the eighteenth-century Quechua drama Ollantay, the history of the Inca Empire is addressed at length, and with evident fascination.19 On the one hand, the choice of subject does not necessarily reflect a genuine interest in the contemporary Amerindian community. Tauro notes that the pre-Hispanic past was a favourite topic of the Academia Antártica, usually untroubled by any attempt to relate its historical figures to the ‘humbled subjects’ of the present (p. 15). After the final defeat and execution of Túpac Amaru and the destruction of the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba in 1572, there seems to have been a trend for literary reimaginings of the Inca past in the guise of the popular pastoral romance, which Miramontes combines with echoes of the Moorish romance and the comedia. On the other, the choice of how to represent indigenous history was never politically neutral. One of Miramontes’s possible sources, for instance, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa’s Historia índica [History of the Indies] (1572), was specifically intended to bolster Francisco de Toledo’s policy of presenting the Incas as tyrants and not true lords. Conversely, Cabello de Balboa’s version of the story presents Spaniards, indigenous elites and their mestizo offspring alike in an ennobling light at a moment of acute deterioration in relations.20 While the interpolated tale is introduced with disarming sprezzatura by its raconteur, then, as civilised entertainment for a calm, homeward-bound voyage, its inclusion – rather like Ercilla’s ‘verdadera historia de Dido’, which almost certainly provides a 18 José Antonio Mazzotti, ‘The Dragon and the Seashell: British Corsairs, Epic Poetry and Creole Nation in Viceregal Peru’, in Álvaro Bolaños and Gustavo Verdeseio, eds, Colonialism Past and Present: Reading and Writing about Colonial Latin America Today (Albany, NY, 2002), pp. 197–214, and Mazzotti, Lima fundida, pp. 175–222. 19 The differences between the three versions are analysed in Firbas’s introduction to the poem, pp. 105–15. 20 Sonia Rose, ‘Una historia de linajes a la morisca: Los amores de Quilaco y Curicuillor en la Miscelánea antártica de Cabello Valboa’, in Karl Kohut and Sonia Rose, eds, La formación de la cultura virreinal (Madrid, 2000), I, 189–212.

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precedent for the digression – requires the negotiation of competing historiographies, which in themselves tap into controversial contemporary questions. In this light, to begin with, the reader is left in no doubt during the course of Arana’s tale about the policía of pre-Hispanic Inca society. As Chapter 3 illustrates, a capacity for ‘true’ love and civility were intimately associated in the literary culture of a Viceroyalty very much under the spell of Renaissance Petrarchan and Neoplatonic sensibilities, and the denial of the former to a given community generally correlated with the denial of the latter. Like the Araucanian nobles of Oña, Miramontes’s star-struck couple love with unquestioned courtesy and reciprocity, but also surpass the former in their chastity and steadfastness. Like ‘dos templados instrumentos’ [two instruments in tune], their souls are fused together as ideal Neoplatonic lovers (XIV. 1218). The supposed idolatry of Inca society is similarly downplayed. A reverence for the sun god Apollo appears to be pseudo-monotheistic, while the panoply of Greco-Roman mythological convention forms an inoffensive backdrop to the pastoral scenes. References to more suspect beliefs and practices such as sacrifice, emperor worship or diabolical rituals are absent, with the only borrachera being an anomalous and purely secular event. The emphasis here is thrown into further relief by the sharp distinction between the Incas and the neighbouring caribes of Vilcabamba with whom they come into conflict. The latter are mired in diabolical practices, including infanticide and human sacrifice, their savagery far exceeding that of Oña’s Araucanians. The nature of the rule exercised by the royal Inca brothers, with whose internecine struggle the fate of the two lovers is bound up, as Curicoyllor is forcibly wed to the younger, before she and Chalcuchima flee to the protection of the elder, is more ambivalent. It is complicated from the outset by a gradual transformation in their two characters. While the newly crowned Inca Chuquiyupangui of Cuzco first appears on the scene as a tyrant in the making (XI. 990), whose suspicion, envy and deceit lead him to incriminate and attempt to execute his virtuous brother, he subsequently undergoes a surprising reform. Early on, he repents of his behaviour under the influence of good advice, and later restrains the ‘primer movimiento’ of desire for Curicoyllor in order to protect and honour the fugitive couple as conscience and the assembled nobles dictate. The affable Infante Chuquiaquilla, who establishes his court in Vilcabamba, takes the opposite trajectory, from virtue and sagacity to lust, decadence and reckless treachery, eventually sending assassins to kill Chalcuchima in his brother’s capital and attempting to mount an unjust war on Cuzco before beating an ignominious retreat. The question of Inca governance more broadly is treated with similar ambivalence. The origin of Inca rule depicted in ekphrasis in the throne room of Cuzco is clearly illegitimate, imposed ‘en ultraje | de los caciques que en la tierra había’ [in violation of the caciques who already lived in the land] (XVII. 1462). The topical corte–aldea, or court–country, opposition is also stressed, as the rich



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courtly ceremony of Vilcabamba is compared unfavourably to the modest idyll of the shepherd Oparo who lives in contentment outside it. At the same time, the two cities are nonetheless causes of marvel in their civic, artistic, architectural and landscaping achievements; justice is generally upheld, and the overall representation is of an ordered political community with some analogies to the ritual life and festivities of Spanish American cities. While preserving a hint of the historical illegitimacy of Inca rule, then, Miramontes clearly nuances the earlier campaign to present the Incas as tyrants. At the same time, he distances himself from the alternative approach of idealisation most notoriously expounded in the Inca Garcilaso.21 The Incas of Armas antárticas are complex characters, no more inherently flawed or virtuous than the sovereigns of contemporary kingship dramas whom they resemble. While civil war is shown to be constantly brewing within the royal family, it is, in the event, entirely bloodless and offset by the mediating influence of the aged counsellor Rumiñave, generating a delicate, but not impossible, balance of power. Intriguingly, there is no attempt, such as Cabello de Balboa had made, to relate the tale explicitly to post-conquest history. While there are clearly echoes of later events, in nomenclature, settings and most obviously Rumiñave’s prophecy as he interprets the strange sculptures which depict the future lords of Peru, the contact between Europeans and Inca nobility with which Cabello de Balboa’s love story concludes, holding up the possibilities of patronage and marital alliances, is entirely absent. The final union of the protagonists is abruptly and tragically severed without progeny, and the two worlds remain separated by a historical chasm. It does not seem quite accurate to suggest that this complex depiction of the flourishing of the Inca Empire has no bearing on the present of the region. There is, admittedly, no explicit indication of continuity, depicting entrenched customs still in need of reform or attributes of shared identity as Oña had done. The story remains firmly rooted in its temporal remoteness, and when it concludes, the poem’s narrative resumes its regular course without comment or reaction. There are, nonetheless, subtle analogies with later history. As we have seen, the ‘fe’ of Amerindian heroines and of Dido in La Araucana is associated with the independence and resistance of the republican community, while its apparent absence in the blithe couples of Oña suggests the happy possibilities of colonial settlement. The fidelity of Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor, by contrast, arguably points towards their future incorporation into universal Christendom. It is frequently shown to be a sign of divine favour and virtuous 21 While Miramontes could not have known the Comentarios reales, the first part of which was published in 1609, it is tempting to speculate that he might have come across Inca Garcilaso’s translation of León Hebreo’s Diálogos de amor (1590); the relationship between Chalcuchima and Curicoyllor is certainly suffused with Neo-Platonic concepts.

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disposition which allows a glimpse of future enlightenment and salvation (XV. 1302–03, 1349; XVI. 1443; XVII. 1471). In sum, then, while there is a stark differentiation between the Amerindians of the centre and the frontiers of Armas antárticas, they reflect a consistent approach towards the questions of conflict and assimilation within the viceroyalty. While the former are, via the description of their past, highly individuated and able to participate fully in the political, amorous and artistic languages of Europe, the latter are ‘intratables’, possessing only the most rudimentary material culture and constituted into a loose and precarious political community. The former use war as an art, for self-defence or political gain. The latter live and breathe warfare, and while no match for the Spaniards (or Incas) in pitched battle, are nevertheless able to resist in a seemingly interminable cycle of violence when their territory is infringed. While the former seem, even in pre-Hispanic times, inclined by virtue and nature towards receipt of the message of salvation, the latter appear at best obtuse, and at worst mired in diabolical practices. In total terms, such differences constitute a post-facto explanation for maintaining the practical boundaries of the Viceroyalty where they lie, as supporters of the guerra defensiva effectively advocated. Once the era of clemency arrives (I. 4) and the Gospel is swiftly sown, the latent possibilities of the Amerindian community of the Central Andes are realised, and its members become a fully Christianised and subdued, if fully separate, component of the colonial polity. If these inhabitants are thereby silenced, those of the frontiers are simply pushed to the margins, enclosed within a dystopian space beyond which they are as incapable of influencing events as their would-be conquerors are of imposing their will upon them. While these conclusions have important implications for the emerging dialogue concerning warfare and expansion which I will consider shortly, the immediate effect of this binary representation of the indigenous communities of Armas antárticas is to neutralise both with regards to the defence of the shores of Peru against heresy. For differing reasons, neither community presents a challenge to Spanish hegemony in the region, and neither constitutes either potential allies or effective opponents of the corsairs. The centre of gravity of the conflicts in the region therefore shifts decisively from inlands to coast, and it is to this new war against piracy that I now turn. ‘La conquista del indiano suelo’ (V. 388): Clemency, Strategy and Defence in the New Antarctic Wars The stated purpose of Miramontes in his epic is to preserve for posterity ‘los hechos de muchos valientes españoles que en conquistar, quietar y defender este reino hicieron en servicio de su Majestad obras dignas de su nación’ [the acts of many valiant Spaniards who in conquering, pacifying and defending



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this kingdom did in service of His Majesty deeds worthy of their nation] (dedication to Don Juan de Mendoza y Luna), and it soon transpires that the most prominent among these exploits are those undergone in the defence of the realm against corsairs. In this, he had a difficult line to tread. Earlier authors based in the viceroyalty had treated with a scepticism bordering on derision the chequered, often amateurish attempts at defence mounted by the various administrative authorities. In Chapter 3, we encountered the mock epic Beltraneja, which deflates with eviscerating humour the naval victory over Hawkins and its extravagant commemorations. Similarly, Mateo Rosas de Oquendo’s Sátira a las cosas que pasan en el Pirú, año de 1598 [Satire of the Goings-On in Peru, in the Year 1598] mocks the everyday boasts of alleged exploits against ‘el inglés’ to be heard in Lima, or the fabrication of an encounter with pirates to explain fictitious disappeared riches.22 In the event of the destructive pillaging and eventual escape of a corsair, the poet’s tongue might be even more scathing. La Argentina displays the utter ineptitude of the people of Lima when the rumour of Drake’s incursion arrives, as they run around in mad panic: La turbación y priesa yo decilla, aunque quiera hacer un largo canto, no podré; cabalgaba uno sin silla, el otro aunque con silla con espanto, el otro iba sin freno en su baquilla, el pecador temía, y el más santo; al fin todos estaban temerosos y de futuros males recelosos.23 [I could not express the perturbation and haste, even if I wanted to make a long canto; one man riding without a saddle, another with a saddle but with terror, another on his heifer without reins, the saints and the sinners alike were afraid; in sum, they were all fearful and suspected trouble to come.]

In the Discurso del capitán Francisco Draque, Castellanos depicts in similarly unflattering detail the incompetence, corruption and in-fighting which hampered attempts to mount any serious defence against Drake’s incursions into Peru and New Granada.

22 Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, Sátira hecha a las cosas que pasan en el Pirú, año de 1598, ed. by Pedro Lasarte (Madison, WI, 1990), p. 16, line 635; p. 35, lines 1573–74. 23 Martín del Barco Centenera, La Argentina; o, La conquista del Río de la Plata, ed. by Andrés M. Carretero (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Theoría, 1994), p. 254 (canto XXII).

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Especially following the death of Drake in 1596, some representations took the other extreme of dismissing the threat of piracy completely. Already in Arauco domado, the viceroy’s defensive measures promise to expel corsairs from the coast definitively, ‘que de esta plaga y mal tan ordinario | la costa de este sur se limpiaría’ [so the coast of this South Sea would be rid of this common plague and ill] (XVIII. 39). In Lope de Vega’s epic La Dragontea (1598), which narrates the admiral’s final defeat and death, the weakness of the pirates and the loyal resistance of both high and low to invasion and subordination become central to the poem. The work aspires ‘que descubriese el desengaño lo que ignoraba el vulgo, que tuvo a Francisco Draque en tal predicamento, siendo la verdad que no tomó grano de oro que no le costase mucha sangre’ [for disillusionment to reveal the ignorance of the common people, who held Francis Drake in such esteem, when the truth was that he did not take an ounce of gold without paying a high price in blood for it] (‘Al Príncipe nuestro señor’, p. 120).24 As the poet puts it again later: No es el provecho de robar tan cierto como parece que al inglés lo ha sido: oímos que llevó esta plata y ésta, mas no las vidas y almas que le cuesta. (IV. 47) [The advantages of pillaging are not as sure as they appear to have been for the Englishman: we hear that he took this and that silver, but not the lives and souls that it costs him.]

The aging Drake and his lieutenants are, on this final voyage, utterly deluded by a personified Codicia, greed, and ignominiously defeated at every turn. When they eventually retreat in disarray, the allegorical Religión Cristiana who at the outset of the work had beseeched divine aid against the heretics who threaten the Indies appears again to thank the heavens for the victory accomplished, begging that the divine gaze turn instead ‘Al moro agora, pirata arrogante’ [to the Moor now, the arrogant pirate], and to Spain (X. 57). The threat to the Americas, it is implied, is no longer a concern. While a satirical depiction of the failures and incompetence which plagued many of the counter-piracy missions hardly accords with the poet’s stated aim, then, triumphalism and complacency were equally to be avoided. This is particularly so in light of the precarious situation in which the naval defences of the Pacific coast found themselves at the turn of the century. The elevated costs of maintaining a permanent armed fleet in Callao often raised questions in the minds of administrative authorities. Under pressure from the Crown, 24 Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio, La Dragontea, ed. by Antonio Sánchez Jiménez (Madrid, 2007), p. 120. I use this edition throughout.



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Montesclaros set out from the beginning of his reign to cut costs by reducing shipping, personnel and salaries. The ongoing urgency of regular defensive measures, then, needed to be stressed by the Armada veteran. At the same time, concerns about the cost-effectiveness of the fleet coincided with a more deep-seated anxiety about the existence of any armed militia in the cities of the viceroyalty. As we saw in Chapter 3, the term ‘soldado’ [soldier] had become virtually synonymous with ‘gente valdía y vagamunda’ [idle and vagabond people], and Montesclaros’s dispatches repeatedly refer to the need to ‘clean’ the Peruvian territory of such incomers.25 Miramontes himself bears witness to such attitudes: in his 1590 letter, he claims that ‘being void of all hope, and full of griefe, I am become a souldier: a thing in this countrey which is most hated of all other things, not onely of men, but of the wilde beasts: and is an occupation which is chosen of idle persons’ (Appendix, p. 117). In attempting to offset these various negative images, Miramontes tends to explain both successes and failures against the pirates by depicting the Spanish militias as valiant and disciplined but chronically under-resourced. Outside Lima, the small ports which first encounter the English invariably proffer a dauntless, but inexperienced, few (XX. 1669), at best able to repel or divert the invaders, but ultimately looking to the capital of the viceroyalty for any decisive action. Callao thereby becomes the centre of the region’s defence, but is not necessarily equipped for this role. On Drake’s first incursion, the soldiery there gladly volunteers itself for combat, only to find that there are no suitable vessels to transport them to the enemy: Pero ¿qué’s lo que trata, qué imagina, si sus buenos disinios desbarata no haber en la marina embarcaciones capaces de navales ocasiones? (VIII. 680) [But what is it doing, what does it imagine, if its good intent is overturned because there are no vessels at the marina capable of naval warfare?]

In their absence, a fleet is armed ‘si no de municiones y pertrechos, | de valerosos y esforzados pechos’ [if not with munitions and supplies, with courageous and zealous hearts] (VIII. 712). The obstacle to engaging the corsair is, then, not the soldiers themselves, who lack neither willingness, discipline nor training, and are apparently sufficiently affluent to be able to arm themselves, but rather the lack of ‘prevención’ in maintaining the navy to embark on such a mission.

25

Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal, p. 260.

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The idea that the Magellan Strait posed a sufficient natural defence against piracy seems to have persisted into the seventeenth century, despite indications to the contrary.26 The belief is also one which defines Ercilla’s Antarctic geography at the opening of La Araucana. Armas antárticas refers to the misconception early on (II. 179) only to show its shattering as the Antarctic sphere opens onto a new cartography and new patterns of conflict: Teníase hasta allí por infalible, con haber paso abierto el lusitano Magallanes, qu’entrar era imposible naves al Mar del Sur del Occeano; mas deste inadvertido error terrible sacó el sagaz pirata lutherano con la presente súbita venida tan sin remedio y tarde conocida. (VIII. 636) [Until then, although the Lusitanian Magellan had opened a way, it was held as an infallible truth that it was impossible for ships to enter the South Sea from the Atlantic; but the clever Lutheran pirate freed them from this thoughtless, terrible mistake, with his present sudden arrival discovered too late to remedy.]

If the space of Peru is irreparably reconfigured by the occurrence, however, the poem suggests that the attitudes of its inhabitants are not. In the final canto, as Cavendish sails along the Pacific coast, the dilemma which followed Drake’s circumnavigation is almost exactly replicated. While Lima itself is no longer a dormant centre of the military art just reawakening, but its incandescent core, ‘nativo y propio centro’ [its own native centre] (XX. 1659), the army which presents itself is again forced to embark on a flimsy merchant ship without artillery, ‘encontrar el cosario procurando | para que sus valientes mirmidones, | sin máquinas de guerra, sin pertrechos, | hagan heroicos, singulares hechos’ [trying to find the corsair so that their valiant Myrmidons, without cannons, without ammunition, might do heroic, singular deeds] (XX.1664). Unsurprisingly, like Drake, Cavendish is also too quick for his pursuers and sails into the blue to foment further assaults. The narrative teleology which depicts a peaceful city transforming into a centre of the military art therefore jostles uncomfortably with the stagnation of practical preparations for naval warfare, and the scene of a valiant militia spontaneously assembling to avenge the depredations of a pirate, but thwarted by a lack of foresight and naval capacity, becomes a repeated motif.

26

Ibid., pp. 549–50.



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Another explanation for the damage wrought by the corsairs is that, in contrast to the ‘inglesillo malventurado’ [unfortunate little Englishman] of Beltraneja, or the defeated opportunists of La Dragontea, Miramontes’s pirates are a force to be reckoned with. Some recent criticism, in fact, has suggested that they are the true epic heroes of the poem: morally flawed, but with aspirations and achievements which set them beyond the ordinary stock of humanity.27 This certainly seems to be true of Drake, who possesses both fortitudo and sapientia as well as that elusive heroic attribute of magnanimity, ‘de ánimo y pensamiento levantado’ [of elevated mind and thought] (III. 202), which makes him more than a mere robber. The resolute ‘constancia’ (VIII. 737) which allows him to accomplish the apparently impossible is most at evidence in the crossing of the Strait, in which he remains stoic and immovable despite the devastation of the storm, assuring his men, like Lucan’s Caesar, Ercilla’s Philip II or Oña’s Hurtado, that ‘va mi ventura con vosotros’ [my fortune goes with you] (VI. 481). The assertion holds less true for Drake’s compatriots, however. While criticism of the poem tends to treat the three English pirates as a single type, there is in fact significant differentiation between them. While consciously imitating Drake, the young and intrepid Cavendish lacks his caution and initiative and repeatedly falls into the traps laid out for him. The most evident comparison, though, is between Drake and his companion Oxenham, who set out for the Americas together and initially intend to rejoin in the Pacific ‘para tener al Sur escala y llaves’ [to scale and unlock the South Seas] (III. 276). In contrast to the plethora of heroic epithets applied to Drake, Oxenham is first introduced simply as ‘un plático cosario’ [an experienced corsair] (IV.283), and it is this ‘práctica’, a veteran’s knowledge of military and naval strategy, which is his salient characteristic, rather than any more remarkable virtues. This tactical mastery is often in evidence over the course of the narrative, as he mounts a lightning attack on the Isla de las Perlas (VI. 487), selects, constructs, repairs and defends a fort (VI. 488, VIII. 739, IX. 827), trains the inexperienced cimarrones (IX. 757), and maintains the discipline and spirit of his men during the steady Spanish advance. Despite this evident competence in the art of warfare, the fortunes of the two seafarers take very different trajectories. While Drake suffers initial losses on the Strait, he returns victoriously to England, loaded with stolen riches, whereas Oxenham meets with initial success, but is subsequently pursued and trapped by two Spanish expeditions, losing his ship, his allies, his fort and eventually his liberty. He would be hanged in Lima in 1580, but the poem makes no mention of this. There is one salient difference in the conduct of these two allies in which their contrasting fates seem partly to reside. For the most part, Drake remains at 27 McCloskey, ‘Cosmographical Warfare’; Navascués, ‘Alteridad y mímesis’; Segas, ‘Le cycle’, p. 244.

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sea, a mobile target attacking other vessels and ports before moving swiftly on, whereas Oxenham ventures further onto land, attempting to establish a base in Panama and engaging the Spanish in direct combat, at first through deliberate aggression and subsequently out of necessity. On one level, this serves only to demonstrate the conundrum previously discussed: while woefully underequipped for oceanic naval combat, the Spanish are unmatched in battles and sieges on land. Thus, the marshal Pedro de Ortega is able to taunt Oxenham as the latter makes a shamefaced retreat from his ship and fort on the Tuira river: Con el que tu violencia no resiste sabes usar de bélicos estremos, y a quien te busca y la batalla aplaza, dejas que ocupe tu galera y plaza. Agora que te hacemos noble guerra te huyes a embreñar en la montaña […] Destas astucias usa Ingalaterra en lo que roba de la invicta España, no acometiendo a lo despierto y fuerte, do en lugar de despojo halla su muerte. (VII. 622–23) [You know how to use the extremes of war with those who do not resist your violence, but you allow the one who searches you out and engages you in battle to occupy your galley and fort. Now that we wage war on you nobly, you go into hiding in the mountains (…) these are the kinds of tricks that England uses when it robs unconquered Spain, not attacking places that are alert and strong, where instead of spoils it finds its death.]

Or, as the general Diego de Frías Trexo adds before mounting a decisive assault on the Englishmen shortly after, ‘por yerro se escapó el cosario | engolfado en el mar, pero que en tierra | muere el que quiere ser vuestro contrario’ [the corsair escaped by accident sailing in the sea, but on land anyone who wants to be your [the Spaniards’] enemy dies] (IX. 760). Rather curiously for a work with such a maritime outlook, the reader is often left with the impression that the true arena of heroism and the school of the military art is in fact on land rather than at sea, as in the attack on Oxenham’s fort: Por cualquier parte ya de la muralla suben los españoles a porfía, y dentro del reduto la batalla con singular valor se rebatía. Aquéste es el teatro ado se halla representada bien la valentía; aquí, donde se vieron hacer hechos de invictos brazos y de heroicos pechos. (VII. 615)



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[The Spaniards compete with each other to scale the walls on every side, and within the bastion the battle is fought with singular valour. This is the theatre where courage is played best; here, where deeds were seen of unbeaten arms and heroic breasts.]

On the two occasions when Oxenham does mount a fully naval attack, his victory is uncontested. By contrast, his only success on land, on the Isla de las Perlas, is a tarnished one: the killing of defenceless civilians, sacking of churches and martyrdom of a Franciscan friar invite divine retribution and stir the vengeful ire of the residents in Panama when the massacre is discovered. Oxenham’s ransacking of the Isla and his capture of a ship near Guayaquil are immediately juxtaposed in the narrative, and throw into particular relief the captain’s apparently contradictory behaviour in the two episodes. In contrast to the bloodlust and sacrilege of his attack on the island, he comports himself towards the crew of the captured vessel with exemplary courtesy. The surrendering ship and its passengers are allowed to depart unharmed, and the women’s clothes and jewels left untouched, in an instance of ‘hidalgo cumplimiento’ [gentlemanly courteousness] which elicits the praise of the narrator (VII. 513). In addition to an emphasis on the greater readiness of the Spanish for land warfare than naval combat, then, might there also be an ethical element in play here? In absolute terms, the English (and Dutch) ventures into Pacific waters are defined from the outset as an unjust war, heretical, the fruit of the devil’s work, and an unprovoked injury stimulated primarily by greed and envy. As McCloskey points out, in Cicero’s influential formulation, the pirate was the ‘enemy of all’.28 Such a war lacked any code of ethical conduct in the scholastic tradition. Nevertheless, whereas both Oxenham and, later, the Dutch invaders acknowledge few constraints when mounting attacks on land (XIII. 1195), the corsairs do seem to follow a set of self-imposed restrictions when attacking other vessels. Just as Oxenham allows the crews of captured ships to go on their way without harm, so Drake neglects to burn or sink the unprotected ships in Callao, doing nothing more than unmooring them (VIII. 682–83), and treats the passengers of San Juan de Antón with such courtesy as to even compensate them for their loss (VIII. 697–99). These (historical) actions are accompanied by moral excursus on the preservation of honour (VIII. 683) and ‘piedad’ in warfare: El que pudiendo usar de Marte airado, a la piedad benévola se inclina, merece que su nombre celebrado sea con inmortal estatua dina. Deja el crüel el cuerpo dominado, 28

McCloskey, ‘Mythologizing Greed and Betrayal’, pp. 673–74.

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mas el piadoso en la alma predomina; gana la voluntad, con que pregona su valor y virtud, el que perdona. (VI. 514) [He who could make use of angry Mars but inclines to benevolent pity, deserves his name to be celebrated with a worthy eternal statue. The cruel man masters the body, but the merciful man prevails over the soul; he who pardons wins good will, with which he proclaims his valour and virtue.]

As in Ercilla and to some extent Oña, the decision to spare the defeated enemy is a pragmatic as much as a moral one. The ‘Fama y fruto’ [fame and fortune] (684) which Drake derives from sparing the harbour delays his pursuers sufficiently to allow him to board the hapless treasure ship and subsequently escape with his gains. Even this, however, is not a fully satisfactory explanation. For while Drake’s acts of clemency undoubtedly soften the ire of the aggrieved and smooth his escape, the opposite might be said of his compatriots. Cavendish’s rescue of the survivor Tomé Hernández from the miseries of the Strait only encourages the latter to betray him at the first opportunity, putting the ties of religion above the obligations of gratitude. Likewise, ignoring Oxenham’s plea for silence, the ship he lets go free immediately spreads the news of his arrival, while the captain’s eventual expulsion of civilians from the fort for their own safety only affords an opportunity for its betrayal to the Spanish. There is, perhaps, a difference in motive for such displays of clemency which becomes significant here. Cavendish’s act of Christian compassion becomes something more self-interested when he attempts to recall the debt by asking Hernández to disguise the vessel’s identity and garner provisions in Chile. Oxenham’s own clemency is, as we have seen, inconsistent. It is in addition motivated initially by passion, as the fury of cruelty gives way to the ‘amoroso | fuego’ [passionate fire] of his infatuation with one of the ship’s passengers, Estefanía (IV. 300).29 The ship is allowed to depart only in exchange for her kidnap; ‘amor me disculpa, amor la ofrece | mi vida, si ella quiere; si no, justo | me es como vencedor hacer mi gusto’ [love excuses me, love offers her my life, if she wants; if not, it is just for me as the conqueror to do what I like] (IV. 302), pleads the besotted captain in a twisted attempt to persuade himself of the legitimacy of his action. While all the English corsairs are motivated by ‘codicia’, then, Oxenham is a far more temperamental character, undone at last by the consequences of his cruelty and lust.30 29 For a discussion of the way the love stories of Armas antárticas are intertwined with its poetics of colonial desire, see my article ‘Os lusíadas and Armas antárticas’. 30 Curiously, a similar version of Oxenham’s demise is given in Richard Hawkins’s 1622 account of his own voyage to the Pacific. Hawkins claims that Oxenham captured



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This greater possessiveness over the land and people he encounters also reflects a more profound distinction between the navigators. Following in Magellan’s footsteps, Drake navigates the Strait and enters the Pacific; but here, after an agonised decision (VIII. 703), he prudently resolves not to join his companion on the Isthmus of Panama, but to betray him and proceed in a summary three stanzas back to London (VIII. 736–38). In other words, he holds true to his early ambitions to ‘ver y descubrir’ [see and discover] (III. 210, cf. 206), and resists the temptation to stay and conquer. Oxenham is more ambitious. Inciting the Africans to ‘levantar el vuelo | a la conquista del indiano suelo’ [raise their sights to the conquest of the soil of the Indies] (V. 387), he appears to model himself on Cortés (V. 409–10), or Pedro Arias Dávila (V. 442). As he boldly sinks his ships in the Atlantic and proceeds by land with his new-found allies and a handful of soldiers to subjugate the ‘Mar del Sur’, he is no longer explorer, but conquistador, and in an ironic reversal of the Black Legend, accrues many of the negative stereotypes associated with this part.31 Overall, then, on one level, Miramontes’s representation of the pirates is intended to magnify the scale of the threat and stress the urgency of implementing a systematic naval policy, while shielding the forces involved in the defence efforts to date from any corrosive criticism. As the differentiation between the fates of the three corsairs grows more complex and subtle, however, it becomes clear that there is also more at stake. The pirates are clearly unjustified in their greed, aggression and heresy, but they are not depicted in the lurid diabolical tones of Lope de Vega’s La Dragontea. At times, they are capable of exemplifying the pragmatism of clement, ethical conduct in the aftermath of violence, a preoccupation common to all the poets discussed in this book. Moreover, they also intervene in the poem’s from the ship ‘a lady of singular beauty, married, and a mother of children’ (in Miramontes she is on the way to meet her fiancé), who ‘grew to bee his perdition’: it is through her pleas that he lets the rest of the crew go and breaks his promise to the cimarrones that they should have the Spanish captives: The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt, in his Voyage into the South Sea in the Year 1593, ed. by C.R. Drinkwater Bethune (London, 1847), pp. 235–38. The Spanish lady does not appear in any other contemporary accounts. Since no survivors returned to England from Oxenham’s expedition, it is a likely conjecture that both Hawkins’s and Miramontes’s narratives have their source in an oral rumour circulating in Lima in 1593, where Hawkins was well treated in his captivity before being sent to Madrid and eventually finding his way home. 31 It might be added here that contemporary accounts, both English and Spanish, frequently suggest that English navigation in the Americas formed part of a broader scheme of colonisation, one not definitively transferred until later in the seventeenth century to North America: see Paul Firbas, ‘La geografía antártica y el nombre del Perú’, in Kohut and Rose, eds, La formación de la cultura virreinal, II, 265–88.

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pervasive exploration of the dynamics of expansion, desire and conquest. This motif finds programmatic expression in two episodes that bracket the beginning and end of the poem, which tie both pirates and Amerindians into an overarching concern most immediately relevant to the political community of the Viceroyalty itself. ‘La gente deseosa | de hollar la tierra’ (III. 236): Desire, Expansion and the Mystery of Providence As we have seen, the early seventeenth century saw a protracted struggle to shape or resist the notion of guerra defensiva in the remaining regions of Amerindian resistance. While this could bring with it a renewal of moral debates over the justice of warfare in the Indies and the treatment of the indigenous subjects of the Spanish Crown, for the most part the arguments used on both sides were pragmatic, weighing the risks and costs of prolonging the violence against the perceived loss of ‘reputación’ in the case of withdrawal. Such pragmatism, however, was far from dominant or inevitable. In fact, it coincided with what can only be described as a new appetite for exploration and conquest, whose partisans in Lima and Madrid were as vocal in these years as those arguing out the future of outlying regions such as Paraguay or Chile. Even in these regions, the early seventeenth century saw the first serious attempts to expand into the interior of the American continent, which coexisted with more fanciful rumours such as the legend of the Patagonian Ciudad de los Césares. This was sufficiently rife to lead to the official sanctioning of a number of expeditions to locate the Wandering City in 1619–21.32 In the Indo-Pacific, the turn of the century saw increased investment in augmenting and consolidating territory in the Philippines and Moluccas in response to Dutch expansion, culminating in a speedy (if short-lived) ‘reconquest’ of Ternate and Tidore in 1606 by a fleet dispatched under Montesclaros from New Spain. Such initiatives were to some extent the aftershock of the much more ambitious debates of the 1570s and 1580s about a possible conquest of China.33 To the south, the vast hypothetical Terra Australis which continued to appear on maps became a renewed object of interest. A number of expeditions were sent to the Solomon Islands from Callao to claim the new continent: in 1567 and 1595 under Álvaro de Mendaña with Pedro Fernandes de Queirós as pilot, and in 1605 under Queirós. The latter explored Vanuatu and other Pacific islands, returning to Madrid in 1607 to publicise his findings and agitate for a new era of discovery and colonisation, while his 32 Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal, p. xxiii; Díaz Blanco, Razón de estado, p. 282. 33 See Manel Ollé, La empresa de China: De la Armada invencible al galeón de Manila (Barcelona, 2002), pp. 231–32.



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rival Luís Vaz de Torres sailed what would later become known as the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea on his return to Manila. These initiatives had more than a circumstantial impact in Lima. In addition to the stir and deployment of local resources that the three official missions to the Terra Australis which embarked from the city must have generated, further projected voyages constantly disrupted the small naval community during the 1580s and 1590s. In Lima again by 1579, Mendaña, still titling himself ‘adelantado de las Islas Occidentales’, governor of the Western Isles, continuously mounted plans to establish a new colony in the Solomon Islands. In 1582 and 1583, for example, we find him recruiting men, soliciting contracts and partnerships to fund the expedition, and haggling over the purchase of ships. During the reign of Hurtado de Mendoza, he appears as an expert on maritime defence, redacting a detailed report on the protection of the royal fleet and being named its official inspector in 1592–93.34 In 1597, the returning Queirós, possessed of a millenarian zeal, spread the word in Lima of the magnificent conquests for Christ and Spain which awaited in the new world of the south, before departing to make his case before Philip III in 1600. The chequered trajectory of both explorers on their return to the Viceroyalty attests to the very real sense of a choice between the defence of the Peruvian coast and the backing of new explorations. Until Hurtado’s arrival in Lima, Mendaña repeatedly faced the disappointment of seeing his crew and equipment forcibly requisitioned on the incursion of a corsair, or to escort the silver fleet. In a new surge of confidence after the capture of Hawkins in 1594, by contrast, the flagship and most of the weapons for his forthcoming voyage were provided out of Crown property which had been designated for Lima’s defence. The two priorities clearly competed for attention and resources in court, port and plaza, then, and the primary role in adjudicating between them seems to have been assumed by the viceroy. It seems unlikely that Miramontes could have escaped reports of these competing aspirations. At the very least, his career in Callao from the late 1580s would have brought him into contact with the grand plans and discoveries of figures such as Mendaña and Queirós. The elucidation of this context allows us to see how two apparently separate movements within Lima – on the one hand, a hotly contested polemic over how to bring peace to the rebellious territories of the Spanish empire, and on the other, a new idealism over the possibilities of new conquests and new worlds – could be interconnected in both fact and perception with the fight against piracy. I contend that both sets of aspirations, never yet brought to bear on criticism of the poem, shed some

34

Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, MSS Harkness 891–93, 898–99; Annie Baert, ‘Alvaro de Mendaña (1542–1595), un explorateur du Pacifique sud au destin tragique’ (2003) .

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light on the underlying structure of the navigations and attempted conquests of which it is composed. A programmatic episode here is Drake’s account in the third canto of Magellan’s death on the island of Cybú (Cebu) in the Philippines. The bellicose inhabitants of Cybú are, of course, not Amerindians, but are nevertheless described in terms familiar from the latter’s representation in the epic tradition. ‘Una feroz gente, áspera y dura […] indómita, soberbia, levantada’ [a fierce people, rough and tough (…) untamed, proud, striving] (III. 242), they combine features of both Oña and Ercilla’s Araucanians. As these do at various points, they scorn agriculture in favour of war; lord it over their neighbours; practise human sacrifice, devil worship, cannibalism, necromancy and borracheras (III. 243–44, 251); and feign peace with the new arrivals while treacherously planning war (III. 255–56). Unlike the other indios de guerra of Armas antárticas, however, they also inhabit a locus amoenus which is nothing short of paradisaical. Indeed, the landing of Magellan’s flagship at the ‘valle deleitoso’ [delightful valley] which ‘la convidó a tomar algún reposo’ [beckoned it to take some rest] (III. 235) as a rosy dawn awakens is painted with an unmistakable resemblance to another celebrated resting point on a return voyage of discovery. The ‘vale ameno’ [pleasant valley] of the the Ilha dos Amores, the Island of Love, of the ninth and tenth cantos of Os Lusíadas also invites a group of weary sailors to enjoy a fitting respite from their travails, having in fact been conjured up by the Lusitanians’ patron deity, Venus, and populated with amorous nymphs precisely for that purpose.35 The episode, in which Vasco da Gama and his men enjoy uninhibited lovemaking and feasting within a tropical paradise, while a magical globe displays the world they have begun to open up and a prophecy describes the governor-captains of India who will follow them, was one of the most iconic and most imitated of Camões’s poem. As Blanco puts it, without it, ‘it would be difficult to think of such a complete fusion of the libido sciendi, to which the cartographical unfolding of the globe presented by Tethys gives expression and satisfaction, the libido dominandi, which results in the opening of the route to the riches of the Indies, and the libido fruendi, which the Portuguese poet symbolises in the erotic paradise of the island of Venus.’36 The landings in both poems, then, are infused with a desire in which the colonial lusts for pleasure, for power and for knowledge are intertwined, and they begin in very similar fashion. After a first glimpse of the beach, leafy springs and hills, the longing of the mariners for land is stressed (‘la gente deseosa | de hollar la tierra salta en la ribera’ [the people longing for land 35 Luis de Camões, Os Lusíadas, ed. by Maria Letícia Dionísio, 6th edn (Sintra, 2007), p. 350, IX. 55. Quotations from the poem are taken from this edition and designated by canto and stanza number. 36 Blanco, Góngora heroico, pp. 379–80.



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jump on shore], AA III. 236; ‘os fortes mançebos que na praia | ponham os pés, de terra cobiçosos’ [the strong young men set foot on the beach, greedy for land], OL IX. 66), and their gleeful activities on landing are described, as they run along the beach, bathe in the pools, and hunt wild animals. From this point on, though, their arrivals in paradise take a very different turn. While Vasco da Gama’s men plunge into the forest ‘para ferir os cervos’ [to wound the stags] (OL IX. 67) only to find the water nymphs, already wounded by Cupid’s arrow, fall meekly into their nets, Magellan’s, diving naked into the water ‘como el ciervo herido’ [like the wounded stag] (AA III. 237) are unaware that the roles in the chase have been reversed. Having unwittingly crossed a forbidden ‘raya’ drawn in the sand (III. 245), they themselves are shortly to become the prey of the watching inhabitants. While Da Gama finds himself led to the bed of the love-struck Tethys, his compatriot, rushing to pursue the barbarians his men have put to flight, is himself struck by an unhappy arrow (III. 261), this one steeped in a very literal poison. This version of Magellan’s death is apparently unique to Miramontes. The tale of an arcane transgression, an unnamed foreboding, crossing an unseen ‘raya’, refusing an unknown tribute, and finally eating the ‘fresca, deseada y dulce fruta’ [fresh, desired and sweet fruit] (III. 255) which proves the mortality of the newcomers and bears within it the figurative poison of their captain’s demise, is highly evocative. It seems to speak in archetypal language of a fall from Edenic innocence, of prohibited desire and its punishment – except that the immediate sin is not clear. In Magellan’s only, brief, soliloquy, he dismisses such omens, affirming that his quest for ‘la fragante especería’ [the fragrant spices] (III. 241) of the Spice Islands is in accordance with the will of God and the papal disposition of Tordesillas. Magellan’s overall presentation in this canto is in fact far more positive than in many of the poet’s sources: Drake (admittedly a somewhat ambivalent mouthpiece) repeatedly acclaims him as a hero, and the historical mutinies and complaints of his men are silenced, as is the important role played by Juan Sebastián Elcano in bringing the spice-laden ship safely back to Spain. However, there is one significant, neglected detail in Magellan’s tragic demise. He is shot when, ‘más presto | de lo que en aquel caso era importante’ [more hastily than the situation required] (III. 260), he leaps beyond the defensive trench to pursue an enemy who is already fleeing. The reader might recall a parallel scene in Os Lusíadas, when the reckless Fernão Veloso ventures alone into St Helena Bay. The soldier is ignominiously chased back to ship and Da Gama is wounded in the ensuing skirmish, with Veloso’s native pursuers receiving ‘red caps’ for their pains, as Da Gama jestingly refers to their spilled blood (V. 24–36). The whole episode acts as a humorously dismissive and somewhat grotesque prelude to the ambiguous curse of the

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giant Adamastor (37–60).37 In Miramontes, the outcome is reversed, and for tragic rather than comic effect. At this moment, what has heretofore been a licit, defensive, successful and perhaps even Providential (cf. III. 249–50) engagement overflows into a more aggressive action of questionable ethical and pragmatic grounding, except that in this case the culprit is not the undisciplined, foolhardy soldier, but the general himself. It is at this point that the surviving men realise the impossibility (at least in the short term) of exacting vengeance, however ‘justa’, and conquering the coveted island, across which ‘ya el caribe fiero | por la áspera montaña huyó ligero’ [the fierce Carib had already fled, light-footed, into the rough mountain] (III. 266). Like the indios de guerra of Chile, Panama, Zacatecas or even the pre-Hispanic Andean jungle (XV–XVI), then, the islanders of Cybú are, for all their bellicosity, easily controlled in a purely defensive war, but apparently unamenable to total conquest by force. In a peculiar exception to their overall barbarism, they are, however, scrupulously compliant with ius gentium in their policy regarding the seafarers who arrive on their shore, providing a free landing, basic supplies and provisions for further commerce provided that a nominal tribute is paid and there is no trespass beyond where the law permits. While this opens up the possibility of an alternative, non-possessive, form of interaction and exchange, the initial promise of discovery, conquest and possession, with its echoes of Camões, his imitators and perhaps the expedition to Ancud of the third part of La Araucana, proves wholly, and paradigmatically, fruitless.38 Admittedly, in figures such as Queirós’s utopic dreams for the colonisation of the Terra Australis, religious devotion and evangelical zeal loomed large, while in the ambivalent and failed conquests considered up to this point – the overthrow of the Inca Empire, Oxenham’s emulation of the conquistadors, and Magellan’s landing in the Pacific – the motivations of the protagonists are, at best, mixed. The same cannot be said, however, for the final major episode of attempted exploration and settlement recounted in the poem. The passages through the Magellan Strait constitute one of the leitmotifs of the work, and in canto XVIII, Sarmiento enters it at the king’s command to construct a fortified colony and debar unwanted access in the future. The 37 The connections between the skirmish and the appearance of the giant are discussed by Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 115–25. 38 In ‘Crossing the Line in the Sand: Francis Drake Imitating Ferdinand Magellan in Juan de Miramontes’s Armas antárticas’, Hispanic Review, 81.4 (2013), 393–415, Jason McCloskey traces a correspondence between the forbidden ‘raya’, Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, and the contested antemeridian demarcating Spanish and Portuguese territories in the Indo-Pacific. In the context of the above discussion, however, it is arguable that more immediate analogies might spring to mind for Miramontes’s local readers – not least the contemporary plans for new Pacific expeditions, and the ‘raya’ polemically proposed as the sine qua non of the guerra defensiva in Chile.



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plan to offset future threats from piracy, as well as Araucanian rebellion and Portuguese or French incursions from Brazil (XVIII. 1527–29), is depicted as a legitimate, prudent and essentially defensive enterprise, which contrasts strongly with its portrayal in other sources, such as the strident criticism of the venture in Barco Centenera. Sarmiento’s longing to ‘ofrecer las almas de aquel suelo | en santo y agradable sacrificio’ [offer the souls of that soil in a holy and pleasing sacrifice] (XVIII. 1521) stirs the Catholic monarch’s own determination to ‘amplificar la fe de Christo […] por ser de la romana Iglesia escudo […] al de bienes, fe y razón desnudo, | dalle bienes, razón y fe […] | gastando tus solados, tu riquieza | porque se remediase su probeza [sic]’ [extend the faith of Christ (…) since you are the shield of the Roman Church (…) to those who are naked of goods, faith and reason [you determine] to give them goods, reason and faith (…) spending your soldiers, your richness to remedy their poverty] (XVIII. 1526). Such assertions make this apparently the most altruistic of any of the voyages which feature in the work. Indeed, initially there are indications that this conquest, like that of Peru, is divinely favoured, as the seas are smoothed by Sarmiento’s piety (XVIII. 1521) and ‘El Redentor’ himself inclines the ear of the sovereign to support the venture (XVIII. 1523–25). Yet in the event, the expedition meets with a catalogue of disasters which only confirm the continuing mastery of Satan over the Strait (XVIII. 1540). As we have seen, like the other indios de guerra of the peripheries of the Antarctic world, the inhabitants of this region prove utterly ‘intratables’, showing themselves impossible to conquer not only by force but also, apparently, by commerce or religious zeal. Their world is the dystopic antithesis of Cybú, whose hostile climate, disease-ridden air, barren land and stormy seas mercilessly consume the settlers stranded on its shore. As the thwarted epic proems of this canto suggest (XVIII. 1516, 1577), the Strait, like Chile, is a stage only for tragedy: en todos ellos [contrapuestos] ve [Sarmiento], como en portento, míseros fines trágicos funestos que amenazan su gente, puesta en parte do es sin fruto el valor, la industria, el arte. (XVIII. 1568) [in all the obstacles, Sarmiento sees, as if in a portent, wretched, terrible tragic ends which threaten his people, left in a place where their courage, diligence and skill are worthless.]

Reduced to desperation and even cannibalism, the handful of survivors are in no position to defend the Pacific when an English pirate eventually does arrive, greeting him instead as a fellow Christian and their only passage out of the hell in which they have been abandoned.

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The bemusement and despair with which this voyage is recounted is entirely consistent with contemporary accounts of and reactions to the disaster, with a number of details being replicated in the testimony of the survivor Tomé Hernández and the official relación of Diego Flores.39 Miramontes’s decision to close his epic with this extended episode is nonetheless significant. In many respects, the attempted conquest of the Strait and the incursion of Cavendish with which the epic closes parallel the conquest of Peru and the incursion of Drake with which it began. If at the outset, while the weeds of the devil choke up the soil to be sown with the Good News, ‘fue menester que el medio de la guerra | las plantas disipase desta tierra’ [it was necessary to remove the plants of this land by means of war] (I. 15), once the new shoots of Christianity have taken root, Lucifer ‘pretendió por los medios de la guerra | cortar las tiernas plantas desta tierra’ [aimed by means of war to cut off the tender plants of this land] (XIX. 1591). Aggressive war, it seems, is the tool no longer of Providence, but of evil. Intriguingly, a similar development occurs with respect to conquest, whether in principle violent or not. As we have seen, in the very opening stanza of the poem, the planting of the eternal Word of God silences the oracles which until then had terrorised the Indies. This affirmation is treated very literally. Before the arrival of Christianity, gentilic augurs frequently intervene in the course of events. We encounter, for example, the fearful ‘voz’ which haunts the dreams of Atahualpa (I. 28); the ‘antiguo oráculo’ [ancient oracle] and raving idols which forecast to the people of Cybú their future domination by a foreign race (III. 249–50); the cave-dwelling ‘apolíneo espíritu’ [Apolline spirit] which menaces the Atlantic tribes of Africa (IV. 351); the future lords of Peru prophesied and sculpted by the ‘antiguos adevinos’ [ancient seers] of Vilcabamba (XIII. 1142–43); and the ‘nephando oráculo’ [abominable oracle] (XV. 1272) fed by the human sacrifices of their barbaric neighbours. Whether beneficent or demonic, these prophetic voices are united by the common characteristic that they do, in fact, guide and predict the future. After the arrival of the true Word, this is no longer the case. When Oxenham, like Virgil’s Turnus or Oña’s Caupolicán, is inflamed by a vision of the fury Aletho (IX. 743–53), her speech offers only empty illusion; the ‘ethïopes hechiceros’ [Ethiopian witch doctors] who foretell a favourable outcome to the new alliance with the English are likewise entirely deceived (V. 413–14). More striking, however, is that, just as the ‘era de la Clemencia’ ushers out the voices of pagan prophecy, so too does the bidding of Providence become increasingly difficult to discern. As we have seen, the conquest of the Inca 39 Cf. Barros, ‘Primer testimonio’; ‘Relacion del subceso que tubo la Real Armada de Su Mgd. […] para el Estrecho de Magallanes […] por mi Pedro de Rada escrivano mayor della qu’es como se sigue’ (c. 1582), San Marino, Huntington Library, MS 59416. Miramontes may have met Hernández in Lima, as Firbas suggests.



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Empire (if not its aftermath) is unequivocally the result of divine favour, and confirmed by prodigies and miracles. While prodigies of nature do on occasion reappear in Hispanic Peru, in the colossal storm which threatens to sink Drake’s fleet at the summons of the Creator, for instance (VI. 456), or the terrestrial and celestial omens which precede the capture of San Juan de Antón (VIII. 688–90), such phenomena are lost on their observers, and ultimately have little impact on the action. On several occasions, the poet rhetorically wonders that God would allow such calamities to befall. This is an ‘incomprensible Dios’ who permits Drake to fuel new wars and new heresy with his robbery (VIII. 694–98), for the reign of Montesclaros’s predecessor to be beset with natural and military disasters (XIII. 1206), and, finally, the utter devastation of Sarmiento’s mission to convert the peoples of the Strait: Nuestro discurso frágil y jüicio cosas fabrica en sí, cristianamente, con que pretende hacer a Dios servicio y su inmenso saber no las consiente […] Alábente Señor, allá en el cielo, tronos, dominaciones, seraphines, y bendígate el hombre acá en el suelo pues tan incomprensibles son tus fines. Santo nos pareció y piadoso el celo de predicar tu fe en estos confines, mas, pues no se cumplió ni fue tu gusto, oculto es tu jüicio, Señor justo. (XVIII. 1545–46) [Our fragile reasoning and judgement devises plans, in a Christian spirit, with which it intends to render God a service, and his immense wisdom does not permit them (…) may you be praised, Lord, in heaven above, by thrones, dominions, seraphims, and may man praise you here on earth since your purposes are so incomprehensible. The zeal to preach your faith in these far reaches seemed to us holy and pious, but, since it did not succeed and was not your wish, your judgement is hidden, just Lord.]

Foresaking the reassuring visibility of the supernatural machinery in Tasso, Lope de Vega, Camões or Oña, Miramontes’s colonial world is one which most often appears to the human eye to be the plaything of fortune, ‘teatro de comedia, el mundo todo’ [the whole world is a theatrical playhouse] (II. 89), in which the prophecies which provide much of the teleology of epic have disappeared. Epic’s occasional ‘view from above’, from the vantage point of heaven, or a vision, or even a very high pinnacle, is never granted the reader here, who remains firmly planted on the ground or tossed at sea. The ‘era de la Clemencia’ is also an era of mystery.

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What remains clear from the preceding discussion is that, whether motivated by commerce or by strategic considerations, the desire for riches or to win souls for God, whether just or unjust, future conquests of the Antarctic world can no longer count on a Providential outcome. Whether pushing forward the frontier in Chile or Zacatecas, grasping at the elusive pleasures of the Pacific islands, or venturing into the new world of the south for king and Church, the maritime or territorial expansion of its boundaries meets with insurmountable obstacles. Chief among these is the nature of the frontier peoples themselves, but this is not to say that an escape from a violent stalemate, or a more positive form of encounter, is impossible. It is simply that the poem as it stands presents the reader only with the horrific failures of attempted expansions, not with the potential fruits of their alternative. As we have seen, the islanders of Cybú are, for all their bellicosity, perfectly prepared to engage in mutual assistance and dialogue on their own terms, terms about which the discoverers never trouble themselves to enquire. In a striking exception to the overall misery of the expedition to the Strait, its native inhabitants are unexpectedly moved to worship at the sight of the cross mounted above their enemy’s grave, whose light miraculously pierces their souls (XVIII. 1562–66). They are not, in other words, subhuman or irredeemable, as some contemporary accounts of the ‘giants’ in the region would suggest. Their incipient conversion, though, is God’s conquest, not man’s, and one which apparently need no longer be wedded to the material interests of the Gospel’s immediate agents in order to achieve its goals. This reorientation of the Spanish civic communities of the New World away from exploration, evangelical conquest and frontier warfare occurs in tandem with a recalibration of the make-up of the political community and its symbolic head, the viceroy. Lima, as we have seen, is at the heart of the new defensive efforts, and we now need to attend to the manner in which a new ethics and logic of conflict, and a new vision of governance, are intertwined. ‘Vigilando | el orbe que en tus hombros se sustenta’ (I. 6): The Viceroy and the Republic The transition between the past and present of the Viceroyalty, between the wars of conquest and rebellion and those waged by the pirates, is marked by a significant piece of oratory at the end of the second canto. As the civil wars subside, a ‘sagaz viejo […] esperimentada | en guerra y paz’ [sagacious old man (…) [whose long life was] experienced in war and peace] (II.181) takes his place before the assembled citizenry of Lima to discourse on the justice of war and successfully dissuade his audience from future civil conflict. When mentioned at all by critics, the speech has come to be termed a critique of ‘the neglect of arms before the pirates’ arrival’, but this does not really reflect



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its contents.40 Although such neglect is critiqued just before and after the speech, as military virtue gives way to courtly decadence, mercantile activity and ‘ocio’ (II. 193–96), the speech itself takes quite a different direction. As Mazzocchi notes in passing (p. 128), it is modelled on the famous harangue of the velho do Restelo of Os Lusíadas, who excoriates the enthusiasm for overseas exploration just as Da Gama and his men prepare to embark (OL IV. 94–104), except with scholastic overtones. To make this observation more precise, the Portuguese ‘velho’, ‘cum saber só de experiência feito’ [with wisdom which came only from experience] (IV. 194), directs his rhetorical armoury against the vain ambition for ‘Fama e Gloria’ which motivates the desire for lordship over distant lands and the invention of new technologies. His speech is highly literary in its inflections, indulging in a nostalgia for the golden age and a tragic curse of the first pilot to brave the seas, and exhorting the mariners instead to employ their energies against the Muslims closer to home. By contrast, the ‘viejo’ of Lima is apparently unconcerned with the perils of navigation. Instead, he vituperates war itself. The oration is in fact a response not only to Camões, but also to Ercilla’s own excursus on the just war in the final canto of La Araucana, as discussed in Chapter 2. Both Ercilla and Miramontes’s veterans begin with a consideration of the universal origins and consequences of warfare before considering the circumstances of particular conflicts. For the former, war, even ‘civil’ war such as that waged against Portugal, is a divine gift to men, falls under the ius gentium and is an instrument for maintaining peace and order in a fallen world, as long as it is employed licitly by a king. For the latter, by contrast, war is the devil’s work, a ‘pestilencia de la tierra, | hija de la ambición y la codicia’ [pestilence of earth, child of ambition and greed] (II. 182), generating an endless cycle of violence which only feeds further evils and obstructs the cause of civilisation, prosperity, politics and religion. It is a perversion peculiar to humanity, yet contrary to human reason, since ‘Sólo el hombre sociable a quien entrego | hizo Dios de razón y entendimiento, | soberbio, intolerable y arrogante | procura destruir su semejante’ [only sociable man to whom God entrusted reason and understanding, proud, intolerant and arrogant, seeks to destroy his own kind] (II.185). The examples of such monstrosities offered are not only instances of civil strife, but include the great conquests of antiquity: Alexander’s defeat of Darius, the siege of Troy, the fall of Carthage to Scipio (II. 183). Indeed, from this universalist perspective, all wars are civil. If, in Ercilla, one cannot fail to recognise the scholastic rhetoric of the jurist’s son, in Miramontes’s disquisition it is above all the voice of Erasmian pacifism which resonates. In the logic of the former, war is a natural, human right and unjust only when wrongfully employed; in the latter, the exercise of arms

40

Firbas, introduction to Miramontes, p. 32.

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can prove ‘gobierno político en el suelo’ [political government on earth], but only by exception. The speech is programmatic for the poem on a number of levels. To begin with, this is the closest it comes to providing a reasoned foundation for the scepticism towards conquest and inclination towards defensive war which will emerge in the cantos that follow. The exceptions to the general illegitimacy of armed conflict – the case of a holy war or the avenging of a public injury inflicted by one sovereign on another, both standard conditions in scholastic treatises of the time – conveniently correspond both to the early conquests of Peru, whose divine inspiration is clear, and to any defensive reprisals taken against the pirates, who carry out the bidding of a hostile and heretical sovereign. What is left unclear at this stage is that any more aggressive or expansive action can be unambiguously sanctioned. Secondly, however, the speech also marks a turning point for the civic political community of Lima. As the previous chapters discuss, in both La Araucana and Arauco domado, the concord of the Spanish American city is always fragile. Rebellion, dissent and unrest are persistent threats, and as a result one of the first duties of the viceroy is to represent and enforce ‘la voz del rey’ among these restive communities. In the account of the civil wars, urban rebellion does feature in Armas antárticas too, and in very similar terms and imagery to the former poems: as a conflagration, whose embers are always liable to flare up again (II. 113, 173); a many-headed hydra; or a darkening storm, dispelled by the rays of the sun (II. 150–51). The poet follows Oña in making the crowd a diverse body of opinion, in which loyal elements are forced to ‘callar’ [keep silence] (II. 130) and the most culpable figures are those in a position of power, and in attributing the success with which the unrest is crushed to the ‘prudencia’ and ‘sagacidad’ of the viceroy rather than the employment of force and terror. After the ‘viejo sagaz’ works his rhetorical magic, however, rebellion within the city is no longer a concern. It is worth noting here that Miramontes’s confidence in the serenity of the body politic is by no means shared by his contemporaries. In the urban environment, this period saw a transition from unrest spearheaded by a few prominent individuals to more diffuse manifestations of discontent among the lowest strata of society. As Montesclaros would articulate after the 1613 uprisings in New Spain and Potosí, such ill-defined movements presented a new and frightening threat of a conflict that might engulf the whole of society.41 An anxiety which features prominently in the official correspondence is that of an uprising which might bring together the various racially categorised castas of the cities of Peru, whose number vastly exceeded that of the Spaniards. One further apprehension was that these might then ally with the so-called ‘soldados’, as indeed occurred in Potosí in 1613.

41

Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal, p. 277.



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Clearly, it is in Miramontes’s interests to dispel any concerns about the volatility of the arms-bearing population of the coastal cities. We have already glimpsed the manner in which the humble soldiery is transformed in the poem into a valiant, disciplined and, apparently, ‘hidalgo’ force. What is intriguing is that the civic body politic undergoes a similar transformation. The old man’s speech represents what is effectively a community engaged in an informal exercise of self-governance. The anonymous old man derives his authority from his long experience in both military and civilian life, which makes him an ‘espejo | de prudencia’ [mirror of prudence] (II. 181), rather than from any official position, and he exercises it through a free employment of persuasive speech which can prove effective only through the consensus of his listeners. In this sense, he acts as a symbolic representative of the cumulative wisdom of the community. Such wise former warriors are a standard type of epic, from Homer’s Nestor to Ercilla’s Colocolo or indeed the Rumiñave who features in Miramontes’s Inca legend. Their absence in Oña is testimony to his attempt to strip the Araucanian community of political legitimacy while concentrating the political virtues of the Spanish in the person of Hurtado. In all these cases, though, the figure of the old adviser is represented as extraordinary, a celebrated hero who now exercises the acknowledged privilege of counsel to the ruler-general and an oligarchy of warrior-aristocrats. In Miramontes, conversely, the figure remains anonymous, and his counsel is not restricted to a select few; the entire civic body deliberates and acts on his advice. The motif of the citizen’s assembly, usually convened to deliberate on the justice and conduct of an armed conflict, is repeated time and again across the course of the poem. When the news of Oxenham’s depredations reaches Panama, the first response is in the hands of ‘los canos viejos de maduro seso, | por la esperiencia de los largos años’ [the grey-haired old men of mature mind, through the experience of long years] (VI. 521). Their leadership is opposed by the hot-blooded youth of the city, who assert that matters of war are ruled by the sword alone (VI. 523). In the event, though, a consensus is reached that matters which concern the whole community, in war as well as peace, belong to age and experience. ‘Los viejos aconsejen y disputen, | los mozos obedezcan y ejecuten’ [let the old men advise and dispute, the young men obey and execute], decree the senior citizens, and the Real Audiencia follow their initiative in dispatching an experienced force to Ballano with a similarly senior and prudent commander in charge. This dynamic is replicated even in the non-Spanish communities which feature in the poem. For all their apparent savagery, the islanders of Cybú nevertheless heed the cunning stratagem proposed by ‘el más anciano’ [the oldest man] (III. 251); Drake’s plan of circumnavigation is first debated by the senior voices of Parliament; when the doubts of the older cimarrones are overruled by the impetuous ‘mozos juveniles’ [youthful men] (V. 392) and the alliance with the English

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is forced upon the community, it is the first indication of the disaster which awaits the palenque. Such assemblies are, again, a topos of the epic tradition, but with certain limitations which are not present in Miramontes. Their participants in Ercilla (and a long tradition before and after him) are exclusively noble, while in Oña the plebeian borrachera of the Araucanians and rebellious conciliábulos of the Quito conspirators scarcely constitute political assemblies at all, and the smaller councils convoked by Hurtado are held behind closed doors with select advisers. The critical difference in Armas antárticas is that these councils are open, inclusive, local and civic events, in which authority is accorded on the basis of age and experience rather than any explicit social status, administrative function, or learning. The Spanish community which greets the incursion of the English is, then, one whose model of government is mixed in practice, if not in theory. The spectre of mutiny and urban rebellion which plagues Miramontes’s predecessors here gives way to a civil resolution of conflict through debate and consensus in which a broad sector of the (male, and presumably white) populace participates. The effective disappearance of armed mutiny, civic unrest, Amerindian resistance and exploitation and expansive warfare from the political horizons of the urban viceroyalty raises one further question: where does this leave the viceroy? In a world in which the civic communities of the colonies are serenely self-governing, while further conquest on the frontiers is no longer a desirable goal, two of the primary functions accorded to the figure in Oña and Ercilla become somewhat redundant. As we have seen, this transition does place greater weight on the primacy of the viceroy’s duties to plan, resource and oversee the defence of the realm’s seaboard, and it is to the viceregal court that representatives of the various polities repeatedly appeal to uphold the ongoing struggle against the pirates. The figure is more than a captaingeneral, however. While the effective self-governance of both civilian and military collectives might lead to expectations of the viceroy fading somewhat into the background after the second canto, in fact the opposite occurs. Only when the viceroy’s authority is firmly and unequivocally established can the processes of civil government begin to develop, for, as the poet observes, ‘no es posible tenga dura | lo qu’está en su centro violentado’ [it is not possible for anything to hold firm which is forced apart at the centre] (II. 145). Moreover, aside from the specific interventions of viceroys in the unfolding of events, and the dedication to Montesclaros at the outset, two extensive catalogues of historical viceroys feature which allow for a more leisurely consideration of the quality of viceregal rule: in the list of early occupants of the position in the second canto, and in the array of statues and epitaphs prophetically interpreted by Rumiñave in the thirteenth. Accompanying this is the completion of the relative marginalisation of the Spanish monarch already begun in Arauco domado. Broadly speaking,



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the sovereign is quite simply a non-actor in this account of Peruvian history, but the poem is bracketed, in the second canto and the nineteenth, by two significant interventions of the royal presence. The first is the thwarted introduction of the New Laws, and the second the dispatch of the armada to settle the Magellan Strait. These interventions share a self-evident zeal for justice and religion with particular regard to the Amerindians, setting out firstly to eliminate an ‘intolerable agravio injusto’ [intolerable unjust injury] (II. 117), and later to spread the Gospel to the inhospitable frontier. Both, however, are abject failures. The expedition to the Strait has already been considered in detail. To this it might be added that the catastrophe focusses the stark vision of royal impotence in the Antarctic sphere which already emerges in the poet’s early apostrophe to Charles V: Supremo y sacro Rey de las Españas, muro, amparo, coluna y fundamento de nuestra santa fe: si tus hazañas suben al estrellado firmamento, ves aquí a Vela, está en tierras estrañas representando tu alto acatamiento, donde ni a ti ni a su prudencia mucha se teme, se respecta ni se escucha. (II. 135) [Supreme and sacred King of the Spanish realms, wall, haven, column and foundation of our holy faith: while your deeds rise to the starry firmament, you see Vela here, in foreign lands, representing your lofty commands, where neither you nor his great prudence are feared, respected or listened to.]

There is no question here over the sovereign’s virtue, power or military might. Nor is there any doubt of the ‘prudencia’ of his envoy, or of his capacity to truly represent the royal will. Despite all this, it seems, the effective viceroy needs other qualities to assure his rule. If Blasco Núñez Vela possesses the cardinal virtues of prudence and justice, he nevertheless lacks that pragmatic ‘sagacidad’, in this case the flexibility to mitigate the ‘rigores’ of the royal ruling, which is employed by his more fortunate successors. The moral and empirical backing of the monarch, however righteous and powerful, is insufficient alone to have any impact on the conflict, or even ensure the favour of Providence. Conversely, when his subjects do successfully strive against the pirate, they appeal above all to the cause of Pope and Church rather than to the interests of the Crown; the struggle is then not so much a contest over sovereignty as a defence effort and a crusade. As a result, the emphasis falls instead on the necessary virtues of viceregal rule. These are developed in most detail in the two catalogues mentioned above. The vision of the statues in the palace of Vilcabamba is particularly

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heavily weighted in political terms. It immediately follows Chuquiaquilla’s triumphal entry into the city with his new bride, Curicoyllor, anachronistically accompanied by banners, tapestries, ‘danzas, regocijos, invenciones | de máscaras, libreas, galas, juegos, | hogueras, luminarias, hachas, fuegos’ [dances, celebrations, inventive masks, liveries, finery, games, bonfires, festival lights, candles, fireworks] (XII. 1121), music of ‘dulzainas, sacabuches, chirimías’ [dulzainas, sackbuts, shawms] (XIII. 1122), and ephemeral triumphal arches (XIII. 1125). While all this has very little to do with pre-Hispanic Inca customs, they are immediately recognisable components of the civic celebrations of the Spanish American city. More specifically, the mention of triumphal arches and of the façade of Chuquiaquilla’s palace, which is decorated with images of Jupiter, recalls the official entry into Lima of a new viceroy, who would process through ephemeral arches adorned with allegorical emblems often taken from classical mythology.42 As Osorio puts it, the arches were effectively ‘“mirrors of viceroys”’, and, as in Europe, ‘part of a contractual dialogue of give-and-take between the city and the prince or monarch’, expressing in the case of Lima civic concerns to be addressed and the desired virtue and actions of the incoming ruler.43 The mythological ekphrasis which accompanies the Infante’s procession is in this light highly ironic: a series of the rapes of Jupiter, seen through the tearful eyes of his raped and kidnapped bride Curicoyllor, it marks the beginning of the decline of his rule and makes the violation a mirror more generally of the abuse of power.44 The statues of the viceroys that follow, then, act as a virtuous counterpoint. Representing ‘ilustre majestad’ in their own right, rather than as a reflection of the monarch (XIII. 1139), the viceroys constitute the worthy successors to the Inca dynasty. Bearing in mind the political function accorded to such ritual displays, one might say that Miramontes here presents his dedicatee with an exemplary history of the functions, virtues (and occasional failings) of his predecessors at the outset of a new reign. While all the virtues which appear are standard and orthodox – prudence, justice, piety, liberality and so on – there are nevertheless some significant silences and emphases. Beginning with the silences, there is no mention of the viceroy’s role as father and protector of the Indians, always 42 The inclusion of the arches in Miramontes’s description is particularly striking, since Acosta made a point of noting in his Historia natural y moral that the Incas did not construct arches or vaults (p. 298). The façade of the palace emulates the ecphrasis of the palace at Calcutta in Os lusíadas, which is also followed by a catalogue of viceroys; this probably explains why it is the palace rather than the arches that contains the allegorical images. 43 Osorio, Inventing Lima, p. 63. 44 Albeit that, as Valencia notes, it is not without precedent: mythological rape scenes often acted as a display of power in the palaces of Europe, which makes Miramontes’s critique all the more poignant. The Melancholy Void, p. 30.



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one of the first mandates to appear in royal instructions, and the absence of which is particularly striking in the context of a prophecy uttered by an Inca sage to an audience of prospective Amerindian subjects. The viceroy’s duties to the royal treasury are similarly absent – perhaps unsurprisingly given the genre, although this does not prevent Oña from praising his patron’s astute management of Crown finances in the final cantos of Arauco domado. Nor, aside from the passing allusion to the ‘majestad’ exuded by the forthcoming ‘hijos del sol’ [sons of the sun] (XIII. 1143), is there much sign of the sacral mystery of power.45 Indeed, there is little that is remote or inexplicable in Miramontes’s effigies, despite the fantastic setting. His viceroys are accessible and visible figures, who manifest their virtues above all in a series of concrete interactions with their subjects. These subjects, it transpires, are primarily the urban citizens of the viceroyalty, and especially those of Lima, which adds another resonance to the analogy with the inaugural arches constructed by the cabildo on behalf of the civic community. The virtue of liberality hence translates into a policy of favouring the ‘beneméritos’, by whom the poet apparently indicates serving and former soldiers rather than necessarily the descendants of conquistadors (e.g. II. 113, 176; XIII. 1168, 1176), as well as patronage of the arts (XIII. 1213). That of piety is shown through programmes of charitable and public works, the construction of churches, hospitals, monasteries, bridges and dams (I. 6, XIII. 1177). Prudence is directed especially towards the wisdom of practical foresight (I. 6; cf. II. 177, XVIII. 1510, XX.1654), and this foresight is, as has become clear through the course of this chapter, especially necessary when planning defence. The viceroys in these scenes appear as not merely virtuous rulers, but in a sense the true heroes of the poem. The ‘bultos distintos’ [individual shapes] (XIII. 1139) of the statues in the palace of Vilcabamba allude to the ‘figuras de bulto’ [statues of figures] in Fitón’s cave in La Araucana (LA XXIII. 67–70), who represent ‘el extremo y excelencia, | de armas, letras, virtud y continencia’ [the extreme and excellence of arms, letters, virtues and continence], while in Rumiñave’s catalogue they are introduced as ‘ínclitos varones | de quien se escribirán altos poemas’ [illustrious men, of whom lofty poems will be written] (XIII. 1140). Both references make clear that these are the fitting protagonists of epic. They are in fact quite literally the worthy successors not only to the less worthy Incas, but also, and more immediately, to the conquistadors, as the glorious effigies of Columbus, Pedro Arias Dávila and Francisco Pizarro are seamlessly followed by those of every viceroy until the present. While military responsibilities loom large in their characterisation, however, these 45

This is a concept much stressed by Cañeque (although mainly in reference to New Spain), for whom ‘theology was inseparable from political concerns’ in the conceptualisation of the viceroy: The King’s Living Image, pp. 31–45.

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are not generally men of arms themselves. Their heroic musings are directed towards defence, primarily of the coasts, and any measures taken are always delegated, through favouring the soldiery, promoting the strengthening of naval resources, and heeding the counsel of experienced veterans. If Oña’s viceroy is a sun whose rays penetrate to the furthest corners of the region, those of Miramontes appear to illuminate a much more limited, civic sphere – barely emerging, in fact, beyond Lima itself. To conclude, then, the transition from a polity actively seeking to aggrandise its boundaries to one predominantly focussed on defence brings about a corresponding shift in the character of the political community of the viceroyalty. As the threat of unrest gives way to a model of governance based on broad, if informal, consensus, and directed by figures of pragmatism and experience, the role of the viceroy also shifts correspondingly towards a gentle, republican exercise of authority within a primarily local sphere. This function is nonetheless a heroic one, not least because the effective sovereign of this new sphere must exert control not only over land and cities, but also over a chaotic and unpredictable sea. Arguably, because the fortunes of Miramontes’s poem were wedded to the potential favour of the viceroy, but less decisively tied to a specific individual than was Oña’s, the viceroy emerges as at once a hugely important but also somewhat impersonal character. While there is limited differentiation between one and another, there is as a result a more overarching vision of the nature of viceregal power as a totality, and of its interaction with the body politic. Within this model, the threat of instability is, it might be said, externalised: the pirates who prey on the coast are not, as in other poetic accounts, a catalyst for revealing the cracks and corruption within the viceroyalty, but rather promote internal unity in a shared cause. There is, however, one element which brings this framework into question: the cimarrones. The question of racial mixture within the city is, as we have seen, a prominent one in the contemporary agitation over potential rebellion. Effectively excluded from those scenes focussed on Lima and its satellite cities and ports in Miramontes, it nevertheless irrupts beyond the city walls, through the intervention in the narrative of the free Africans of Panama. These occupy an uneasy position within the poem, at once ‘other’, foreign and exotic, and a familiar component of the viceregal polity. As we shall see, their presence dissolves much of the comfortable distinction between internal and external conflict carefully elaborated thus far, and transfers much of the ambiguity associated with the Amerindian political community in the earlier poetic tradition to this new, hybrid and distinctively colonial component of the maritime Antarctic world.



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‘Un pueblo de Ethiopia’ (III. 275): Fugitive Utopias and Divided Slaves, between Africa and Lima In the ninth canto, a select group of Spaniards, guided by their hand-bound cimarrón informant Biafara and securing their opportunity with presteza (IX. 820), storm the African palenque and temporary English base of Ronconcholo by night. The episode of the night-time assault has antecedents in the classical epic tradition. In the tenth book of the Iliad, Diomedes and Odysseus assault the Thracian camp, and return covered with blood and glory; Nisus and Euryalus attempt to replicate the feat in the ninth book of the Aeneid, but are killed as they return, and the fall of Troy in the second book of the Aeneid famously takes place at night. Similar scenes are repeated in later epics, including those of Ovid, Statius, Silius Italicus and Tasso, and such attacks, sometimes known as encamisadas, were also a familiar practice during the military revolution. In Ercilla, the battle of Mataquito and Caupolicán’s final defeat share features of the tradition, and in Armas antárticas Oxenham has already used the cover of nightfall to devastate the Isla de las Perlas. These analogies to the Spanish victory at Ronconcholo are not altogether illustrious. As Blanco puts it, the night-time assault in epic tends to ‘lay bare, with perfect coldness, war as a practice which consists of killing with pleasure and without scruple’.46 Combined with this, the storming troops go on to sack the maroon settlement, and as we saw in Chapter 2, scenes of storming and sack in Ercilla often present acute ethical dilemmas. As such, the scene is set apart from the otherwise unobjectionable actions of Spanish forces after the second canto of Armas antárticas, and reignites questions of military conduct and morality. Initially, the episode follows a trajectory common to such scenes in epic. The first, unsuspecting inhabitants are rudely awakened and react with a mixture of desperate fury and cowering terror, rewarded with ‘a todos igual la triste muerte’ [grim death equally for all] (IX. 796); there follows a brief but bloody series of individual combats with those capable of presenting greater resistance. Soon, a fire takes hold of the houses, and civilians scatter in panic: Niños, mujeres, viejos, reservados de dallos a sentir muertes atroces, por aquí, por allí, descarrïados, andaban temerosos dando voces. ¡Oh hidalgos españoles arriscados, tan nobles como de ánimos feroces, cuánto os ablanda el afligido y triste que a vuestro invicto brazo no resiste! (IX. 812)

46

Blanco, ‘Un episodio trágico’.

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[Children, women, old men, saved from being given an awful death, went astray here and there crying out in fear. Oh daring, generous Spaniards, as noble as you are fierce-spirited, how you are softened by the sad and afflicted who do not resist your unbeaten arm!]

It is at this point that the question of ethical conduct comes into play. The phraseology here is an exact allusion to the sacks of Penco and Saint-Quentin discussed in Chapter 2. Like the Spanish troops on the French frontier, and Oña’s Spaniards in Chile, the invaders of Ronconcholo are furious in combat, but spare the lives of non-combatants and the defeated. As a result, they are able to bring the campaign to a seemly close. On one level, the depiction of the soldiers’ self-control here complements that of the civic political community discussed above. While the soldiery of Ercilla restrain their first instinct towards cruelty and greed only as a result of the king’s presence, and those of Oña, more inclined towards clemency, are nevertheless prone to lapses of discipline, here the troops are largely self-directed. Their ‘piedad’ and ‘clemencia’ are seemingly innate qualities, as befits their uniform characterisation as ‘hidalgos’ rather than common seekers of booty. This shift in representation is replicated in other scenes in the poem, as when the defenders of the coastline spare the English who surrender after routing them at Quintero (XIX. 1637). As a result, the emphasis moves away from the portrait of the general, who here simply observes the actions of his virtuous troops with satisfaction, and onto the militia itself, which becomes a cohesive self-governing community. Such a force does not need the exercise of absolute authority from its commanders, nor even the ‘middle way’ between rigour and lenience depicted by Oña, but requires only gentle strategic direction. It is clear in the poem that, while professional in their exercise of arms, these forces are in effect citizen militias, raised on the incursion of the enemy and accountable to the community that sends them. As a result, the emphasis on their conduct has a particular resonance in light of the social anxieties of the period already discussed. Far from being liable to mutiny, corruption or revolt, the ‘ordinary’ soldiers show complete selfmastery with regard both to their own and to the enemy. Their clemency is, however, rather limited in its effects. Whereas the soldiers of Saint-Quentin extinguish the blaze and spare the honour and liberty of the town’s inhabitants, the compassion of those at Ronconcholo extends only so far as to spare innocent lives and bury the dead. The survivors are all imprisoned and enslaved, though their captivity is said to be ‘tolerable’ (IX. 814), the settlement is destroyed completely, and its wealth led in triumphal procession by the captives back to the Spanish camp. As in Miramontes’s predecessors, the nature of the people and political community against whom conflict is waged appears to condition the conduct of hostilities. Although



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English soldiers also perish at Ronconcholo, the emphasis is on the African inhabitants, ‘cautivos y cautivas de ethïopia’ [male and female captives of Ethiopia] (IX. 817). The underlying implication is that a war conducted against the cimarrones, rather than against fellow Christians or Amerindians or pirates, requires different standards of conduct. Where does the emphasis fall, however? Does the poem suggest that a conflict with de iure, if not de facto, slaves need observe only a more limited form of clemency? Or that some clemency should be observed, even against runaway slaves? The answer, of course, depends on the reader’s perspective, but also points towards a certain ambivalence in Miramontes’s representation of the maroon community which is consistent with their appearance throughout the first half of the poem. Whereas Lope de Vega, ensconced in Madrid, could complacently look upon maroon townships such as Santiago del Príncipe (founded in 1579) as a curious but dependable feature of the Americas in La Dragontea, it is little wonder that Miramontes, a frequent traveller between Lima and Panama who had also spent time in the Caribbean, should view the phenomenon in a more complex light. Even the legally constituted free black townships scattered across southern and central America continued to excite mixed feelings among local observers. As Jane G. Landers observes, while the Crown and viceregal authorities tended to support such foundations, neighbouring residents were often much more hostile.47 Caro de Torres shows a grudging admiration for the citizens of Santiago del Príncipe who helped to resist Drake: agora viven en policía, y tenía Governador Español y doctrina […] y los demás [ingleses] bolvieron atemorizados del valor desta nación, que si tuviesse diciplina serían valerosos, porque es gente que no tiene temor a la muerte, y para passar los trabajos desta tierra muy a propósito […] y ellos aficionados a la ley Evangélica más que los Indios, y ser para más trabajo. (fols 71–72) [they now live with civility, and the town had a Spanish governor and a priest (…) and the other Englishmen retreated in fear at the courage of this people, who would be valorous if they were disciplined, because they do not fear death, and they are very well suited for enduring the hardships of this land (…) and they are more zealous for the law of the Gospel than the Indians, and capable of more work.]

Battista Antonelli’s 1594 report to Philip II on the security and fortifications of the Caribbean coast, which survives only in English translation, is more 47 Jane G. Landers, ‘Cimarrón and Citizen: African Ethnicity, Corporate Identity, and the Evolution of Free Black Towns in the Spanish Circum-Caribbean’, in Jane Landers and Barry Robinson, eds, Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque, NM, 2006), pp. 111–45 (pp. 128–30).

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ambivalent. Despite their service to the Crown (presumably in the coastal militias), the cimarrones nevertheless awaken considerable mistrust: La reall which is inhabited with a kinde of blacke people, which are called Symerions, which are also free, & bondslaves, & most p[ar]te of them to ye number of -100- are employed with yo[u]r Ma[jes]tie[s] service, so ye saide towne is situated by a great Ryver side, a league from ye mayne sea right over against ye harbour of Perycos, but there is no trust nor confidence, in most parte of these Simeryons, but rather to take greate heede & to be ware of them, as of mortall enemyes, which in very deede they are as by experience we have tryed them.48

It is arguable that Miramontes’s palenque acts also as a displaced mechanism for considering the large urban black population, both slave and free, of the viceroyalty. As Chapter 1 explains, those of African descent constituted around half the population of Lima in this period. Miramontes himself owned slaves in his household. As we have seen, the reality of racial admixture in the city is completely silenced in Armas antárticas. Anxieties about the susceptibility of the black population to subversion by the pirates – in Barco Centenera, for instance, they surreptitiously sabotage the defence efforts against Drake – are thereby suppressed. Nevertheless, the reader immersed in this reality could hardly fail to be sensitive to the poem’s projecting of issues of slavery and the religious, cultural and political status of the African community onto the turbulent past of Ballano. In his classic study, Frederick Bowser asserts that, as the slave trade expanded, ‘the African was transformed in the sixteenth-century European mind into the “Negro”, a man who was not merely the only available slave but was in fact born to bondage’, but this coexisted with earlier legends and traditions such as the ‘bon nègre’ of the Bible, the Christian Ethiopia of Prester John, the descendants of Ham’s curse, the pagans of the classical world, or the African Muslim kingdoms.49 Francesc Relaño has complicated the picture further, demonstrating that the notion of a geographically unified Africa only emerged gradually during this period.50 Other recent studies demonstrate both the historical agency of black Iberians and the complexity of their literary representation. Chloe Ireton, for example, notes that free black migrants to the Americas stressed their status as ‘old Christians’ (i.e. not Moriscos), while Nicholas Jones demonstrates that the appropriation of black speech, habla de negros, by white authors, traditionally dismissed as

48

San Marino, HL, MS Ellesmere 1682, fol. 5v. Frederick Bowser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524–1650 (Stanford, CA, 1974), pp. 26–27. 50 Francesc Relaño, La emergencia de África como continente: Un nuevo mundo a partir del viejo (Lleida, 2000). 49



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derogatory, can ‘render legible the voices and experiences of black Africans in fundamental ways that demand our attention’.51 La Dragontea provides an important precedent for negotiating some of these competing associations within an epic framework and a colonial American setting. At the outset of Lope’s poem, Codicia reminds Drake of his first encounter with the cimarrones, ‘atrevidos […] huidos, rebelados y escondidos, | fiado en su ignorancia y libertades […] bárbaros en las obras y razones’ [daring (…) fugitives, hidden rebels, trusting in their ignorance and liberties (…) barbarian in actions and reason] (LD I. 49). When the English eventually meet them again in the sixth canto, however, now settled in a township, their representation has changed substantially. The free black community, described with a mixture of comic caricature, dramatic irony and grudging respect, has a clear political order, with its ‘oficios repúblicos’ [political offices] described in some detail (VI. 18), although Lope’s grandiose comparisons to the Roman republic and the great lawmakers of old is clearly for humorous effect.52 This is especially so when paired with a grotesque description of the African king, Don Luis de Mozambique, ‘doblado en cuerpo, en ánimo sencillo, | de barba hasta los pechos prolongada’ [with hunchbacked body, and simple mind, a beard growing down to his chest] (VI. 17), and the seizing of every opportunity for a colour-centred joke. When the English ambassador to the township attempts to flatter his audience by alluding to the illustrious past of Ethiopia (VI. 32) and dwelling on the injustice of slavery, a violation to ‘vuestra libre e igual naturaleza’ [your free and equal nature] (VI. 30), he is contradicted by none other than Don Luis himself. The African king mounts a strident defence of slavery and of his people’s willing subjection to the Crown. According to him, the Africans of the present bear no resemblance to the Ethiopia of myth. Living like animals, naked and even speechless, their enslavement is not only ‘en buena guerra’ [in a just war] but also brings the incalculable benefits of civility and salvation, ‘mejorarnos de tierra y darnos Cielo’ [giving us a better land and the gift of heaven] (VI. 37–38). There is a further irony when the English prove no match for the loyalty and valour of 51

Chloe Ireton, ‘“They Are Blacks of the Caste of Black Christians”: Old Christian Black Blood in the Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Iberian Atlantic’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 97.4 (2017), 579–612; Nicholas R. Jones, Staging ‘Habla de Negros’: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain (University Park, PA, 2019), p. 5; see also Jones, ‘Sor Juana’s Black Atlantic: Colonial Blackness and the Poetic Subversions of Habla de negros’, Hispanic Review, 86.3 (2018), 265–85, for a similar theoretical application in a specifically colonial context. 52 Lise Segas suggests links between Lope’s representation of the cimarrones in the epic and of negros on stage, in ‘Cimarrones y corsarios: De la realidad colonial a la épica histórica’, Hipogrifo, 5.2 (2017), 241–60.

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the Africans in battle, and in the end see their own number perish like beasts and be buried in the field (VI. 62). Miramontes likewise combines a number of the conflicting ideas regarding Africa which coexisted at the turn of the century, although his development of this strand of the narrative is much more extensive than Lope’s and the effect of its juxtapositions more jarring. Apparently contradictory concepts are held together without clearly favouring one or the other, in such a way as to continually force readers to re-assess their expectations. At the outset, the contrast between the maroons and their new English ‘friends’ seems designed to highlight the primitivity of the former. At his first glimpse of the English military formations, arms and tents, and first taste of refined English food(!), the African king is left ‘admirado | del orden, aparato y policía’ [in admiration of their order, pomp and civility] (V. 400). The feast they proffer in return is an unseasoned assortment of ‘rústicos manjares’ [rustic delicacies] hunted or gathered from the wood.53 Moreover, clad in animal skins with an eclectic mix of weapons, Don Luis’s men prove as lacking in the military art as they are unversed in refined cuisine. Combats between Africans and Europeans are rarely represented in Armas antárticas, except in instances in which a single Spanish soldier takes on an unindividuated horde. At the same, the comparison between the Africans and the privateers is not always to the Europeans’ advantage. The outdoor banquet, uncultivated as it is, is a veritable ‘cornucopia’ (V. 427–29) situated within a locus amoenus. Living in natural contentment here, the life of the maroons, from foraging to lovemaking, is simple and spontaneous, and they are signally lacking in those most characteristic of English vices, greed, fraud and ambition. In this light, the palenque exists not so much in a state of anarchic savagery as of golden-age innocence, and the portrait is not without its attractions. Nor does it negate the question of the status of the African commune as a political community. The theme is broached in the first encounter between the English and their potential allies, in which the subdued African hunter Jalonga is led back to the English camp and asked by Oxenham ‘si el jactancioso castellano […] os hace cruda guerra | y en qué disposición está la tierra’ [whether the boastful Castilian (…) wages cruel war on you, and what kind of state the land is in] (IV. 329). Jalonga does not answer the question directly, but instead embarks on a lengthy excursus on the ‘historias y antiguallas’ [histories and antiquities] of his people (IV. 330), from the mythical origins of his Ethiopian forebears, to the slaving wars, to the establishment and vicissitudes of the palenque.

53

As Landers explains in ‘Cimarrón and Citizen’, maroon communities did in fact practise agriculture and rear livestock to the extent that their itinerant nature permitted, but this is not always acknowledged in contemporary Spanish sources.



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According to this account, the first leader of the fledgling maroon settlement which inherited his name, Ballano, possessed very little in the way of properly political virtue as he embarked on a campaign of robbery and guerrilla violence: Era de formidable aspecto fiero: corpulento, feroz, basto, membrudo, de traza, talle y hábito grosero, de lenguaje bozal, de ingenio rudo; pero de esfuerzo y ánimo guerrero, tan ágil, denodado, pronto, agudo que al claro día ni a la noche obscura no estaba en parte dél cosa segura. (IV. 357) [He was of formidable and fierce appearance: stocky, ferocious, crude, muscular, coarse in looks, bearing and habit, speaking like a new arrival from Africa, with coarse understanding, but warriorlike in strength and spirit, so agile, intrepid, quick and sharp, that nothing was safe from him anywhere, in the clear day or the dark night.]

The first fugitives, compared to ‘noturnas aves […] que aman las noches y aborrecen días’ [nocturnal birds (…) who love the night and abhor the day] (IV. 359), live a snatched, shadowy, nomadic existence. Up to this point, the runaway slaves resemble the poverty and incivility of the indios de guerra of other frontiers, except that unlike them they are neither indomitable nor intratables, their freedom ever haunted by ‘el temor cobarde de cautivo’ [the cowardly fear of a captive] (V. 380). On the death of Ballano, however, the community begins to evolve. This time they elect a new king, Don Luis de Mozambique, establish a more permanent settlement, and avoid further conflict with the Spanish except for abetting marronage, the flight of other slaves. When Don Luis eventually enters the scene, he is quite unlike Lope’s caricatured figura. Grave and dignified in bearing (V. 381–82, 388), he professes to be perpetually turning over ‘el medio conveniente | a la conservación de un libre estado’ [the most fitting way to conserve a free state] in a manner befitting his kingship (V. 389). Nor is the community as a whole completely lacking in the trappings of civility. In contrast to the toneless music and lascivious dance of Oña’s Araucanians, their banquet is accompanied by the ‘bien organizados instrumentos’ [well-arranged instruments] of ‘diestros músicos gentiles’ [skilled gentile musicians] (V. 403). Their song, like that of Orpheus or the Iopas of Virgil’s Carthage, expounds the secrets of seasons, weather and celestial bodies, transfixing its listeners. In a further twist, it is the English who convert the courteous celebration into a borrachera, ‘desenfrenados’ [unrestrained] (V. 431) in their gluttony, drunkenness, boasting and lust. One imagines the reader’s surprise over the course of these cantos as

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being something akin to the unexpected transformation of Ercilla’s band of fighting savages into a proto-Venetian senado. To this already complex mix of discursive and literary traditions, Jalonga’s speech adds a further element by his definition of the maroons as ‘etïopes’, Ethiopians. Admittedly, the term is often used simply as a synonym for negro, whether to achieve a more culto lexis by epic poets such as Lope, Camões and Silvestre de Balboa in his Espejo de paciencia (1608), in a kind of selffashioning by the former slave and neo-Latin poet Juan Latino in the prologue to his Austrias carmen, or, one suspects, with more political intent in the Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval’s plea for a humane treatment of the enslaved in his De instauranda Aethiopum salute [On Restoring the Salvation of the Ethiopians] (1627). Here, though, the denomination becomes a significant part of the Africans’ characterization. Jalonga traces the origins of his people back to the union of Apollo and Andromeda (apparently the poet’s invention) as the founders of the Ethiopian Empire. Needless to say, this legend whitens and ‘de-Africanizes’ the true history of the community.54 Nevertheless, it also has the effect of conferring dignity on a continent which had, in much Renaissance epic, come to be scorned. In addition to Lope’s fleeting portrait of the bestial existence of the Africans prior to the Portuguese arrival, the reader might think of the cartographic catalogue in the Gerusalemme liberata. Here, sub-Saharan Africa is dismissed in less than a stanza: ‘Africa […] su ’l mar culta e ferace, a dentro solo | fertil di mostri e d’infeconde arene’ [Africa (…) cultivated and fertile on the coast, inland only rich in monsters and barren deserts] (XV. 17). Similarly, for Camões, Ethiopia is a ‘nome antigo’ [ancient name] (I. 43) but little more; when the Portuguese pass its coast, they find the inhabitants ‘mais humana’ [more humane] than the savages of the south, but nevertheless a simple, pastoral people (V. 63), while those of Mozambique are alleged by the Moorish newcomers to be ‘aqueles que criou | a Natura, sem Lei e sem Razão’ [those whom Nature reared, without Law and without Reason] (V. 53). With the exception of North Africa and the Moorish colony of Melinde, it seems, most of the continent suffers ‘de tudo extrema inópia’ [extreme poverty in everything] (V. 6). In place of this dismissive attitude, arguably the product of the early modern experience of colonisation and slave trafficking in maritime Africa, Miramontes looks back to the legendary precedents of Heliodorus’s Aethiopica and especially to the fantastic Ethiopia of Ariosto. In both Armas antárticas and the Orlando furioso, the kingdom, which at the source of the river Nile evokes the earthly paradise, boasts fantastic riches, extensive realms and a sophisticated culture, and in both, the Ethiopians are graced with an English 54

Jason McCloskey, ‘Noble Heirs to Apollo: Tracing African Genealogy through Ovidian Myth in Juan de Miramontes’s Armas antárticas’, in Frederick de Armas, ed., Ovid in the Age of Cervantes (Toronto, 2008), pp. 262–80 (p. 264).



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visitor. In Ariosto, the knight errant Astolfo descends from his airborne hippogriff to right the emperor’s wrongs and lead the Ethiopian army to vanquish the Moors. Admittedly, the comparison is not entirely favourable either to the cimarrones or the English. While Don Luis’s swift duping by the false promises of the English and sudden aspirations to conquest recall the hubris of Ariosto’s Ethiopian emperor Senapo, punished with blindness for attempting to scale the earthly paradise, he does not resemble the latter in Christian devotion. In contrast to many contemporary accounts of the palenque and the legendary Ethiopia of Prester John, the maroons appear at best superficially Christianised, still resorting to superstitious practice and appealing to a pagan past; the only Arabisms used in the poem refer to their march to battle. Conversely, if Ariosto’s Astolfo is sent to restore Senapo’s sight and expel the monsters that prey on his table, the English newcomers of Miramontes are more like the harpies who spoil the feast. Perverting the natural rhythm of the polity, they, like the false Apollo of Atlantic Africa, sow darkness and confusion in place of light. The most unprecedented step of the poem, though, is in putting this Africa – the Ethiopia of legend – into direct contact with the contemporary slaving wars. Jalonga dwells on the stark difference between his own people and the ‘gente | bestial, salvaje, rústica, arriscada, | bruta, caribe, bárbara, insolente, | fiera, sanguinolenta, cruel, airada’ [bestial, wild, rustic, daring, brutish, savage, barbarous, insolent, fierce, bloodthirsty, cruel, angry people] of the Atlantic seaboard (IV. 348). In the constant war between the two peoples, both end up as passengers on the Portuguese slave ships. Both types appear to be present in the cimarrón community, too. At times, as we have seen, these manifest the dignity and independence of the ancient Ethiopians. At other moments, they become again ‘zapes, angolas, biáfaras y branes’ (X. 910), the West African peoples most familiar from the slave markets of the Indies, and conduct themselves as if slavish behaviour had become a part of their nature, rowing the English ship as if they were criminals on the galleys (VI. 486), or willingly offering themselves as beasts of burden to carry the English food and equipment (VI. 416). Miramontes thereby denies the homogeneity often ascribed to the enslaved African collective. Moreover, Jalonga’s discourse on slavery strikes a distinctly critical note: Ellos, con publicar que en buena guerra, según ley militar, somos habidos, nos train de mar en mar, de tierra en tierra, cual míseros cautivos oprimidos. Al pie, como sabrás, de aquesta sierra se muestra Panamá, donde, vendidos, ponen nuestro real, libre albedrío, debajo de otro ajeno señorío.

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Aquesta servidumbre y vida amarga sujeta a padecer tormento y pena nos fuerza a procurar vida más larga como en nuestra Ethiopia, en tierra ajena, que’s dura, intolerable, grave carga collares, bragas, grillos y cadena, palos, azotes, hierros en los gestos, oprobios, vituperios y denuestos. (IV. 353–34) [They [the Portuguese], proclaiming that we are captured in a just war, according to military law, take us from sea to sea, from land to land, as wretched oppressed captives. As you will know, at the foot of this mountain range is Panama, where we are sold, and our true free will placed under the dominion of another. This servitude and bitter life subject to such torment and pain forces us to seek a longer life as in our own Ethiopia, in a foreign land, for it is a hard, intolerable, heavy burden to suffer neck collars, ropes, shackles and chain, blows, whippings, branding on our face, slanders, insults and affronts.]

While the peoples of western Africa do allegedly benefit from the Good News and civility bestowed by the Portuguese (IV. 350), it is unclear that this benefit extends to any of the slaves themselves. Without the conventional pretexts of a just war, evangelisation, humane treatment and the endowment of civil customs, the justification of African slavery is severely tested here. The fugitives’ exiled lament, with its echoes of Psalm 137, and their desire to ‘procurar vida más larga | como en nuestra Ethiopia’, appear both reasonable and sympathetic. In sum, then, the complexities surrounding the restive Araucanian and Spanish American political communities in La Araucana and Arauco domado are, in Armas antárticas, partly displaced onto that of the cimarrones. An amalgam of divergent modes of representation and unresolved contradictions, Miramontes employs disconcerting juxtapositions to question the expectations and assumptions the work engenders in relation to the black community in the Americas and their African antecedents. His palenque undergoes various stages of development. In the initial phase of Ballano’s brutal raids on the Spanish, it fails to develop as a polity; as it retreats, immured from further European influence, it emerges as a people self-governing, in possession of its own history and lore, and spontaneously cognizant of natural law; finally, it undergoes a second decline when, infected with the English desire for conquest, it turns again from defensive to offensive war. To this extent, the episode correlates with the overall treatment of conflict and expansion within the work.



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At the same time, however, the African commune is clearly an object of intrinsic interest in a way that, arguably, the contemporary Amerindian peoples of the work are not. Rather like the apparent contradictions of Oña’s Araucanians, the mixed characteristics of the maroons seem designed to reflect both the threat and the potential of this community. If their primary failing as a collective is their apostasy from the Christian faith, this in itself reflects upon the insufficient urgency accorded to the evangelisation of both slave and free populations. This constitutes the great difference, in this account, between the completed conquest of the Inca Empire and the inconclusive subjugation of the Africans. In his implicit criticism of the dehumanising treatment of slaves and the failure of evangelisation, Miramontes echoes the misgivings of many contemporary scholastics concerning the justification of slavery and the alienation of liberty (note the language of ‘free will’ and ‘dominion’ above).55 He also coincides with advocates for moderate reform to alleviate the spiritual and physical abandonment of the etïopes, such as Alonso de Sandoval, who began his missionary work among the slaves of Cartagena during the final years of the poem’s composition. If the good disposition of the cimarrones and their progressive disillusionment with their monstrous ‘wedding’ to the English looks forward to Lope’s Dragontea and the promise of their eventual incorporation into the Spanish body politic, the poem nonetheless leaves their future provocatively open. Failing the evangelical and humane impetus clearly needed to reconcile this community, the spectre of independent resistance or covert subversion continues to linger. Conclusion The attention of readers of Armas antárticas has understandably been captured primarily by the poem’s pirates, the larger-than-life robbers, explorers and would-be conquistadors who abruptly irrupt into the Antarctic space in the third canto and remain there until the conclusion. Many other strands of the poet’s meandering narrative derive something of their significance from the context of this threat. The effective marginalisation of the dangers of restive frontiers, unassimilated Amerindians and internal unrest allow the work’s urgent advocation of defence to be concentrated almost exclusively on the vulnerable Pacific coast, a lifelong preoccupation of the writer himself. What has largely failed to attract analysis is that the English and Dutch incursions fit into a much broader pattern of repetitions exploring the possibilities of conquest, and the desires which motivate it. If the poem’s starting point is the providential conquest of Peru, its ending with the starving misery of the pious settlers of the Strait plants the reader in a starkly different world.

55

See Brett, Changes of State, pp. 93–95.

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While Arauco domado follows the ‘middle way’ of Acosta and the Jesuits in promoting the smaller-scale, minimally violent, missionary-oriented entradas as a model for incorporating the stubborn remnants of Amerindian resistance into the Christian polity, Miramontes writes at a time when the American Jesuits themselves openly questioned the justification of any further offences on the frontiers. In the midst of the controversies over the guerra defensiva from Tucumán and Lima to Madrid, his poem presents a scenario in which such future conquests, whether the greed-fuelled ambitions of the English, the idealistic attempts to possess the new world of the South, or the persistent war of attrition against the indios de guerra, are manifestations of fruitless, tragic and sometimes perverse desire. For all its militaristic emphasis, there is paradoxically a moderately pacifist strain in his work. The wars which follow the conversion of the Inca Empire are clearly justified only when they are defensive, as in his view were those waged against piracy, and the poem consistently opts, with Erasmus, for improving rather than increasing the realm. Indeed, the programmatic speech of his ‘sagaz viejo’ has parallels with the theocentric pacifism emerging in certain other branches of discourse in Lima during this period, from the Christology of Diego de Hojeda’s La Christiada (1607) to the occasional expansiveness of Luis de Valdivia’s memoranda, and is a theme which merits further investigation. Nonetheless, for all its religious orthodoxy, Armas antárticas presents the field of conflict largely as a theatre in which fortune looms larger than Providence. Once devoid of the epic teleology of prophecy and prodigy, the supernatural becomes a sphere of mystery, whose influence on the course of events remains inscrutable to the human observer. As a result, the focus falls back onto the human, empirical, political community which has been at the heart of all the poems addressed in this book. While Ercilla shows a fascination with the republican community of the other, and Oña presents a viceroy-general who, for all the absolute reach of his majesty, acts in a civic capacity towards his Spanish subjects, Miramontes combines both preoccupations in his evolving portrayal of the Spanish American urban community. The image of the viceroy is more holistic than in any of his predecessors, and at the same time more limited. A static, localised figure, understood in civic rather than global or sacral terms, his constant, defensive preparation is itself portrayed as a heroic virtue, while the more conventional heroism of active strategy, military valour and ethical discipline is the property of the experienced generals and soldiery themselves. In civic as well as military affairs, if the government of the viceroyalty is regal in name, it tends to be mixed in practice. For all its focus on Lima, the society of the viceroyalty is nevertheless centrifugal and fragmented, consisting of many interconnected urban political communities. This is no longer the oligarchic republicanism which so fascinated Ercilla, but rather a constellation of polities operating informally but effectively through the prudent



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deliberations of their senior citizens. In this model, practical experience reigns supreme, and the spectre of rebellion and dissent is definitively dispelled. When these local initiatives cooperate with the necessary foresight of the central authority in Lima, the internal harmony and effective defence of the realm are secured, but this is an ideal rarely attained fully during the course of the poem. If unrest is symbolically banished from the bounds of the city, it persists, a challenge to conscience and to consciousness, in the still unintegrated alternative racial polities displaced to its ill-defined peripheries, joined to the centre by the sea over which control can never be fully established. The poem closes with both these and the corsairs temporarily at bay, but still mobile, on the shifting margins of the Antarctic world. As in La Araucana and Arauco domado, its future remains open.

Conclusion ‘The novel is the epic of a world that has been abandoned by the gods’, Georg Lukács famously writes in The Theory of the Novel.1 Lukács, and another great theorist of the modern novel, Mikhail Bakhtin, present a picture of the epic genre that has had a long afterlife in the study of both forms. For Bakhtin, the epic is set in the ‘absolute past’; its subject is based on tradition rather than personal experience, and ‘an absolute epic distance separates the epic world from contemporary reality, that is, from the time in which the singer (the author and his audience) lives’.2 The world of colonial conflicts into which the authors of this book have taken us is not, precisely, one abandoned by the gods. An isolated Marian apparition in the Araucanian assault on La Imperial in La Araucana, the demonic council and prophetic voices of Arauco domado, the prodigies and miracles which bring about the ‘era de la clemencia’ in Armas antárticas, all act as reminders of the ongoing intervention of Providence in human affairs. There are indications of a supernatural design in history, but, on the whole, the bards do not presume to inquire into it. If, for Oña, the divide between the forces of the devil and those of Christianity is stark, the cosmic schema nevertheless leaves the impression of a post-facto, somewhat decorative explanation for successes and failures already thoroughly explained by more ordinary means. For Ercilla and Miramontes, the slender threads connecting fortune, fate and Providence are largely imperceptible to the human observer. Rarely in these poems is the reader granted a ‘descent from heaven’, or a view from above, and when such a vision is granted, as on the dizzy heights over SaintQuentin, it tends to raise more questions than answers. The gaze of these works is, instead, consistently earth-bound, fixated far less on the relationship between man and God than on those between the diversity of human communities across a globe whose histories felt increasingly 1 Georg Lukács, The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, trans. by Anna Bostock (London, 1971), pp. 88. 2 Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin, TX, 1981), p. 13.

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connected. Ethics, politics, and warfare are in the poems very human creations. This gives them an open-endedness, a radical contingency, which makes the mirror-images of history the most lucid way of exploring them. Nor is this the Providential model of history often associated with writings on the Spanish Empire, but rather the humanist art and instrument of political education, an empirical testing ground on which to dramatise problematic ideas. If they are exemplary, this is less for making manifest a transcendental moral typology than for demonstrating, on pragmatic grounds, how the successes and failures of peoples act as an analogy to the present. The past is, for the most part, a recent one in these poems, and even when it is remote in time, a series of uncanny reflections on the present collapse any comfortable sense of distance. Metapoetic interventions make clear that the story might be told in many different ways; there is nothing absolute about it. Personal experience intrudes paradigmatically and unforgettably in the veteran Ercilla’s memories of the violence he witnessed at the other side of the world in his youth, and even when this personal note is more muted, as in Miramontes, there is still a sense that the authors have a stake in the ongoing conflicts. There is an urgency in their reflections on the rise and – more often – the fall of political communities despite their poetic indirectness, or perhaps more so, because of the emotional weight and vividness with which the epic invests them. Patterns of repetition have emerged insistently in this study as a means of showing how political ideas develop in this new branch of the epic tradition, and it is worth bringing together now some of the most consistent threads. The poems are, to some extent, mirrors of princes, viceroys and commanders, and, true to convention, they often frame their discussion of governance in terms of the moral virtues. These virtues are primarily assessed, however, on empirical and pragmatic grounds, in terms of their political effectiveness. For Ercilla, the delicate balance of clemency and justice culminates in the paradoxical situation of an enemy whose crimes loudly demand the latter, but in which the former is the only viable path to peace. Oña and Miramontes restore the focus to more orthodox, cardinal virtues, but put them to work in very distinctive, and surprisingly adaptable, ways. Even more striking is the evolution of the political communities represented in the three poems. Time and again, we have seen how what appear at first to be simple imitations of established motifs take an unexpected turn, setting up and then challenging the reader’s expectations about the peoples they represent. Thus, the Araucanians of the southern frontier, the island-dwellers of a third New World, and the Carthaginians of Dido become a series of paradoxical republics with parallels to the collectives at odds with Spain in Europe. Their counterparts in Arauco domado regress to the familiar tropes of barbarity, yet are also perversely courtly and pliable. The Amerindians of Miramontes divide into an intractable, but redeemable, frontier and a politic, but separate,

204

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centre, while it is instead the cimarrones who present a novel and disconcerting set of political and ethical dilemmas. Republicanism remains an important theme throughout: if this loses its distinctively humanist and Machiavellian framework in the later poetry of Lima, models of mixed governance within the urban environment are nevertheless persistently explored in relation to the república de españoles, and its consensual, viceregal head, a kind of ‘golden mean’ adapted to its setting. Almost invariably, these ideas emerge and are placed under productive strain only in response to the threat or fact of violent conflict, and however aestheticised it may be, the presence of violence is never a mere device. While the wars against piracy and rebellion or on the frontier loom large in contemporary discourse, with their diffuse battlegrounds, ill-defined parties and absent sovereigns they tend to fall between the ethical codes and prescriptions elaborated by the scholastic tradition in the first half of the sixteenth century. The imaginative strategies harnessed to explore the ethical consequences of a particular conduct in war are, therefore, an attempt to shape a response to challenges which were immediate but as yet under-articulated. While pacifism is arguably an overstatement for the pessimism towards expansive conflict often apparent in the works, these texts do challenge scholars to broaden their thinking about the possible diversity of attitudes towards warfare during this period, even within military circles. To differing extents, the poems exhibit a distinctive strain of scepticism towards imperial expansion. Such scepticism is evinced by differing means – whether a simple silence on the issue, an interlocking series of narratives of unrequited desire, or exemplary patterns of aggression and decline – but in each case, yet again, it appears to respond less to abstract conviction than to contemporary and local concerns. While Arauco domado and Armas antárticas are part of the formative years of the lettered republic of Lima, it is equally clear that they are the product of a particular historical moment. The term antártico, with its connotations of strangeness and erudition, familiarity and difference, is vital to both these poems. It aptly reflects the atmosphere of novelty, innovation and experimentation of the poetry of the turn of the century, and the civic but outward-facing vantage point of the global Peruvian metropolis. It is a term which becomes prevalent in colonial Peruvian literature from the 1590s, and which just as suddenly disappears around 1610.3 This is, as the argument has made clear, a time of literary and cultural as well as socio-political transition in the Viceroyalty, and this seems to be reflected in the relative freedom with which the authors use their form, pushing at the boundaries of the epic, and continuing an explicit dialogue with the provocative motifs of Ercilla.

3

Firbas, ‘La geografía antártica’.

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Both of them, however, also pointed uncomfortably towards the fragility of the emerging literary community. If Arauco domado was received and imitated in Spain with eagerness, its reception in the Americas in the wake of numerous lawsuits and attempts at censorship must have seemed very different. Miramontes, and many of his contemporaries in different parts of the region who engaged with similarly controversial conflicts and without influential patrons, risked missing out on publication altogether. Epic poetry continued to be composed in colonial Peru into the seventeenth and indeed eighteenth centuries, but those later productions bear the mark of a different era. Ever the careerist, Oña can serve as a barometer of the change: his El Ignacio de Cantabria [Ignatius of Cantabria] (1639), about the early life of St Ignatius of Loyola, and El Vasauro [The Golden Cup] (1635), on the reconquest of Alhama de Granada, are resolutely centred on Europe. Like Rodrigo de Carvajal y Robles’s Poema heroico del asalto y conquista de Antequera [Heroic Poem on the Siege and Conquest of Antequera] (1627), which similarly turns from colonial polemics to the era of the Reconquest with a local (in this case Andalusian) slant, these poems evade the recent history of the Viceroyalty, and the ‘cosas de guerra’ of the military revolution which Ercilla recounts with such vividness. The ways in which they, in turn, develop ideas of political community and expand the boundaries of the epic form are worthy of their own investigation: the political allegory of Tasso, for instance, is incorporated into an existing tradition of political thought in a much more systematic way than in the poems of this book, and questions of contemporary policy are by no means absent. The more the poets distance themselves from their own immediate context, however, the less there is a sense that the ongoing disputes of the reign of Philip IV are debates in which the authors continued to feel a real possibility of participation. While the authors strive towards stylistic innovations inspired in Tasso and Góngora, their poetics is less selfconsciously flexible and surprising than the eclecticism of the earlier tradition. This is not to say that the questions explored in this book simply disappeared. It may be that they took new guises: the polymetric, autobiographical narrative of Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán’s time lived among the Mapuche in his Cautiverio feliz y razón individual de las guerras dilatadas del reino de Chile [Happy Captivity and Individual Explanation of the Prolonged Wars of the Kingdom of Chile] (1673), for example, or the work of another soldier, Melchor Jufré del Águila, in his poetic dialogue on the Chilean frontier and astrology in Compendio historial del descubrimiento y conquista de Chile [Historical Compendium of the Discovery and Conquest of Chile] (1630). The Antarctic world had opened up to new models of global interaction, just as its new explorers now bypassed the suggestively narrow gateway of the Magellan Strait to brave the wide but hazardous ocean at Cape Horn.

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220 BIBLIOGRAPHY Vega, María José, ‘Idea de la épica en la España del quinientos’, in María José Vega and Lara Vilà, eds, La teoría de la épica en el siglo XVI (España, Francia, Italia y Portugal) (Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo, 2010), pp. 103–35 Vegetius Renatus, Flavius, Epitome of Military Science, ed. and trans. by N.P. Milner, 2nd edn (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996) Vélez Marquina, Elio, ‘Poemas para un Monte Claro: Discursividad política de la épica americana del siglo XVII’, in Firbas, ed., Épica y colonia, pp. 287–308 Viala, Alain, and Paula Wissing, ‘Prismatic Effects’, Critical Enquiry, 14.3 (1988), 563–73 Vida, Marco Girolamo, The De Arte Poetica of Marco Girolamo Vida, ed. and trans. by Ralph G. Williams (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976) Virgil, P Vergilii Maronis Opera, ed. by R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) Vitoria, Francisco de, Political Writings, ed. and trans. by Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Vivar, Gerónimo de, ‘Crónica de los reinos de Chile’, ed. by Ángel Barral Gómez, Historia, 16 (Madrid, 1988) Warren, Christopher N., Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580–1680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) Williams, Deanne, ‘Dido, Queen of England’, English Literary History, 73.1 (2006), 31–59 Wright, Elizabeth, Pilgrimage to Patronage: Lope de Vega and the Court of Philip III, 1598–1621 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2001) Zambrano, María, Filosofía y poesía (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1987) Zapata, Luis, Carlo famoso (Valencia: Ioan Mey, 1566) Zapater, Horacio, La búsqueda de la paz en la guerra de Arauco: Padre Luis de Valdivia (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Andrés Bello, 1992) Zavala Cepeda, José Manuel, and Tom D. Dillehay, ‘El “Estado de Arauco” frente a la conquista española: Estructuración sociopolítica y ritual de los araucanomapuches en los valles nahuelbutanos durante los siglos XVI y XVII’, Revista de Antropología Chilena, 42.2 (2010), 433–50

INDEX Abencerraje, El  14 Academia Antártica  34–36, 100–01, 149, 159 Acosta, José de De procuranda Indorum salute  103, 108–09, 110–11, 131, 134 Historia natural y moral  110, 186 n.42 Actium, Battle of  78 Adorno, Rolena  16 Africa  89, 175–76, 178, 192–94, 196–98 see also Ethiopia Aguirre, Francisco de  129 Aguirre, Lope de  44 Alba, Duke of, see Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, Fernando Alcazarquivir, Battle of  90–91 alcohol abuse, see drunkenness Alexander the Great (king of Macedon)  181 Almagro, Diego de  56 allegory  10, 76, 91, 186 allusion  3, 6–7, 18, 78, 94, 104 Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, Fernando (3rd Duke of Alba)  57, 77, 92 Amerindians, see Indigenous peoples of the Americas Ancud  79, 88–90 Angol  97, 101–02 Antonelli, Battista  191–92 Antwerp  77 Apollo  140–41, 160, 196, 197 Aquinas, Thomas, Saint  46, 47, 128 see also Ptolemy of Lucca Aragon  49 Arana, Pedro Diego de  136–39, 147 Araucanians, see Mapuche Arauco  11, 40–41, 51–55, 67–70, 73–76, 79–87, 103, 104–11, 124–25, 152–54 see also Chile arches, triumphal  141 n.52, 186–87

Arias de Saavedra, Diego, Purén indómito  20, 150 Arica (Chile)  148, 149, 158 Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando furioso  5–6, 11, 92, 196–97 see also romanzi Aristotle  128–29, 134 Poetics  5 n.7, 16–17, 102 Politics  23, 24–25, 27, 46, 47, 59 Armada del Mar del Sur  33, 148, 164–65 astrology  49, 54–55, 106, 205 Atahualpa (Inca emperor)  146, 157–58, 178 Athens  49 Audiencias  33–34, 100, 133, 135 Augustus, see Octavian Ava Guaraní  29, 156–57 Ávila, Esteban de  98 Bakhtin, Mikhail  202 Balaguer de Salcedo, Pedro, Relación de lo que hizo don Beltrán de Castro […]  98, 132, 141 Balboa, Silvestre de, Espejo de paciencia  196 ballads  11, 59 n.41, 114 Ballano (maroon king)  195, 198 Barco Centenera, Martín del, Argentina y conquista del Río de la Plata  20, 158, 163, 177, 192 Barros de San Millán, Manuel  135 Bayano (maroon king)  195, 198 Beltraneja  132–33, 163, 167 Bembo, Pietro  47 Biobío, River  3, 67, 123, 155 Biondo, Flavio  47 Black people  31–32, 107, 192–94, 199 see also Africa; Ethiopia; maroons; slavery, African Blanco, Mercedes  11, 114, 174, 189 body politic, see political community

222

INDEX

Boiardo, Matteo Maria, Orlando Innamorato  5–6 see also romanzi Bologna  28 Botero, Giovanni  30 Bouwsma, William  46 Bowser, Frederick  192 Brazil  177 Brett, Annabel  23–24 bucolic, see pastoral literature; romance, pastoral Cabello de Balboa, Miguel, Miscelánea antártica  159, 161 cabildos  34, 99, 133, 187 Cacho, Rodrigo  35 Caesar, Julius  13, 58, 78, 139–40 Cajamarca, Battle of  157 Callao  31, 98, 131, 164–65, 169, 172–73 Calvete de Estrella, Juan Cristóbal  14 n.31 Camões, Luis de, Os Lusíadas  9–10, 11, 13, 149, 174–76, 179, 181, 186 n.42, 196 Cañeque, Alejandro  30 cannibalism  26, 60, 105, 174, 177 capital punishment, see death penalty Caro de Torres, Francisco, Relación de los servicios […]  77–78, 191 Cartagena de Indias  147 n.1, 199 Carthage  87–88, 181, 195 cartography  40, 41, 76, 150, 174 Carvajal y Robles, Rodrigo de, Poema heroico del asalto y conquista de Antequera  205 Castellanos, Juan de, Discurso del capitán Francisco Draque  158, 163 Castrillo, Alonso de, Tractado de república  47 Castro y de la Cueva, Beltrán de  98, 132–33, 142 Caupolicán (Mapuche toqui)  50–51, 57, 60, 79, 81–87, 105, 109–10, 123, 128 Cavendish, Thomas, Sir  146, 147, 148, 158, 166, 167, 170, 178 censorship  12–13, 36–37, 45, 80, 99, 133, 158, 205 Cervantes, Miguel de  1, 35 Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor, king of Spain)  24, 42, 185 Charlemagne  5, 14 Chichimecas  156

Chile  3, 28–29, 40, 56, 88–90, 150–51, 152–56, 205 see also Arauco Chiloé  155 China  110, 172 Chiriguanos, 29, 156–57 chronicles of Americas  2, 4, 12–13, 16, 78, 159–60 Church Councils  33, 103 Cicero  46, 169 cimarrones, see maroons City of the Caesars  172 clemency, see under virtues Colegio Real de San Felipe y San Marcos  97, 100 colonial governance  30, 32, 33–34, 80–81, 108–09, 110–11, 122–31, 144, 158 see also viceregal power Columbus, Christopher  187 comedia, see theatre commerce  29, 30–31, 155, 176 Comuneros, Revolt of  46, 47 Concepción (city in Chile)  59, 61, 67, 70–71 conquest, see under war Conquista del Perú, see Relación de la conquista […] contact zone  17 Contarini, Gasparo  60 De magistratibus et republica Venetorum  46–47, 51 Copernicus, Nicolaus  141 corsairs, see piracy Cortés, Hernán  52, 171 Cortés, Martín  66 cosmography  14, 147–48 Council of the Indies  12, 133 creoles  20, 97, 99, 101–02, 137 crónicas de Indias, see chronicles of Americas criollos, see creoles crusade, see under war Cummins, Tom  29 Curalaba, Battle of  103, 121, 152–55 Cuzco  32, 160–61 dance  105–06, 109, 186 Dávalos y Figueroa, Diego, Miscelánea Austral  119–20 Dávila, Pedro Arias  171, 187 Davis, Elizabeth  63



INDEX

death penalty  82–83, 86–87, 126, 157, 167 devil  48, 106, 108, 158, 160, 169, 174, 177–78, 181, 202 Díaz Blanco, José Manuel  156–57 Dido (queen of Carthage)  79, 87–88, 128 diplomacy  45, 47, 64–65, 67–68, 73, 77–78, 193 ‘Discurso en loor de la poesía’  34 Dominicans, see under religious orders Donato, Leonardo  47 Drake, Francis, Sir  33, 125, 146–47, 148, 150, 152–53, 163–68, 169–71, 174, 175, 178, 179, 183, 191–92, 193 drunkenness  48, 60, 104–06, 108–09, 110 n.18, 120 n.30, 136–37, 160, 174, 195 duels  68, 81, 82 Dutch Empire  155, 172 Dutch republic, see Flanders Eighty Years’ War, see Flanders ekphrasis  126, 160–61, 184, 185–88 Elcano, Juan Sebastián  175 Elizabeth I (queen of England)  89, 146, 150 emblems  73, 126, 130, 186 empire  20–21, 24–25 Dutch  155, 172 expansion of  4, 21, 24–25, 54–55, 60–64, 90, 93–94, 172–80, 204 Portuguese  9–10, 174, 177 Spanish  1, 3–4, 24–25, 29, 33–34, 51–52, 64–65, 68–69, 78–79, 94, 143, 151, 172–73, 203–04 see also Inca Empire, Ottoman Empire encomienda  51, 64, 120, 129, 144, 155 England  45, 80, 150, 156 Enzinas, Francisco de  87–88 epic poetry  1–13, 20–21 and the divine  9, 178–80, 200, 202–03 épica culta  2–3 ‘gunpowder epics’ 8–9, 44, 53 and history  13–17, 41, 202–03 Iberian Renaissance  2–3, 5–13, 19–20, 35–36 and political thought  4–11, 17, 20–21 in print market  5 n.7, 11–13, 36 readership of  6, 13, 36, 42, 114 Erasmus of Rotterdam, Desiderius  15, 46, 71, 106 n.12, 134 n.45, 181–82, 200

223

Ercilla, Alonso de  27–28, 37, 44–45, 79, 94–95 La Araucana  1, 5, 8–9, 11, 13–14, 16, 17–18, 21, 39–95, 96–97, 101, 103, 104–08, 110, 111–12, 114–15, 121, 122–23, 137, 138, 143, 150, 157, 159–60, 166, 174, 181–82, 183, 184, 187, 189, 202–03 editorial history of  41–45, 68, 79 Ercilla, Fortún García de  27–28, 81, 91 eroticism  102, 105–06, 174–75, 194 Escobar, Bartolomé de  97–98 see also Mariño de Lobera, Pedro, Crónica del reino de Chile Escorial, San Lorenzo del  69, 72 espionage  67, 82, 84 Ethiopia  14, 192–93, 194, 196–98 ethnography  10, 12 evangelisation  26, 27, 59, 73, 86, 103, 108–09, 110–11, 131, 157–58, 173, 176–80, 199 Farnese, Alexander (Duke of Parma)  78 Firbas, Paul  147, 149, 151 Flaccus, Gaius Valerius, Argonautica  149 Flanders  11, 45, 57, 66–67, 73, 76–79, 134, 156 Flores de Valdés, Diego  178 fortune  58, 67, 76, 82, 86, 90–91, 104, 123, 125–26, 146, 167, 179, 200, 202 Fox Morcillo, Sebastián, De regno, regisque institutione  46, 72 France  65–66, 77, 156, 177 Franciscans, see under religious orders Frías Trejo, Diego de  168 frontier  3–4, 156 Fuchs, Barbara  51 Furió Ceriol, Fadrique El concejo y consejeros del príncipe  15–16, 49 Remedios  77 Galperin, Karina  89 Gama, Vasco da  9, 174–76, 181 Garibay, Esteban de  42 Germany  45, 49 Gil, Xavier  47 Giustiniani, Bernardo  47 Giustiniani, Pancrazio  47 globalization  3–4, 16, 30–34, 202, 205 Golden Age (mythological period)  100, 116, 181, 194

224

INDEX

golden mean  19, 128–31, 136–37, 144, 204 Gómez Canseco, Luis  91 Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, Francisco, Duke of Lerma  156–57 Góngora, Luis de  1, 205 Góngora Marmolejo, Alonso de  14 n.31 González de León, Fernando  57 González de San Nicolás, Fray Gil  28, 44, 60 governance, see under political community; see colonial governance guerra defensiva  155–57, 162, 200 Guibovich, Pedro  133 Hakluyt, Richard  149 Hannibal  82, 88 Hawkins, Richard  98, 131–33, 141–42, 170 n.30, 173 Heliodorus, Aethiopica  14, 196 Hercules  139 heresy  74, 78, 90, 136–37, 155, 162, 164, 171, 179 Hernández, Tomé  158 n.17, 170, 178 Hernández Girón, Francisco  44, 60 Herrera, Fernando de  91, 102, 123, 141 historiography  13–17, 36, 203 see also chronicles of Americas; epic poetry and history Hojeda, Diego de  100 La Christiada  20, 200 Homer  3 Iliad  126, 139, 183, 189 Odyssey  93, 124, 139 Horace Ars Poetica  20 Odes  100 humanism  2, 7, 11, 15–16, 23–24, 30, 42, 94 human sacrifice  26, 106, 156, 160, 174 Hurtado de Mendoza, Andrés, Marquis of Cañete (viceroy of Peru)  60, 65, 80–81, 90–91, 104, 136 Hurtado de Mendoza, García, Marquis of Cañete (viceroy of Peru)  19, 28, 37, 67, 78, 90–91, 95, 97–99, 100, 103, 104, 113, 120–21, 122–32, 133–37, 139–41, 142–44, 149, 173, 183, 184 Iberian Union  9

see also Portugal, Portuguese crisis of succession Icarus  129–30 idolatry  90, 106, 116, 158, 160 Ignatius of Loyola, Saint  205 imitation  7, 41, 78, 100, 149 Inca Empire  25, 56, 64, 146, 147, 157–58, 159–62, 185–86 India  9, 174, 186 n.42 Indigenous peoples of the Americas  10–11, 16, 26, 29–30, 32, 34, 52, 53, 74, 88–90, 103, 105–06, 107, 108–09, 110–11, 119–20, 125, 137–38, 144, 150, 151, 155, 157–62, 172, 180, 185 Ava Guaraní/Chiriguanos  29, 156–57 Sinú  156 Zacatecos/Chichimecas  156 see also Mapuche; political community, Amerindian Inquisition  12, 42, 80 intellectual history  2, 17 Ireton, Chloe  192 ius gentium, see law of nations Jaén de Bracamoros  97 Jerusalem  9–10, 108 Jesuits, see under religious orders John of Austria  76, 123 Jones, Nicholas  192–93 Jufré del Águila, Melchor  205 Jupiter  90, 186 Kamen, Henry  66, 69 kingship  21, 71–73, 140, 184–85 Kinsbruner, Jay  34 La Imperial  59, 81, 90 Landers, Jane  191 Las Casas, Bartolomé de  25–26, 28, 75 Apologética historia sumaria  49, 55, 86, 110 Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias  59 Lasso de Oropesa, Martín  13 Latasa Vasallo, Pilar  150 Latino, Juan, Austrias carmen  196 Lautaro (Mapuche toquí)  55–65, 83–84, 114, 117–18, 121, 123, 133, 153 Lavallé, Bernard  133 law of nations  50, 89, 91, 176, 181 Lawrence, Saint  72



INDEX

Lepanto, Battle of  16 n.38, 69, 76, 78, 91, 123, 141 Lerma, Duke of, see Gómez de Sandoval, Francisco Lerzundi, Patricio  114 Lima  18, 21, 29–35, 44, 65, 97–98, 99–100, 103–04, 106, 125, 131–34, 136, 138, 141–43, 147–52, 155–56, 163, 165–66, 167, 170 n.30, 172–73, 180–82, 186, 187–88, 200, 204–05 Lisbon  30, 92 literacy  29–30 litigation  33–34, 99, 133, 205 Livy  15, 55, 87 love stories  113–20, 147, 159–62, 170 Lucan, De Bello Civili  3, 13, 50, 58, 78, 82, 84, 139–40, 149, 167 Luis de Mozambique (maroon king)  193–94, 194, 195, 197 Lukács, Georg  202 lyric poetry  40–41, 100, 101, 114 Machiavelli, Niccoló  15–16, 24, 42–43, 47, 54, 58, 63, 65, 80, 87–88, 93–94, 113, 123, 126 Arte della guerra  24, 42–43, 50, 52–53, 72 Discorsi  24, 42, 48, 54–55, 60, 63, 68, 75, 89 Istorie fiorentine  43 Il principe  24, 43, 54, 55, 75, 86–87 Madrid  17, 32, 33, 44, 77, 172 Magellan, Ferdinand  146–47, 166, 174–76 Magellan Strait  79, 147, 152, 156, 166, 167, 170, 176–80, 185, 199, 205 Mapuche people  11, 28, 39–41, 47–53, 56–65, 67–68, 74–75, 81–86, 97, 104–14, 118–19, 152, 154–55, 205 Mapudungun  102 Marcocci, Giuseppe  16, 17 Mariana, Juan de, De rege et regis institutione  72 Mariño de Lobera, Pedro, Crónica del reino de Chile  97–98, 126 maroons  4, 19, 147, 150, 152, 170–71, 178, 183–84, 188–99 Marrero-Fente, Raúl  19–20 Mars  54–55, 139, 146 Martínez, Miguel  8 Mary, Saint (Virgin Mary)  59, 118, 202 Mary I (queen of England)  45

225

Mazzocchi, Giuseppe  181 Mazzotti, José Antonio  159 McCloskey, Jason  169 Mena, Juan de, Laberinto de fortuna  76 Mendaña y Neira, Álvaro de  172–73 Mendoza y Luna, Juan de, 3rd Marquis of Montesclaros (viceroy of Peru)  20, 37, 149, 154, 156–57, 164–65, 172, 182 mestizos  31, 120, 137, 158, 159 Mexía de Fernangil, Diego, Primera parte del Parnaso Antártico  34–35 Mexico City  32m migration  18, 32–33, 192 military revolution  2, 57, 68, 189, 205 see also war Miramontes Zuázola, Juan de  12, 13–14, 148–49, 165 Armas antárticas  1, 9, 37, 146–201, 202–05 mirror  3, 6, 10–11, 16, 64–65, 78, 93, 149, 203 mirror of princes  15, 19, 21, 24, 38, 143, 203 Mocenigo, Andrea  47, 63 Mogrovejo, Toribio Alfonso de, Saint (archbishop of Lima)  98 Moluccas  172, 175 Montesclaros, Marquis of, see Mendoza y Luna, Juan de Moors  164, 181, 192, 196, 197 see also Moriscos; romance, Moorish Mor, Anthony de  72 Moriscos  65, 76, 192 Muñiz de Molina, Pedro  99, 120, 133 Murrin, Michael  8 music  106, 160, 186, 195 mutiny  21, 175, 184, 190 mythology, classical  160, 186, 196 naval warfare, see under war narrator  1, 5–6, 14, 55–56, 68, 148–49 natural law  2, 23–24, 26, 89, 198 see also scholasticism Neo-Platonism  36, 160 Nero  59 New Laws (1542)  185 New Spain, Viceroyalty of  66, 156, 172, 182 Nile, River  196 Noort, Olivier van  148 see also piracy, Dutch

226

INDEX

Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, Cautiverio feliz […]  205 Núñez Vela, Blasco (viceroy of Peru)  185 Octavian (Emperor Augustus)  78, 100 Ollantay  159 Oña, Gregorio de  97 Oña, Pedro de  96–100 Arauco domado  1, 9, 13, 18, 19, 36–37, 96–145, 150, 164, 174, 182, 183, 184, 202–05 El Ignacio de Cantabria  205 El Vasauro  205 Oñez de Loyola, Martín García  154 oratory (public speaking)  50, 73–75, 111–12, 180–82 Orpheus  195 Ortega Valencia, Pedro de  168 Osorio, Alejandra  30, 33, 186 Otevanti, Juan Lorenzo  42 Ottoman Empire  66, 76–77, 80, 89 Ovalle, Alonso de, Histórica relación del reyno de Chile  118 Oxenham, John  147, 156, 167–72, 178, 183, 189, 194 Oxnam, John, see Oxenham, John Ovid  3, 12, 116, 117 Heroides  34 Ibis  34 Metamorphoses  129–30, 189 Pachacamac  32 Pacific, Ocean  4, 32–33, 147–48, 172–73 pacifism  181–82, 200, 204 Padrón, Ricardo  88 Panama (region)  31, 44, 125, 147, 168–69, 183, 189–99 papacy  26 n.9, 175, 185 paratexts  41–42, 67, 69, 96–102, 162–63 Parma, Duke of, see Farnese, Alexander Pastor, Beatriz  90 pastoral literature  40, 101, 113–15, 118, 159, 160–61 see also romance, pastoral patronage  12, 37, 97–99, 149, 161, 187, 188, 205 Paul, St (Apostle)  46 peace  21, 29, 61, 72–73, 75, 78, 87, 92, 108, 142, 146, 156, 173 Pearl Islands  167, 169, 189 Petrarchism  36, 117, 160

Phaethon  129–30 Philip II (king of Spain)  9, 12, 27, 42, 44–45, 51, 57, 65–67, 69–73, 76–79, 91–92, 157, 177, 191 Philip III (king of Spain)  21, 32, 156–57, 173 Philip IV (king of Spain)  205 Philippines  172, 173, 174–76, 178, 180, 183 piracy  4, 19, 33, 98, 131–33, 141–43, 147–49, 150, 155, 158–59, 162–72, 173, 182, 194, 199 Dutch  148, 155, 169 Mediterranean  164 see also Cavendish, Thomas; Drake, Francis; Hawkins, Richard; Noort, Olivier van; Oxenham, John Pizarro, Francisco  32, 146, 157, 187 poisoning  50, 87, 89, 175 Poland  49 political community  2–4, 10, 21, 23–27, 38, 81, 93–94, 144, 183–84, 188, 190–96, 198–99, 200–01, 202–05 Amerindian  4, 16, 26–27, 40–41, 75–76, 105, 110–11, 160–62 formation of  2, 16, 47–48, 59 forms of governance  2, 23–25, 46–51 Polybius  46 Pompey  13, 82, 139–40 Portugal  9, 45 Portuguese crisis of succession  79, 90–92 see also empire, Portuguese Potosí  31, 148, 182 prisoners of war  75, 157, 190–91 prophets and prophecy  10, 6, 68–69, 75, 101, 112–13, 118–19, 135, 153–54, 161, 174, 178, 184, 187, 200 Providence  58–59, 72, 76, 83, 123, 146, 177–80, 200, 202 Psalms  198 Ptolemy of Lucca  47, 49, 52, 54, 134 Puente Luna, José Carlos de la  33 Puigdomènech, Helen  43 Quechua  29, 102, 159 Queirós, Pedro Fernandes de  172–73, 176 Quint, David  64, 83, 112 Quito  158 economic unrest of 1592–93 (alcabalas)  98, 120, 131, 133–41



INDEX

Rabone, Rich  129–30 Rama, Ángel  29 rape  62, 118, 153, 170, 186 Rappaport, Joanne  29–30 rebellion  2, 16, 21, 29, 44, 55, 60, 65–67, 74, 76–79, 133, 134–35, 137–41, 182–84 see also Comuneros, Revolt of; Curalaba, Battle of; Flanders; Quito, economic unrest of 1592–93 Reconquest  205 relación  40–41, 98 Relación de la conquista y descubrimiento que hizo el Marqués don Francisco Pizarro […]  5 n.7 Relaño, Francesc  192 religious orders  134 Dominicans  25–26, 28 see also Hojeda, Diego de; Las Casas, Bartolomé de Franciscans  28, 169 Jesuits (Society of Jesus),   31, 42, 72, 98, 110–11, 133–34, 144, 200 see also Acosta, José de; Escobar, Bartolomé de; Ovalle, Alonso de; Sandoval, Alonso de; Valdivia, Luis de Trinitarians  47 republic, see political community republicanism  11, 24, 43, 46–51, 54–55, 61, 63, 75–76, 78, 88–90, 93–94, 140, 143, 200–01, 204 Requerimiento (1513)  157 Ribera y Zambrano, Alonso de  157 Ricardo, Antonio  98–99 Román y Zamora, Jerónimo de, Repúblicas del mundo  25, 47, 48 romance Byzantine/Greek  14, 196 chivalric  14, 117 Moorish  14, 159 pastoral  118, 159 romances  11, 59 n.41, 114 romanzi  5–6, 8–9, 10, 11–12, 41, 101 see also Ariosto, Ludovico Rome, ancient  24, 25, 26, 49, 51, 53, 54–55, 59, 76, 88, 193 Ronconcholon  189–91 Rosas de Oquendo, Mateo, Sátira a las cosas que pasan en el Pirú, año de 1598  163

227

see also Beltraneja Rosales, Diego de, Historia general del reino de Chile  78 Rudolf II (Holy Roman Emperor)  41–42 Rufo, Juan, La Austríada  123 Sabellico, Marcantonio  47 Saint-Quentin, Battle of  69–73, 77, 78–79 Sandoval, Alonso de  196, 199 Santiago, Order of  45 Santiago de Chile  60–61, 124, 154–55 Santiago del Príncipe  191–92 Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro  147, 156, 176–79 Historia índica  159 satire  132–33, 163 scholasticism  7, 23–24, 72, 133–34, 169, 181–82, 199, 204 see also law of nations; natural law Schott, André  42 Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius  181 Sebastian (king of Portugal)  91 Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de  25–28, 52, 59–60 Silius Italicus, Punica  189 Sinú (people)  156 Skinner, Quentin  17 slavery  24 African  4, 29, 31, 148, 155, 190–91, 192–93, 196, 197–99 of Indigenous peoples  26 n.9, 29, 155 natural slaves  25–27 of prisoners of war  74, 155 soldiers  4, 8–9, 27–28, 121, 126–27, 137, 142–43, 165, 183, 187–88 auxiliaries  55, 63, 65, 107 citizen militia  52–54, 63, 143, 159, 190 desertion of  84, 120–21, 126 mercenaries  61–62, 71, 79 Spanish tercios  53, 57 see also mutiny; prisoners of war; war Solomon Islands  33, 172–73 Soto, Domingo de  25 Sotomayor, Alonso de  77–78, 124–25 Spanish Armada  45, 79, 89 Sparta  54 speeches, see oratory Spiegel, Gabrielle  17 spies  67, 82, 84 Statius, Thebaid  3, 189

228

INDEX

Stoicism  129, 139, 167 storms at sea  65, 76, 81, 125–26, 179 suicide  75–76, 83, 88 Swiss Confederacy  49 Tacitus Agricola  49 Germania  49, 55 Tasso, Torquato  205 Allegoria  10, 205 Discorsi del poema eroico  10, 80, 90, 92, 102 Gerusalemme liberata  9–10, 11, 13, 80, 89, 91, 108, 110, 114, 149, 189, 196 Tauro Uriarte, Alberto  159 Terence  11 Terra Australis  32–33, 172–73, 176 theatre  11, 80, 159, 179 see also tragedy Thompson, I.A.A.  25 Toledo, Francisco de (viceroy of Peru)  31, 142–43, 159 Tordesillas, Treaty of  175 Torres, Luis Vaz de  172–73 tragedy  41, 63, 80, 87, 116, 177, 181 translation  9 n.17, 11, 13, 24, 34, 42–43, 46–47, 87, 93 n.83, 149, 161 n.21, 191 travel writing  41, 47 Trinitarians  47 triumphal arches  141 n.52, 186–87 Troy  59, 83, 181, 189 Tucumán (region)  29, 157 Túpac Amaru (Sapa Inca of Neo-Inca State)  159 University of San Marcos  33, 97, 133–34 Valdivia, Luis de  155, 200 Valdivia, Pedro de  55–56, 59, 61, 67, 75, 80–81, 86, 123 Valladolid, Debate of  25–27 Valparaíso (Chile)  152 Vanuatu  33, 172 Vega, Garcilaso de la  40, 44, 102, 130 n.41 Vega, Inca Garcilaso de la  161 Vega, Lope de  1, 35 La Dragontea  12 n.25, 164, 167, 171, 179, 191, 193–94, 196, 199 Vegetius Renatus, Flavius, De re militari  52–53

Velasco, Luis de, 1st Marquis of Salinas del Río Pisuerga (viceroy of Peru)  149, 156 Venice  25, 46–51, 54, 60, 63, 68, 88–89 viceregal power  21, 37–38, 94, 103, 122, 131, 140–41, 143–44, 149, 151, 173, 182, 184–88, 200 vicereines  132 Vida, Marco Girolamo, De arte poetica  21, 102 Vienna  44 Vilcabamba  66, 159–61, 178, 185–86 Villagrá, Francisco de  58, 129 Villagrá, Pedro de  56, 63 Villela y Olobarrieta, Juan de  155 violence  53–54, 71–72, 83, 107–08, 154, 157, 204 Virgil  3, 7, 100, 101 Aeneid  7, 10, 13, 59, 83, 87–88, 110, 117, 126, 139, 149, 178, 189, 195 virtues  37, 51, 73, 94, 122, 138–39, 142, 144, 146, 167, 185–87, 203 cardinal  122, 128–29, 185 clemency  72–74, 77, 84–87, 94, 127–29, 162, 169–70, 189–91 political  15, 51, 56 visual arts  70, 100, 121–22 see also ekphrasis Vitoria, Francisco de  27–28, 46, 59–60, 72, 74, 79, 86–87, 89, 91, 93–94 Vivar, Gerónimo de  14 n.31, 50, 59 war art of  52–53, 56–57, 67–68, 122–23, 162 atrocities  59–60, 71–75, 86, 153–54 cavalry  53, 154, 157 civil  21, 50, 68, 71, 78, 92, 133, 136, 146, 160–61, 180–81 colonial  3–4, 21–22, 28, 55–65, 67–68, 73–76, 81–86, 97, 106–08, 123–28, 146, 150–51, 152–57, 172, 189–91 of conquest  2, 25–28, 55–56, 64–65, 90, 146, 157–58, 171–72, 178, 180 crusade/holy war  9, 90–91, 185 defensive  89, 182 see also guerra defensiva Just War Theory/ethics of war  2, 4, 8–9, 27–28, 35, 50, 58–62, 71–75, 79, 91–92, 93–94, 109–11,



INDEX

122–23, 146, 154, 169–72, 176, 180–82, 183, 189–91 naval  76, 78, 98, 131–33, 141–43, 164–69, 173 see also Armada del Mar del Sur siege warfare  53, 56–57, 69–73, 77, 168–69 see also military revolution; mutiny; piracy; prisoners of war; soldiers; rebellion

229

women writers  34–35 yanaconas  84, 137 Zacatecos  156 Zambrano, María, Filosofía y poesía  1, 4 Zapata, Luis, Carlo Famoso  48 n.23 Zúñiga, Juan de  66 Zúñiga Acevedo, Gáspar de, 5th Count of Monterrey (viceroy of Peru)  156