AN OLD SPANISH TALE FROM ADD. MS. 14040, flf ... - British Library

Exegetical notes: 28 de malos rrecaudos: spendthrift: cf. 'costosas o de malos recabdos', Castigos
y doctrinas que vn sabio daiia a sus hijas, in Hermann Knust (ed.), Dos obras diddcticasy dos leyendas
sacadas de manuscritos de la Biblioteca del Escorial (Madrid, 1878), pp. 249-93, at p. 285 39
Mt. 5.3 40-1 Mt. 16.26; Mk. 8.36 41 loo £5* amo. The reading is difficult, but may be
a synonymous pair: cf. 'honrats e loats e amats': Ramon Llull, Llibre de Porde de cavalleria, ed.
Albert Soler i Llopart (Barcelona, 1988), p. 237, line 145. 45-6 Cf. Mk. 10.30; Mt. 5.10
70 vino. Prostitutes often plied their trade under the cover of wine-selling. The branch, symbol
ofthe wine trade, came to denote prostitution; hence Spanish ramera: see Diego Hurtado de
Mendoza, Poesi'a completa^ ed. Jose Ignacio Di'ez Fernandez (Barcelona, 1989), p. 509, note to
poem clxxi 73 la puerta de la calle: contrast ' para ser honestas, que no vos asentedes a las
ventanas ni...a las puertas' {Castigos, p. 282). Prostitutes in nineteenth-century Madrid referred
to their trade as 'hacer puerta': see Javier Rioyo, Madrid: casas de lenocinio, holganzay malvivir
(Madrid, 1991), p. 326 73-4 fniraras bien en fito: in contrast with the modestly downcast gaze
of 1. no 85 ydolo. The connection between cosmetics and idols is made in other didactic
texts: cf. ' Asi lo dize Sant Pablo en la primera canonica a los 9inco capitulos, en que dize que las
mugeres non trayan... vestiduras desonestas, nin pintar las caras como ydolos de diablo', Frank
Anthony Ramirez (ed.), Tratado de la comunidad (London, 1988), p. 126; and * Estas que asi se
visten y se precian del traer, dice el santo profeta e rey David, que son semejantes a los ldolos e
imagenes de los templos', Hernando de Talavera, De vestir y de calzar, in Miguel Mir (ed.),
Escritores mi'sticos espafioles, vol. i, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espaiioles, xvi (Madrid, 1911),
p. 68. (I have not been able to identify the Biblical references) 90 Sant Bernaldo. Cf. 'el
linaje de los spiritus son diversos e departidos' 'del spiritu humano, que es el alma del omne',
'An Old Spanish Translation from the Flores Sancti Bernard^ cited in n. 2, sentences 1-2. Much
of this chapter of St Bernard is concerned with the spirits of the flesh, of the world and of the
Devil (especially §9), which are discussed by the present text at lines 93 (carne), 95 (mundo)
and 97 (serpiente) 104-5 ^os tres offios de la buena muger. The text originally gave three stages
in the career ofthe loose woman: 'whore in youth', ' whore-cum-procuress' and 'vile procuress'.
The interlinear addition precedes these with an earlier stage 'whore in girlhood'. Mancebia had
two meanings: the age of sexual maturity (say 14-40), preceded by mocedat (childhood up to
about 14). The precise distribution of years differs from author to author, but the order is always
the same: see John K. Walsh (ed.). El libro de los doze sabios (Madrid, 1976), p. 27. Mancebia by
extension could also mean prostitution: the Diccionario de autoridades of 1726 translates mancebia
as 'prostibulum.' It is likely that the original intention in our text was to denote youth in general;
the glossator felt the need to split the concept into earlier and later periods 107 a de perder
su alma: cf. Mt. 10.39, ^*^^- ^^^ -^^ ?"^ "^^^ "^^^ ^^ gana con mal se acaba: probably a
proverb: cf. 'Quien en mal anda, mal acaba', Felipe C. R. Maldonado (ed.), Refranero cldsico
espanol (Madrid, 1982), p. 61, no. 211, and Eleanor S. O'Kane, Refranes y frases proverbiales
espanolas de la edad media (Madrid, 1959), p. 150 118 que fuese quemada. The final scene of
this story takes place at the stake. Burning as punishment for prostitution is both a historical
reality and a favourite motif of didactic fiction: see the fourteenth-century Fuero de Albarracin,
cited by D. J. Gifford and F. W. Hodcroft, Textos lingtitsticos del medioevo espafiol (Oxford, 1959),
p. 191 124 castigo: the slightly irregular syntax is paralleled in Manrique's 'este mundo
bueno fue/si bien usasemos del': Coplaspor la muerte de su padre, 61-62, in his Poesi'a, ed. Jesiis-
Manuel Alda Tesan (Madrid, 1977), p. 147.
183