Celestina

Celestina

Taken from the Tragedia de Calisto y Melibea [published in 1499], which is believed to be the model for Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet, this play plucks out the minor but one of the most memorable characters in literature, Celestina.  In the earlier work this character appears as an old crone once a successful prostitute, who now serves as a tutor to young girls seeking [“in the life” – prostitution] a means of feeding themselves and perhaps their young families, and is also a mender of hymens for young wayward ladies who are willing and able to pay to have their pure virginity restored.  This play, however, presents a beautiful, intelligent, well-educated girl “in the life,” whose clientele includes successful businessmen, a renowned Archbishop, and politicians.

Opening the play is a scene of Celestina and her mother discussing the merits and demerits of prostitution, the mother wishing that her daughter could have a more respectable career but accepting Celestina’s position: except for our prudery about sex, why is prostitution any less respectable than any other commercial business that sells a valuable product in great demand, especially if the clientele is doubtless respectable?

Celestina has won a respectable place in the community because she does not flaunt her beauty or success, but is obviously appreciated, especially by the men, and also because as a brilliant fundraiser for the Church she has been accepted as a respected member of the Board.  In a meeting with the Board, despite Celestina’s admirable efforts at diplomacy, when the Archbishop feels “attacked” by the subject of the clergy abuse of its young and female parishioners, he explodes in anger a storms out of the meeting.  To divert attention from the growing discontent of the community in the negative publicity about the abuse of young boys, girls, and women in the confessional, the Archbishop publicly announces a campaign to clean the city of all prostitution by closing all brothels and arresting any and all streetwalkers.

Immense pressure is placed on Celestina when she discovers that word has gone out of her abominable “business” and that the Archbishop has broken his appointments with her, however much he craved his masochistic flagellation “therapy.”  Forced to decide whether to allow herself to be run out of town, Celestina elected to go public and name names of her clientele, arguing that if she is guilty, so must her clients who pay for her services.

Not one to take such public disgrace lying down, the Archbishop calls on a couple of his more able henchmen to go teach her a less she will never forget and put her out of business permanently.  They mutilate her so that she will never again be able to sell her wares in the open market.

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