510 Schevill — Studies in Cervantes. 



con liucer que se reuuvaseii los juegos, que los gentiles llamaban 

 olimpicos, en el mejor modo que podian : sefialaban premio a los co- 

 rredores, honraban a los diestros, coronaban a los tiradores, j subian 

 al cielo de la alabanza a los que derribaban a otros en la tierra. 



At this point a possible fusion of the influence of both Virgil and 

 Heliodorus takes place. In Heliodorus the festivities are given 

 over to Pythian games; Cervantes may have taken a suggestion 

 from this fact, and while looking for the most classical material 

 that could be turned into "Olympian" games, he had recourse to the 

 Aeneid. 



The first event in Virgil's games, the boat-race, fills a single 

 episode in the Persiles quite independent of the other above. It is 

 put into a purely pastoral setting upon an island in the northern 

 seas, among some fisher folk who differ in no respect from the 

 characters of the pastoral novels. At the marriage festival of two 

 young couples a race is rowed by four boats just as iii the Aeneid,^ 

 though the naming of the boats el Amor, el Interes, la Diligencia, 

 and la huena Fortuna is not in keeping with their classic origin. It 

 recalls rather the pageant at the marriage feast of Comacho in Don 

 Quixote,- where two competing groups of dancers are led by Amor 

 and by Interes. A comparison of this scene in the Persiles with its 

 source will show the extent of Cervantes's indebtedness and how he 

 took the salient ideas. 



"When Aeneas lands on the coast of Africa, he comes upon the 

 Carthaginians engaged in building their city; he wanders into a 

 great temple and sees within it a pictorial history of the events 

 connected with the Trojan war. Here are recorded the battles 

 before the city'"' and the fate or career of the chief participants 



1 Cf. Appendix VI, p. 530. 



^ Cf. Don Quixote, II, chapter 20 and Clemenein's edition, op. cit., Vol. 

 VI, p. 32. 



^ Eneida, Vol. I, p. 31: "Mientras que ontre si alaba el artificio | De los 

 ingeniosisimos avtifiees, ] Y las laliorcs y obras de sus manos: | Vide a desora 

 entre ellas las batallas | Troyanas, dibujadas por su orden, | Y la j)i()lija 

 guerra, etc." "A Prianio miia, a quien del justo zelo | Le da, aim aqui, 

 su premio la pintura: | ]\Iiia los llantos del Troyano duelo, etc." "Via 

 pinlados los recuentros | Que en torno a la gran Troya se travaron: | En 

 un lugar los Griegos ir hnyendo, | Y la Troyana juventud segnirlos, etc." 

 "No lejos conocio los blancos lienzos | De la curiosa tienda del Rey Reso, 

 . . . E)i oira pni-fc, el infelice niozo | Troylo, con gran desigualdad 



