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

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(1783-1850) from 'a French officer married to the last surviving heir ofthe family'; Thomas Thorpe was often his agent. Both Thorpe's and Rich's Spanish books were auctioned by Evans on 2 March and 4 July 1826 respectively. The connection between Thorpe, Rodd and the Iriarte collection is documented on 5 June 1826 when Thorpe sold Rodd 117 volumes from Iriarte's library which eventually passed via Richard Heber to the Bodleian. Thus, although the history ofthe ownership of Add. 14040 is far from complete, it seems unlikely that the manuscript was in the Biblioteca Real as late as 1836, the date of publication of Torres Amat's catalogue. Our text is called exenplo in the rubric which heads it, and indeed it displays the mixture of the didactic and the grotesquely sensational which characterizes one current within the exempluni genre. The plot may be summarized as follows. In Damascus during the reign of the fictional Emperor Sixtus, a noble lady Climegia and her daughter Climesta fall on hard times through the profligacy of their husband and father. The daughter, aged twenty (her age is given only in the rubric), is a worldling, proud ofher beauty. The women initially heed the exhortations of the hermit Patriîo against losing their souls for the sake of worldly gains. The hermit reinforces his admonitions with a brkfexemplum: Falsehood asked Truth where she might find her. Truth replied that if Falsehood found her, she should keep hold of her, as if she let her go she would never have her back. Mother, however, is advised by evil persons that the world will bring them all they need if she 'rocks' herself and her daughter. She accordingly buys two cradles, to no avail. A woman neighbour (the Devil in disguise) disabuses them: this 'rocking' is a euphemism for prostitution. They persevere in a life of vice despite Patriîo's warnings. Eventually Climesta is caught inflagrante and sentenced to be burned. On her way to the stake she asks to speak to her mother: when she draws near, the daughter bites off her tongue and puts her eyes out. Asked why, she says it is because she has been ruined by her mother's ill advice and failure to give her good counsel. Climesta's grotesque punishment ofher mother is an example of a tale found in many didactic texts.^ Probably the oldest version known is in the Greek Aesop :^^ a boy steals a book from a schoolmate as a joke. His mother laughs at his prank, which encourages him to go on to worse crimes. Eventually he is sentenced to be hanged; on the way to the scaffold, under pretence of whispering to his mother, he bites off her ear (see fig. i). He explains his action by saying that her indulgence was the cause of all his crimes: had she punished him at his first offence, he says, he would never have come to such a pass. The Aesopic text seems not to have entered Latin circles until Rinuccio d'Arezzo's 1448 translation. The version in Pseudo-Boethius, De disciplina scolarium, dated circa 1240, was known earher, and more widely, to the Latins: several manuscripts have English and French glosses, suggesting that they were used for teaching grammar.^^ There Lucretius, son of Zeno,^^ wastes the advantages of good birth, talent and patrimony on prostitutes. His father stands by ('patre poenam deferente'). The youth turns to crime to pay his debts, and is saved from crucifixion because his father bribes the authorities. Finally father can pay no more. On the way to execution the son bites 173
Fig. I. The errant son bites his mother's ear. Libro delsabio £5" clarissimo fabuladorysopo hystoriad £5' annotado (Seville: Cromberger, 1526). C.59.i.i6, f. clvi"" Text Aesop (see fig. i) Odo of Cheriton'^ Ps-Boethius Jacques de Vitry^* Etienne de Bourbon'^ Libra del caballero Spanish woodcut*' Climefia TABLE L VARIANTS Dale c. 1220 c. 1240 d. 1240 d. 1261 Parent Mother Father Father Father Father Mother ^- 1303 1488 Mother copied post 1406 Mother OF THE CLIMEgiA STORY Child Crime Punishment Bitten Son Son Son Son Son Son Stealing Hanging Stealing, immorality Hanging Fornication Crucifixion Stealing Hanging Stealing Stealing, etc. Hanging Son — Daughter Fornication Burning Eai' Flesh of face Nose Lips Nose Lips Nose Tongue, eyes off his father's nose. His last words blame first his father's indulgence and then his own disobedience: 'Why did I escape unpunished from my first errors.? Why did I not obey my first teacher and despise my fellows.^' In subsequent derivatives of this story, the protagonists, crime, punishment and mutilation differ, as is shown in Table i. It will be seen from the Table that the story in Add. MS. 14040 does not correspond 174
Page 1: AN OLD SPANISH TALE FROM ADD. MS. 1
Page 5 and 6: acaesîo que la fija seyendo toda d
Page 7 and 8: aconpannado y bien honrrado y bien
Page 9 and 10: 4U ; Fig. J. Add. MS. 14040, f. 113
Page 11 and 12: i' "-'5? v- Tîn...- Ftg. s- Add. M
Page 13 and 14: I am grateful to Professors Dwayne

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

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