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PITFALLS FOR THE MORALIZER IN
'LAZARILLO DE TORMES'
Since Bruce Wardropper's article on 'El trastorno de la moral en el Lazarillo',1
much attention has been given to the moral implications of Lazaro's account of his
progress, the general consensus being that his career is not an unqualified success.
Opinions range from L. J. Woodward's forthright condemnation of Lazaro as a
scoundrel2 to Francisco Rico's suggestion that through the very ambiguity of this
novel the author is saying that there are no universal criteria for judging the pro-
tagonist's morals, and that reactions will vary according to the arbitrary standpoint
of the individual.3 In this article I aim to show the dangers awaiting the reader who
seeks to criticize Lazaro's conduct, and also to raise objections to some of the
criticisms that have been levelled at him. I conclude by showing how the reader's
religious as well as his moral attitudes are put to the test by the author.
Since I shall be agreeing with Rico that the author deliberately exploits the moral
ambiguity of his novel, it is worth indicating at the outset some ways in which our
views diverge. First, I believe that Rico's view, outlined above, confuses social and
moral judgement. Although it is uncertain from which social standpoint, if any,
we are expected to view Lazaro, Christian morality is largely applicable without
reference to social status. Arbitrary though it no doubt is, it remains the only logical
yardstick by which to judge the characters initially, if only because they are all
nominally Christian, and because one universal moral test is to see how far a person
measures up to standards he would claim to accept. Second, Rico sees the novel's
irony and ambiguity as products of 'un amplio escepticismo (de tejas abajo, si no
de tejas arriba) sobre las posibilidades humanas de conocer la realidad' (p. 53).
But his approach fails to distinguish between two quite different kinds of doubt. It
is one thing to be in doubt as to the facts of a situation one is seeking to judge; it is
quite another to be in doubt as to what standards to apply. When, for example,
Lazaro draws a moral comparison between his own wife and the other wives of
Toledo, the alternative readings of his words turn far more on what behaviour we
think is being attributed to these ladies than on any disagreement as to what would
or would not constitute reprehensible behaviour on their part. In this novel, the
recurrent problem for the would-be moralist is to determine not so much what
general criteria to apply, but what situation the author's words refer to.
Turning now to Lazaro's story, is it one of moral decline? Is he, as one critic
puts it, 'a hypocrite grovelling in his inverted cumbre' ?4 Most critics seem to share
the view that Lazaro is a hypocrite, and he is often condemned in terms which, like
'grovel', have a strong emotional tone ('squalid', 'degradation', 'scoundrel',
'morally bankrupt', etc.). In the face of this onslaught it is worth reminding our-
selves of Lazaro's sheer harmlessness.At the end of the novel, his activities, unlike
those of thieves, thugs, and tricksters,inconvenience nobody. Basically he has been
1 NRFH,
I5 (i96i), 441-47.
Relationship in the Lazarillo de Tormes',Forumfor ModernLanguageStudies, I
2 'Author-Reader
(I965), 441-47.
3 La novelapicarescayel puntode vista (Barcelona, I969), pp. 45-55.
4 Norma L. Hutman,
'Universality and Unity in the Lazarillo de Tormes', PMLA, 76 (196I),
469-73 (p. 473).
M. J. WOODS 581
attacked for the following apparent faults, each of which I shall discuss in turn:
his pride in his career, his cowardice in the face of danger, and his dishonesty in
relation to the nature of his marriage.
Analysing pride along lines suggested by Aquinas,1 one could describe it as an
immoderate craving for recognition which can take the following forms:
I. Thinking that one deserves success, though recognizing the part played by God
or good fortune in that success.
2. Attributing one's success entirely to oneself.
3. Regarding oneself as superior to others.
4. Boasting of qualities one does not possess.
I have placed these in what I regard as order of increasing gravity. Of the first three,
each in turn represents an increasing degree of arrogance, until one reaches the
fourth, which involves not simply self-deception, but the deception of others.
In considering the nature of Lazaro's pride it is instructive to note the contrast
between his attitude and the Squire's. Clearly the Squire does regard himself as
superior, and does boast of qualities which he does not possess. For example, having
quite rightly praised Lazaro's efforts in begging rather than stealing food ('Tu
haces como hombre de bien en eso, que mas vale pedirlo por Dios que no hurtallo'),
thereby salving his conscience sufficiently to be able to eat it, he nevertheless
shrinks from the thought of being publicly associated with the hand which feeds
him ('Solamente te encomiendo no sepan que vives conmigo, por lo que toca a mi
honra').2 Similarly, he deceives Lazaro by constantly informing him of his dis-
satisfaction with the house they live in, with the air of one who can pick and choose
lodgings to suit his fancy: 'Yo te prometo que acabado el mes, no quede en ella
aunque me la den por mia. Ya deseo que se acabe este mes por salir della' (3.376).
'He alquilado otra casa, y en esta desastrada no hemos de estar mas que en
cumpliendo el mes' (3.390). The true situation is revealed only by the Squire's
final hasty retreat. There is no chance of him staying on beyond the end of the
month because he has not the wherewithal to pay the rent. It is a rather sorry case
of 'engafiar con la verdad'.
By contrast with the Squire, Lazaro's attitude to honraseems much more positive.
He is not desperately trying to avoid being found out for what he really is, but
rather is seeking recognition for his actual achievements: his social and material
advancement, and his literary skills. Far from being a hypocrite about this, he is
disarmingly frank about his desire for recognition, confessing in the prologue to
a pride which makes him, as he puts it, 'no mas santo que mis vecinos'. And here
we have the perfect trap for the critic who commits himself to print without
recognizing his own kinship with those vecinos,and who publicly attacks Lazaro's
pride yet cannot refrain from appending his own name to what he has written. The
author of Lazarillo can smile knowingly from behind his own anonymity at the
supreme hypocrisy of the finger pointed at his hero's self-confessed fault.
Thus far there is no evidence of Lazaro succumbing to the two most serious kinds
of pride, though, of course, if one denies that he has in fact made progressmaterially
1 SummaTheologica,2a 2ae q. I62 a.5.
3.263-66. I use the edition of R. O. Jones (Manchester, 1963) in giving chapter and line
2
references to the text.
582 'Lazarillode Tormes'
or socially then his pride will seem ridiculously disproportionate, and we may then
conclude that he is boasting of qualities he does not possess. Let us consider, then,
the extent of his progress.
Bearing in mind the extreme deprivation from which Lazaro suffers in the early
chapters, it is scarcely open to us to deny that he has made substantial material
progress by the end. One can get some idea of the kind of remuneration that a
pregoneroof the time could expect from the printed municipal regulations for
Seville (1527) and Valladolid (1562).1 The details are worth specifying in view of
the misleading impression often given that the Archpriest would have been
Lazaro's main source of income. Such seasonal work, begun as the new wine
became available, could be expected to last for only a brief period, and if he
earned the same as his counterparts in Valladolid would have brought him in
twelve maravedisfor each barrel auctioned.2 But basically it was as a salesman and
auctioneer of all kinds of second-hand goods that a pregonero obtained much of his
income, retaining a commission of from two to three per cent on all sales.3 In addi-
tion, from each person requiring him to make a lost-property announcement he
would have taken a couple ofmaravedis.4 For eachpregdndelivered in the administra-
tion of justice the princely sum of one real (34 maravedis)was recoverable from the
culprit, provided he had the funds to pay.5 In Seville, the practice was for the
two senior pregoneros to allocate duties at the start of each week to ensure that each
day of the town's fourteen pregoneros one attended the casa de lajusticia and another
the corralde los alcaldes.6
The suggestion has been made that the final sentence of the novel ('Pues en este
tiempo estaba en mi prosperidad y en la cumbre de toda buena fortuna') implies
that at the time he is writing, Lazaro's fortunes are in decline again.7 But the
argument is rather thin, since of the two tenses available, the imperfect and the
preterite, the author has in fact avoided the very one which would have entitled us
1 Ordenanfasde Seuilla. Recopilaciondelas ordenafasdela muynobley muy leal cibdadde Seuilla ... Fecha
por madadode los muy altos... reyesy sefiordo Fernadoy dofa rsabel (Seville, I527). The compilation
was made between 1515 and 1519. Ordenanfascon quese rigey gouiernala republicade la muynobley muy
leal villa de Valladolid(Valladolid, 1562). The text shows that these regulations were promulgated in
I549. I shall subsequently refer to these two books as O.S. and O.V.
2 0.V., 0.56.
3 'Otrosi como quiera que los dichos pregoneros fasta agora han lleuado treynta y tres marauedis
y medio de cada millar por su salario delas cosas que vendian: assi enlas almonedas delos difuntos
como enlas gradas y enlas otras placas publicas desta cibdad. Y porque este salario es muy excessivo.
Mando que de aqui adelante los dichos pregoneros lleuen por su salario delas cosas que vendieren en
las dichas almonedas o fuera dellas veynte marauedis de cada millar fasta en contia de cient maraue-
dis y dende ayuso al respecto' (O.S., fol. 134). 'Ningun pregonero en esta villa pueda lleuar en feria
ni en ningun tiempo del ano mas derechos por lo que le dieren a vender de a razon de treynta vno
de lo que despues de vendido rematare' (0. V., 0.43, c.4).
4 'Otrosi mando
que quando alguno de los dichos pregoneros ouiesse de pregonar algun esclavo
o cauallo o mula o otra cosa que anduviere perdida sea obligado ala pregonar en las gradas y enlas
plaCas de sant francisco de sant saluador y dela alfalfa y de sancta catalina y de la feria y en otros
lugares publicos do le fuere pedido por la parte: y que lleue por cada pregon: por el primero quatro
marauedis y por cada vno delos otros a dos marauedis y no mas' (O.S., fol. 134). Dissatisfaction with
the perfunctory way in which pregonerostended to perform this not very lucrative work led to
alternative arrangements for lost property being set up in a regulation of 1493: 'Que todas las cosas
perdidas de qualquier calidad o condicion que sean: sean traydas y puestas en el meson que se llama
del herrado, de que es mesonero francisco goncalez prieto' (O.S., fol. 76v).
6 At least this applied to pregonerosat Court. See Ordenan;asdel ConsejoReal (Valladolid, 1556),
fol. 25.
6 O.S., fol.
133.
7 See L. J. Woodward, op. cit., 50-5I.
M. J. WOODS 583
to conclude that this prosperity was now over. The only valid inference to be drawn
is that Lazaro has progressed no further. His words do not imply that by the time
of writing he has come down from his peak. He is in the same job which there is no
reason for him to lose, and, as the word siemprein the passage below makes clear,
he continues to receive regular gifts from the Archpriest via his wife: 'Y siempre en
el afio le da en veces al pie de una carga de trigo, por las pascuas su carne, y cuando
el par de los bodigos, las calzas viejas que deja' (7.32-35).
To the rich, such simple perquisites may seem comically unimpressive. Yet they
mark a substantial improvement in Lazaro's living standards, and are therefore
less a sign of his ridiculousness in finding them acceptable than they are of the
niggardliness of the Archpriest. From the fact that they are given directly to his
wife we are probably intended to link them with her constant services as house-
keeper and mistress rather than with Lazaro's seasonal work for the Archpriest.
But even if these gifts are rewards for her services alone, they are far from magnifi-
cent. Apart from the Christmas and Easter gifts which any good employer of
means might be expected to give a personal servant, the most substantial item is the
wheat, collected in dribs and drabs in the course of the year. Like the meat, this
would have come to the Archpriest in tithes in a quantity far in excess of his personal
needs.' If Lazaro's wife is indeed his mistress, then he is certainly getting her on the
cheap. Although he must be a rich man, his total expenditure is nil. He apparently
does not even pay the rent of the cottage, and instead of buying her personal gifts
of finery, merely passes on his discarded clothes to her husband. There is an added
hint of meanness, in that the Archpriest may be avoiding his obligations towards
the poor by giving to his own servants gifts which he had a charitable duty to distri-
bute to the destitute of the parish.2
It may well be that Lazaro is being ironic when he says 'Tengo en mi seinor
acipreste todo favor y ayuda', bearing in mind his recollection of the Squire's
disparaging remarks about the stingy clergy3 and caballerosde media talla who
never pay their servants cash: 'Ya cuando quieren reformar conciencia y satis-
faceros vuestros sudores, sois librados en la recamara, en un sudado jub6n o raida
capa o sayo' (3.5II-I2). Yet despite his awareness of this meanness, Lazaro is
nevertheless satisfied with a standard of comfort which is denied to the Squire,
who is too proud to settle for anything less than cash.
Some attempt has been made to detract from Lazaro's social progress by
emphasizing that the post of pregonerowas a particularly vile one. According to
Woodward, the job was 'so loathsome and treated with such contempt by the
public that only the most seedy and squalid character could be asked to accept
it'.4 No doubt there were more illustrious occupations, but those of water-seller
and blind-man's boy do not number among them. The reputation enjoyed by the
latter is evident from the Priest's remark when he discovers that Lazarillo is the
1 For some facts and figures about the operation of tithes, see B. Bennassar, Valladolid au siecle
d'or (Paris and The Hague, I967), pp. 395-98.
2 Note Hurtado de Toledo's remark on the
charity received by widows: 'Aun en las obras pias el
demonio pone sus adalides para que unas limosnas se den por particulares respetos por ser mi
conocido o mi criada o mis deudos o maestra a mi labor'; quoted by A. Blecua in his edition of
Lazarillo (Madrid, 1974), p. I74, n. 336.
3
'Can6nigos y sefiores de la iglesia, muchos hallo, mas es gente tan limitada que no los sacaran de
su paso todo el mundo' (3.504-505). As Rico notes in his edition, Covarrubias gives 'poco liberal' as
equivalent to 'limitado'.
4
Op. cit., 50.
584 'Lazarillode Tormes'
culprit who has been stealing his bread: 'No es posible sino que hayas sido mozo de
ciego' (2.380). And as Rico has noted, there was no status in being a water-seller,
a post often occupied by conversos.1Nor were constables' servants particularly
highly regarded, to judge by a petition renewed by the Madrid Cortes in 1552,
seeking to debar them from giving testimony, 'porque los tales criados suelen ser
de poco credito'.2 The post of pregonero, unlike the more important public posts,
was also open to conversos, but this does not mean that it was a step down for
Lazaro. A proper appraisal can come only from an examination of the various
facets of the job.
The role of the pregoneroas a custodian of other people's property is the feature
which is mocked in what is probably the least distasteful of a number of often
crudely anti-Semitic poems in the CancioneroGeneral,in which Ribera pokes fun at the
father of the converso,Juan Poeta, alias Juan de Valladolid, crying 'Quien hallo
vn asno perdido ?' as he plies his trade as a pregonero.The concluding stanza gives
this delightfully comic description:
Tornemos al despedir
y dezir de vuestro padre
de como le vi venir
que no hay perro que nol ladre.
Y desque mire por el
yo le vi tan adornado:
tres espadas, y vn broquel,
y vnas botas, y vn fardel,
y vn almayzar colorado,
(Fin)
un casquete, y tres cerrajas,
y vna ballesta de ca?a,
con dos pares de touajas,
passeando por la pla?a.3
To a courtier, the indignity of acting as a walking shop-cum-lost-property office
and of dealing in such plebeian items as asses seemed highly comical. But this is
not in itself sufficient for the post to be considered any more despicable than
hundreds of other jobs which involve the handling of everyday objects. Moreover,
the joke in this particular case is as much directed against the abuse of the
pregonero'sposition as it is to the nature of the job itself, as the Ordenanzasfor Seville
make clear:
Algunos de los dichos pregoneros se visten y cobijan y arrean y se atauian de algunas ropas o
joyas o armas o otras cosas que les son dadas a vender: y porque esto es en gran dano y
perjuyzio dela dicha cibdad y de su republica. Mando que ninguno ni alguno delos dichos
pregoneros no vsen ni se aprouechen ni se vistan ni atauien ni cobijen ni arrean en manera
alguna de ninguna ni algunas cosas que se les fueren dadas para vender: saluo que las
tengan bien tratadas sobre sus bracos o enlas manos o enlos tableros y tiandas [sic]. (O.S.,
fol. 133v.)4
1
Page 76, n. 2 in his edition of the text in La novela espanola,
picaresca I (Barcelona,I967).
2 Petition
34, Capitulosylevesdiscedidasen las Cortes... de Madrid,etc.(Valladolid,156I).
3 Fol. 229 in A. Rodriguez-Mofino's facsimile edition (Madrid, 1958). I have expanded the
abbreviations,and added punctuationand accentuation,both absentfrom the original.
4 Note the similardetail in a storytold in Villalba'sEl peregrino
curioso(Madrid,i886), I, 290, of a
nobleman'sservantwho went to seekout a man who on a pilgrimagehad persuadedhim that he was
the son of an importantpersonage:'Y el primerhombrecon que top6 fue a este bellaco,que era un
pregonero,que con ropa al pescuezoandabapregonandopor la ciudad,que es el oficiomas infame
que hay.' Noted by F. de Haan, 'Picarosy ganapanes',in Homenaje a Menendez Pelayo(Madrid,
I888), II, I86.
M. J. WOODS 585
Doubtless it was the recitation of the offences of criminals being taken in
procession to their place of punishment, whether for an execution, a flogging, or
vergienzapublica,that was regarded as the most sordid duty, though, by the same
token, the job of prison chaplain, or of sentencing judge, ought also to have been
considered degrading. But at least the pregonero's task of public speaking was less
distasteful than that of the executioner.
Despite the more unpleasant aspects of a pregonero's job, if we look at the totality
of activities it entailed, there can be little doubt that the post representsa substantial
social advance for Lazaro. Not only does he enjoy greater security than before, but
he now has an official status, is called on to demonstrate new skills, and enjoys
regular contact with people of a higher social class.
Such municipal regulations concerning pregoneros as I have seen certainly do not
support the view that theirs was an infamous position for which there was no
competition. In Seville, efforts were made to reduce the number of pregonerosby
natural wastage to the city's traditional number of fourteen, consisting of two
pregoneros mayores,appointed by the cabildo,and twelve pregoneros menores,elected by
their seniors, because 'agora nueuamente el numero de los dichos pregoneros se
ha quebrantado y se ha rescebido por pregoneros muchos mas que conuenia'
(O.S., I32v.). Similarly, the ordenanzasfor Valladolid emphasize the official nature
of the post, and imply that it was one for which there was no shortage of volunteers:
'Que ningun pregonero vse del dicho officio sin auer sido primero recebido para el
por la justicia y regidores desta villa, y auer dado fiancas como es obligado ante
vno de los escribanos mayores del ayuntamiento' (O. V., fol. 23). It seems that the
sureties required were substantial, so that Lazaro is not being ironic when he says
he acquired the post 'con favor de amigos y sefiores'. He needed to find people of
sufficient means and with sufficient confidence in him to back him financially.
In Seville, the pregonerohad to find sureties to a total value of Ioo,ooo maravedis
(O.S., fol. I33).
As for the post being appropriatefor only the vilest characters, this same ordenanza
for Seville gives a rather different picture: 'Y que estos pregoneros assi los mayores
como los menores sean hombres buenos y de buena vida y fama y no viles personas
ni mal infamados: abiles y pertenecientes para vsar del dicho oficio que tengan
bozes altas y claras y elegibles a vista y examinacion delos mayores'. Entailing
as it did the handling of other people's property and money, the job obviously
required a responsible person to carry it out. And despite its seamier side, it was
not without its moments of glory. A pregonero might find his name entered in the
statute books, as in the case of those promulgating the ordenanzas for Valladolid that
I have been citing, of which it is written: 'En los dichos quatro dias con trompetas
y atabales le pregonaron y fueron pregonadas estas ordenancas fechas por los muy
magnificos sefiores justicia y regidores desta dicha villa, y confirmada por sus
magestades como en ellas se contiene por alonso de ?amora, y por juan de santi-
llana, y por adan, y pablo gonsalez pregoneros publicos desta dicha villa, a altas
vozes.' There could have been nothing inglorious for Alonso de Zamora and his
colleagues in finding their names recorded for posterity in this way, particularly
when juxtaposed with those of their majesties and other august personages.
Even in the more sordid world of crime, legal judgements involving persons of
stature did sometimes find their way into print, which again resulted in the
recording of some pregoneros' names, as in the case of the sentences passed against a
586 'Lazarillode Tormes'
number of men judged to have preferred false and malicious charges against the
comendador of Jerez, Sancho Bravo de Acufia, where the escribano, Juan de Carri6n
testifies: 'En la ciudad de Xerez de la Frontera a siete dias del mes de Agosto de
mil y seyscientos y seys afios. Estando en la placa publica desta ciudad, de los
escriuanos della, por voz de Iuan de Vargas, pregonero publico, se pregono la
dicha sentencia de verbo ad verbum de que doy fee.'
As for Lazaro's new skills, his new job presupposes the ability to read, which
immediately places it in a category above his previous employments. Playing the
bugle was another accomplishment that might have been expected of him. His
duties as an auctioneer and salesman would have enabled him to display additional
talents. In addition to the official auctions, there were private auctions which would
have brought Lazaro into contact with the owners of estates with wine and other
things to sell, and there was also the private sale of second-hand goods brought to
him by people from all walks of life who were in need of ready cash.2 To attract
regular work of this kind a pregonero would have to impress others with his ability.
Lazaro gives the impression that he has built up a virtual monopoly of such work,
saying of his office: 'Hame sucedido tan bien, yo le he usado tan facilmente, que
casi todas las cosas al oficio tocantes pasan por mi mano: tanto que en toda la
ciudad el que ha de echar vino a vender o algo, si Lazaro de Tormes no
entiende en ello, hacen cuenta de no sacar provecho' (7.19-23). Although it is
amusing to see here how superior Lazaro feels he is to the other pregoneros in town,
there is no reason to doubt that he is endowed with a sharp-wittedness and a com-
mand of patter gained from his previous experience which gives him a lead over his
rivals. He is a big fish in a small and slightly muddy pond.
From the foregoing analysis, then, we can conclude that as far as his job is
concerned, Lazaro is seeking recognition for his actual achievements rather than
indulging in the pride of the hypocrite who boasts of qualities he does not have.
There is nothing to support the view that he thinks of his post as at all gentlemanly.
His motives for seeking it were 'tener descanso y ahorrar algo para la vejez' (7.8).
His awareness that the job has its sordid side emerges from his use of the humorous
euphemism 'los que padecen persecuciones por justicia' to refer to convicted
criminals.
Materially and socially, then, Lazaro has made sufficient progress for his self-
satisfaction not to seem grotesquely inappropriate, which is not to say that it is not
a deliberately comic element in the book. But the reader who takes up the invitation
to laugh at this apparent pride should not delude himself into thinking that his
response has a moral justification. To moralize here is to run the risk of falling into
a number of traps, the most spectacular of which is the hypocrisy of displaying the
very fault one is criticizing - pride. If we find Lazaro's modest standard of living
and his relatively lowly position laughable, we are victims of the third type of
1
Copiay trasladoque se dieronpor ... los Juezes de Comission,por su Magestad,para tomarla residencia
a Don S. Brauode Acura (Xerez de la Frontera, I606?), fol. 7v.
2
'Otrosi por quanto la mayor parte delas personas que dan a vender algunas cosas alos dichos
pregoneros las venden con necessidad y con voluntad de auer mas prestamente dineros para se
socorrer: Porende mando a todos lo dichos pregoneros y a cada vno dellos que cada vn dia que
feriado no sea esten y residan publicamente cada vno en su poyo o tablero que tiene enla calle de las
gradas dela dicha cibdad desde saliendo el sol fasta las diez horas antes de medio dia porque las
peronas que los buscaren los fallen y puedan auer sus dineros delo que ouieren vendido: porque assi
se ha acostumbrado enla dicha cibdad' (O.S., fol. I33v).
M. J. WOODS 587
pride - that of the snob. Similarly, the reader who in laughing at Lazaro tacitly
finds himself admitting to the proposition that had our hero achieved great wealth
and rank this would have justified his pride, again reveals a flaw in himself, and
aligns himself with the ambitious materialist or the boastful nouveauriche.Looked at
from another point of view, Lazaro's satisfaction with a modest standard of living
and his lack of ambition are virtues rather than vices. A final danger for the
moralizer is that if, as has been attractively argued by R. W. Truman, some of
Lazaro's expressions of pride are but examples of ironic, self-deflating humour, his
attack may seem rather pompous.1
Before moving from the topic of Lazaro's pride, it remains for me to consider the
episode of his purchase of clothes and his abandonment of water-selling in the
penultimate tratado,since this has been constructed as a hypocritical attempt to
deceive others into thinking him a gentleman, or as an indication of his aspirations
to nobility and his contempt for manual work. The facts relied upon here are: the
ornateness of the clothes, the detail of the sword,2 Lazaro's reference to himself as
being dressed 'muy honradamente' (6.13), and his concluding remark 'Desque me
vi en habito de hombre de bien, dije a mi amo se tomase su asno, que no queria
mas seguir aquel oficio'. But this interpretation of the facts leads to some serious
contradictions which must call into doubt the assumptions on which they are based.
The picture of Lazaro attempting like the Squire a sustained exercise in deception
conflicts with the fundamental attitude which led him to tell his story: his pride in
having 'got on'. Lazaro cannot at one and the same time attempt to conceal from
others his lowly origins, pretending to be what he is not, and yet be keen to share
with others his delight at having progressed from those origins. There is also a
contradiction between the picture of Lazaro the man of great social pretensions,
and Lazaro the lad who marries a servant-girl, and accepts with delight, because
of the material comforts it brings him, a post which nobody could have thought
of as gentlemanly, not to mention the supreme indignity of wearing the cast-off
breeches of the man reputed to be his wife's lover. There is a striking contrast here
between Lazaro and the Squire, who chose to move to Toledo rather than raise his
hat to another man. Nor is the view that Lazaro has become contemptuous of
humble work like begging, or water-selling, compatible with his subsequent attempt
to show the reader just how good he was at these activities. We must therefore
reinterpret the evidence if the novel is to make sense.
Doubtless one reason why Lazaro bought some better clothes was that he thought
them a necessary prerequisite of getting a more remunerativejob. A ragged appear-
ance did not inspire potential employers with confidence, as was recognized by the
Madrid Cortes of I552 in a petition which noted that 'muchos mocos de estar mal
vestidos y mal tratados ninguno se quiere seruir dellos por miedo que no hurten'
(Petition I22). There is, of course, nothing immoral in Lazaro seeking to leave the
dead-end job of water-selling after four years. Indeed, the biblical parable of the
talents suggests that he had a duty to make better use of his abilities, particularly if,
as is suggested in Villalba's Elpelegrinocurioso,there was a surfeit of water-sellers in
1 'Parody and Irony in the Self-portrayal of Lazaro de Tormes', MLR, 63 (1968), 600-605.
2
'Quiere adquirir nobleza, simbolizada por la espada'; Alberto del Monte, Itinerariode la novela
picarescaespanola(Barcelona, 1971), p. 49.
588 'Lazarillode Tormes'
up to that meted out to pimps, suggests that there was some substance in these
remarks:
A los maridosque por precioconsintierenque sus mugeressean malasde su cuerpo,o de
qualquiermaneralas induxereno traxerena ello, de mas de las penasacostumbradas, les
sea puestala mesmapena que por leyesde nuestrosreynosesta puestaa los rufianes,que es
por primeravez, verguen?apublicay diez afiosde galerasy por segundavez cien a?otesy
galerasperpetuas.
The preamble notes the ineffectiveness of previous legislation: 'La experiencia lo
ha mostrado no ser castigo, ni remedio, bastante para estoruar tan grande
excesso'.l
In one of his engravings of Seville, Joris Hoefnagel, another contemporary
visitor, depicts the fascinating spectacle of a cornudolpaciente being beaten as he is
publicly paraded on the back of an ass. He is wearing huge antlers, decked with
bells and bunting, and is followed by the pregonero,carrying his bugle in one hand,
and the pregonheld high in the other, while onlookers give the mocking gesture
reserved for cuckolds.2 The parade is headed by a procuress, seated on another
ass, and surrounded by a swarm of flies.
Did Lazaro merit this kind of punishment? Is he, as has been suggested, a
pimp, living off his wife's earnings?3Although such a view might accord with the
canonists who regarded all condonation of a wife's adultery as a form of pandering,4
it hardly fits any generally acceptable definition of what procuring is. Lazaro's
marriage procures for the priest nothing which he could not enjoy before. More-
over, it is the priest who takes all the initiative and does whatever exploiting there
is to do, taking advantage of his superior social rank. For Lazaro, the fruits of the
liaison hardly constitute a living. His living comes from a post whose acquisition
is not related by the author to his marriage, and whose tenure is not dependent
upon his continuing to be on good terms with the Archpriest. If Lazaro is pleased
to receive gifts of food, this in itself is no more evidence of his immorality than was
his glad acceptance of the food brought by his mother's lover. There is simply no
way to demonstrate that these simple gifts are directly attributable to sexual services
rendered by Lazaro's wife rather than to the other quite legitimate services which
both of them perform as employees of the Archpriest.
What does the Archpriest himself gain from arranging the marriage? Had the
novel been set a few decades earlier, his action would have ensured the immunity
of his partner from legal penalties, and the story would have satirized a stratagem
which was in fact adopted by some priests at the turn of the century. A law of 1491,
which ruled that married women could not be deemed mancebasde clerigosin the
absence of their husband's determination to prosecute, had to be modified in I503,
'porque algunas de las mancebas de los dichos clerigos y beneficiados no contentas
de estar por mancebas publicas de los tales clerigos por encobrir el delito que en
1 Las
pragmaticasdel reyno(I520), fol. 79v. As developments in the law in this field at around this
time offer a fascinating social document I have provided further extracts from this source in an
appendix to this article.
2 See P. Herrera Puga, op. cit., 406, and the appendix to this article.
3 Ordenanfasreales de Castilla, recopiladaspor AlonsoDiaz de Montaluo,nueuamente glossadospor Diego
Perez (Salamanca, I56o), cols I60-6i.
4A. D. Deyermond, Lazarillo de Tormes(London, 1975), p. 90.
M. J. WOODS 593
has obviously sensed that Lazaro is not happy about the constant gossip, and
begins by saying that he is not surprised that there is gossip, but promises that it is
untrue ('Ella entra muy a tu honra, y suya, y esto te lo prometo'). He therefore
tells Lazaro to ignore it if he wishes to thrive. Lazaro, despite using polite formulae,
gives a very spirited reply, accusing his wife of promiscuity. The bluntness of the
phrase 'habia parido tres veces' contrasts with the Archpriest's delicacy in failing
to specify what the gossip is about. It suggests that Lazaro is not yet content to
leave the matter there, but wishes to probe a little further. However, the hysterical
intervention of his wife puts an end to the confrontation. In a scene of delightful
comedy Lazaro caves in, and, assisted by the Archpriest (a superb touch by the
author), pacifies her by promising never to mention the matter again, saying that
he is convinced of her virtue, and telling her that she can visit the Archpriest
whenever she wishes.
This, then, is the 'agreement', explicit rather than tacit, not between three
hypocritical conspirators of like mind, winking at each other as they conclude a
deal - a pointless charade without an audience - but between two lying con-
spirators, the Archpriest and the wife, and a husband whose immediate thought as
he accepts their denials is not how rich it will make him, but how much he hates
domestic quarrels and ranting women. One can envisage Lazaro winking at the
reader, though not at the Archpriest, when he says that he accepts the promise that
the Archpriest is not bringing dishonour on him ('Me ha prometido lo que pienso
cumplira). 'After all', implies Lazaro sarcastically, 'the promise must be true if it is
given by an Archpriest, one of the buenos'.But I see nothing in this or in any other
of his comments on the discussionwhich shows him to be hypocritical. It is the other
two who attempt to conceal their vices. If Lazaro's weakness is a love of comfort
and descanso,then this is not something which he makes any attempt to hide. It
may be that some of the contempt felt for Lazaro as a husband derives from social
rather than moral considerations. With cuckoldry, as with bastardy, much of the
stigma which might have been expected to attach to the couple guilty of the sexual
misdemeanour is transferredfor no good moral reason to the third party. No doubt
there are those who would find Lazaro less contemptible if he were in turn to
deceive his wife by having an adulterous affair of his own instead of passively
accepting his situation. Needless to say, the foundation of such a view is not a moral
one.
But how should one regard Lazaro's defence of his wife ? Not unnaturally, he is
irked by the constant barrage of insulting remarksfrom people who are supposed to
be his friends. Whether their comments are true or false, there is nothing immoral
in him wanting to put an end to them. Basically he is saying, 'Shut up!' But is his
method of saying it immoral? When he says of his wife 'Es la cosa del mundo que
yo mas quiero, y la amo mas que a mi. Y me hace Dios con ella mil mercedes y
mas bien que yo merezco' (7.71-72), the reader may doubt the genuineness of
these uncharacteristic expressions of love and humility. But even if false, they are
not hypocritical unless Lazaro intends his listeners to take them seriously and
hopes by them to enhance his own reputation as a humble man. But their real
function in the context, if we take them seriously, is rather to enhance his wife's
reputation, which is under attack.
Lazaro now goes on to make an offer and a threat. The threat is of physical
violence ('Yo me matare con el'). The offer is to swear 'sobre la hostia consagrada
38
594 'Lazarillode Tormes'
que es tan buena mujer como vive dentro de las puertas de Toledo'. These are
ritual gestures, neither of which the speaker expects to be tested, and neither of
which is in fact tested ('No me dicen nada'). The careful wording of the vow is,
however, worth noting. It does not take the form of a denial of his wife's adultery,
and is not automatically shown to be false if she is in fact guilty. At the serious level,
it could give rise to observations that his wife does have her good qualities which
need to be balanced against her weaknesses, and that other women are all sinners,
albeit with different faults. Who are we to judge between them? At the comic
level, we can regard this as a good-humoured attempt by Lazaro to put an end to
the leg-pulling, in which he makes a joke about the lax morals of Toledan women,
expecting the reply, 'I can't deny that, Lazaro: you're on fairly safe ground there !',
but at the same time expecting the topic of conversation to be changed.
So far, my arguments have been based on the assumption that Lazaro is a cuckold
and knows it. Yet the likelihood is that he knows no more than his friends. What he
sees is what they see: his wife's comings and goings from the Archpriest's house -
enough to provide suspicion, but not proof. The reader is not even told that these
visits fall outside the hours when a servant might normally be required.' Without
proof, Lazaro has no right to a separation from his wife. Yet if they continue to
live together, from what we have already glimpsed of his wife's character it seems
certain that if Lazaro were to challenge her protestations of fidelity in any way,
such as by going back on his promise that she may continue in the Archpriest's
service, the result could only be a life of constant and violent domestic quarrelling.
Lazaro prefers to opt for the quiet life and to keep his promise.
It is in this lack of firm evidence of adultery that the subtlest trap for the
would-be moralizer lies. We assume that the Archpriest is guilty because this makes
for the funniest reading and is consistent with the anticlericalism of the rest of the
novel. But if we then go on to condemn Lazaro on this basis, when the only
information we have is gossip, then once more we reveal our own moral weakness:
our readiness to criticize others. We become no better than scandal-mongers
ourselves. The irony of this situation is that the very person we accuse is our moral
superior. Whatever faults he may have, Lazaro is remarkably slow to pass comment
on the moral defects of others, as Alberto del Monte has noted.2
In the final tratado,I believe that the author quite deliberately rations the facts
that he gives the reader, and invites him to enjoy the joke of Lazaro's consequent
immunity from criticism. Even on the assumption that the Archpriest is guilty,
Lazaro is hardly the moral reprobate he has been made out to be. But that assump-
tion, if we make it, is ours alone. If on the basis of it we seek to point the finger at
Lazaro, then he can tease us much in the same way that a culprit might taunt the
police by informally confessing to a crime, but laughingly challenging them to
prove it, knowing full well that there is not a scrap of evidence which could provide
legal proof of guilt. The policeman who in such circumstances reacts by planting
false evidence to catch the criminal becomes a criminal himself.
Before leaving the issues raised by Lazaro's behaviour, I turn finally to the
question of the prologue, which has been regarded by some critics as an invitation
to pass moral judgement on Lazaro. It is hard to see how this view could have
1
Except in the inferior text of the Alcalt edition, given in the appendix of Jones's edition.
2 Op. cit., 47.
M. J. WOODS 595
gained currency. After all, the speaker in the prologue is Lazaro himself. Whatever
moralistic construction we put on his words there, it is hardly conceivable that he is
encouraging us to criticize him more rigorously than he is prepared to criticize
himself. But in any case, the language of the prologue, with its constant stress on
enjoyment, goes a long way towards denying any moral purpose. The obvious
formula for any prologue was to admit to a desire to give both pleasure and
profit. Yet this book offers the reader 'algo que le agrade', or, for 'los que no
ahondaren tanto' - an ironic use of ahondar,since one does not have to go deep to
gain pleasure- '(algo que) los deleite'. Unless we perversely see delight as less
inviting than pleasure,' there is no way that these words can be taken as a literal
invitation to probe the book's implications, moral or otherwise.
As for Lazaro's comment that no work should be discarded 'siendo sin perjuicio
y pudiendo sacar della algun fruto', this is part of a comic argument which places
the book's qualities at their very lowest, and which quite deliberately talks in the
most general terms possible. Provided somebody somewhere gets some benefit
from something, even from a near disaster of a book, then that something ought not
to be denied to the public. This is hardly the kind of argument that would be
espoused by an author who is saying that his book has some specific moral points
to put across. The stance Lazaro takes is close to that adopted by Gregorio
Gonzalez in the prologue to his recently published picaresque novel, El Guiton
Honofre(I604). Despite criticizing those who recklesslyjustify publication of their
works on the grounds that no book can be all bad, Gonzalez goes on to suggest that
such profit as the discretosmay gain from his book is not to be credited to the
author: 'Si acaso hallaren en 1ealguna cosa que pueda ser de fruto la estimen como
salida a caso'.2
But in Lazaro's case, thefruto is not even identified as a moral one. Taken in its
context,fruto may even be a jocular reference to the benefit which the author rather
than the reader will gain from publication: 'Ninguna cosa se debria ... echar a mal
... pudiendo sacar della algun fruto; porque si asi no fuese, muy pocos escribirian
para uno solo... y quieren ser recompensados, no con dineros, mas con que vean
y lean sus obras, y si hay de que, se las alaben.' Here Lazaro states that to refuse to
publish a work is to deny its author the public acclaim which was his motive for
writing. No violence is done to the logic of this passage if we identify thefruto with
the recompensa.
The reader who seeks to moralize about Lazaro's behaviour, then, does so
uninvited by the prologue, and runs the risk of revealing flaws of his own in the
process. In an analogous way, the reader's reaction to some of the religious situa-
tions in the book may unwittingly lead him to display religious attitudes which,
certainly judged from the Erasmian point of view, are suspect. For example, in
considering the episode of the Pardoner's fake miracle, a natural first reaction is to
be impressed by the scandalousness of the Pardoner's conduct, and to be amused by
the gullibility of the people who allow themselves to be deceived by him. Yet we
err if we assume because the Pardoner has tricked his congregation that he wins and
they lose. Further consideration shows that the welfare of the congregation is
determined not by the fraudulence of the Pardoner, but by the effectiveness or
Once again we have a satirical attack on the gullibility of the populace. Once again
we are tempted to relate gullibility and fraudulence. But supposing the Blind
Man's prayers were genuine? Supposing the people get what they pay for -
prayers directed towards the remedy of particular ills- what then? Suppose,
even, that the Blind Man actually believed himself in the efficacy of his prayers?
Would the people have been any less gullible? Let Erasmus speak again:
Couldanythingbe so foolish... as thosewho promisethemselvessupremeblissforrepeating
daily thosesevenshortversesof the holy Psalms- the magicverseswhich some demonis
believedto have pointedout to St Bernard? ... It is muchthe samewhenseparatedistricts
lay claimto theirown particularsaints.Eachone of theseis assignedhis specialpowersand
has his own specialcult, so that one givesrelieffromtoothache,anotherstandsby womenin
childbirth,a third returnsstolen objects,a fourthwill appearas a saviourfor shipwrecks,
anotherwill protectthe flocks,and so on.2
Even if the Blind Man's prayers were genuine, would they not have been 'formas
y maneras para sacar el dinero' ? It is a description which many Erasmians would
have thought applicable to many of the rites of the Church, and relates to the
issues raised by the sale of indulgences.
Finally, when in the second tratadothe Priest has the effrontery to tell Lazaro
'Mejor vida tienes que el Papa', in concentrating quite naturally on the outrageous-
ness of his remark we may be trapped into accepting in passing that it is appropriate
that the Pope's life should be held up as the supreme example of luxury. If so, we
would have been caught in an attitude radically opposite to that of, say, that most
powerful of Spanish Erasmians, Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros, whose attempts to