“Me Has Visto el Alma en los Ojos”: Hidden Passions in Spanish Golden Age Tragedy

: The Spanish Golden Age tragedy is assembled around the conﬂict of passions, which does not ﬁnd an adequate channel of expression in words because there are feelings that cannot be confessed if one wants to preserve life. However, such intense emotions cannot be hidden for a long time, either. The characters discover that the eyes speak in silence and cannot lie, so they appeal to their sincerity at crucial moments. Such examples can be found in the declarations of love addressed to inaccessible or forbidden women or in the narratives of women who report sexual assault or husbands who believe they have been dishonored. In this article, we will analyze all these circumstances to demonstrate that, if they contradict the lips, the eyes are the windows of the soul, and they speak a language that is as expressive as it is eloquent.

said that "the eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears" (Cited by Mondolfo 2007,  p. 42).Plato distinguishes in The Republic (VI, VII) between the eye of the soul-destined to know the intelligible word-and the eye of the body-destined to know the sensible word- (Prósperi 2016, p. 365), and uses the analogy eyes-light-sun to explain the path that leads to the contemplation of ideas.For his part, Socrates considers the eye, among all sensory organs, as the most similar to the sun, the image of good (Jank 2001, p. 126).According to Filo of Alexandria, contemplation of the word depends on sight, which stimulates thought and communicates with the soul (Hadas-Lebel 2003, p. 257).In his last work, Orator, Cicero defends the art of oratory and explains the qualities necessary to carry out a speech that is both eloquent and convincing. 2 Among those qualities, Cicero highlights the importance of non-verbal language, posture, gesture, and attitude, but also of countenance, described as a mirror to the soul, while the eyes become its interpreters.While one can alter one's voice and control one's hands and words, the gaze cannot be hidden (Cicerón n.d.).
Thus, the eyes became the perfect metaphor in the literature to explain the irrational nature of love: the fortuitous crossing of glances initiating an emotional relationship or dalliance due to the eyes' ability to unveil the world around us; closing them leaves one in the dark, creating the opposite effect.Although the other senses render specific information, the sight creates an immediate anticipation linked to that "first impression" for which there are no second chances. 3For this reason, troubadours of the Galician-Portuguese lyric movement blamed the eyes for being the cause of one's state of unhappiness into which they had been immersed because they fell in love instantly, without the intervention of their own free will.It was enough to see that senhor "que eu por meu mal vi" 4 (which I for my evil saw) and nothing would ever be the same again.The eyes proceed by guiding the heart and surpassing the mind, given that the path of physical attraction is irreversible and precedes moral virtues. 5As a result, gaze frequently defines the nature and destiny of love: if deviated or rejected, love is unrequited, while if crossed or returned, it becomes requited love, otherwise known to be the perfect kind of love as noted by Lope de Vega in El caballero de Olmedo: D. ALONSO.
(. ..)Ojos, si ha quedado en vos de la vista el mismo efeto, amor vivirá perfeto, pues fue engendrado de dos; (I, vv.21-24) 6 And the rejection in Los comendadores de Córdoba: DON JORGE.(. ..)Pues viéndose en el cielo y paraíso, y cargado de sol, dije: Teneos, deseos locos, que me habéis burlado.Vos quitasteis los ojos de improviso, y cayendo conmigo mis deseos, fue mayor el castigo que el pecado; (I, vv.824-829) 7 The eyes act as interlocutors of poets and characters, who depend on them to make them responsible for their amorous passions or blame them for their misfortunes when the desired response is not met.Therefore, the eyes acquire a metaphorical value by being singled out; they stand out from the rest of the organs since the literature also attributes them with another unsuspected quality: eyes can speak in silence and say what is forbidden through the use of words.However, unlike the former, they cannot lie.A paradigmatic example of this quality is the dialogue in which Menón and Semíramis (La hija del aire, part 1, by Calderón) are forced to break off their relationship by King Nino and his sister Irene, who listen in hiding to the reasons for doing so.Manifesting a desperate emotional state because it is a hierarchical imposition contrary to his will, Menón begs Semíramis not to listen to his words but to look at his eyes.

MENÓN.
[Aparte a ella] Semíramis, aunque tengas quejas de mí, y aunque ignoro la ocasión, no te he de dar, ¡quién vio más terrible ahogo!, satisfacciones, porque no puedo.¡Atiende a mis ojos, hermoso imposible mío! (La hija del aire, 1ª, III, vv.275-281) 8 Likewise, and although the situation is the opposite, D. Álvaro (El pintor de su deshonra by Calderón) refuses to believe that Serafina-who got married after believing him deadcould belittle her feelings for him while her tears betray her.It is not only the eyes and the lips that contradict each other; there are also other senses that battle with the gaze to complete the perception of the world, as it happens with hearing in the case of Narciso (Eco y Narciso by Calderón), locked up by his mother in a cave to prevent a prediction from coming true.

TIRESIAS.
(. ..)En cinta estás: un garzón bellísimo has de parir: una voz y una hermosura solicitarán su fin amando y aborreciendo: guárdale de ver y oír." (Eco y Narciso, I, p. 1965 b) 10 Narciso will grow up isolated and ignorant.As a result, the first time he faces the world, he will feel overwhelmed by the presence of so many stimuli: "Ved algo, ojos/o no escuchéis tanto, oídos" (II, p. 1968 b) (See something, eyes/or do not listen so much to, ears).He is amazed by the unexpected and instant attraction that he feels for Eco, which he translates with an image typical of amorous passion fire but used in an unprecedented way, as it will be drunk by the eyes.NARCISO.

Declarations of Love: The Prison of Silence
There are many instances, although with different intentions, in which Spanish Golden Age tragedies make use of the dilemma posed between the eyes and lips, which we could even categorize as a genre label. 11Not only are the eyes and lips confronted by feelings of sincerity or honesty, but the impossibility of expressing one's feelings without such a confession can have fatal consequences, even as to put one's life in danger.Love comes at first sight, but at times, Cupid's arrow fails to strike the right person, who is surrounded by obstacles of various kinds that interfere with the relationship.An unsurpassable obstacle would be the one faced by Amón, who falls in love with his half-sister Tamar (Los cabellos de Absalón by Calderón), or Federico with his stepmother Casandra (El castigo sin venganza by Lope de Vega).At times marriage even prevents a relationship from happening, such as the one Enrique VIII seeks with Ana Bolena (La cisma de Inglaterra by Calderón) or similar to the ones that the wives in the tragedies of honor wish to pursue with former admirers, as seen in the case of Mencía, Serafina or Leonor in El médico de su honra, El pintor de su deshonra and A secreto agravio, secreta venganza, respectively, all by Calderón; or even in the case of Elvira in A lo que obliga el honor by Enríquez Gómez, married by the king against her will.DOÑA ELVIRA.
(A lo que obliga el honor, I, p. 505 b) 12 The guiding force of the different instances is always the same: the impossibility of revealing what one feels, the confinement of passions in a prison of silence that consumes the characters, and whose only key is words.Nevertheless, speaking compares to opening Pandora's box by releasing prohibited emotions that may only remain in the mind.Therefore, the only way to express such painful, divided and conflicting emotions is to resort to the eyes' sincerity, although mute in their expression.For this reason, Amón fears that his eyes might reveal his secret.
(Los cabellos de Absalón, I, vv.255-258) 13 A secret that Tamar should never know, and yet it is precisely she who tries to wrest out the truth of it by referring to the functions of both organs, which is that they connect what one says with the emotions that are aroused.TAMAR.
(Los cabellos de Absalón, I, vv.357-360) 14 However, shortly after, she resorts to the confusion between the senses in order to wake Amón abruptly from his amorous dream, rehearsed in a meta-theatrical scene in which he asks his sister to pretend to be his lady in order to gather the necessary courage to confess his love.Nevertheless, not even in a fictitious space does she agree to return his love.Tamar subtly removes from the equation the sense of sight, the key to falling in love, and replaces it with the sense of hearing, endowed with an objectivity that the other sense does not possess.Once the secret is confessed, Amón faces what he feared, rejection and, advised by a servant, 15 he chooses to forcefully satisfy his desire, believing that he could thus free himself from melancholy.The result is unexpected: after the rape, the prince cannot bear the presence of his sister, and he wishes to lose his senses in order to erase her from his world.
AMÓN. ¡Quién, por no verte y oírte, sordo quedara y sin ojos! (Los cabellos de Absalón, II, vv.1017-1018) Tamar goes from being an "hermoso imposible" (I, v. 462) (impossible beauty) to being the "horror/de mi vida" (II, vv.1004-1005) (horror/of my life), an unbearable image of the sin committed; and, although he insults her and orders her to be thrown out, it is he who ends up leaving, thus succumbing to the sinister side of beauty that is suddenly revealed.When he sees Tamar again and discovers her disguised as a serrana, he even wants to tear out his eyes so as not to have to look at her. 16 AMÓN.

An Open Secret: Women without Honour, Violence and Justice
The behavior exhibited by men stands in stark contrast to the attitude adopted by women who have suffered any kind of sexual assault.Women appeal to their eyes to attest to the sincerity of their story so that they can corroborate that it was an action committed against their will.Amón intends to lose his eyes, and her eyes are the only thing Tamar has to expect to be believed when she asks for revenge.TAMAR.
(Los cabellos de Absalón, II, vv.1166-1169)  The same happens to Isabel (El alcalde de Zalamea by Calderón), the daughter of the mayor Pedro Crespo, who was kidnapped by the captain and abandoned after fulfilling his sexual desire.She finds her father tied up on the mountain, but she does not free him until she is convinced that he believes in her innocence after an emotional account of what happened, in which she appeals to gestures of pain and shame to ensure that she is not responsible for her dishonor.ISABEL.
(. ..) y si lo que la voz yerra, tal vez el acción explica, de vergüenza cubro el rostro, de empacho lloro ofendida, de rabia tuerzo las manos, el pecho rompo de ira.Entiende tú las acciones, pues no hay voces que lo digan; (El alcalde de Zalamea, III, However, when the aggressor is not known, the crime cannot be made public, making it impossible for revenge to be claimed.Despite this imposed silence, the eyes are unable to hide the feeling or state of distress, and in order to conceal the truth, tears are blamed on melancholy, which has no cause or purpose, unlike sadness.Under the meaningful title of No hay cosa como callar (by Calderón), Leonor appeals to the link between eyes and lips since neither of them should let us guess the violence suffered in the darkness of the night. LER.
(No hay cosa como callar, II, vv.65-70) 18 These are women who do not choose their destiny because a sexual assault turns the course of their lives; however, neither do they usually initiate the love process, which begins with the gentleman's gaze, as the troubadours already had noted.Strangely enough, the two rival women in El médico de su honra describe falling in love in the same way.

The Soul in the Eyes: Clandestine Love Affairs
The eyes, intentionally or not, reveal the deepest feelings, which is why the male character also appeals to them in extreme situations.Unlike his wife, who associates love with a suitor before marriage, 21 he sees honor and love as inseparable absolutes.D. GUTIERRE.
(. ..)No te espantes que los ojos también se quejen, señor; que dicen que amor y honor pueden, sin que a nadie asombre, permitir que llore un hombre; y yo tengo honor y amor.Honor, que siempre he guardado como noble y bien nacido, y amor, que siempre he tenido como esposo enamorado: (El médico de su honra, III, vv.15-24) 22 Nevertheless, when he has to choose between the two, by voicing with lamentations his suspicions of adultery, he does not hesitate to sacrifice passion, which he will gradually deny himself as he acquires a metaphorical identity: "médico de su honra" (physician of his own honor) for D. Gutierre (El médico de su honra) 23 or "pintor de su deshonra" (painter of his own dishonor) for D. Juan Roca (El pintor de su deshonra) 24 .This new action will empower both protagonists to end their wives' lives and allow them to restore their reputation, as D. Gutierre so vehemently expresses.D. GUTIERRE.¡Ahora, ahora, valor, salga repetido en quejas, salga en lágrimas envuelto el corazón a las puertas del alma, que son los ojos!Y en ocasión como esta bien podéis, ojos, llorar: no lo dejéis de vergüenza.
(El medico de su honra, II, vv.577-584) 25 Since the eyes are the windows to the soul, they should remain closed in order to prevent tragedy from occurring.Amón falls in love with his sister, Tamar, and Federico with his father's wife, Casandra; they both know that their amorous passion must remain a secret because the woman they love is, literally, an "hermoso imposible" (impossible beauty) and out of their reach.Although their initial encounters begin the same way, their relationships progress and end differently: a verbal imprudence on the part of the prince will cause immediate rejection by Tamar; however, we do not know when Amón falls in love, but we know of the exact moment Federico falls in love with his stepmother.In addition, we also witness his refusal to verbalize his feelings for her because shortly after meeting his stepmother, he demands his servant Batín to refrain from saying what they both think.

FEDERICO.
No digas nada, que con tu agudeza me has visto el alma en los ojos (El castigo sin venganza, I, vv.634-636) 26 Federico is aware that "de la lengua al alma/hay más que del suelo al cielo" (II, vv.1242-1243)-"From tongue to soul there's such a great distance" (II, v. 878)-and he persists in keeping quiet, although his anxiety does not go unnoticed by those around him.Batín is the first one to reproach Federico for his lack of concealment.Afterward, it is Casandra herself who urges him to speak, giving him unmistakable indications that his words will be well received.
(El castigo sin venganza, II, vv.1483-1501) 28 Finally, Federico declares to Casandra the forbidden passion that torments him, and they both decide to stop seeing and talking to each other to avoid falling into temptation.

CASANDRA.
(. ..)Si remedio puede haber es huir de ver y hablar, porque con no hablar ni ver o el vivir se ha de acabar o el amor se ha de vencer.
(El castigo sin venganza, II, vv. 1991II, vv. -1995) 29 ) 29 Federico, like Amón, is the character without a center, the "fronterizo" (on the frontier) in the words of Eugenio Trías (1988), confronted with a world of absolutes that prevents them from fulfilling their desires because the chosen woman is, a priori, unattainable.Every step forward leads not only to the satisfaction of that hidden passion but also to annihilation because the rules cannot be transgressed without being expelled from the social group.Amón's unrequited love is satisfied by using violence to subdue Tamar and thus, as he believes, will stop his suffering.Federico, on the other hand, achieves the privilege of requited love, but this is located, like Amón's love, outside of the law; thus, it results in both of their deaths.In the case of David's son, Absalón will kill his brother Amón at a banquet to avenge Tamar (Los cabellos de Absalón) 30 , who ends up drinking the blood of the rapist who spilled hers 31 , and celebrates her return to society by alluding, significantly, to the gaze.TAMAR.
(Los cabellos de Absalón, II, vv.1850-1853) In Federico's case, however, the dishonor is kept secret.The Duke of Ferrara finds out about it from an anonymous paper, so he tricks his son into killing Casandra, the unfaithful wife, without knowing who she is.He then orders Federico to be killed for it so that it looks like a form of punishment and not revenge, which would be the same as making the crime public.
Passion cannot be revealed either when it is the husband who is in love with another woman, as happens to the Prince of Sicily in Cuánto se estima el honor (by Guillén de Castro), who laments "amar aborrecido" (hated loving) and "aborrecer amado" (loved hating), as he longs for Celia-in love with her cousin Alejandro-and disdains the Princess, who does not understand the reason for his disinterest in her.The Prince regrets not being able to go back and undo the process.

PRÍNCIPE.
(. ..) y tras esto no pueda volver los ojos, deshacer la rueda, y animando el despecho, mudar el alma aunque reviente el pecho!(Cuánto se estima el honor, I, p. 96 b) 32 Like Amón or Federico, he is aware that he cannot tell what is happening to him, "porque me cierra la boca/la que me lleva los ojos" (because she closes my mouth/the one that takes my eyes away), as well as the dichotomy between feeling and expression.

Looks That Kill
However, if ignoring or not returning the suitor's visual attention can further unleash his passions, the gaze is at other times portrayed as dangerous or lethal as that of the basilisk. 33This recurring image is used to represent jealousy or hatred, as Herod imagines to describe jealousy if it were to become tangible.

HERODES.
(. ..)Ojos de basilisco le pusiera, que, con ser visto o ver, siempre matara; (El mayor monstruo del mundo, III, p. 164) Furthermore, Amón employs the same metaphor to describe Tamar, whom he has ceased to love and who becomes the living memory of the sexual assault that he perpetrated on her and, thus, of his sin 34 .AMÓN.
(Los cabellos de Absalón, II, vv.994-999) The same thing happens to Anne Boleyn, the object of Henry VIII's passion that led him to divorce Queen Catherine, resulting in the final break with the Catholic Church that is known as the English Reformation or, in the words of Calderón, the Schism in England.A woman can also describe herself as a basilisk when she intends to take revenge after the offence.

Conclusions: The Eyes Are the Windows of the Soul
It is a fact that looks do not kill, and neither do words, but actions do.Then, the eyes are no longer in contradiction with the lips but with the hands.
(El medico de su honra, III, vv.407-408) 37 To sum up, taking into account the analysis of the aforementioned tragedies, we can conclude that the impossibility of communication and of telling one's story 38 is a recurring motif in the Spanish Golden Age tragedy.The agonizing struggle between passion and reason within the individual should not be verbalized since acknowledging instinct and desire means transgressing the norm and causing catastrophe.Thought is free, but expression is not, although evil would have an end if it could be expressed.Thus, one lives in solitude, and one suffers in solitude.
Consequently, the eyes play an essential role in tragedies, since they initiate passions in an involuntary but irreversible way without the intervention of reason.They become mute but eloquent interlocutors whose sincerity is a double-edged sword.On the one hand, the eyes can communicate feelings that words deny, as happens to Menón when he is forced to break up with Semíramis.The eyes can also corroborate the veracity of the story of the raped women who seek to prove their innocence.On the other hand, the eyes are also unable to hide passions that should not come to light, passions that words try to restrain but which the tormented protagonists' entourage end up noticing because looks are more loquacious than speeches.
By falling in love with a forbidden woman, Federico and Amón know that words can free them from their distress, but they are also aware of their performative nature.That is that confessing an illicit love is equivalent to committing themselves.This act can turn their world upside down and have dire consequences, and therefore, they must abstain from speaking.However, the silence is equally unbearable.
In conclusion, the eyes are the windows to the soul, and opening them can save a woman when it comes to justifying her dishonor, but they can also annihilate the character if they reveal what should remain confined in the imagination.Although, as Casandra says, it is no offense to think the offense (El castigo sin venganza, II, vv.1579-1581), sight is still the turning point between the heart and the lip, the beginning of the path that can lead to glory or to tragedy, given that once love enters through the eyes, the words can deny or confirm it.Nevertheless, free will and one's behavior will fail to prevent the senses from releasing those passions that should remain hidden because they are clandestine and forbidden.However, even though they are aware that their life depends on it, characters will not give up on making what they have imagined to be a reality.
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38
As says María Zambrano (1989, pp.15-16): Se puede morir aún estando vivo; se muere de muchas maneras; en ciertas enfermedades, en la muerte del prójimo, y más en la muerte de lo que se ama y en la soledad que produce la total incomprensión, la ausencia de posibilidad de comunicarse, cuando a nadie le podemos contar nuestra historia.[You can die while still alive; you can die in many ways; in certain illnesses, in the death of others, and even more so in the death of what is loved and in the loneliness that total incomprehension produces, the absence of the possibility of communicating, when we cannot tell our story to anyone.]39 For there is nothing so impossible/That the eyes of the conscience can't peruse.(Punishment without Revenge, II, vv.1097-1098).
Nonetheless, when it comes to love at first sight, women resort to the same image as men, as it happens in Los comendadores de Córdoba by Lope de Vega.
un caballero en mí, que ¡ojalá fuera basilisco de amor a mis despojos, áspid de celos a mi primavera!Luego el deseo sucedió a los ojos el amor al deseo, (El medico de su honra, I, vv.625-630) 20 Notes1 CRISANTO.Stay, I cannot live without thee./Or,ifthouwillgo,themagnet/Ofthineeyemustmakemefollow./Allmyhappiness is anchored/There (I, p. 49).The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria.A drama of early Christina Rome, translated by Denis Florence MacCarthy (Calderón de la Barca 1870).I add the English translation of the plays when I have located available editions.Edited by José María Ruano de la Haza (Calderón de la Barca 1995).-ButmytonguewillnotutterwhatImustweep in silence and ashes forever!Yet let these quivering hands and heaving bosom, yea, the very tongue that cannot speak, speak loudest!(pp.293-294).The Mayor of Zalamea, freely translated by Edward Fitzgerald (Calderón de la Barca 1906a).Ángel Valbuena Briones (Calderón de laBarca 1973).Ángel Valbuena Briones (Calderón de la Barca 1970).(...)Your highness/Liberal in all your fancies-/Generous in all your pleasures-/Prodigal of your affections-/Placed your eyes on me: I know it-/It is true, and I believe it (p.296).The Physician of His own Honour, translated by Denis Florence M'Carthy (Calderón de la Barca 1853, vol.I).Nací en Sevilla, y en ella/me vió Enrique, festejó/mis desdenes, celebró/mi nombre..., ¡felice estrella!/Fuése,ymipadreatropella/lalibertadquehubo en mí:/La mano a Gutierre di,/volvió Enrique, y en rigor,/tuve amor, y tengo honor./Estoescuantosédemí(Elmedico de su honra, I, vv.566-574).I was born/In Seville.There Enrique saw/And loved me, by the potent law/That rules the world; subdued my scorn,/And, like a star that doth adorn/The brow of heaven, upraised my name/First in the lover's lists of fame./Myfather, by abuse of might,/Restrained and trampled on my right/Of choice, and gave, short time ago,/My hand to Gutierre.Lo!/The prince returns: my heart is pained-/Love I have lost, and honour gained./Andthis is all even I do know.(ThePhysician of His own Honour, vol.I, p. 307).Serafina (El pintor de su deshonra) and Leonor (A secreto agravio, secreta venganza) got married after believing D. Álvaro and D. Luis dead.22Wondernotthen,mylord,these eyes/Of mine are neither cold nor dry:/Tis said that they whose bosoms prove/Worthy to feel the joys of love,/Or those of honour, still more deep-/Have the proud privilege to weep/Their sorrows, and no man reprove:-/Honour and love have both been mine-/Honour which I have always worn/As being a noble and well born;-/And love, which lately thou didst twine/My marriage, in those bonds of thine: (The Physician of His own Honour, vol.I, p. 370).Combinación de ave y reptil, con cabeza y garras de ave y cuerpo de serpiente.En el cristianismo representa al diablo o al Anticristo, una de las cuatro apariencias del diablo"(Cooper 2000, p. 20)[Combination of bird and reptile, with the head and claws of a bird and the body of a snake.In Christianity it represents the devil or the Antichrist, one of the four appearances of the devil].S. Augustin writes that the basilisk is king of serpents as the devil is king of demons.Among mortal sins it symbolizes lust(Biedermann 1993, p. 66)."Representaría al poder real que fulmina a quienes le faltan al respeto; a la mujer casquivana que corrompe a quienes de antemano no la reconocen y no pueden en consecuencia evitarla" (Chevalier and Gheerbrant 2015, p. 180) [It would represent the real power that strikes down those who disrespect it; to the capricious woman who corrupts those who do not recognize her in advance and cannot consequently avoid her].34 Tamar was not surprised by the prince's rejection after the rape, and this is what he stated before the Court when she went to demand revenge: "Aborrecióme ofendida:/no me espanto; que al fin son/enemigas declaradas/la esperanza y posesión" (Los cabellos de Absalón, II, vv.1202-1205) And the same happens in No hay cosa como callar: D. Juan, after his sexual assault to Leonor-who does not know who did it -, loses all interest in her: DON LUIS.Pues/¿qué medio hay para olvidar/una hermosura?DON JUAN.Alcanzar/esa hermosura.Esta es/la cura, Don Luis, más cuerda;/porque ¿quién tan importuna/pasión tuvo, que de una/lograda ocasión se acuerda?(No hay cosa como callar, II, vv.475-482) 35 Edited by Francisco Ruiz Ramón (Calderón de la Barca 1981).Who ever saw a grief like this arise/That hands must kill while tears bedew the eyes!(The Physician of His own Honour, vol.I, p. 386).Curiously, Cipriano (El mágico prodigioso by Calderón) sells his soul to the devil in order to this help him to understand a definition of God by Pliny that combines eyes and hands: DEMONIO.