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.At the urging of 4Idolatry, Tucapel suggests to the Peruvians that they fire burning arrows 5at the Spanish forces.They do so, and the sleeping Spaniards awaken 6to walls of fire.Pizarro, Candía and the other Spaniards are trapped in 7the burning building, and pray to the Virgin Mary for deliverance.8At this moment, according to Calderón’s stage directions, bells ring, 9and from on high descends a throne in the form of a cloud painted 1011with seraphim and two kneeling angels, on which Our Lady of Copaca-1bana is sitting with the Christ Child in her arms.Snow is falling from 2the Virgin’s throne.58 Guáscar cries out that the snowflakes have extin-3111guished the blaze, and that he has been blinded by dust when he attempts 4to look up at her.Iupangui, however, is dazzled, and says that he is not 5worthy to look upon the face of this apparition.Idolatry, in fury, sees 6that his stratagem has backfired, and that the faith of the Spaniards has 7been strengthened.He retires to Copacabana, saying that in revenge he 8will reveal Guacolda’s whereabouts to Guáscar.9The action then shifts to the house of Guacolda’s servant, Glauca, 20111where the former is in hiding.Tucapel, Glauca’s oafish husband who 1had been taken away by the Spaniards, suddenly reappears.When he 2realizes that Guacolda is concealed under Glauca’s roof, he shouts to 3the neighbours that she has been found, and that Guáscar will give them 4a reward if they reveal her whereabouts.As Guacolda sinks into despair, 5Iupangui enters.He tells Guacolda that he has obtained the protection 6of Atahualpa, and that they can be married.At this point, however, 7Guáscar enters with his retinue in order to take Guacolda to be offered 8as a human sacrifice.In sorrow, she says once again that she finds it a 9violation of natural law that she should die for a god who is not willing 30111to die for her.Iupangui then confesses his love for her, and the two 1embrace.Guáscar reacts in jealous rage, but when he orders that they 2be separated, Guacolda holds tightly to the Cross, praying for protec-3tion and invoking the power that had tamed the wild animals on the 4beach.Similarly, Iupangui wraps his arms around a plantain tree, which 5is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary, and begs for protection 6from the female apparition he had seen in the skies over Cuzco.The 7villagers are unable to separate them from the Cross and the tree.Guáscar 8is furious, and although Idolatry attempts to urge him to put them to 9death, he is miraculously rendered mute.When Guáscar orders that his 40111soldiers fill them full of arrows, Guacolda and Iupangui again invoke 1the power of the Cross and the plantain, and the two vanish amid peals 21111of thunder.At this moment, the Spanish forces arrive.144Colonial encounters in New World writing1111When the final act of the play begins, considerable time has elapsed.2In a dialogue between the Viceroy, don Lorenzo de Mendoza, Count 3of La Coruña, and the Governor, don Gerónimo Marañón, the latter 4attributes the success of the Conquest of Peru to Marian devotion and 5divine intervention.He describes the miraculous occurences of the 6taming of the wild animals and the apparition of Our Lady over Cuzco 7and provides an update of subsequent events:89GOVERNOR:.After the fall of Cuzco, Chucuito, Lima, 1011of whose Conquistadores only one remains alive,1Guáscar died in prison, and his brother Atahualpa2I know not how.But as these things are not to be told lightly, 3111we shall leave history to write them.Today, let us speak only 4of Copacabana, as befits my duty,5for governors must not speak the language of chroniclers.67Here, the allegiances of Calderón, the former soldier of Spain’s imperial 8forces and the royal chaplain of Philip IV, emerge with clarity.In these 9words of the Governor, Calderón has neatly whitewashed Spanish 20111imperial history and has erased the memory of the controversial (and 1unjust) execution of Atahualpa, the sovereign ruler of Peru, with the 2phrase, ‘I know not how’, adding that historiography is divorced from 3the pragmatic political concerns of rulers.The Governor goes on to 4explain to the Viceroy that Copacabana under Inca rule had been a 5many-headed Hydra of idolatry, but that thanks to the Spanish mon-6archy and to the labour of the Dominican and Augustinian orders, it 7had become a centre of Catholic faith.However, he continues, the Devil 8has divided the population into two factions: one, led by Andrés Jayra, 9a noble cacique, had proposed that Saint Sebastian be made Copaca-30111bana’s patron saint, while another, led by none other than Iupangui, 1once of the Inca nobility but now known as Francisco, had supported 2the patronage of the Virgin Mary.In the end, the latter had prevailed, 3since the fields of the supporters of Our Lady had miraculously burst 4into bloom.Problems had then arisen because Francisco had offered to 5create a statue of Mary to be placed in the chapel of Copacabana, but 6due to his lack of artistic talent the image provoked derision rather than 7religious devotion.As a result, the projects of Christianization were in 8danger [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]