Celestina: Or, the Tragi-Comedy of Calisto and Melibea Book

For about a month they have been having sex clandestinely at night, inside Malibea's room, right under the noses of her unsuspecting parents. To get to her room Calisto has to climb up a steep ladder carried to the site every night by his servants. During this last night, after three exhausting but blissful encores, Calisto heard a commotion outside. Rushing to check what it was, suspecting his servants may be in trouble, he slipped off the ladder and fell to his death, his head split into three (as many as their encores that night) like a crushed watermelon. The last words he shouted, as he was about to fall, were:

"Holy Mary, I'm done for! Confession!"

The two became lovers through the help of Celestina--probably one of the vilest characters in literature. She's a sixty-year-old former prostitute, now a madam who counts among her clients several clergymen. Being a madam at that time wasn't as lucrative a profession as it is now, so to make ends meet she sidelines as a hymen-repairer, a love guru, a faith healer and an itinerant vendor of various merchandise. She also dies violently, stabbed repeatedly until she was almost like the corned beef you often have for breakfast, by Calisto's own men. Her last words echoed that of Calisto:

"Ay, he's killed me! Ay! Confession! Confession!"

This looks strange now but not at that time when the way to salvation was clear cut: you die with your sins unconfessed, you go to hell. This novel was first published in 1499--more than 500 years ago--in Christian Spain during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. This was about 100 years before Don Quixote and was said to have inspired Cervantes' inventiveness. The author, Fernando de Rojas, wrote this when he was barely out of his teens, while studying law at the University of Salamanca. His family was Jewish. They suffered a lot during the Spanish Inquisition where the "Holy Office" was relentlessly pursuing and burning "heretics" who either lose their lives, or honor, or properties, or all of these. When Fernando de Rojas was already a lawyer, he defended his father-in-law against these inquisitors after the old man, drunk, argued with a priest and declared that he does not believe there is life after death.

It was in this world made false, hypocritical, cruel, hopeless and deadly by religion that Fernando de Rojas conceived of this novel. A world where the only consolation one can find is the fleeting pleasure (especially carnal pleasure) he/she may luckily encounter between birth and death. Calisto and Malibea inside her room that last night:

Calisto: My lady and my bliss, if you want me, sing more softly still. It sounds sweeter in my presence than the delight it brings when you're wearied by my absence.

Malibea: How shall I sing, my love? What shall I sing? Of my desire for you, firing my song and tuning my melody? As soon as you showed up, my song went, and the tune with it. And you, my lord, are such a model of politeness and good manners, how is it you can bid my tongue to sing but not your hands to keep still? Why don't you give up these ways? Tell them to be quiet and stop their unseemly converse with me. You know, my angel, I love to gaze at you peacefully, but not this insistent pawing. I like your respectful play but find your hands are rude and annoying, especially when they get too rough. Let my clothes be, and if you must find out whether my over-garment is silk or cotton, why do you need to touch my shift that's undoubtedly linen? Let's play and pleasure in a thousand ways I can show you. Don't be so violent and mistreat me as you like to do. Why do you feel the need to rip my clothes?

Calisto: My love, if you want to taste the bird, first you must get rid of its feathers.

Malibea (panting, playing coy): My lord, shall I tell (my servant)Lucrecia to bring us some food?

Calisto: I only want to eat your body and hold your beauty in my arms. Money buys food and drink at any time of day and anyone can do that. What's priceless is what's in this garden that nothing on earth can equal. Do you think I'm going to give up a single moment of my pleasuring?...My lady, I hope day never dawns. My senses feel ecstasy at this exquisite contact with your delicate limbs.

Malibea (while they were going at it): My lord, I'm the one most loving this. I'm the winner thanks to the incredible gift you bring on each of your visits.

Then the distraught Malibea while Calisto's dead body was being taken away:

Malibea (to her servant): Can you hear what those boys are saying? Can you hear their sad laments? They're praying as they carry my life away with them and carry my happiness that's gone stone dead! This is no time to live. Why didn't I take more pleasure when I pleasured? Why did I value so little the bliss I gripped between these two hands? Ungrateful mortals, we only see our good fortune when it's gone!

Then the harrowing lamentation of Malibea's father (said to be the most moving part of the novel), after his only child has died, condemning the World and Love itself:


(no way. too long to type. read the book yourself!)