(Thou askest what I was,
Attend, lend ear to me;
That which thou art, I was,
What I am, thou wilt be.
Since all to this must come,
Reader, then counselled be,
As the mirror of thy doom,
Look! and look well on me!)
Alonso de Cisneros, a native of Toledo, a famous actor of the sixteenth century, is less known by his proper name than by the appellation of el Tamborillo. He received this nickname because it was a part of his theatrical duty to beat a drum, which, according to the old Spanish custom, was sounded in the street, to announce that the performances were about to commence, and that the public might assemble in the theatre. It happened that this drum disturbed the siestas of Cardinal Espinosa, who was then officiating as President of Castile, and who stood high in the favour of Phillip II. The Cardinal, irritated by the annoyance, and determined to get rid of it, devised some unfounded pretext for ordering Cisneros to quit Madrid.
This circumstance came to the ears of the Infante Don Carlos, who used to be much diverted by the comedian’s humour and drollery; for at that time the Prince had withdrawn from the court circle, on account of the mortification he suffered from the favour shewn by his father to Rui Gómez de Silva and Cardinal Espinosa.
On hearing of the banishment of Cisneros, and its cause, Carlos resolved on revenge. He ordered the Captain of his Guard to beat four drums daily, from two till five in the afternoon, in front of the Cardinal’s residence. One day when the Prelate went to pay a visit to the palace, his unlucky star brought him face to face with the Prince, who seizing him by his rocket, and shaking him angrily, exclaimed, “How now, priest!—do you dare to face me, after having sent away Cisneros? By the life of my father, I have a great mind to kill you!” Espinosa would doubtless have been roughly handled, but that, luckily for him, Philip II. at that moment entered the apartment.
(R).
“Micer Oliver de la Marcha was then living, though in a very advanced old age. He wrote a book entitled, El Caballero Determinado, &c.” (Page 135).
El Caballero Determinado, traducido de lengua francesa en castellana, par Don Hernando de Acuña, y dirigido al emperador D. Carlos Quinto, Maximo, Rey de España nuestro Señor.—En Anvers, en casa de Juan Steelsio.—Año de MDLIII.[87]
“Cervantes,” observed Don Adolfo de Castro, “has committed an anachronism in that passage of the Buscapié, in which it is affirmed that Oliver de la Marcha was living at the period when Charles V. was challenged by the King of France. He appears to have confounded the author of the Caballero Determinado, who lived in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, with the translator of the work, Hernando de Acuña, who was contemporary with the Emperor, Charles V. But similar errors are of frequent occurrence in the printed works of Cervantes, as well as in the manuscript of El Buscapié.”
(S).
“The whole history is in print as related by Juan Calvete de Estrella.” (Page 137.)