Don Quixote: Grisóstomo's Song Poem Analysis
During the first quarter in The Quarterly Book Club, we read The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha parts one and two by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and there is so much to unpack with this book. There's plenty of poetry inside the story, but for this poem analysis, we are exploring Grisóstomo's Song; it's a poem about rejection and how that affects the ego.
About the Author:
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra lived from 1547 to 1616; he was a storyteller, soldier, captive, slave, and criminal. Cervantes was initially a flop and suffered throughout his life upon mostly bad luck, which you can equate to his famous character Sancho Panza in his revered piece, “Don Quixote.” The book was released into two parts and was published in 1605 when he was fifty-eight. Cervantes explored will, stories, life, chivalry, and humility through his epic character Don Quixote. Cervantes is still admired by many for this masterful piece.
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For Context
Let me present a brief backstory...
This song is Grisóstomo suicide note; he killed himself because of a woman's rejection.
Grisóstomo wanted it read to the people, including the beautiful woman who rejected him, Marcela. So the townspeople and other passersby's, including Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, gathered around his funeral listening to the tragedy.
The full poem is at the bottom of this post!
Grisóstomo's Song Poem Analysis
Rejection
Initially, Grisóstomo fumed with hatred and anger towards Marcela because she refused to be with him.
He wrote,
So give me your attention: listen now
Not to harmonious sounds, but to the row
That from my bosom’s depths in desolation,
Stirred up by bitter frenzy without measure,
Flows for my pleasure and for your vexation.
Grisóstomo's Song, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
While Grisóstomo lived, Marcela wouldn’t adhere to his requests and demands for love. So once the people heard the blasphemous remarks against her, Marcela appeared to advocate for her defense. She told everyone why his love was shallow and one-sided, born out of infatuation and selfishness.
Marcela said,
“‘Some beauties delight the eye but don’t captivate the heart; just as well, because if all beauty did inspire love and conquer hearts, people’s affections would be forever wandering this way and that without knowing where to come to rest - there’s an infinite number of beautiful people, so the affections would be infinite, too.’”
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Driven by his human desire, Grisóstomo misplaced infatuation for love. Marcela wanted a marriage to withstand beauty's temporary nature; she had many suitors like Grisóstomo, so what made him different from the rest? Since her uncle permitted marriage at will (which was liberal considering that time period), she chose not to marry - at least not to anyone she encountered.
Marcella felt attacked by Grisóstomo’s suicide because he portrayed her as a villain. Her beauty captivated many suitors; it became a plague.
Ego vs Love
Torn between his feelings of disdain and jealousy for Marcela, as the poem progressed, Grisóstomo's words grew callous. His language spat like fireballs - destructive and deadly.
He wrote,
“The roaring of the lion; and the raging
Howl of the vicious wolf; the scaly, craven
Snake’s dreadful hissing; and the awful groan
Of some horrendous monster; …”
Grisóstomo's Song, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Grisóstomo assumed Marcela would [finally] hear his words. He believed he claimed the final victory by vilifying her through his death.
His ego pushed him to suicide; he was ashamed and humiliated by her rejection. Had she agreed to be his wife - Grisóstomo would be alive, so it’s her fault he killed himself.
His words influenced the people, and they grew furious by Marcela's actions towards Grisóstomo. They believed she was egotistical and prideful because of her beauty, so Marcela appeared at his funeral, demanding they listen to her side of the story.
Reflections:
Ultimately Grisóstomo wanted to be loved; he believed that since Marcela didn’t love him - he was unlovable. As humans, we crave love - we need it. But there was a prideful, selfish, and egotistical side to his affection living inside of him; he wanted her to regret refusing him by killing himself.
Despite his chosen fate, I noticed a shift in Grisóstomo's tone and reflection on the situation as the song concluded. He believed in love again and accepted that it was worth the pain.
Grisóstomo's Song is a cautionary tale regarding infatuation.
There is no foundation in romance when it's based on one feeling: beauty. For Grisóstomo, his affection for Marcela fell easily defeated because it wasn't deep, and he didn't actually love her as a person. To assemble love, you need honesty, joy, sadness, sexuality, anger, peace, laughter, and trust to flourish and sustain two people.
Grisóstomo's Song
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Since you would have me publish, cruel maid,
From tongue to tongue, in this and every nation,
The news of your implacable disdain,
I’ll call on hell itself to come and aid
My grieving breast with howls of lamentation,
And bend and break my voice with grief and pain,
And as I strive and labour to explain
My sorrow and your cold and heartless deed,
Forth shall the terrifying clamour stream,
And in it fragments of my bowels shall teem
To make my torture exquisite indeed.
So give me your attention: listen now
Not to harmonious sounds, but to the row
That from my bosom’s depths in desolation,
Stirred up by bitter frenzy without measure,
Flows for my pleasure and for your vexation.
The roaring of the lion; and the raging
Howl of the vicious wolf; the scaly, craven
Snake’s dreadful hissing; and the awful groan
Of some horrendous monster; the presaging
And cautionary croaking of the raven;
Across the tossing sea the gale’s wild moan;
The furious bellow of the overthrown
And wounded bull; the pitiful lament
Made by the widowed dove; the dreary whine
Of the much-envied owl: let all combine
With shrieks from the infernal regiment
To clamour forth from my tormented soul,
So mingling in one vast, tumultuous whole
That all the senses are needed to declare
This deep despair by which my heart’s devoured.
The doleful echoes of such great confusion
Shall not resound on Father Tagus’ banks
Or famous Betis’ olive groves: for I
Shall spread my miseries in sad profusion
In mountains’ deepest caves and steepest flanks,
With a dead tongue yet with a living cry;
Or in some hidden vale, or on the shy
Shores that from human dealings still abstain,
Or where the fiery globe was never seen,
Or where vast hordes of noxious creatures glea
Their baneful living from the Libyan plain;
For though, unto the barren wilderness,
Uncertain echoes of my heart’s distress
Take word of your unequalled cruelty,
They shall, by favour of my wretched fate
Reverberate all over land and sea.
Disdain is death; suspicion, false or sound,
Defeats the patience of the firmest mind;
Base jealousy destroys with its despair;
Interminable absences confound
Our lives; faced by neglect, our hopes for kind
Or happy fortune don’t reduce our care:
Inevitable death lurks everywhere.
And yet - a miracle! - I don’t expire,
Jealous, disdained, far absent, fully sure
About suspicions that I can’t endure,
Neglected by the one on whom I feed my fire;
And, racked by all the torture, I can’t spy
A glimmer of those hopes that pass me by,
Nor do I, in my grief, seek hope - no, never:
Instead, to magnify my misery,
I swear to be bereft of hope for ever.
But is it possible to hope and fear
At once, somehow? And is it for the best
When arguments for fear have much more weight?
Why shut my eyes when jealousy stands here
And, through the thousand gashes in my breast,
Is something that I have to contemplate?
Who would not run to open wide the gate
To disbelief, when right before his eyes
Disdain’s revealed, and wavering suspicion
Is changed to patent face - Oh sad transition! -
While limpid truth is turned to murky lies?
Fierce tyrant of all Love’s imperial lands,
O Jealousy, place cold steel in these hands!
Give me, Disdain, a rope of twisted thread!
But grief has gained a cruel victory:
Your memory, I fear, is long since dead.
I die, and I despair of being blessed
In life or death with any joy at all,
So I’ll persist in my fantastic dream.
I’ll say that he who loves the most does best,
The freest man is he who’s most in thrall
To Love’s tyrannical and ancient scheme,
And my eternal enemy I’ll deem
To have a soul as lovely as her face;
Say that forgetfulness is my desert
And that, by means of this most dreadful hurt,
Love builds his empire on a solid base.
With these ideas, and with a well-tied knot,
I’ll put an end to my poor mortal lot,
Destroyed by her disdain and heartlessness.
I’ll give my soul and body to the air
And know I’ll bear no future palms of bliss.
With your unreason you make manifest
The reason forcing me to bring to bear
This force on my own life, a baneful blight;
So, since this mortal wound deep in my breast
Is proof that must make anyone aware
How gladly I succumb to my bleak plight,
And if by chance you recognize my right
That the clear heavens of your lovely eyes
Should darken when I die, you must control
Your grief: when I leave you my shattered soul
I don’t want kind responses as some prize.
Instead, with laughter on that grim occasion,
Show that my dying is your celebration;
But this request’s a foolish waste of breath
For I well know it will increase your glory
That my life’s story ends in sudden death.
And now the hour has struck: from deepest hell
Come, thirsting Tantalus, to my ordeal;
Rolling your mighty stone along its way
Come, Sisyphus; come, Tityus, come as well,
And bring your vulture; Ixion, bring your wheel;
Come too, you sisters toiling night and day;
And now let all of you as one convey
Your mortal anguish to my breast, and sigh
(If it’s allowed to victims of despair)
Your harrowing laments over my bare
Carcass, refused a shroud in which to lie.
Come, three-faced guardian of the dreadful gate
And all hell’s brood of fiends, and celebrate
And sing the doleful descant of your grief;
No better tribute can, I think, be due
To lovers who have won death’s cold relief.
O Song of Desperation, do not grieve
Now that in desolation I must leave;
But rather, since the cause that gave you birth
By my misfortune grows and grows in gladness,
Be free from sadness, even in the earth.
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
