Chapter VI: Ercilla’s Imitators

I. _Pedro de Oña._ II. _Juan de Mendoza Monteagudo._ III.
_Álvarez de Toledo._ IV. _Diego de Santistevan Osorio._

I

[Sidenote: Oña and Ercilla]

[Sidenote: Oña in Chile and in Lima]

[Sidenote: University of San Marcos]

The model set by Ercilla in _La Araucana_ was followed by later writers. Pedro de Oña acknowledged that he was an imitator of Ercilla, and in _Arauco domado_ he wrote of essentially the same series of events, events of the Araucanian war; but the two writers emphasized different phases of their subject. Ercilla celebrated the heroism of the Indians, and devoted little attention to the Spanish governor, who was at the same time the commander of the expedition against the Araucanians; Oña’s hero, on the other hand, was García Hurtado de Mendoza, the governor of Chile, who had become viceroy of Peru. García de Mendoza’s administration of Chile had fallen in the most critical period of the province. In the beginning of 1560 he was recalled from Chile by Philip II, and returned to Spain, where he apparently outlived the disfavour of the crown; for in 1590 he was sent back to America as viceroy of Peru. He was accompanied by his brilliant wife, Doña Teresa de Castro, who took fifty women with her to the capital. This year Oña took up his residence at the University of San Marcos,[70] and his youthful and inexperienced mind was profoundly impressed by the glories of the viceregal court. He was greatly moved by the contrast it presented to the circumstances of his boyhood on the Chilean frontier, where the Indians were not counted as heroes but as savages against whom one had constantly to be defended. At Lima, the centre of Spanish life in South America, recalling the unpleasant circumstances of his early youth, it was natural that the dominant note of his poem should be a glorification of the Spanish leader, then occupying the exalted position of viceroy.

[Sidenote: Oña’s education]

Pedro de Oña was the first native Chilean to achieve distinction in the literature of his country. He was born in the town of Valdivia, when it was merely a frontier post, garrisoned by about forty soldiers. He was the eldest son of Captain Gregorio de Oña, who was a member of the garrison. The exact date of his birth is not known, but it belongs to the decade between 1560 and 1570. There appears to be no record stating the place where his childhood and youth were passed, or what were the circumstances of his early education. But on August 8, 1590, he was matriculated in the university of San Marcos in Lima. He must have had elsewhere preparatory instruction, for the entry in the university books is that he was matriculated for the “Primer de Artes,” took the oath of obedience to the rector, and presented certificates of examination. The next year he matriculated for the second course, and in 1592 for the third course. In the absence of any later matriculation in the arts it is presumed that he left the university with the degree of bachelor. He then appears among the troops sent to put down an insurrection that had broken out in Quito. After his return from this expedition he was matriculated in 1593 for the first course in theology, but it is not known how far he pursued his theological studies. Three years later, in 1596, he published in Lima the _Primera parte del Arauco domado_, and on the title page he sets himself down as “Licenciado.” This was two years after Ercilla’s death.

[Sidenote: _Arauco domado_]

The writer of _Arauco domado_, like Ercilla, not only narrated real events in the history of the conquest, but also introduced episodes that were the products of his imagination, and all were presented with a noteworthy facility of versification. But the real events of which Oña was able to treat did not in his time justify the term “domado” in his title. The historian Olivares affirms that Arauco may be said to be _domado_ only in desire, since neither in Oña’s time, nor for two hundred years later had all the power of Spain been able to effect the subjugation.[71] And Oña’s treatment of the events in the process of this war of subjugation was cut short at the close of the first part of his poem, for the announced second part never appeared.[72]

[Sidenote: Mental attitude of Oña]

Oña shared the religious views of the bulk of his countrymen; in fact, the only persons who showed a disposition to break with the Church were the encomenderos, when they found the priests intervening to modify their treatment of the Indians. But Oña’s devoutness was only such as conformed to the current sentiments of the more or less cultivated colonists. It was a phase of Spanish patriotism and presumed hostility to the English heretics. It presumed also that those who fell in conflict with the English, whatever may have been the real origin of the combat, fell in a holy cause. Another item in the mental furniture of Oña and those like him was “the dogma of royal majesty,” which involved attachment and devotion to the king of Spain, and ascribed to him all the virtues, and especially love for his subjects, in spite of his mental and moral incapacity and his subjection to corrupt favourites. It involved devotion, service, and sacrifice to an ideal that became farther and farther removed from the reality as one Spanish monarch succeeded another throughout the last half of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century. Proceeding from an author in this attitude of mind, the poem naturally became a very serious production, not defiled by any breath of humour.

[Sidenote: _Río Lima al río Tibre_]

A later work of Pedro de Oña which has come to light appeared in connexion with the celebration of the designation of the Blessed Francisco Solano as patron of the city of Santiago. It is entitled _Río Lima al río Tibre_. This poem was printed in the beginning of Alonso Mendieta’s edition of Diego de Córdoba’s _Vida, virtudes y milagros del Apóstol del Perú, el V. P. Fray Francisco Solano_, which was published in Madrid in 1643. It is based on the account of Francisco Solano set forth in Córdoba’s _Vida_, and other material drawn from the early history of the western coast of South America. Medina indicated his appreciation of it by printing it in the text of his _Historia de la literatura colonial de Chile_, and designating it as the most interesting of the author’s poems. And the poet himself he characterized as “without doubt the greatest Chilean poet of the colonial period.” At the end of his elaborate account he pronounces a general judgment of the man and his work: “As a man, the remembrance of his kindness, his simple and honourable character, his love of his country and family cannot but awaken profound sympathy; and as a poet the verses of _Arauco domado_ are destined to be remembered under their double aspect of history and of literature.”[73]

[Sidenote: _El Ignacio de Cantabra_]

[Sidenote: Quality of _El Ignacio_]

After a long period, during which the name of Oña had passed from public notice, there appeared in Seville in 1639 a poem by him entitled _El Ignacio de Cantabra_, celebrating the founder of the Jesuits, and setting forth the supernatural events which the poet’s fancy associated with the spiritual life of his hero. At the same time the author gives some account of the miracles that justified Ignacio’s designation as a saint, and presents certain theological dissertations. The action of the poem is clogged by the numerous descriptions of Ignacio’s spiritual views and torments, and the poem itself is overloaded with the narration of events that involve supernatural beings. This later work indicates that with advancing years religious ideas became gradually the prepossession of Oña’s mind. It shows, moreover, that he had effected a radical change in his system of versification. The verses of his first work ran without difficulty and without apparent effort, but in the last the writer weighed every phrase, sought for transpositions however violent they might be, parodied the poetic style, and polished his stanzas for fifteen years.[74] The poem appears not to have had a second edition, but it is said to have contributed much to enhance and confirm the poet’s reputation in Europe.

II

In the course of his investigations in the National Library in Madrid Barros Arana brought to light a poem in manuscript, belonging to the class of historical narrative poems already considered. There is in the manuscript no indication of the name of the writer, but it has been ascribed to Juan de Mendoza Monteagudo. The poem is divided into eleven cantos, containing a total of about eight thousand lines. It deals with the events and the period treated by Ercilla, the wars between the Spaniards and the Araucanians; it is written in the form of verse used in _La Araucana_.

[Sidenote: Mendoza’s subject]

Here is the author’s announcement of his subject:

La guerra envejecida y larga canto,
Tan grave, tan prolija y tan pesada
Que a un reino poderoso y rico tanto
Le tiene la cerviz ya quebrantada.
Y en el discurso de ella también cuanto
Han hecho memorable por la espada
Aquellos que a despecho del estado
El gran valor de Arauco han sustentado.

Los casos contaré más señalados
En el discurso desto acontecidos
Entre los españoles no cansados
Y los rebeldes indios invencios.[75]

III

[Sidenote: Toledo with Sotomayor’s expedition]

The expedition from Spain to America, commanded by General Diego Flores de Valdés, left San Lucar on September 25, 1580. It was organized to conduct Governor Alonso de Sotomayor to Chile. It consisted of twenty-three vessels, which carried about six hundred soldiers and a large number of prospective settlers. Among the passengers was Álvarez de Toledo, who was destined to hold a conspicuous place among the colonists, and to add _El Purén indómito_ to the literature of the Araucanian wars. Toledo was born in Andalucía. Before he joined this expedition he had visited Norway and had been a soldier in Flanders, and his experience had in a measure hardened him against the barbarities of Indian warfare.

[Sidenote: The voyage]

In spite of a threatening storm the fleet put to sea at the time announced. When the storm had passed three vessels had disappeared, and nearly all of their crews and passengers were lost. The damage suffered by the remaining vessels caused them to return to Cadiz for repairs. Of these only seventeen were found fit to continue the voyage. These finally left Cadiz on November 30. By desertion and disease the number of soldiers was reduced to five hundred and twenty. Among these were officers who had won distinction in the campaigns in Flanders: Luis de Sotomayor, brother of the Governor, Francisco del Campo, and Alonso García Ramón. After they had suffered storms and equally exasperating calms for many long months, the surviving vessels reached the island of Santa Catalina where they halted for recuperation. These were only eleven; six had paid the toll of the ocean. With eight vessels Diego Flores de Valdés determined to carry out the plan of reaching Chile by way of the straits. Sotomayor determined, however, with the three other vessels to take his soldiers to the Río de la Plata, and thence to cross the plains and go over the Andes to Chile. He lost one of his vessels in the Río de la Plata, together with a quantity of clothing and other stores, but all persons on board were saved.

[Sidenote: Buenos Aires in 1583]

[Sidenote: Overland journey to Chile]

Buenos Aires, at the time of Sotomayor’s landing, had the appearance of a temporary camp. A settlement had been made at that point in 1535, but lack of food and the hostility of the Indians caused it to be abandoned in 1538, for the site of the present city of Asunción. Forty-two years later, in 1580, the abandoned site was reoccupied under the leadership of Juan de Garay, and this new town had entered upon the third year of its existence when Sotomayor and his troops arrived. The horses that had been abandoned there nearly fifty years earlier had multiplied rapidly, and now furnished the animals needed for the trip across the continent. Wishing to assume the government of Chile as early as possible, Sotomayor, accompanied by eight persons, set out in advance of his troops, who were left to follow under the command of his brother Luis. He arrived at San Juan, in the province of Cuyo, on April 12, 1583, and on the 29th of the same month he reached the city of Mendoza. In this province, then within the jurisdiction of Chile, he was received as governor. The mountain pass was already closed with snow, and Sotomayor was obliged to remain in Cuyo until September. In the meantime, the troops, those who had not been induced to desert, about four hundred, were en route across the pampas, where they suffered great privation from lack of food and through ignorance of the way. They arrived in Mendoza on August 15. “They came without shoes and so nearly naked,” as Sotomayor wrote to the king, “that it broke my heart to see them.”[76]

From Mendoza Sotomayor sent two messengers over the Andes in July, the mid-winter of the South, with confidential communications for the cabildo of Santiago. The mission was designed to set aside the internal confusion and conflicts that had arisen concerning the encomendero’s right to the labour of the Indians. It carried to Chile the governor’s appointment of five persons to take over the government of the province and conduct it until Sotomayor’s arrival at Santiago. Then, without waiting for the snow to disappear from the pass, he crossed the mountains in the last days of September, and immediately on arriving at Santiago he sent Pedro de Lisperguer to Lima with an order from the king, requiring the audiencia, in the absence of the viceroy, to send assistance to the impoverished and distressed colony.

[Sidenote: Toledo in Chile]

After his arrival in Chile Toledo’s time was so distributed that war, agriculture, and poetry each claimed a share. He became an alcalde of Chillán, acquired extensive lands stocked with sheep and cattle, and at least on one occasion he suffered the not uncommon experience of having his estate plundered, his cattle driven off, and his herdsmen and shepherds captured. This loss naturally inflamed his desire to see the campaigns against the Indians carried on with energy, and added zeal to his own participation. In one attack he was felled by a blow on the head that caused him to be unconscious for an hour, and to remain for a period without any recollection of the events of the conflict. Later he was engaged in the battle of Yumbel, a detailed account of which he has given in his writings.

[Sidenote: Cavendish rescues Fernando]

[Sidenote: Cavendish’s men betrayed by Fernando]

Holding the rank of captain, Álvarez de Toledo had part in numerous encounters with the Indians. He appeared also in the conflict between Cavendish’s men and the Spaniards on the coast of Chile. In passing through the strait of Magellan Cavendish discovered the moribund remnant of the colony Sarmiento had left in that inhospitable region, and took on board one of the colonists named Fernando in order that he might serve as a guide. Fernando finally betrayed the English, in spite of “all his deepe and damnable othes which he had made continually to our general and all his company never to forsake him, to die on his side before he would be false;”[77] for when Cavendish landed fifty or sixty men on the coast of Chile, at the bay of Quintero, in search of wood, Fernando led them into a position where they were surprised and attacked by two hundred Spaniards. Before Cavendish’s men were able to regain their ships, twelve of them were killed by the Spaniards. That Fernando was held as a prisoner by heretics has been advanced as a justification of his deception, in spite of the fact that his removal from the settlement by the strait saved his life. Toledo, who was one of the two hundred members of the attacking party, has celebrated the event in his _Araucana_.[78]

[Sidenote: Toledo and the Indians]

Governor Alonso de Sotomayor appointed Toledo high constable in 1590. In this period the tranquility of the Spanish settlers was greatly disturbed by renewed hostilities on the part of the Araucanians, whose raids were extended into regions that had been occupied by towns and villages of Europeans. Toledo was alcalde of Chillán when that city was plundered and destroyed by the cacique Quilacán in 1599. On this occasion Toledo was absent, and to this fact is probably due the preservation of his life.

After he had recovered from the shock caused by the news of this disaster, he hastened to Chillán and joined a force that went in pursuit of the Indians, under the command of Tomás de Olaverría, and was later engaged in other campaigns. In 1600 Álvarez de Toledo married Jerónima de Lemos. At that time he was living as an encomendero, or the proprietor, of an estate in the country near San Juan de la Frontera, where he died on August 3, 1633, leaving his estancia stocked with goats, sheep, and cattle. Other items of his property were three slaves and a vineyard inherited from his ancestors.

[Sidenote: Toledo’s _Araucana_]

[Sidenote: _El Purén indómito_]

Of Toledo’s poem _Araucana_ only small fragments have been preserved, and the writer’s reputation rests chiefly on the twenty-four cantos of _El Purén indómito_, written at least in part during the author’s military service. It lacks most of the essential qualities of a poem but is important as an historical document.[79]

Medina characterizes Álvarez de Toledo as simply a soldier who wrote verses with great facility, and who, without any pretension to divine inspiration, sets forth in an agreeable manner the conflict of arms in which he himself had figured, or of which he had received minute information from the accounts of his companions, narrated at night around camp fires. He did not propose to present poetic inventions, episodes of the imagination, but to recount only real and accredited facts.[80] His purpose was to write a chronicle in verse, and the product of his labour lacks the chief characteristics of an epic. In his fifteen thousand lines the scene changes from Chile to Peru, from Santiago to Concepción, from the banks of rivers to the sombre depths of the forests of Arauco, and from the strand of the open sea to the narrow valleys of the mountains; and throughout the narrative there is abundant evidence of the writer’s memory of details, of the names of persons, of the exact time of events, and even of the colour of horses. Some of his octaves are composed almost entirely of names, and are therefore, practically unreadable, particularly when these names are of Araucanian persons or objects.[81]

The _Araucana_ of Álvarez de Toledo is accepted as a credible historical narrative, and equal credibility is attributed to its continuation under the title of _Purén indómito_.

IV

[Sidenote: Ercilla continued by Osorio]

It was Ercilla’s fate to be imitated not only by writers of talent, but also by a stupid writer who essayed to continue or to complete his epic. This was Diego de Santistevan Osorio, who undertook a work that was designed to be written in the style of Ercilla’s poem and to continue the story of the Indian war and Ercilla’s part in it. It was called the fourth and fifth parts of _La Araucana_.[82] But in every respect it falls far below its forerunner. Medina characterizes it as the production of a juvenile brain rendered enthusiastic by reading a masterpiece written by one intensely interested in his subject.[83]

Biographical knowledge of Santistevan Osorio is limited to a few facts: that he was born in León in Spain; that he published his principal work in 1597; and that he published another work on the wars of the knights of Malta and the capture of Rhodes.

[Sidenote: Character of Osorio’s work]

The continuation of _La Araucana_ is composed of two parts, the first part embracing thirteen cantos, and the second part twenty. One of the noteworthy features of Santistevan’s work is the reckless mingling of the Virgin Mary and the characters of pagan mythology. Then out of the depths of his imagination the author calls forth a being whom he designates Caupolicán the Second; and in the course of the narrative one encounters Zoroaster, Dido, Semiramis and Zenobia, not to mention less conspicuous ornaments of ancient history and mythology; and these are all jumbled together in obscure confusion. The independence, the stoicism and bravery that Ercilla found in the enemy do not appear in the Indians as presented by Santistevan Osorio. Here they are timid, shrinking, and brought into battle only by the employment of various incentives. The moral reflections with which the author introduces the several cantos are vapid dissertations on the instability of fortune. The strength and the passion which move heroes to action seem to appear to our author as mistakes of creation.

These early “historical poems” continued to impress their style upon later writers both in Spain and America, and to call American affairs to the attention of the people of Europe. Gabriel Lasso de la Vega wrote _La Mexicana_, published first in 1588 under the title of _Cortés valeroso_. The theme of the poem on Chilean affairs was taken up by the stage in Spain. _Algunas hazañas de las muchas de Don García Hurtado de Mendoza_ was a mediocre work by a number of authors. _Arauco domado_, by Lope de Vega, had Ercilla as one of its characters; he appeared on the stage beating a drum. Other dramas dealing with the same general subject were _Gobernador Prudente_, by Gaspar de Ávila, and _Españoles en Chile_, by Francisco González de Bustos. In the drama by Bustos the baptism of a prominent Indian chief, the empalement of Caupolicán, and the greatness of the family of Mendoza are presented as three of Spain’s claims to distinction.