Celestina first published in Burgos in 1499, predates most 'plays' in Castillian Spanish. Initially the book was such a huge success, reprinted several times, 'translated to Italian in 1506', it may even have become, the first bestseller of its kind in Europe. Its author, Fernando de Rojas didn't get paid. When he died, his second son, got a value on the original manuscript as worth 'half a chicken'. More about the life and times of Rojas and how the 'play' was originally developed and presented, later.
What follows are some of the first lines that the character Celestina says during this first depicted drama in the famous, culturally very rich but overlooked Spanish play, with questionable morals. The range of her behaviors is astonishing.
Importunate:
"You come back here! Leave her be. She's livid and broody. Full of madness at your absence. It's been driving her out her right mind. She'll talk no end of nonsense. You come with me and we'll talk together. Don't let's allow time to pass for nothing."
Impertinent:
"Do you really want to know?"
--
"It's a girl on order for a friar."
"And no, you can't have her too."
"Do you really insist on knowing? The fat one in charge of the monastery."
"We have to put up with everything. No one's ever rubbed your belly raw."
"Joker."
Opportunistic:
"Truncate the prelude and cut to the point, There's no profit in using many words to express something that can be said with a few. ... Well said. I'm with you altogether. I like the sound of your news. I like it the way a surgeon likes to hear of broken heads."
Conspiratorial, Resolute:
"I hear footsteps. They're coming down. Sempronio, make as if we haven't heard them. Listen well, Let me say what is good for you and good for me."
"Do not harass or importune me. For to overburden with care is uselessly to distress the overburdened beast. You so greatly feel for your master Callisto's distress it seems you are he and he is you. For the torments you describe have residence in one single heart, Believe me, I did not come here to leave this case go unresolved. I will resolve it or die in the attempt."
"Sempronio, if I could live off words I'd be a rich lady! Tell him to shut his mouth and open his purse."
The Pitch:
"The pleasure it gives me ... that we should have the opportunity for you to know the love I feel for you and the unmerited place you occupy in my heart. And I say unmerited, for what I have heard you murmuring, of which I take no notice, because virtue admonishes us to resist temptation and not repay evil with evil in return, especially when tempted by those of little instruction in the ways of the world, who with foolish and misplaced loyalty ruin their masters and their own selves, as you do now to Calisto. I hear you very clearly ... and do not imagine that in my old age I have lost my hearing nor my other external senses. For I know not only what I see and hear but also with my intellectual eyes I can penetrate even to the innermost soul. You must know ... that Calisto treads this earth suffering from love, and love is overmastering and conquers everything. ... that the person who truly loves needs must be disordered by the sweetness of sovereign delight...."
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