Cervantes, Heliodorus, and the Novelty of “La gitanilla”

COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF HELIODORUS and Miguel de Cervantes ate often framed in terms of how the Greek author s adventure novel, the Ethiopica, influenced Cervantes's creative process in writing Persiles y Sigismunda, his final and posthumously published novel. (1) Cervantes himself invites the comparison in the prologue to his collection of short stories, the Novelas ejemplares, where he professes his desire to compete with this text now considered a model for writing an epic in prose. (2) Heliodorus certainly loomed large in Cervantes's literary imagination, yet there have been relatively few efforts to understand Heliodorus's impact in other Cervantine works whose relationship to the Ethiopica might not be as overt. Such is the case with the Novelas ejemplares. (3) The potential value of such a study can be glimpsed in a footnote to a 1907 article penned by the eminent Hispanist, Rudolph Schevill, who suggests various points of contact between the Ethiopica and the Novelas ejemplares. Here, we will only take up Schevill's comments on "La gitanilla," an assessment of which provides the first of this essay's two objectives: to substantiate Schevill's assertion that the Ethiopica directly influenced the writing of 'La gitanilla," as manifested in their highly similar treatments of anagnorisis, or recognition. Secondly, having corroborated Schevill's assertion of influence at the formal level, it will be argued that, in 'La gitanilla," Cervantes makes use of the Ethiopica's paradigm of recognition only to subtly reconfigure it in order to produce a completely novel rendering of the traditional tale of recognition, of which the Ethiopica was a prominent model in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. The importance of Schevill's comment regarding "La gitanilla" and the Ethiopica is in inverse proportion to its brevity. In an otherwise lengthy study on the influence of Heliodorus in Persiles y Sigismunda, Schevill's thoughts on "La gitanilla" constitute one brief sentence in a footnote: "A careful scrutiny of 'La gitanilla,' Obras, op. cit., p. 116, col. 1, to the close of the story will show how much Cervantes was influenced by Heliodorus" (697n3). (4) Here, Schevill is referring to a series of events late in the story that culminate in Preciosas recognition by her parents, events that are structurally very similar to Charicleia's own recognition in the Ethiopica. (5) To frame these events, we will summarize the plot of both stories, which, not insignificantly, share parallels beyond those suggested by Schevill. In a number of ways, the Ethiopica's central plot looks not unlike that of 'La gitanilla. "At her birth, Charicleia, daughter of the King and Queen of Ethiopia, is secretly given by her mother to a gymnosophist priest, Sisimithres, who eventually gives the child to Charicles, a priest of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi. Charicleia, oblivious to her noble origins, lives with her foster father and acts as a priestess of Diana. During the Pythian festival, Theagenes, a Thessalian noble, sees and immediately falls in love with Charicleia, who is equally captivated by him. Calasiris, an Egyptian priest in self-imposed exile and friend of Charicleia, begins to act as mediator between the two lovers and will later lead them to his homeland of Egypt. The high-born couple will now pretend to be siblings, as they and their chaperon experience a number of adventures. This culminates in Charicleia and Theagenes being taken prisoner and subsequently delivered to King Hydaspes, who unbeknownst to him is Charicleia's biological father. Queen Persina, Charicleia's biological mother, soon believes this to be her daughter. However, not until various proofs and testimonials are presented from different parties is Hydaspes convinced of her lineage. While Charicleia is now no longer in danger of being sacrificed, Theagenes's future remains uncertain. In spite of Charicleia's insistence that Theagenes be spared, Hydaspes insists on complying with the ancestral law of sacrifice. …