Figuring the Feminine: The Rhetoric of Female Embodiment in Medieval Hispanic Literature 9781442688100

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Carnal Knowledge: Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth
2. Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’s Peristephanon
3. Macho Words: Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid
4. The Metaphorics of Mary: Language and Embodiment in Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora
5. Undressing the Libro de buen amor
6. Configuring Culture: Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

FIGURING THE FEMININE: THE RHETORIC OF FEMALE EMBODIMENT IN MEDIEVAL HISPANIC LITERATURE

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JILL ROSS

Figuring the Feminine The Rhetoric of Female Embodiment in Medieval Hispanic Literature

U N I V E R S I T Y O F TO R O N TO P R E S S Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2008 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9098-0

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Ross, Jill, 1961– Figuring the feminine: the rhetoric of female embodiment in medieval Hispanic literature / Jill Ross. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9098-0 1. Spanish literature – To 1500 – History and criticism. 2. Women in literature. I. Title. PQ6060.R689 2008

860.9'3522

C2007-905589-3

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). University of Toronto Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, in the publication of this book.

For my husband, ‘Todo lo que vós feches es de buena guisa’ (Poema de mio Cid, 2193)

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Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix

3

1 Carnal Knowledge: Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 16 2 Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’s Peristephanon 50 3 Macho Words: Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 81 4 The Metaphorics of Mary: Language and Embodiment in Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora 108 5 Undressing the Libro de buen amor

145

6 Configuring Culture: Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión 181 Conclusion Notes

211

Bibliography Index

204

295

269

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Acknowledgments

This book has been under construction for a long time. I’d like to thank the many colleagues, teachers, and friends who have been instrumental throughout the process of revision and whose suggestions and comments helped me refine my ideas. Thanks in particular to Suzanne Akbari, Ross Brann, James Burke, John Dagenais, Patricia Eberle, Barbara Havercroft, Alison Keith, William Robins, Daniel Sheerin, and Brian Stock. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers for the Press whose comments forced me to rethink and to rework. Any errors that remain are entirely my own. My parents, Sidney and Ruth Ross, who sometimes thought the book would never ever be done, have been unflagging in their support and encouragement. My sons, Ben and Sam, growing up in a house amidst strange conversations about bodies, pens, and scissors, have shown great tolerance and curiosity. I would especially like to thank my husband, Mark Meyerson, without whose insight, engagement, and love this book would never have come to fruition.

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FIGURING THE FEMININE: THE RHETORIC OF FEMALE EMBODIMENT IN MEDIEVAL HISPANIC LITERATURE

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Introduction

Much ink has been spilled in discussing the place of the body in philosophical and critical writing. Feminist thought has challenged the Western, Cartesian philosophical attempts to free the mind from the tainted materiality of the body, and has attempted to liberate the body, especially the female-gendered body, from the bonds of a biological determinism imposed by a society and consciousness where the abstract and disembodied come to exert power over an inert, receptive, ‘feminine’ matter.1 Implicit in this debate is the thorny issue of language. For the inheritors of the Platonic tradition, which privileged mind over body and voice over the material marks of writing, language’s ability to represent truth depends on how effectively it can purge itself of its occluding corporeality, while for postmodern critics of Western metaphysical systems of power and thought, the body becomes something constrained and constructed by hegemonic social practices and discourses. The split of mind from body, and the concomitant organization of the conceptual world into opposing binaries characteristic of Platonic thought, is further radicalized and exaggerated in post-Cartesian thought. Modern philosophy, especially postmodern deconstructive thought, challenges Platonic and Cartesian binarism that makes mind supreme over body. Feminist thinkers, in particular, have sought to undermine the marginalization of women that was the result of such dichotomous thinking. The repressed, feminized body was shown to be the crucial ground on which the masculine, abstract, rational mind was able to effect its conjuring of truth and reality.2 One of the key strategies developed by feminist philosophers seeking to free the body from the oppressive masculinist notion of materiality is the distinction between sex and gender. By distinguishing

4 Figuring the Feminine

between a positivist, deterministic view of biological sex that equates a female body with a culturally conditioned idea of femininity, and the notion of gender that makes femininity into a set of culturally constructed rules, attitudes, and behaviours, feminist thinkers can demonstrate the artificial, constructed nature of the feminine and of the body, which, once they are unencumbered by such hegemonic ideology, become free to take on new possibilities and meanings. The materiality of both body and language is a crucial issue for feminists who are attempting to create a ‘new place’ for women.3 Luce Irigaray, in a kind of subversive mimesis, embraces the female body and makes it the ground for women’s language, a language that does not suffocate the other through the stifling, substitutive logic of metaphor, but rather, one that privileges a metonymic contiguity that is paradoxically metaphorized in the ‘“two lips” that “touch upon” but never wholly absorb each other.’4 Irigaray’s use of female anatomy as a means of countering the dominance of the phallus in Western thought and discourse has been denounced as ‘essentialist’ logic by critics who view the linking of language to the body as a kind of coercive biological determinism that imprisons women in the oppressive sexual identity that patriarchal culture has constructed for them.5 Such suspicion of anatomical tyranny has led to a different configuration of bodies and language in the work of Judith Butler. In Gender Trouble, Butler attempts to collapse any distinction between nature and culture by conflating sex and gender and making both into the effects of a repressive heterosexist power structure. The body’s collusion in the farce of gender renders that body nothing more substantial than ‘a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory framework that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being.’6 If the body is subject to a similar process of cultural construction as that which is associated with gender, then the body’s performance of gender is freed from its ‘naturalized interiority and surface’ to engage in ‘the parodic proliferation and subversive play of gendered meanings’ that will challenge the ‘masculine and heterosexist forces of repression.’7 Butler’s view of the constructed nature of the sexual body left her open to criticism that she was banishing the real body by turning it into a fleshless construct, a mere figure of language and speech.8 Butler attempts to redress this imbalance in Bodies That Matter by arguing that one cannot locate feminist theory in materiality because matter itself has a history; it is already ‘fully sedimented with discourses on sex and sexuality.’9 Through a rather cursory archaeology of the way

Introduction 5

the feminine is embedded within classical notions of materiality, Butler establishes the connection between the creative power inherent in materia and the materialization of meaning that is made possible.10 By making the material the ground for signification, Butler (correctly, in my view) exposes the interdependence of language and materiality: ‘for language both is and refers to that which is material, and what is material never fully escapes from the process by which it is signified.’11 Butler’s insight into the interdependence of language and body allows her to enact a strategically subtle shift in focus away from the living body to that of the body as a linguistic construct. She displaces anatomy into language through an appeal to the Kristevan notion of poetry as the materialization of the lost physical bond between mother and child.12 The material reality of the body is further undermined in Butler’s appropriation of Lacanian theory to prove that ‘the very contours of the body, the delimitations of anatomy,’13 are partly occasioned by the process of signification itself. In Lacan’s mirror stage, the entry into the symbolic world of language and law is accompanied by a new sense of bodily coherence governed by a phallocentric notion of signification. The infant’s recognition of the integrity of its body reflected in the mirror implies an idealization, a totalization, that enables an illusory sense of control whose power ultimately derives from a paternalistic imposition of gender and kinship in the form of naming.14 By making the body into a specular mimesis, Butler is attempting to free it from the tyranny of phallic language by positing the possibility of alternative linguistic and imaginative economies that would reflect alternative corporealities.15 Butler’s thesis is predicated upon the idea that because body and language share in materiality, they are interchangeable. Although it is clear that both body and language are implicated in matter, Toril Moi, in a persuasive essay entitled ‘What Is a Woman?’ has argued that the turning of the body into discourse only results in an abstract, decontextualized body. Furthermore, the ‘matter’ that grounds both body and language cannot be equated. The physical marks or sounds of spoken or written language are surely material in a way different from the physical mass of the body. By turning sex into a linguistic construct, Butler and other postmodern theorists are also hoping to prove that, like discourse, sex is fully engaged in the currents of history and subject to the forces of politics and power. Thus, the materialist approach to the body accomplishes two things at once: it enables a contextualized, historicized treatment of the body and sex while avoiding any

6 Figuring the Feminine

taint of essentialism, since the body is discursive rather than ‘natural.’ However, the body in postmodern theory is anything but a historicized entity. As Moi argues, the turning of the body into discourse only results in an abstract, decontextualized body, whereas what is needed is a body anchored in specific political, historical or discursive contexts.16 Indeed, Butler’s aim to expose or reconstitute the history (or histories) of matter is confined to a narrow, reductionist view of history. Butler historicizes matter by briefly analysing its meaning in the thought of Plato and Aristotle, before skirting the intervening 2,000 years to examine the fortune of materia in Irigaray and Foucault. As Caroline Bynum has observed, this is nothing more than a ‘vast essentialization’ of history, which is supposedly intended to counter the kind of classical essentialist thinking that equates nature and the feminine with the body.17 In the zeal to distance sex from nature in order to evade the consequences of biological determinism, postmodern theory’s alignment of the body with a materialist notion of discourse only perpetuates the Cartesian subordination of the body to mind. Instead, language has come to occupy the repressive position of mind in this dichotomy. David McNally decries the tendency of post-structuralist thought to suppress the material body as ‘imperialistic’ since it denies the historical reality of bodies as the basis of society and culture.18 Butler’s view of the anatomical as ‘only “given” through its signification,’ as ‘always already caught up in the signifying chain’19 effectively abstracts the body from the material world of labour, be it manual or maternal. This body, whose origin is found in a ‘culturally complex signifying chain,’20 effaces the female body. The substitution of language for any other origin makes the entry into language into a disembodied, idealist, and abstract process which has more in common with a modern capitalist economy than with the history of bodies: ‘our birth into language is detached from our origin in the bodies of others in much the same way that money-capital is treated as self-generating, without an origin in labour.’21 McNally’s solution to the sterile severing of language from the body is to seek to reinsert the body back into history. This means that the historical body must not merely be viewed as linguistic materia, but rather, that the body be recognized as both generating meaning and as being shaped by historically contextualized systems of meaning.22 In other words, body and meaning must be viewed as interpenetrative. The body needs to be acknowledged as the physical place where communicative language originates, and as a

Introduction 7

complex object of interpretation whose meaning is anchored in particular social and historical contexts. A first step towards situating the body in history is to recalibrate the classically based dualism of the subordination of body to mind. Such dualistic thinking reached its apogee in Cartesian thought and ultimately provides the rationale for the post-structuralist absorption of body into mind or language, thereby effectively liberating both from the strictures of hegemonic politics, society, or philosophy. However, the jump from classical Greece to the Renaissance to the late twentieth century is accomplished at the expense of nuance and context. As Caroline Bynum has persuasively argued, the Middle Ages viewed the body and soul as the place where meaning and redemption were made possible.23 For medieval philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, the soul was firmly anchored in the body, both of which were essential components of personhood. The need to rescue the body from ‘its Cartesian reduction to an ordinary object and its isolation from consciousness’24 is most emphatically at the heart of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical project. It provides a powerful heuristic tool for the theorizing of the relationship of the body to language and materiality in the past. For Merleau-Ponty, the body is not the product of an originary, inescapably confining process of signification, but rather ‘the body is a power of natural expression.’25 Language is so embedded in the body that he likens spoken words to gestures whose meanings constitute ‘a world’26 in which thought and word coalesce and are transformed in the lived body.27 The reknitting together of language and embodiment makes clear the body’s involvement in the processes of linguistic representation and cognition. Unlike Butler, who emphasizes the formative role of language on the materiality of bodies which ultimately ends up turning the body into a construction shaped by the forces of culture, MerleauPonty views the body as a situation in which the body is engaged in a constant dialectical relationship between subjective and objective aspects of experience: ‘The first philosophical act would appear to be to return to the world of actual experience which is prior to the objective world, since it is in it that we shall be able to grasp the theoretical basis no less than the limits of that objective world, restore to things their concrete physiognomy, to organisms their individual ways of dealing with the world, and to subjectivity its inherence in history.’28 While Merleau-Ponty’s privileging of an embodied, experiential epistemology has been criticized by feminist theorists for not sufficiently

8 Figuring the Feminine

acknowledging sexual difference and for relying on phallocentric metaphorical structures that elide the feminine or suppress the importance of the maternal in the creation of embodied experience,29 his treatment of experience as both foundational and constructed allows him to consider it as a situational reality fully open to the forces of society, politics, history, and culture.30 Toril Moi understands the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir as sharing in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological view of the body in which the realms of biology and meaning are inseparable. The situational nature of the body that is articulated in de Beauvoir’s thought also reconnects the body to meaning as it is socially and historically situated.31 Moi’s advocacy for an integrated view of the body provides her with a powerful means of grasping the specific nature of human existence, especially the lived, concrete experience of women. This concept of a fusion of materiality and meaning anchored in history is also very relevant to this study. The medieval texts that form the basis of this book all exhibit this confluence of corporeality, language, and, in this case, literary meaning. The bodies of the texts that I discuss are not postmodern in the sense that they are only about language. Although as pieces of literature, they are verbal fabrications, these embodied texts make the representation of both language and meaning possible. Medieval culture was much more ready to acknowledge the body as a vehicle for language. The maternal role of the Virgin in the enfleshing of the Word as well as finely wrought analyses of the relation between word and flesh in incarnational theology attest to the interpenetration of language and the body in medieval thought. This book considers the implications of the conjoining of body and language especially when the body is figured as feminine. Although the gendering of the textual body necessarily shares the biologically deterministic view of the female body inherited from the classical period and still in force in the Middle Ages, the female textual body cannot be viewed simplistically as a means of merely reifying misogyny and perpetuating the subordination of women. Rather, just as each woman’s situation must be judged unique and concrete, each of the textual bodies considered in this book participates in the process of thinking through specific crucial issues at the heart of medieval epistemology and hermeneutics. How is meaning incarnated in language? Who imbues that textual body with meaning? The author? The reader? Or, does the female textual body give birth to meaning governed by the situation of its own embodiment? This book attests to the fecundity of the conjoining of the body and language, and opens up new possibilities of

Introduction 9

viewing female textual embodiment not only as a passive linguistic construct objectified and manipulated by male writers and readers, but also as a source of redemption, of manifold meaning, and as a defiantly present subjectivity. Many of the analyses of specific medieval Hispanic texts that form the basis of this book are predicated on the centrality of the female body in the medieval understanding of the processes of figuration and allegoresis. In locating the feminized body at the heart of medieval hermeneutics and writing, I hope to contribute to the ongoing exploration of a medieval poetics that uses the body as the primary vehicle for ‘thinking through’32 questions of critical cultural importance. Carolyn Dinshaw’s groundbreaking Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics analyses how the veiling of a femininely gendered textual body enables Chaucer to rehearse both masculine and feminine subject positions, and to question and undermine dominant paradigms of textual construction, appropriation, and transmission which, because they are tied to other cultural transactions involving women, also permit the laying bare of the rigid patriarchal ideology governing the domestication of the ‘Other’ through marriage exchange as well as the suppression and subordination of women’s voices and desires within the framework of the medieval household. E. Jane Burns’s Bodytalk also aims to recover such suppressed voices by means of a reading strategy that is attuned to the discordant strains issuing forth from male-authored female textual bodies whose surface conformity to misogynous expectations of passivity and objectification is perceived to resonate with defiant resistance when considered as ironic articulations of female collusion in the mastering and silencing of women. While the work of Dinshaw, Burns, and others has drawn many critics to the challenging interpretive possibilities of an embodied medieval poetics, the literature of medieval Iberia is only beginning to be the object of such critical attention.33 Louise Vasvári’s seminal work on the body in medieval Spanish literature, and especially in the Libro de buen amor, has exposed the extent to which the sexualized body infuses both the vocabulary and the structure of many texts.34 Michael Solomon and Jean Dangler have both worked with representations of the body in fifteenth-century Hispanic literature in order to establish a continuum between literature and medicine. For Michael Solomon, the antifeminism in such writers as Jaume Roig, Fernando de Rojas, or Alfonso Martínez grows out of medieval medical theory and practice, while Jean Dangler explores the manifestation of misogyny in Roig, de

10 Figuring the Feminine

Rojas, and Francisco Delicado as related to the suppression of female healers.35 In the course of an analysis of the tension between the poles of the carnivalesque and the official domain of the law subtending medieval cultural production, James F. Burke treats the workings of a desire that is often concretized and expressed by means of corporeal imagery of penetration and unveiling.36 While Burke is most interested in how medieval Spanish literature achieved a balance between the expression and suppression of desire, Catherine Brown’s work also engages with the dialectic of contraries in medieval literature, but from the perspective of a didactic pedagogy structured around the clash of contraries. Her treatment of the Libro de buen amor as a promiscuous text that teaches all things to all people since it encompasses every possible set of oppositional binaries, is focused on the construction of a slippery feminized textual body.37 More recently, Barbara Weissberger’s work on literature from the late fifteenth-century Isabelline period takes the body of the powerful Queen Isabel as the site where issues of power and ideology coalesce. Her important analysis of how late fifteenth-century literary texts exploit the role of gender and sexuality in their construction of the queen makes clear the extent to which the conflation of power and the feminine in the queen’s body evoked intense anxiety and ambivalence.38 Denise Filios’s study of the staging of feminine bodies during poetic spectacles in the Iberian Middle Ages enables her to focus on the symbolically charged bodies of female performers whose otherness in social or ethnic terms made their bodies into both sources of pollution and sites of desire. Her study also reveals the contingent and constructed nature of gendered bodies through an analysis of transgendered performance of different female identities, thereby undermining any essentialist myth of sexuality.39 This study hopes to build on this previous work on the body in a medieval Spanish context by focusing exclusively on the figured feminine textual body as a means of foregrounding questions of literary and cultural import. The Iberian literary texts that I analyse share in this conflation of the language and imagery of late classical and medieval poetics, with sexuality not only as a means of reflecting on the mechanics of medieval textuality and the engendering of a feminized notion of truth or meaning, but also as a way of exploiting such imagery to explore how other cultural pressure points become predicated on the bodies of women. Resistance to cultural and religious hegemony, anxiety about the loss of presence and memory associated with

Introduction 11

the traumatic transition from orality to literacy, desire for linguistic plenitude and redemption, celebration of textual mouvance, and the acceptance of cultural dissonance all issue forth from the textualized feminine body. Each chapter seeks to allow the embodied text to articulate its own situational context, which necessarily demands a theoretical openness and flexibility on the part of the interpreter. Thus, by virtue of its eclectic theoretical approach, this book resists any easy categorization beyond terming it a ‘rhetorical’ interpretation of female textual embodiment. In this turn to rhetoric I hark back to the situational nature of discourse as articulated in pre-Platonic rhetorical theory, a situatedness that was condemned as dangerous and effeminate by Plato since it proved too resistant to the totalizing abstraction of Platonic thought. Unlike the dematerialized, ahistorical postmodern understanding of the fusion of language and body, my rhetorical approach privileges the centrality of the body in historically determined and contextualized processes of literary production and interpretation, and treats such textual bodies as particularized actors in the contestation of language, power, authority, and subjectivity. By embracing the chaotic and contingent context of each text, I am attempting to reconnect femininely gendered ‘materia’ to the constructive forces of society, history, and culture. The notion of kairos as used in the thought of the fifth-century sophistic rhetor Gorgias of Leontini refers to the ‘right or opportune moment’ that governs all human communicative situations and informs the production of belief. The provisional, situated nature of a truth or meaning arising from a flexible notion of occasionality situates Gorgias’s view of knowledge and reason in a realm of flux and uncertainty. His epistemology has been viewed as radically opposed to the negative dialectic of the Platonic location of a fixed, unchanging, abstract idea of truth which is ultimately ‘out there,’ free from the distorting bonds of language and time.40 Gorgias’s view that truth is inseparable from the particular moment and context of a concrete rhetorical situation has also been read as a mechanism not only of philosophical, epistemological empowerment, but also as a means of countering social and political repression.41 His rejection of the foundationalist basis of Platonic reason and truth is mirrored by his critique of social hegemony in his defence of Helen of Troy in the Encomium of Helen, where he challenges the phallocentric marginalization of women,42 and by his espousal of democratic institutions whose basis is a belief in the forging of a communal truth that is always subject to change, a slippery notion of truth

12 Figuring the Feminine

that is inimical to Plato’s ideal of perfect truth and knowledge protected and fostered by those few wealthy and noble oligarchs with the ability to perceive and promote the truth.43 Kairos, then, is a concept that has functioned in the history of rhetoric as a means of tempering the rigid binarism associated with a Platonic foundationalist epistemology. Kairos is, in a sense, profoundly antitheory in its refusal to acknowledge systematized abstraction. Kairos, in its resistance to binary structures of thought, knits together body and soul, mind and matter, while embracing the productive, chaotic instability of a particular embodied discourse, be it orally or textually produced. The difficulty of subjecting kairos to rigid theoretical necessity as well as its inhabitation of a particular, contingent, contextualized discursive presence, make it particularly relevant to my project. Its embeddedness in the history of rhetoric as well as its rejection of theoretical confinement are akin to the methodological underpinnings of my treatment of female textual embodiment. According to Eric Charles White, the relativistic, sceptical epistemology at the heart of the concept of Gorgianic kairos is manifested in rhetorical style, in the persuasive power of speech to create truth through the force of its ‘sensuous properties.’44 Plato’s equation of rhetoric with the feminine arts of cookery and cosmetics45 marks the beginning of the relegation of Gorgianic kairotic discourse to the inferior pole of the masculine-feminine binary that, along with other oppressive binaries, comes to structure Western thought. Chapter 1 explores how the postPlatonic and medieval rhetorical tradition has construed rhetorical discourse as an unruly, disruptive force whose transgressively feminine figurality requires firm control. The tropes of metaphor and allegory are emblematic of the embodiment of a feminized process of figuration since they are crucial for understanding both the construction of meaning as a feminine body to be adorned and hidden by veils of language, and the appropriation of truth or meaning as an eroticized process of revelatory disrobing. While the fusion of feminine body and language is most often treated as a sensuous vehicle of deception, there remain the traces of the sophistic view of figuration, which accords to embodied meaning a heuristic function that is essential for productive and persuasive invention.46 The readings of medieval Hispanic texts that follow are ordered according to the rough dictates of chronology. They are not arranged so as to sustain a teleologically driven argument whereby the first textual analysis lays the groundwork for all later chapters. Rather, the

Introduction 13

remaining chapters each present a detailed reading of a particular text and are all animated by a coherent set of questions turning on how male authors manipulate a text embodied as feminine, and what the implications of this gendered textuality are for the processes of writing and reading constructed by it. Each text provides answers to these questions in distinct, but related ways, thereby establishing a dialogic structure in which elements that are foregrounded in one chapter are taken up and reintegrated into another chapter’s analysis. The contextualized readings that follow will attempt to place each body within a particular textual, historical, and cultural moment where language and body come together to create meaning. Chapter 2 reads Prudentius’s Peristephanon as an attempt to harness the power generated by the conflation of feminine body and text and to redirect it towards the articulation of Christian truth as a means of achieving both personal salvation and poetic immortality. Prudentius’s martyrdom poems transmute tortured bodies into salvific texts whose efficacy is inseparable from their embodied situation. His striking feminization of the textual power issuing forth from the martyrs’ bodies paradoxically enables him to question and undermine the phallocentric cultural bias of late antique Rome, while appropriating the spiritual power of transmuted feminine martyrdom for his own poetic project as well as for the spiritual benefit of his readers. The anonymous Spanish epic Poema de mio Cid takes up the feminized writing of martyrdom, but locates the meaning in the ‘occasion of its utterance.’47 The deformed, transgressive aspect of ‘feminine’ discourse is assigned to the cowardly villains of the story, whose discourse functions like a kind of distanced, ineffectual writing as opposed to the fully present, overdetermined body language of the manly hero. This discursive tension that structures the story makes of the body the locus for a working out of the anxiety experienced by a late-twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century Castilian society undergoing a wrenching transition from orality to literacy. The female body, textualized through an act of torture that mirrors martyrdom, functions as the crucible for these conflicting views of discourse. The tortured daughters of the Cid are supposed to convey a written message of shame and dishonour to the warrior culture of the hero, yet they articulate their own verbal countertext, in an echo of Prudentian discursive power, thereby making the embodied feminized text a site of resistance to both the representation of writing as a distorting, effeminate discourse, and to the myth of fully embodied masculine presence and power.

14 Figuring the Feminine

The transmutation of bodies into texts and texts into bodies in the Peristephanon and the Poema de mio Cid is not merely the manipulation of a sterile, bloodless, rhetorical trope for persuasive ends. The pain and blood of torture suffusing these texts render these bodies real and literal in their suffering, a suffering which overflows the boundaries of any textual container. Chapter 4 examines the attempt of the thirteenthcentury Castilian poet Gonzalo de Berceo to confine the textualized body of the Virgin Mary in the text of his Milagros de Nuestra Señora and, like Prudentius, to channel the force and vitality of this body and its words to achieve personal salvation. Berceo structures his text as a literal embodiment of Mary’s perfectly closed integral body in all its myriad symbolic manifestations. Through a series of framing exempla, Berceo explores the nature of discourse when it is applied to the writing or reading of the virginity of Mary in order to demonstrate his own linguistic prowess at penetrating the mystery of Mary’s womb. Berceo arrogates to himself that status of Poetic Word by representing his naked body wrapped or swaddled in the garden that is Mary’s body, thereby authorizing his own discourse as a vehicle of salvation. Instead of constraining the feminized textual body as a guarantor of salvation, as a means of poetic self-promotion, or as the repository of a stable, recoverable Truth or meaning, the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor embraces a far more kairotic perspective on the knitting together of the feminine and the textual. Chapter 5 analyses how Juan Ruiz’s masterpiece figures the feminine as a force of exuberant, unstable textuality where meaning is inevitably distorted by desire and is contingent upon the situation and intentionality of the interpreter who is free both to construe the text according to his own moral predisposition, and, even more radical, to amend the text as he sees fit. Juan Ruiz has abandoned any claim to textual mastery, and in the conflation of the moment of reading with a shifting truth or meaning he is very close to the Gorgianic idea that ‘meaning is only a figment conjured by the tropes and figures of language.’48 Juan Ruiz exploits the trope of allegory by figuring his text’s meaning as a feminized body which must be undressed through a peeling off of its linguistic veils, but which, because of its inherent slipperiness, will always remain just beyond the grasp and ken of any would-be interpreter. Chapter 6 is a discussion of a Hispano-Hebraic text contemporary with the Libro de buen amor, which similarly uses female embodiment to suggest the impossibility of pinpointing a fixed notion of truth or meaning. However, unlike Juan Ruiz’s text, Shem Tov of Carrión’s The

Introduction 15

Battle between the Pen and the Scissors uses such feminized textual instability to explore and work through the similarly unstable position of the acculturated Jew in fourteenth-century Castile. Shem Tov, a trilingual producer of culture, wrote in both Spanish and Hebrew as well as acting as a conduit for Arabic culture through his translation of an Arabic philosophical text into Hebrew. Shem Tov’s figuring of the feminine as the trope of metaphor or allegory suggests sensitivity to and knowledge of a Western philosophical ethos and aesthetic, which would become strangely fragmented and twisted during the course of his debate, leaving the reader suspended between the foundational epistemology of the West and the aesthetic of ornamental deceit characteristic of Arabic poetic culture. What I hope will stand out most from the analysis of these texts is the vibrancy and potency of the text figured and embodied as feminine and the many different ways in which these textual bodies speak to modern readers. They speak of violence, authority, power, miracles, subversion, of anxiety rooted in language, gender, and culture, and even of joy, redemption, and freedom. I hope to help readers open themselves up to the kairos of these texts, to establish a critical dialogue that shares in the theoretical dynamism of the fusion of textuality and the feminine.

1 Carnal Knowledge: Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth

‘Sicut enim corpus humanum ornatus vestibus, ita rudis materia ornatur verbis’ (Just as the human body is adorned with clothes, so rude matter is adorned with words). This description of the poetic process by a thirteenth-century commentator on Geoffrey of Vinsauf neatly compresses key medieval concepts about the writing of poetry, the nature of figurative language, and the equivocal presence of the body at the heart of imaginative communication. The notion of the essence or meaning of a poetic text as a body dressed in the beautiful ornaments of style (figures and tropes) fashioned by the poet was a commonplace in medieval poetic theory. The disjunction between the attractive external poetic language and the corporeal ‘rudis materia’ underneath signals a fundamental ambivalence towards the writing of poetic fictions and an awareness of the possibility that poetry may be merely deceptive masquerade. The commentator’s description of the writing of poetry in terms of adornment also draws our attention to another important element that colours medieval thinking about literary language – the intrusion of the feminine into the creative process. As we shall see, the process of poetic creation required the poet to be an adept ‘fashionista’ whose mastery of style and makeup enabled him to enhance the attractiveness of his corporeal textual materia by outfitting it in flattering verbal garments and colourful stylistic devices. This interweaving of the textual and the feminine was sometimes a powerful vehicle for the engendering of truth, or was, instead, a source of textual instability and ambiguity, which elicited strong reactions on the part of readers and writers alike. The styling or truth as a veiled woman is not only a feature of medieval rhetoric and hermeneutics, but is also a linchpin of postmodern

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 17

philosophy’s critique and destabilization of Western epistemology, an axis around which feminist appropriations of postmodern thinking on gender turns. The modern philosophical conversation about the place of the feminine body at the crossroads of language, knowledge, and truth was not spurred directly by ancient or medieval representations of truth as an alluring female body, but rather by Nietzsche’s deliberate ‘return to the metaphoricity of metaphor,’1 which attempts to confound positivistic severing of reason from the senses, and consequently from the feminine. For Nietzsche, metaphorical activity is foundational, at the origin of all knowledge and activity, but its originary role is obscured by the insistent, reified dominance of the concept: Thus it is at the level of the concept that metaphorical activity, because it is at its most concealed, for that reason becomes most dangerous: thanks to the concept, man arranges the whole universe into well-ordered logical categories without realizing that he is thus continuing the most archaic metaphorical activity.2

The effacing of the metaphorical origin of the concept is accomplished, ironically enough according to Sarah Kofman, by the metaphor of Truth as nakedness. The apparent nakedness of the concept paradoxically masks metaphor’s generative function, and this conceptual nakedness, in Circe-like fashion, ‘is more seductive than the brilliant colours of metaphor.’3 In his essay ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’ Nietzsche explains the conceptual interdependence of truth and metaphor: What then is truth? A mobile host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.4

Nietzsche’s use of metaphoricity as a strategic mechanism to undermine the conceptual underpinnings of philosophy and the truths it promotes (truth itself, meaning, history, mind, man) is of a piece with the rhetorical work that woman does in Nietzschean thought. In fact, Nietzsche often conflates woman and metaphor both by turning woman herself into a paradigmatic metaphor, essentializing her as truth, deception, life, and wisdom,5 and by attributing to her the effects and imagery of metaphor. Like metaphor itself, she is excessively showy, devoted to artifice and surface at the expense of depth: her

18 Figuring the Feminine

nature is veiled ‘behind riddles and iridescent uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has grounds for not showing her grounds?’6 The metaphoric profundity Nietzsche associates with woman is doubleedged since it places both truth and feminine nature beyond the ken of the knower, and it suggests the duplicitous essence of women whose only truth is that of disguise, of deceptive masquerade: ‘Their great art is the lying, their highest concern is appearance and beauty.’7 Readers of Nietzsche have struggled to reconcile the epistemological centrality accorded by Nietzsche to the conflation of metaphor and the feminine and to the elevation of rhetorical figuration as the ground for all thought and expression with the often overt misogynist overtones colouring his statements about the duplicitous nature of both women and metaphor. Nietzsche’s ambivalence about the feminine has provoked much discussion by post-structuralist thinkers like Jacques Derrida, and by feminist theorists who seek either to critique the displacing of woman when she becomes a deconstructive tool in Nietzschean thought, or to appreciate the subversive potential of the linking of femininity, desire, and truth, applicable not only to such philosophical desiderata as truth and reality, but also to the patriarchal order.8 The ambivalence in the Nietzschean figuring of truth as a woman is also found in classical and medieval theoretical writing about language, a fact that is not surprising because, as a scholar trained in the classics, Nietzsche would certainly have been aware of the ancient baggage dragged along by his seductive, artificial, slippery veiled figure of Truth. The ancient and medieval considerations of figurality and woman explored below raise many of the same problems spurred by Nietzsche’s fusion of art, style, and truth with the question of the woman9 as those taken up by Derrida and his feminist interlocutors. The postmodern debate about whether the link between femininity, desire, and truth played up by Nietzsche marginalizes and effaces women or whether it productively explodes truths and identities will prove useful in assessing the implications of this nexus in medieval theory and in the literary texts analysed below in which male authors exercise control over the ability of feminine bodies to conceal or reveal meaning and truth. Rhetoric and the Body In order that what we are thinking may reach the mind of the listener through the fleshly ears, that which we have in mind is expressed in words and is called speech. (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.XII)

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 19

Nietzsche’s formulation of a feminized notion of figuration as central to the workings of language and logic draws on a history of rhetoric that has always acknowledged the fundamentally corporeal and feminine nature of language. Plato equated rhetoric with other arts such as cosmetics and cookery which pertain to the adornment or maintenance of the body. In his dialogue, the Gorgias, Plato’s discussion of sophistry implies an unwholesome and noxious treatment of the body, and his construction of the rhetorical is one of corporeal corruption. Just as cookery can be harmful to the body since it is really flattery masquerading as medicine,10 so the cosmetic adornment of rhetorical discourse is a poor substitute for the robust glow that is the result of gymnastic: Self adornment personates gymnastic: with its rascally, deceitful, ignoble, and illiberal nature it deceives men by forms and colours, polish and dress, so as to make them, in the effort of assuming an extraneous beauty, neglect the native sort that comes through gymnastic.11

In this passage Plato articulates the issues, which will shape the discussion of and attitudes towards rhetoric for the next millennium, as a series of binary oppositions in which the negative term is always associated with the rhetorical. Falsehood, surface, exteriority, and artificiality are all opposed to the immanent, natural truth which lies at the core of the philosopher’s discourse. The Platonic privileging of episteme (truth) over doxa (opinion) results in a degradation of the materiality of language which is held to be responsible for the deceitful, alluring dressing up of meaning.12 In the Phaedrus, while engaging in a dialogue with Phaedrus about the relative merits of philosophy and rhetoric, Socrates speaks disparagingly of the famous rhetorician Gorgias, whom he accuses of using language to dress up novelties so as to make them appear to be exactly what they are not, and of making doxa seem preferable to truth through the distorting agency of language.13 The corporeal integrity of the philosopher’s speech14 is contrasted to the ragged clothing of rhetoric (Phaedrus, XXII, 268A), to the deviant dismembering of the rhetorician Lysias, who ‘twists’ words ‘this way and that, pasting them together and pulling them apart’ (XXVI, 278D–E). By identifying rhetoric with the spurious arts of cosmetics and cookery, Plato is suggesting that the kind of corporeality in which rhetoric is mired is that associated with unnatural ‘feminine’ or effeminate sensuality.15 Like the art of cosmetics, which enables women to heighten their sexual attractiveness through the use of makeup and ornamental clothing, rhetoric is a ‘feminine’ art which indulges the body’s sensual

20 Figuring the Feminine

desires and gratifies its wish for unnatural ostentation. Plato’s condemnation of the excessively frivolous attention to the comfort and appearance of the body as a feminine preoccupation leads to the logical lumping together of the feminine with the other negative terms associated with rhetoric in a system of binary oppositions.16 Thus, rhetoric is implicated in a nexus of concepts that include duplicity, materiality, falsehood, artificiality, femininity, and lack of integrity as opposed to the transparency, immateriality, truth, naturalness, masculinity, and wholeness of philosophical discourse. Quintilian, the first-century CE Roman orator and teacher of rhetoric, although an enthusiastic supporter of the importance of eloquence to the functioning of society,17 is nevertheless keenly aware of the potential of rhetorical language to slide into an abyss of effeminate sexual perversion.18 The subversive, transgressive corporeality inherent in superficial textuality also, paradoxically, lurks below the surface of any rhetorically wrought text that makes claims to ‘masculine’ or ‘natural’ verbal restraint.19 For Quintilian, a ‘manly’ speech implies a healthy connection between res and verba, whereas excessive attention to the external appearance or style of an oration at the expense of the subject matter results in unnatural expression, a castration of language: Quapropter eloquentiam, licet hanc (ut sentio enim, dicam) libidinosam resupina voluptate auditoria probent, nullam esse existimabo, quae ne minimum quidem in se indicium masculi et incorrupti, ne dicam gravis et sancti viri, ostentet.20 (Consequently, although audiences may approve of this debauched eloquence, with its effeminate and voluptuous charms, I absolutely refuse to regard it as eloquence at all: for it retains not the slightest trace of purity and virility in itself, nor, I say, does it exhibit the dignity and chastity that befits a man.)

The truly powerful speech is one whose physical prowess comes from a natural cultivation of its virile, muscular force and not from a weak, effete bodily presence which hopes to captivate by its artificially painted face and unnaturally smooth, plucked body: Corpora sana et integri sanguinis et exercitatione firmata ex iisdem his speciem accipiunt ex quibus vires, namque et colorata et adstricta et lacertis expressa sunt; at eadem si quis volsa atque fucata muliebriter comat, foedissima sint ipso formae labore. (VIII.proem.19)

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 21 (Healthy bodies, enjoying a good circulation and strengthened by exercise, acquire grace from the same source that gives them virile strength, for they have a healthy complexion, firm and well defined arm muscles. But, on the other hand, the man who adorns these physical qualities by the effeminate use of depilatories and cosmetics, succeeds merely in defacing them by the very care which he bestows on them.)

Showy discourse is not only analogous to the vice of homosexuality, but is also equivalent to a prostitution of language whose adornments are the ‘meretricious finery’ (lenocinia, VIII.proem.26) which seduces the listener into mistaking words for facts.21 Such ‘effeminate and lustful’ dress (cultus muliebris et luxuriosus, VIII.proem.20) is to be condemned for revealing the sordid state of the wearer’s mind and for not fulfilling its natural role as a means of enhancing the body’s dignity. In the same way rhetorical discourse which is ‘translucida et versicolor’ (transparent and multicoloured), that is to say, lacking in integrity, modesty, and consistency, emasculates rather than adorns the body (i.e., subject matter, ‘res ipsas’) which it covers (VIII.proem.20). The excoriation of rhetoric by Plato and of rhetorical excess by Quintilian through the use of images of sexual transgression or impropriety and through the description of the rhetorical as a deceptive covering up of the body or truth or res (subject matter), problematizes the relationship between language, truth, and gendered embodiment. This same tension between natural, unadorned meaning and artificial expression subtending discussions of rhetoric in general is also present in the development of theories of metaphor, which is itself the chief means of achieving the rhetorical adornment that arouses such suspicion in Plato and Quintilian. However, by taking a closer look at the fortunes of the concept of metaphor and rhetorical figurality in general throughout the classical and medieval rhetorical traditions, one can view the use of bodily based imagery of tropes in an alternative way, as a powerful perceptual tool capable of a maternal function of giving birth to meaning and truth. Figuring Truth The association of rhetoric with the corporeal, condemned by Plato as an improper, dangerous glorification of the body, also lies at the core of the concept of the rhetorical figurae, but here it acquires connotations of a more positive nature. The history of the word figura, so skilfully traced by Erich Auerbach, suggests that the figural has always been

22 Figuring the Feminine

closely related to both vivid representation and the body.22 Quintilian, who first applied the word figura to the tropes and figures of rhetoric, also includes the use of corporeal metaphors to describe their functioning. The turnings away (i.e., tropes) from ordinary, simple, literal language or meaning correspond to changes in bodily position: Nam [figura] duobus modis dicitur: uno qualiscunque forma sententia, sicut in corporibus, quibus, quoquo modo sunt composita, utique habitus est aliquis; altero, quo proprie schema dicitur, in sensu vel sermone aliqua a vulgari et simplici specie cum ratione mutatio, sicut nos sedemus, incumbimus, respicimus. (Inst. orat. IX.i.10–11) (For the term is used in two senses. In the first it is applied to any form in which thought is expressed, just as it is to bodies which, whatever their composition, must have some shape. In the second and special sense, in which it is called a schema, it means a rational change in meaning or language from the ordinary and simple form, that is to say, a change analogous to that involved by sitting, lying down on something or looking back.)

This expressive deviation from normal linguistic postures is metaphorized as ‘gestures of language’ (‘gestus,’ IX.i.13) which, if they contort the form of the body into monstrous shapes, fall into the vice of extravagant, deformed figures (II.v.11). The deviance of figurative language expressed in the traditional Aristotelian definition of metaphor as ‘the transference of a name from the object to which it has natural application,’23 reappears in medieval literary theory where metaphor is commonly defined as a deviation from literal language involving a transfer (translatio) of the meanings of words, a transposition of an ‘alien’ name into a realm where it does not belong. Isidore of Seville, echoing the conventional Aristotelian definition of metaphor, succinctly captures this trope’s transgressive nature: Metaphora est verbi alicuius usurpata translatio, sicut cum dicimus ‘fluctuare segetes,’ ‘gemmare vites,’ dum in his rebus fluctus et gemmas non invenimus, in quibus haec verba aliunde transferuntur.24 (Metaphor is a transgressive transfer of a word, as when we say ‘the cornfields undulate’ or ‘the grapevines sparkle with gems’; for we find neither waves nor jewels in these things, to which such words have been transferred from elsewhere.)

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The imagery of body and clothing applied by Plato to rhetorical language in general is also constitutive of figurae, and of metaphor in particular. For Cicero, metaphors and clothing have the same function: at first they compensate for a lack in the natural properties of bodies or language, and only later does their purpose become more ornamental: Nam ut vestis frigoris depellendi causa reperta primo, post adhiberi coepta est ad ornatum etiam corporis et dignitatem, sic verbi tralatio instituta est inopiae causa, frequentata delectionis.25 (For just as clothes were first invented to protect us against cold and afterwards began to be used for the sake of adornment and dignity as well, so the metaphorical employment of words was begun because of poverty, but was brought into common use for the sake of entertainment.)

In a thirteenth-century formulation by the Italian rhetor Boncompagno da Signa, the body that Cicero’s metaphorical garment protects may also be one of profound mystery whose revelation must be strictly controlled: ‘transumptio est quoddam naturale velamen, sub quo rerum secreta occultius et secretius proferuntur’ (transumption is a kind of natural veil from under which the secrets of things may be brought forth in a more hidden and secret manner).26 This veil of metaphor not only conceals, but it allows language to give birth to thoughts. The feminized body at the heart of metaphor has a maternal, incarnational function. Here, the figure of transumptio embodies a truth by cloaking it, by giving its contours a palpable presence that alerts the vigilant reader to the need for a stripping off of its transgressive, alien garment of words. Both metaphor’s privileged status and its paradigmatic maternal function of incarnating the invisible in the form of discourse are clearly articulated in Boncompagno’s later medieval description of metaphor as the ‘mater omnium adornationum’ (the mother of all rhetorical figures).27 The figure of transumptio, while not used synonymously with translatio, is indispensable for the achievement of all metaphoricity. As William Purcell points out, Quintilian equates transumptio and metalepsis (Inst. orat. VIII.vi.37–8), and attributes to transumptio the quality of mediating between two tropes, of acting like the middle term in a syllogistic relationship whose terms are linked by some similarity.28 Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi (2.3.8–47) attributes to ‘transsumptio’ the production of metaphor. In both Geoffrey of Vinsauf

24 Figuring the Feminine

and Gervasius of Melkley, transumptio is a kind of master metaphor subsuming all other translative figures. In fact, transumptio greatly resembles the imaginative syllogism whose functioning led Dominicus Gundissalinus to view poetry as part of philosophy.29 The syllogistic potential of metaphor to mediate between two dissimilar elements becomes explicit in transumptio, the intermediate term or ‘stairstep’ according to Donatus and Bede. As Theresa M. Kelley has pointed out, metaphor (and I would broaden that to include the overarching figure of transumptio) shares with the imaginative syllogism the combining of things or ideas in an unexpected predicate relation in order to open up new perspective and new ways of seeing.30 The ability of transumptio and metaphor to embody truth or to provide new ways of perceiving reality can also infuse the working of longer texts. In contrast to the traditional view of metaphor as a translatio which takes place on the level of the word,31 Paul Ricoeur has revolutionized the concept of metaphor by treating it as a discursive phenomenon affecting whole networks of words.32 Following Monroe Beardsley, who takes metaphor as a poem in miniature, Ricoeur views the dynamics of metaphors and their interpretation as a key heuristic tool for the hermeneutics of whole texts.33 If, as Ted Cohen points out in ‘Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy,’ metaphor throws into relief the dynamics of communication between speaker and hearer, 34 it self-reflexively lays bare the processes of language as rhetoric. Just as rhetorical figures point to discourse as discourse, centre a message on itself,35 a text viewed as a metaphor would also call attention to its textuality and the interpretive actions required for deciphering it. Modern theories of metaphor such as Ricoeur’s in which the terms of metaphor itself suffuse whole texts are very similar to medieval notions of allegory. According to Quintilian, allegory differs from metaphor only in the extent of its development: allegory is a series of sustained metaphors (‘continuatis translationibus’).36 Allegory is referred to in the same metaphorical terms as metaphor itself. Where metaphor involved the transfer of an ‘alien’ word, allegory is the expression of something other than what one means: ‘Allegoria est alieniloquium. Aliud enim sonat et aliud intellegitur’ (Allegory is ‘otherspeaking.’ One thing is said but another is understood).37 The tropes of metaphor and allegory become so closely intertwined that in the thirteenth century the definition of allegory is transferred to metaphor: ‘vel transumptio est quaedam imago loquendi in qua unum ponitur et reliquum intelligitur’ (or transumption is a certain manner of speaking in which

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 25

one thing is expressed and the rest is understood).38 The alterity of metaphor originating in the transfer of words from one semantic category into an alien one, constitutes a transgression of a system of established semantic and linguistic rules and relationships. This violation of linguistic norms is a productive, rather than a merely subversive movement, since it undermines an old order so as to release the creation of a new order of meaning.39 This property of the metaphorical to violate and create simultaneously is concretized at the textual level in the metaphor of the allegorical veil which both conceals and reveals meaning. The conceptualization of a metaphor as a veil is also one of the most fundamental aspects of allegory. The idea has its roots in ancient Greek conceptions of divinity which required the covering of the figures of the gods with curtains or cloaks in order to separate the divine sphere from the human.40 Strabo viewed veiling or dissimulation as necessary in writings about the gods since it was not fitting that divine nature be disclosed freely. To veil it was to emphasize the greatness and profundity of divinity, whereas a lack of covering or transparency was considered to be a prostitution of the holy.41 A cloak of allegorical language protecting the presence and transcendence of the divine was called an integumentum or involucrum by medieval writers and interpreters of allegories.42 In the patristic period, Augustine had revalorized the idea of veiling inner, spiritual meanings so that they not be subjected to the shame of nakedness and be treated with the honour appropriate to truth: ‘Sic mansit, non est interpretatum, ut honorem haberet velamento secreti: non ut esset negatum, sed ne vilesceret nudatum’ (It remains thus, without interpretation, so that it will be honoured by a veil of secrecy: not in order to be denied, but so that it will not be debased by being stripped naked).43 The obscurity of allegory was viewed positively since it impelled the interpreter to be inventive, to use sophisticated, rational thought in the attempt to unclothe the hidden truth. Metaphor’s incarnational, maternal function of enabling the embodiment of truth and meaning is often referred to in the very nonmaterial language of light. For Aristotle, one of metaphor’s many characteristics is that of ‘making visible,’ of making discourse appear to the senses, of vivifying both language and thought.44 This power of metaphor to appeal to the bodily senses, to place reality before the eyes,45 which, as Cicero notes, are the instruments of the most perceptive sense,46 is indicative of its capacity to mark or affect the perception of real things: ‘Nam translatio permovendis animis plerumque et

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signandis rebus ac sub oculos subiiciendis reperta est’ (For metaphor is designed to move the feelings, to mark things and place them vividly before the eyes).47 Metaphor not only animates language, but is also a means of illuminating truth, of bringing things from the darkness of unformed, abstract thought into the light of language where they may be apprehended: ‘omnia fere, quo essent clariora, tralatis per similitudinem uerbis dicta sunt’ (to make them clearer almost all the details are expressed by metaphors based on resemblance).48 Quintilian uses the word ‘lux’ (light, Inst. orat. V.xiv.34) to refer to metaphor, while for Cicero it allows one to say the unsayable, to body forth the obscure depths of the mind (De oratore III.xxxviii.155). Alberic of Montecassino (ca. 1000) theorizes metaphor as an unprecedented means of obtaining knowledge and uncovering truth. Alberic calls metaphor ‘light beam’ (radius): ‘Meraphora vero tropus est quae et frequentissime scriptis intervenit, quosdam quasi radios honestatis inserit’ (Metaphor is a trope occurring most often in written texts, into which it introduces, as it were, light beams of honesty).49 The language that Alberic uses is reminiscent of Augustine’s extramissive epistemology. In the De trinitate, Augustine refers to sense perception as consisting of visual rays (radios) which flow from the eyes and enable them to see corporeal objects whose images flow back to the mind via the senses.50 For Augustine, the pneumatic agent of cognition is operative in the sense of sight as a visual ray (acies, radius) which is corporeal in nature.51 Alberic, by calling metaphor ‘radius,’ is, in effect, making of metaphor a kind of sense of sight crucial for the apprehension of reality: ‘et vere radium quippe qui quasi quadam luce, si qua sunt obscura metaphorae penetrat, detegit, illustrat’ (Flores rhetorici VI.2; and truly, if there are obscurities of metaphor, radius, like a kind of light, penetrates, uncovers and illuminates them). Alberic’s use of the term radius implies that it is both the illumination of concrete reality brought about by the language of metaphor and the self-reflexive means by which the mind is able to move from the semantic incongruence of the metaphorical statement to a new, second order of reference, which is, in effect, a revelation of the meaning of the metaphor.52 Metaphors, therefore, cast light on (or redescribe) reality,53 and the process of their own functioning. The other revelatory power of metaphor is its ability to embody truths which would otherwise be unfathomable, to darken radiant transcendence by means of words.54 There is a remarkable passage in the anonymous twelfth-century De septem septenis addressed to the analysis of the metaphor ‘deus ignis est’ (God is fire) in which figurae constitute the essential condition for the expression of truth in language:

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 27 Et tamen, quia aliud dici non potest, hoc dicitur: ne nichil dicatur, quia adhuc ipsam veritatem non possumus capere, donec figura transeat et veritas manifeste pateat. Nunc ergo manent figure, ut signa veritatis accipiatur quasi pro veritate, donec veniat, quod perfectum est in ipsa veritate. (And yet, because nothing else can be said, this is said, lest nothing should be said at all, for as yet we cannot grasp the truth itself, until figura passes and the truth is manifestly open. So now figurae remain, so those signs of the truth may be accepted, as it were, in place of the truth, till that comes which is complete truth itself.)55

Metaphor and all figurae are an unfortunate sign of the Fall. But they are nevertheless the only means whereby truth may become visible in this world.56 Figurative language is a sign of a mediating corporeality which defines and confines human existence in a post-Adamic world. Only after redemption by Christ will one by able to know the truth without figures and to live without a body. It was for this reason that Christ, the Logos, had to assume flesh when he appeared among men. In fact, Christ can be considered as the ultimate metaphor, the supreme instance of a ‘verbum translatum’: Nova fit translatio In hac Verbi copula Stupet omnis regula (A new translatio has entered the world. In this uniting of the Word [with flesh], every rule stands stupefied.)57

Christ’s metaphorization makes it clear that the essential function of metaphor is to enflesh, to make visible, what was previously ineffable. All metaphors (both religious and secular) participate in the troping of Christ, and all figurative expressions are ‘verba incarnata’ which present thoughts to the senses and imagination.58 Veiling Desire Although the imagery of truth or meaning embodied in and veiled by figurative language may function as an important epistemological tool, it may also problematize the appropriation of a feminized, desirable truth since its bodiliness compels the involvement of the senses by the force of its beguiling physical presence. The solid, alluring corporeality of figurae

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may actually constitute a distortion of truth. The perception of the rhetorical as a slippery, subversive glorification of a metaphysical absence can be traced back to Plato’s identification of rhetoric with writing and death.59 Instead of viewing the metaphorical as a simultaneous presence and absence, veiling and revelation, enabling one to grasp the otherwise ineffable transcendence of truth, figurality emphasizes the yawning distance between sign and meaning, the ambiguous duplicity of the formal surface of language which only defers the uniting of sign and referent.60 The attitude displayed by Saint Augustine towards language both recognizes and attempts to restrain the tempting sensuality of signs (both literal and figurative) in the formulation of a Christian rhetorical and exegetical practice that encourages a redirection of carnally implicated language away from corporeal res to spiritual realities. Augustine, in the De doctrina christiana, concerns himself with the obfuscation of meaning and truth by the bodily nature of linguistic signs, and more specifically with the proper procedures for unveiling the correct significations of scripture. For Augustine, the appropriation of truth is contingent upon the withdrawal of the mind from the senses, and the ascension of the soul above bodily images.61 Augustine is acutely aware that language, if considered corporeal in nature, is mere noise that in no way contains the essence of what it signifies. The word deus is only a physical agent that touches the senses of the hearer, moving the mind alone to think of the exalted being known by this word: Et tamen deus, cum de illo nihil digne dici possit, admisit humanae uocis obsequium, et uerbis nostris in laude sua gaudere nos uoluit. Nam inde est et quod dicitur deus. Non enim re vera in strepitu istarum duarum syllabarum ipse cognoscitur, sed tamen omnes latinae linguae socios, cum aures eorum sonus iste tetigerit, mouet ad cogitandum excellentissimam quandam inmortalemque naturam.62 (For God, although nothing worthy may be spoken of Him, has accepted the tribute of the human voice and wishes us to take joy in praising Him with our words. In this way he is called Deus. Although He is not recognized in the noise of these two syllables, all those who know the Latin language, when this sound reaches [tetigerit, ‘touches, strikes’] their ears, are moved to think of a certain most excellent immortal nature. [11])

The physical sensation produced by the stimulation of the carnal ear by the word deus is not to be enjoyed for itself, but rather, any pleasure

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it may induce in the hearer must be subordinate to its useful function of leading the mind to grasp its eternal and spiritual meaning (I.iv.4; p. 10). Words are to be loved for the truth they contain, rather than for their ugliness or attractiveness as sensual objects.63 When confronted by figural expressions that arouse the senses, the interpreter of scripture is especially susceptible to the temptation of reading carnally, according to the literal bodily images that such translative expressions encourage. The use of signa translata in scripture may deceive the inattentive reader by the garment of words with which they cloak their true meaning: Sed multis et multiplicis obscuritatibus et ambiguitatibus decipiuntur, qui temere legunt, aliud pro alio sentientes, quibusdam autem locis, quid uel falso suspicientur, non inueniunt: ita obscure dicta quaedam densissimam caliginem obducunt. (II.v.7) (But many and varied obscurities and ambiguities deceive those who read casually, understanding one thing instead of another; indeed, in certain places they do not find anything to interpret erroneously, so obscurely are certain sayings covered with a most dense mist. [37])

Such obfuscation of the true scriptural meaning can cause the ‘death of the soul’ if the reader, deceived by the carnal surface of the text, takes ‘signs for things, so that one is not able to raise the eye of the mind above things corporal and created to drink in eternal light’ (III.v.9; p. 84).64 Augustine, however, acknowledges and celebrates the capacity of such figural obscurity to yield marvellous spiritual fruit if the exegete is sufficiently prepared to recognize and understand the obscure places of scripture that cry out for figural interpretation (III.x.14). Augustine even allows the interpreter to be carried away by the sweet pleasure derived from the interpretation of signa translata. In a justly famous passage of the De doctrina Christiana, Augustine ponders the delight he feels when he interprets a metaphorical passage from the Song of Songs in which a beautiful woman is a figure for the Church (II.v.7; pp. 37–8). He concedes that although the rhetorical configuration of this passage provides no new information to the interpreter, yet the reader is made to feel pleasure on account of the similitude. Although such figural expressions, if correctly interpreted, will lead the reader beyond the carnality of the sensuous surface of the

30 Figuring the Feminine

words and phantasmata of the images, the pleasure they evoke on their own account is somewhat troubling to Augustine: Sed quare suauius uideam, quam si nulla de diuinis libris talis similitudo promeretur, cum res eadem sit eademque cognitio, difficile est dicere et alia quaestio est. (II.vi.8) (But, why is seems sweeter to me than if no such similitude were offered in the divine books, since the thing perceived is the same, is difficult to say and is a problem for another discussion. [38])

Augustine’s reluctance to grapple with the sweetness evoked by the figurative carnality of scripture is reflected in the harnessing of the pleasure derived from the interpretation of language to the idea of utilitas.65 Such interpretive delight has validity not when it is enjoyed for its own sake, but rather when it stimulates the mind to lift itself above material language to spiritual truths. In his De trinitate, Augustine explains the cloaking of divine truths by carnal, figurative language as a concession to human nature, bound as it is by the chains of the body: Rebus enim quae in creature inveniuntur, solet Scriptura divina velut infantilia oblectamenta formare, quibus infirmorum ad quaerenda superiora et inferiora deserenda, pro suo modulo tanquam passibus moveretur affectus.66 (For, from the things which are found in the creature, the divine Scripture is wont to prepare enticements, as it were, for children. Its purpose is to arouse the affections of the weak, so that by means of them, as though they were steps, they may mount to higher things according to their own modest capacity, and abandon the lower things.)

In another formulation of the same problem of intense desire provoked by figurative language, Augustine frames his exploration of this phenomenon in terms of the essential characteristic of metaphor, i.e., that of transfer or translatio: Credo quod ipse animae motus quandiu rebus adhuc terrenis implicatur, pigrius inflammatur: si vero feratur ad similitudines corporales, et inde referatur ad spiritualia, quae illis similtudinibus figurantur, ipse quasi transitu vegetatur, et tanquam in facula ignis agitatus accenditur, et ardentiore dilectione rapitur ad quietem.67

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 31 (I believe that inasmuch as the movement itself of the soul remains entangled in earthly things, it is aroused more slowly: but if it is led towards corporeal likenesses, and if from there it is drawn towards spiritual matters figured by those similitudes, the soul is quickened by this movement, as it were, and having finally been aroused, it is inflamed in a torch of fire, and it is carried away to tranquillity by a more burning love.)

It is the transfer from corporeal similitudes to the realm of the spirit that accounts for the rapture of the interpreter. If the potential for pleasure arises out of the very nature of figurality, of leaving one level of meaning in order to cross the boundary of another, Augustine must somehow distinguish between the mere sensual delight produced by secular rhetoric and literature, and the delight resulting from language that has its source in God. The ultimate example of God-given language is Christ, the incarnate word or metaphor who spans the gap between the sensual corporeality of humanity and the spiritual perfection of divinity. Augustine views the mediation of Christ in terms of the externalization of speech: Christ’s flesh corresponds to the materiality of spoken language (sonus), and his divinity is likened to the thought (cogitatio) covered by the carnal sound. The expression of a thought in words in no way diminishes its integrity, just as Christ’s divine nature remains uncorrupted by his assumption of a body (De doct. I.xiii.12; p. 14). In fact, by taking on human flesh, Christ raised it up to himself, redeeming it for eternity, unlike the thought underlying human speech which is incapable of subsuming its external sound into itself. It is for this reason that divine language (as exemplified by Christ or the scriptures) can transcend the carnality of its figural expression, drawing the reader up with it to partake in the pleasure of redemption: Ad ipsum autem ignem amoris nutriendum et flatandum quodammodo, quo tanquam pondere sursum vel introrsum referamur ad requiem, ista omnia pertinent quae nobis figurate insinuantur; (Ep. LV.xi.21; PL 33.214) (All of these things are made known to us in figures for the purpose of nourishing and blowing, as it were, on the fire of love, by whose weight we are drawn up to or into repose.)

In contrast to divine language where figures, anchored in the bond between the corporeal and the spiritual, produce a suavitas or uplifting delight in the transfer from the carnal to the ineffable, human language

32 Figuring the Feminine

that employs tropes, even in the service of Christian truth, is viewed by Augustine as suspect. In Book IV of the De doctrina Christiana, Augustine displays great sensitivity to the problems faced by the Christian preacher who wants to speak truthfully and eloquently. Aware the human producers of signs may enmesh themselves in the carnality of language, Augustine attempts to restrain the use of figures by stressing the pedagogical motives of the preacher, rather than the aesthetic pleasure arising from a well-wrought speech. Unlike divine language whose res are all important and true, human speech may use elaborate figures that only result either in the distraction of the hearer’s attention by their verbal ostentation, or in the incongruous (or even deceptive) clothing of trivial matters in figures that imply a false sense of worth: Nec illa suauitas delectabilis est, qua non quidem iniqua dicuntur, sed exigua et fragilia bona spumeo uerborum ambitu ornantur, quali nec magna atque stabilia decenter et grauiter ornarentur. (De doct. Christ. IV.xiv.31) (That sweetness of discourse is not pleasing in which, although no iniquity is spoken, trivial and fragile truths are ornamented with a frothy nexus of words of a kind which could not properly be used to ornament even weighty and important matters. [139])

If a Christian orator employs an ornate style, he does so not on account of the beauty of language, but, rather, because the force of the things he is communicating require a congruent power of language (IV.xx.421; p. 150). However, Augustine counsels the use of a subdued style (dictio sumissa) as most suitable for the exposition of truth, for such a style does not cloak itself in figures, preferring to appear ‘nude’ since its adornment is so ‘natural’ that it is nearly indistinguishable from its body (IV.xxvi.56; p. 163). For Augustine, the real danger of fallen, carnal language is that the corporeality of language has been detached from the soul of truth to which it was once bound. Such a disjunction of body and mind frees the body to obscure, rather than mirror, the true state of the mind: Sicut autem cuius pulchrum corpus et deformis est animus, magis dolendus est, quam si deforme haberet et corpus, ita qui eloquenter ea, quae falsa sunt, dicunt, magis miserandi, quam si talia deformiter dicerent. (De doct. Christ. IV.xxviii.61)

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 33 (Just as he whose body is beautiful while his mind is deformed is more to be pitied than he whose body is also deformed, in the same way those who speak false things eloquently are more to be pitied than if they had said the same things awkwardly. [166])

Ultimately, then, since human language does not have its origin in God (who is also Truth), it is liable to sink into carnality, and conceal its lack of veritas with the false pleasure of rhetoric. The exile of rhetoric from the unity and integrity of divinity is stated explicitly by Boncampagno da Signa in a medieval equation of rhetoric and the Fall:68 Secunda persuasionis origo fuit in paradiso deliciarum, videlicet quando serpens vetitum pomum exhibuit protoplaustis, dolosius persuadens ut ipsum continuo degustarent, quia fierent sicut dii, et boni et mali scientiam obtinerent.69 (The second origin of persuasion was in the garden of delights when the serpent displayed the forbidden apple to the first humans, deceitfully persuading them to taste it at once so that they would become like gods, and obtain the knowledge of good and evil.)

For Saint Ambrose, the Fall is not an origin of rhetoric, but rather, rhetoric is a sign of the Fall and it therefore is implicated in the discomfiting sexual desire and shame that entered the world as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin. Rhetorical language is likened to the fig leaves in the garden woven together by Adam and Eve to cover the bodies they now feel to be base:70 Ergo quicumque praevaricatur mandatum Dei, spoliatur atque nudatur; et fit ipse sibi turpis: vult se operire quibusdam ficus foliis, fortasse quibusdam inanibus, vel umbratilibus sermonibus, quos compositis mendaciis assuens, et verbum de verbo struens, ad operiendam conscientiam suae mentis, factique velamen peccator intexit, ut pudenda sua contegat.71 (Therefore, whoever violates God’s command is stripped and laid bare, and he appears base to himself. Wanting to cover himself with fig leaves, or with empty school speeches as it were, which he sews together along with suitable lies, joining one word to another for the purpose of concealing

34 Figuring the Feminine his mind’s guilty conscience, the sinner weaves a garment for his deed, resulting in the covering up of his genitals.)

The use of textile tropes that figure the degenerative state of fallen language signal that verbal signs not only mask truth, but they do so sensuously by dressing up meaning in alluring clothing that invites the interpreter’s desire.72 If rhetoric is a falling away from pure unity and harmony into carnality, its essence as lack can be discerned in the way it operates, for, according to one commentator on Cicero, eloquence or adornment are necessary only to mask a lack of inner logic.73 In twelfth-century philosophical allegory, the personified figure of rhetoric is represented as wearing torn clothes, thereby confirming the characterization of rhetoric as lacking in integrity.74 Alan of Lille’s character Falsehood in the De planctu naturae is also dressed in rags, suggesting a conceptual link between the notions of rhetoric and lying.75 The Seductive Mask of Metaphor The traditional definition found in Augustine and Isidore characterizes metaphor as a deviant, transgressive transfer (Metaphora est verbi alicuius usurpata translatio) that may not only be considered an adornment,76 but which also may bear an uncomfortable resemblance to falsehood. Augustine, in attempting to distinguish between figural expressions of scripture that are not literally true and other false statements, acknowledges the susceptibility of figures such as metaphor to being classified as literal lies: Nam qui hoc putat, tropicis etiam tam multis locutionibus omnibus potest hanc importare calumniam; ita ut et ipsa quae appellatur metaphora, hoc est de re propria ad rem non propriam verbi alicuius usurpata translatio, possit ista ratione mendacium nuncupari.77 (For he who thinks this may attribute this slander to all of the many figurative expressions; and so, as a result, this expression called ‘metaphor,’ which is a transgressive transfer of a word from the proper to the improper, may, for this reason, be called a lie.)

Inherent in the idea of all figurative language is the possibility of concealment and deception since the nature of the body beneath the veils of language may be neither chaste nor true. Plato and Augustine’s

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 35

condemnation of the obfuscation of truth resulting from the presence of figurae as an improper, immodest, feminine ‘dressing up’ of meaning was in accord with the view of many medieval writers who were well aware of the potential abuse of metaphor by those who use ornate language as a means of clothing falsehoods. Isidore of Seville follows Augustine when he acknowledges that tropes are a kind of clothing which cover up plain meaning, but his view of covering meshes well with a positive attitude towards metaphorical veils as necessary for the protection of the truth underneath, and for inciting the reader to more sophisticated interpretation: Sed haec atque aliae tropicae locutiones ad ea, quae intellegenda sunt, propterea figuratis amictibus obteguntur, ut sensus legentis exerceant, et ne nuda atque in promptu vilescant. (Etymologiarum, I.xxxvii.2) (But these and other figurative expressions standing for those things which are to be understood, are veiled with figurative cloaks so that the reader’s senses may be challenged and so that truths are not degraded by public nudity.)

Alberic of Montecassino, however, is much more sensitive than Isidore to the possibility that the clothing of metaphor constitutes a predisposition to deviate from the chaste truth, to pervert or misrepresent willfully the underlying matter. For Alberic, metaphor, by cloaking something base in splendid, new language, enables one to pass off a whore as a chaste virgin: Suum [sic] autem est metaphorae modus locutionis a proprietate sui quasi detorquere, detorquendo quodammodo innovare, innovando quasi nuptiali amictu tegere, tegendo quasi praecio dignitatis vendere. (Flores rhetorici VI.1, p. 45; my emphasis) (For metaphor’s own method of speaking is to turn away, as it were, from its proper signification,78 and somehow, by this twisting, it alters the meaning, and by altering the meaning it clothes it, so to speak, in a wedding garment, and by clothing the meaning thus, it passes it off as something worthy of dignity. [My translation])

Alberic points out that the garments of metaphor allow the skilful composer to disguise a low, simple story as a tale of lofty sentiment

36 Figuring the Feminine

(Flores VI.1). The authors of the artes poetriae were also aware of the deceptive, transformative power of transumptio: Instruit iste modus transsumere verba decenter. Si sit homo de quo fit sermo, transferor ad rem Expressae similem, quae sit sua propria vestis In similem casu cum videro, mutuor illam Et mihi de veste veteri transformo novellam.79 (The method suggested above affords guidance in the artistic transposition of words. If an observation is to be made about man, I turn to an object which clearly resembles man. When I see what that object’s proper vesture is, in the aspect similar to man’s, I borrow it, and fashion for myself a new garment in place of the old.)

The perception of metaphorical language as a deceptive way of concealing a lack problematizes the relationship between interiority and exteriority. Rather than assuming that figures are a darkening of language so that a transcendent truth may become accessible to the senses, the description of metaphor as an ambiguous change of clothing suggests that the gendered nature of the body beneath the veils of language results in the corruption of the immanent referential structure of rhetorical language. As one cynical teacher of poetry put it: Cum verbum floret, mens aret; cor gerit intus Quod linguae flores dissimulare student.80 (When the word flowers, the mind is barren; the heart carries within what the flowers of the tongue strive to conceal.)

This description of the emptiness of figurative language makes it clear that medieval theorists of language understood very well the lack of integrity between language and thought which threatened to undermine any elaboration of a theory of poetic composition. The discussion of hidden comparisons by Geoffrey of Vinsauf in his Poetria nova captures the elusive, protean nature of metaphor which is constantly sliding between absence and presence, illusion and reality. The metaphorical nature of a hidden comparison is without a doubt since Geoffrey calls it ‘insita mirifice transsumptio’ (marvellously engrafted transumption, l. 250), and it is described in the same transgressive language of the ‘other’ that characterizes definitions of

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 37

metaphor and allegory: ‘Sumpta tamen res est aliunde, sed esse videtur/ inde’ (The new term is, indeed, taken from elsewhere, but it seems to be taken from there, ll. 252–3). A ‘collatio occulta’ is devious in essence for it never reveals its own face, but only shows itself while masked (l. 248). There is no way of knowing whether such a comparison is present or not, since there is no sign to point it out (l. 247), and it slyly manages, in chameleon-like fashion, to blend into its surroundings, to appear thoroughly natural. It underscores the gap between appearance and reality by its subversive resistance to confinement and stability: foris res est, nec ibi comparet; et intus Apparet, sed ibi non est; sic fluctuat intus Et foris, hic et ibi, procul et prope: distat et astat.

(ll. 253–5)

(It is from outside and does not appear outside; it makes an appearance within and is not within; so it fluctuates inside and out, here and there, far and near.)

Hidden comparisons derive their apparent deceptive naturalness from a crafty, subtle conjoining of elements (l. 259) which seems to have been accomplished by the hands of Nature herself (l. 262). The disparate elements so seamlessly welded together in such a collatio enjoy a relationship to each other which is metaphorical rather than metonymic: res ubi junctae Sic coeunt et sic contingunt, quasi non sint Contiguae, sic continuae

(ll. 259–61)

(where the elements joined flow together and touch each other as if they were not contiguous but continuous)

In a later formulation of the operation of hidden comparisons based on Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Brunetto Latini emphasizes the dissembling nature of the garments of this literary device by describing its ‘abit’ (costume) as subtly masking the signs of its own presence.81 If the garments of metaphor are expected to mask a lack of congruence between expression and meaning by a contrived illusion of seamless integrity, the same can be said to hold true for the integumenta of whole texts. The imagery of metaphor, which implies the clothing of a body of words, constitutes a structural principle in the composition of

38 Figuring the Feminine

poetic texts. Geoffrey of Vinsauf describes the poetic art as the weaving of a verbal garment, as the clothing of meaning by means of words: ‘Materiam verbis veniat vestire poesis’ (Let poetic art come forward to clothe the matter with words, Poetria nova, l. 61). Geoffrey also advocates the dressing of meaning in more than one set of clothing for the sake of extending one’s material: sententia cum sit Unica, non uno veniat contenta paratu, Sed variet vestes et mutatoria sumat;

(Poetria nova, ll. 220–2)

(Although the meaning is one, let it not come content with one set of apparel. Let it vary its robes and assume different raiment.)

For John of Garland, materia is naked if it is not adorned and amplified by the garments of rhetoric: ‘Sequitur de materia nuda vestienda. “Materia nudam” voco illam que non est rhetorice ampliata neque ornata.’82 The poet, the compiler of a text, could be called a ‘lanificem,’ which signified that he was a ‘clothier’ who produced textual (i.e., ‘woven’) entities.83 The resulting poetic garment according to twelfth-century aesthetic expectations ought to embody an ideal of chaste beauty, textual harmony, and seamlessness. The attractiveness of such wholeness stems from the traditional association of unearthly, ‘angelic’ clothing with such figures of unimpeachable wisdom, morality, or divinity as Lady Philosophy, Lady Nature, Christ, Mary, and the personification of Truth.84 In the case of these figures, their garments are coterminous with their bodies because the seamlessness of the one reflects perfectly the physical, moral integrity of the other, thus making any other sort of adornment superfluous. In Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria, Philosophy’s cheeks are free from the false, artificial stain of make-up (i.e., rhetorical adornment), and her clothing is so subtle that it is inseparable from her body: genarum vivida superficies, hypocritae coloris a se relegans adulterium … Vestes ejius, ut asserit Boetius, tenuissimis perfectae filis, subtili artificio, indissolubili materia.85 (Lively complexioned cheeks banishing from themselves the adultery of fashioned color … Her garments, as Boethius asserts, perfected of delicate threads, with clever craft and indissoluble material.)

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 39

The ideal of a seamless garment as the means whereby truth and integrity may be rendered most manifest is taken up by Alberic of Montecassino for whom the smoothly executed seams in the fabric of a poem are necessary for poetic, textual harmony and verisimiltude: In primis uniformi pede currat historia tam primis quam extremis concinant media, abruptum vitabis transitum, nil diversis panniculis obgannies consutum. (Flores rhetorici II.5, p. 35) (First, let your composition move at a steady pace, with the middle in harmony with both the beginning and end. You will avoid an abrupt transition, you will not bark out a story stitched with shreds and patches.)86

The corruption of Alberic’s verbal weaving by the inclusion of patches or rags is akin to a destruction of the desired ‘continuity’ by drawing attention to the disjointed nature of the fissures and transitions of the text. There is a tension between the desire to beautify one’s materia with splendid rhetorical garments and the recognition that worthy res require no obvious adornment since their beauty resides in their essential goodness.87 The textual integrity advocated by Alberic is the only fitting way to clothe the chaste, virginal body or meaning of the poem. The insertion of alien patches would destroy the beauty of the meaning, and cause the pure sententia to engage in an act of fornication through the rending of its body: Currat ergo sententia suis membris contenta, nec alienae copulationis foeditas laceret, quam decor in se penitus illustrare sufficiet. In se namque historia gerit, ut manente integritate sui sufficienter possis eam extendere.88 (Let meaning proceed content with her own body, not torn by foul adulterous copulation: her own inner beauty will be enough to make her radiant. Narrative indeed has such a nature that you can lay her full length well enough while keeping her integrity.)89

For Matthew of Vendôme, one of the sources of a poem’s beauty comes from the pure, unadulterated meaning which is free from the artifices of rhetorical tropes: Nec scemata nec tropi possunt ibi assignari, sed ex generali sententia, quae in utroque exemplo datur intelligi, ut venustas significatorum in ipsa significantia redundare perpendatur. (Ars, II.10, p. 154)

40 Figuring the Feminine (Neither figures not tropes can be detected there; but the elegance derives from the general meaning, which in both examples is offered to our understanding so that the beauty of the things signified is judged to abound in the meaning itself.)

However, poetic elegance may also come from a surface verbal ornamentation which should reflect the nature of the materia: if the material (‘materia’) of the words is gay, gaiety will flow over into the whole poem (‘ipsum materiatum’), thus making it incumbent upon the poet to adorn the verses adequately (Matthew of Vendôme, Ars II.11, p. 154). If the poet fails to obtain a proper fit between his meaning and his poetic garment, he is guilty of foolishly attempting to weave a gay garment out of old rags.90 If the materia is indeed festive, its elegance ought to be enhanced by a garment that glitters with the jewels of rhetorical expression. Although here Matthew is using the language of what Michael Roberts has called the ‘jeweled style’ of late antique poetics,91 he, in fact, espouses an aesthetic quite different from that of late antiquity. Medieval rhetoricians, like late antique poets, were very aware of the inorganic, assembled structure of a poem; however, the authors of the medieval artes poetriae subordinated the ‘preferred juxtaposition … and contiguity’92 of late antiquity to a contrived, metaphorical illusion of seamless continuity that has its roots in the poetic aesthetics articulated by Horace in his Ars poetica and embraced by medieval readers of Horace in their poetic theory and practice.93 Unlike late antique poems and garments which reflect an aesthetic of composition in which the seams are supposed to show,94 writers like Matthew of Vendôme and Geoffrey of Vinsauf heap much abuse on poets who versify in this manner. Matthew in particular frowns upon poets who place more emphasis on individual words or ‘jewels’ than on the smooth rhythm of the metre: Amplius pannorum assutores [vel insutores] ab inspectione huius operis excludantur. Cum enim multi vocati sunt versificatores, pauci vero electi, quidam soli innitentes vocabulo potius anhelant ad versuum numerum quam ad elegantium numeratorum, et versum panniculosum subvertentes, qui trunco, non frondibus efficit umbram, nugarum aggregationem nituntur in unum compilare. (Ars Prol.7, p. 110, my emphasis) (And furthermore, let those who patch together rags be excluded from the reading of this work. For although there are many who are called versifiers,

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 41 indeed there are few excellent ones. Certain individuals, leaning on the word, strive more for the number of verses than for the elegance of the metre, and subversively turn out ragged poetry which casts shade by its trunk and not by its leaves, while they endeavour to compile into one a collection of trifles. [My translation])

Matthew’s condemnation of those who weave ragged poems implies that his own opinion of proper poetic practice is to create a seamless, unified text rather than an ‘aggregatio.’ The insistence by the authors of the artes poetriae that the garments of words which constitute the poetic text be seamless and transparent implies an acute awareness of a fittingly chaste body underneath the integumenta, and an anxiety about the dangers of playing with such erotically charged metaphors of language. Only if the perfect harmony is maintained between the chaste body of the materia and the seamless integrity of the verbal garments covering it will the poet be sure of the identity of the body of the text. After all, transparency of language enables one immediately to know what is underneath the garment and allows the reader of such a text to be aware and in control of any subversive, feminine carnality which may threaten to unloose itself. A seamless textual garment also does away with the need to ‘undress’ a text in order to reveal the body of its meaning, since this can already be easily apprehended. The frequent warnings about the weaving of ragged, whorish texts imply that medieval rhetoricians were concerned about the powers of texts to seduce the reader. An emphasis on seamlessness represents an attempt to control the eroticism of language, writing, and interpretation since, according to Roland Barthes, it is the gaping of the garment of the text that is the most erotic way of exposing the body. Texts whose narrative surface is riddled with gaps and discontinuities, are texts of ‘ecstasy’ (jouissance) that force the reader to confront his desire for meaning, to lose himself in the empty spaces of the text as he tries to construct a meaning. Medieval rhetoricians also knew that the seams, cuts, and dissolves95 are the loci of pleasure in a text, and although they attempted to restrain the production of such texts, the erotics of reading and interpretation seems to have slipped through their grasp to emerge as a subtext in their writings on poetry.96 The recommendation that words correspond to meaning masks a fearful suspicion that a textual garment may, in fact, act as a disguise for an ugly, corrupt sententia. Matthew of Vendôme’s assertion that

42 Figuring the Feminine

where meaning has its own beauty, no figural garments are to be used (II.10) implies that adornment is called for only when there is something that needs to be hidden. Geoffrey of Vinsauf recognizes the deceptive nature of the metaphorical clothing worn by the text since one meaning may be presented in different outfits, thereby resulting in its ‘dissimulation.’97 The hiding of a sententia is bound up with ideas of sexual propriety and the representation of truth. If verbal garments do not correspond to the integrity of the meaning they cover, this constitutes a debasing of the honour and virtue of the materia, a shameful dressing of an ‘honest’ woman in the rags of falsehood: Sententia si sit honesta, Ejius ei servetur honos: ignobile verbum Non inhonestet eam, sed, ut omnia lege regantur, Dives honoretur sententia divite verbo, Ne rubeat matrona potens in paupere panno. (Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, ll.751–5; my emphasis) (If the meaning is chaste, let that reputation be preserved; see that no vulgar word may debase it. That all may be guided by precept let rich meaning be honored by rich diction, lest a noble lady blush in pauper’s rags.)

The use of ‘honestus’ and ‘inhonestus’ carries overtones of sexual propriety and impropriety. An ‘honest’ woman/statement should be dressed in a dignified manner. Words which do not conform to the inner virtue of the statement result in something akin to a prostitution of the ‘honest’ statement symbolized by the dishonest, unintegral, revealing pauper’s rags. Although a lack of integrity in the composition of poetic texts was looked down upon in the twelfth century as a sign of intellectual dishonesty and pretentiousness,98 it was the relationship of such ragged texts to a subversive feminine corporeality which was so threatening. Matthew of Vendôme accuses those poets who join together words with contradictory meanings, who create jarring, unharmonious, ragged sentences, of reducing language to the level of women’s clothing: Amplius, sunt quidam trasonitae et nugigeruli qui, ex impetu presumptionis inconcinnae praesumentes cornicari, verborum significationibus abutuntur. (Ars II.42, p. 166)

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 43 (There are, furthermore, certain comic braggarts and purveyors of feminine apparel that, acting under the impulse of a silly audacity, presume to caw like crows and twist the meaning of words.)99

Matthew’s denunciation of a poetic practice which involves a distortion of a masculine ‘truth’ through the representation of seductive, alluring female finery accomplishes the same linking of language, sexual embodiment, and truth as did Plato’s much earlier condemnation of rhetoric. The idea of clothing as an unnatural, feminine adornment of the body was transferred to the figural garments of rhetorical language. Rhetorical adornment came to be identified with the artifices of painted women,100 and as Quintilian repeatedly emphasized, feminine clothing is a sign of unnatural, overblown language (Inst. orat. VIII.pref.20); and womanly preoccupations about the ‘hair’ and ‘nails’ of a speech imply a frivolous detraction from the body or subject matter of the speech (VIII.proem.22). If the relationship of the feminine to language and its referents is analogous to that of clothing to the body, the power of transgressive, metaphorical discourse to persuade seductively by means of artificial, unnatural verbal garments is akin to the ability of clothing to pervert or hide the true nature of the body by an alluring disguise. The fear of ‘feminine’ texts which subversively deceive and seduce the reader by the gap opened up between language and meaning expresses itself in the artes poetriae as a horror of ragged, unwholesome literary composition. However, the suspicion of the ornamental as a feminine wile is also manifested by the embodiment of the ‘word’ as a harlot with a painted face: verbi prius inspice mentem et demum faciem, cujus ne credi colori: (Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova ll.739–40) (First examine the mind of a word, and only then its face; do not trust the adornment of its face.)

Geoffrey sounds almost irrational in his vitriolic condemnation of these whorish, deceitful words which he inadvertently admits are the essence of poetic fiction:

44 Figuring the Feminine Se nisi conformet color intimus exteriori, Sordet ibi ratio: faciem depingere verbi Est pictura luti, res est falsaria, ficta Forma, dealbatus paries et hypocrita verbum Se simulans aliquid, cum sit nihil. Haec sua forma Dissimulat deforme suum: se jactitat extra, Sed nihil intus habet; (Poetria nova ll. 741–7; emphasis mine) (If internal ornament is not in harmony with external, reason becomes tainted. Adorning the face of a word is painting a sordid [i.e., muddy, filthy] picture: it is a false thing, its beauty fictitious; the word is a whitewashed wall and a hypocrite, pretending to be something whereas it is nothing. Its fair form conceals its deformity; it makes a brave show, but has nothing within.)

Like the ‘ragged’ text, this image too betrays a deep-seated fear and hatred of false, ‘fictional’ adornment which presents itself as an alluring, seductive presence, when in fact it masks nothing more than an absence which is constitutive of a straying from the masculine, Adamic, unitary, natural origin, and is representative of a fall from perfect Edenic, seamless congruence of thought and language. In its fall into multiplicity and multivocity, language behaves like a woman: it slips out of one dress into another and hides its flaws by painting its face. The linking of poetic composition with the clothing and adornment of a woman’s body must necessarily evoke desire in the composer and interpreter of the poem, regardless of the chastity of the poetic body or the seamlessness of its garments. The warnings against whorish language and corrupt, ragged texts are, in effect, attempts to control and suppress the erotics of reading and composition concretized in the metaphor of the female body as text. As Matthew of Vendôme makes clear, the writer’s task is akin to that of a good husband who exacts the submissive obedience of his wife and servants (Ars IV.26).101 The application of the corporeal and textile imagery of tropes to the composition of poetic texts by twelfth-century rhetoricians makes possible a ‘pleasure of interpretation’ which involves an undressing of the sententia of the text on the part of the reader. Ever since Aristotle, the solving of a metaphor has been likened to the unravelling of a riddle which brings delight and pleasure to the successful decoder.102 If the textual garments are the integumenta of allegory, the transcendent veiled truths become objects of desire which must be divested of their clothing:

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 45

‘Sed haec voluptas allegoricis tegminibus involuta est, ut desideretur ardentius nudetur iucundius’ (But this delight is wrapped in allegorical coverings so that it may be more ardently desired and more pleasingly undressed).103 Although the writers of the artes poetriae are more concerned with the preceptive techniques of dressing texts than with their disrobing through interpretation, the preoccupation with the sexual propriety of the words and materia of poetry suggests that they are aware of the erotic potential of their metatextual language. Like Nietzsche’s ambivalent styling of the relationship between woman and language as both philosophically productive and as exemplifying hackneyed misogynist notions of women as dangerous, duplicitous seducers, medieval rhetorical authors’ understanding of the relationship between the feminine, truth, and language similarly allows for the feminized figure of metaphor to provide privileged access to truth and to obstruct the communication and appropriation of truth by the unruly, overly sensual nature of all language, especially that of figurative language. This problem of possessing and mastering a truth that is figured as feminine is a key theoretical issue in both modern and medieval theories of knowledge and language and has animated much recent feminist discussion of postmodernism. Although modern theory explores the implications of the yoking of woman and truth in a more direct way than the classical and medieval rhetorical material, the importance of such discussions for an understanding of the structure of knowledge, the nature of interpretation, and the position of women is similar in both modern and medieval contexts. In Spurs, Derrida takes as his subject Nietzsche’s problematizing of woman and truth as a supplemental corrective to Heidegger’s neglect of the question of woman in Nietzsche and to his appropriation of Nietzsche as a philosopher of presence. Derrida’s use of Nietzsche’s multiple, contradictory representations of woman as veiled truth, as distant superficiality, as the incarnation and realization of the untruth that is truth, enables him to undermine the Western metaphysical tradition by casting man’s desire for feminized truth as futile: ‘The credulous and dogmatic philosopher, who believes in the truth that is woman, who believes in truth just as he believes in woman, this philosopher has understood nothing.’104 Derrida’s appropriation of Nietzsche’s representation of the slippery nature of woman/truth who incites desire yet who is beyond possession is not so far removed from the medieval discussions of metaphor and allegory which configure the unstable and deceptive nature of truth as clothed in alluring, deceptive women’s

46 Figuring the Feminine

garb. The shared strategy of linking figuration, the feminine, and truth that is a feature of Nietzschean philosophy, Derridean deconstruction, and medieval language theory has been the object of sharp critique by feminist thinkers. Numerous feminist readers of Nietzsche have taken issue with his overtly misogynist statements and with his reduction of the question of woman to that of style, and have vehemently disagreed with Derrida’s use of Nietzsche’s misogyny as a strategic founding gesture intended to undermine the Western philosophical metaphysics of presence which holds out the possibility of an accessible Truth. Gayatri Spivak’s critique of both Nietzsche and Derrida is one that powerfully articulates the effect of the unstable linking of woman and truth as one in which woman is both neutered and displaced, reduced to a shifting stylistic plurality that allows the male philosopher to disingenuously occupy the place of phallocentric critic, to make of the woman a philosophical fetish: ‘Perhaps because we have a “different body” the fetish as woman with changeable phallus is on her way to becoming a transcendental signifier in these texts. As the radically other she does not really exist, yet her name remains one of the important names for displacement, the special mark of deconstruction.’105 The reduction of woman to a linguistic construct who is removed from the realms of history, politics, and sexuality is a theoretical problem in medieval writing as well.106 Much of the medieval theorizing about the crafting of persuasive and poetic language takes for granted the tight association between rhetorical adornment and the feminine, the process of writing as male mastery over unruly words, and the extraction of meaning as the unveiling of a carnal, alluring truth. Such formulations also reduce the question of the woman to one of language and, like Derrida’s strategic fusion of woman, style, and truth, also invite feminist critique. E. Jane Burns has discussed the problematic nature of postmodern approaches to medieval studies which have equated language and gender. In her view, such treatments of the feminine tend to ‘metaphorize women out of existence’ and constitute an erasure of female subjectivity, thereby making misogyny into nothing more than a discursive problem.107 Burns’s charge of the erasure of female subjectivity in the union of woman and language has deep roots in critical feminist readings of both Nietzsche and Derrida. Mary Ann Doane’s analysis of the filmic language of the veiled woman considers Nietzsche’s use of the veiled woman who figures truth as an antimetaphysical weapon which brings about the collapse of ‘essential’ oppositions like surface/depth or appearance/reality. The Nietzschean play of surface and depth, truth and deception, attributed to the veiled

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 47

woman is accomplished by the deceptive gesturing by the veil to an underlying truth, by the pretence that an essence can be something other than pretence: ‘Becoming unconscious of any knowledge she might have concerning truth as dissimulation, as surface, she becomes instead its representation, its idea.’ Like Burns, Doane concludes that this status of woman as unconscious material of representation effectively deprives woman of any subjectivity.108 While Doane’s and Burns’s discomfort with man’s troping of woman is well founded, more recent feminist readings have suggested other ways of understanding the equivalence of veiling and femininity and the import of the body beneath. Derrida’s teasing out of Nietzsche’s philosophical use of ‘Woman’ can also be viewed as a means of dislocating identity and subjectivity, a dislocation that may too easily serve the interests of phallocentric culture which needs the excluded feminine to be posited as ‘Other’ so as to serve as the foundation of masculine identity. The task for feminist readers of both Nietzsche and Derrida and of medieval rhetorical theory is not to attempt to absent themselves from the cycle of desire for truth hypostasized as a woman, but rather to recognize the irony inherent in such a quest and to view Nietzsche’s subversive sexual agonistics as a generative force of creativity.109 There is a growing understanding among feminist theorists that Nietzsche’s devastating critique of the logocentric bias of Western thought and reason is unfailingly tied to an equally sharp dismantling of the philosophical tradition’s misunderstanding of the feminine and all that is associated with it: ‘If we read Nietzsche’s texts carefully we discover, not simply that they are littered with misogynist remarks, but that they also deconstruct their own phallocentric pretensions, largely through a celebration of woman as a metaphor representing the creative forces of life (life and women conceived as the force of difference).’110 The dislocation of phallocentric constructions of sexual identity is embraced by Derrida in his reading of Nietzsche’s woman in Spurs and opens up the identification of women with the rhetorically styled metaphoric veiling and truth to a more regenerative function, one that allows for women to be positioned differently, as both objects and subjects.111 The playful and productive undecidability of ‘Woman’ as truth (is she really there beneath the veil or is she only veiling herself to pretend that truth is there when she in fact knows that truth is a lie?) that both conceals and reveals the complicity of the feminine in the upholding and dismantling of phallocentric structures of identity and belief becomes a question of hermeneutics in the final section of Spurs where Derrida

48 Figuring the Feminine

engages with the multiplicity of truth in his exegesis of Nietzsche’s fragmentary text ‘I have forgotten my umbrella.’ This text now substitutes for the elusive feminized veilings that were Derrida’s earlier focus, and functions to problematize the appropriation of any text distanced from its context, one whose alluring, ‘ragged’ meaning has been torn out from the moorings of authorial intention and cultural milieu.112 Like the veils of metaphor and allegory, Nietzsche’s seemingly banal jotting promises infinite revelation: ‘There is no end to its parodying play with meaning, grafted here and there, beyond any contextual body or finite code.’113 Derrida recognizes that, like the umbrella fragment, all texts are both objects open to numerous theoretically driven readings, and subjects that necessarily assume multiple positions or styles: ‘There never has been the style, the simulacrum, the woman. There has never been the sexual difference.’114 Derrida’s strategic treatment of the umbrella fragment as an elusive, subversive, feminized figure of style is reminiscent of ancient sophistic rhetoric’s privileging of kairos over a constraining logocentric ideology. Nietzsche’s and Derrida’s understanding of the rhetorically produced feminine (especially through the use of terminology of rhetorical troping) is akin to that of Gorgias whose rhetoric also challenged the binary logic of identity and subjectivity.115 The construction in medieval rhetoric of the text as a feminized body of meaning dressed in the clothing of rhetorical figures suggests that medieval literary texts that play on such troping are part of a practice (as premodern as it is ‘postmodern’) in which the fusion of feminine body and language can be viewed as a productive source of theoretical and hermeneutic multiplicity. For while it is impossible ever to be sure that the figured feminine embodies anything other than a spur to interpretation, the myriad stylings of the feminine textual body, like Nietzsche’s umbrella, may simply undergird a phallocentric economy, or if ‘listened to sophistically … [may] clear a space for a revolutionary, ethical critique of truth, representation and subjectivity.’116 The remaining chapters of this book examine the productive mix of the corporeal and the textual and attempt to ‘think through the bodies’117 of literary texts produced in the Iberian Peninsula from late antiquity through the medieval period. While Spain, of course, had no exclusive claim to the prevalence of corporeal imagery in its literature, the works in this study constitute a powerful constellation of poetic texts in which the feminized textual body both illuminates and calls into question the cultural and gender-based assumptions and conventions that condition the processes of textual composition and reception.

Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 49

When read with and against each other, this group of texts exemplifies the power of embodied textuality to defy the bonds of time, mortality, literary convention, gender, cultural hegemony, to ‘stage and challenge the defining forces of dominant ideologies’ as Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury have expressed it.118 However, my focus on the female body in this book is not only to render that body’s ideological structure more visible and intelligible so that it may more easily be contested and destabilized, but also to suggest convincing new readings of each text that took shape for me only after I sought them in corporealized words. Each reading attempts to embrace the sophistic principle of kairos which, like postmodern readings of Nietzsche’s veiled, seductive Truth, calls for a theoretically open, productive critical practice that is attentive both to the historically determined and contextualized processes of literary production and interpretation and to the positioning of the embodied feminine text as both object of male manipulation and elusive subject that articulates resistance to literary and cultural norms. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the consequences of turning female bodies into poetic texts, a transformation that shapes and conditions medieval theoretical approaches to discourse. The texts examined in these chapters reveal the violence implicit in the yoking of textuality to the feminine body, and explore how the infliction of script on female bodies calls into question the ability of male authors to subdue and control their textual production. Like Matthew of Vendôme, who advises that the poet conduct himself as an effective paterfamilias whose authority and mastery require the submission of feminized language to his poetic purpose, both Prudentius and the anonymous Cid poet are confronted with issues of authorial mastery and masculine hegemony. While these two texts are engaged with the consequences of the fusion of poetry and feminine bodies, they do not explicitly employ the language of metaphorical veiling to interrogate and unsettle patriarchal poetic and hermeneutic conventions as do the texts analysed in chapters 4, 5, and 6. In these latter chapters, the emphasis shifts from the privileging of the metaphor of the feminized body as text to a more metatextual consideration of the feminized text as it is rhetorically configured in the verbal clothing of metaphor and allegory. Such a shift allows for a more nuanced exploration of how the embodied feminine text can be both subject and object: an eroticized body whose truth, meaning, and power must be disentangled from the veils of words in which it is enmeshed as well as a body made to bear words that become actors in a struggle for subjectivity and textual mastery.

2 Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’s Peristephanon

One of the earliest and most compelling examples in the Iberian Peninsula of the use of the figure of metaphor to stage the contestation of textual power through the conflation of writing and embodiment is the early Christian collection of martyrdom poems, Peristephanon, written ca. 405 by Prudentius, a Hispano-Roman poet. Prudentius’s privileging of the imaginative re-creation of narratives of torture and textuality of martyrs from the Roman province of Hispania attests to his close identification with his birthplace of Calahorra and neighbouring regions. Of the fourteen narratives in the Peristephanon, six are dedicated to Hispanic saints whose later medieval literary fortunes in Spanish hagiography are almost entirely shaped by Prudentius.1 The fusion of text and feminized body in the late antique Hispano-Roman poet is embedded in the contexts of late classical rhetorical and literary norms and early Christian religious practice. The use of the written word to objectify, feminize, and master the bodies of the Christian martyrs exposes the collusion of early Christianity with a logic of corporeal commodification that seeks to appropriate the spiritual force of the martyrs by subsuming their generative, productive power, a power that is most effectively concretized by means of a metaphorics of textualized femininity. Prudentius’s metaphorization of the martyrs’ bodies as welcoming surfaces of inscription inseminated by the markings of torture constitutes a strategy of objectification of these textual bodies and facilitates his positioning of himself as poet firmly in control of the resulting discursive power. However, despite the poet’s attempts to contain the powerfully salvific bodies of the martyrs within his text, their defiant suffering suffusing his poetry overflows the confines of textual bonds where their torn bodies proliferate beyond the text and redeem both the bodies and souls of other believers.

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51

Classical oratory was as much a techne of the body, a ‘sermo corporis,’2 as it was the crafting of persuasive discourse. The body of the orator was subjected to intense scrutiny for any sign, gesture, or tone of voice that might compromise the rhetor’s mastery of his body and the consequently fetishized language it was producing. As Maud Gleason and Erik Gunderson have shown, the orator’s presence was expected to convey all the bodily signs of a hegemonic masculinity that was a requirement for any Roman who aspired to the honourable, as well as socially and politically prestigious, position of rhetor.3 Rhetoric as a master discourse sought to repress and expel anything and everything smacking of the soft, effeminate, histrionic, or foreign in the orator’s body and discourse. Both his body and verbal expression should make evident the hard, controlled, muscular precision that is the result of arduous physical and intellectual discipline and training.4 Clearly, then, ‘the problem of sexuality remains a prominent one within oratory.’5 The focus of rhetorical manuals such as Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria on the masculinity of the orator’s body and voice points to the priority of oral performance and the presence of a lived, corporeal experience. Reading and writing about giving speeches paradoxically privilege the oral scene of performance as ‘authorized, hegemonic discourse.’6 However, the relationship between the authoritative but absent voice and the written word is a highly contested one, for the orator ‘is made to live and to breathe by way of the dead word on the page that nevertheless promises that life itself can and should cite the written word and the absent authority subtending it.’7 The legibility of the orator’s body is thus mediated by the intervening written word and can only be sought and understood in the corporeal confines of the page. Prudentius also places the legible body at the heart of his text. In his Peristephanon, a series of poems dedicated to the martyrs of the early Christian church, Prudentius displaces the absent living voice by anchoring his textual production in the wounds of the martyrs’ broken bodies. These bodies become the source of Prudentius’s poetry and they are made to speak only when subjected to the yoke of his art. By the late fourth century the force of the spoken word was fading in favour of the authority of the written text.8 The unusually intense cultivation of the written word among fourth-century Christians can be seen as part of a strategic struggle with pagan culture over the control of language.9 Classical rhetorical training, with its emphasis on the fittingly masculine power of performance, was absorbed into Christian discourse where the persecution of Christians ‘opened up a whole new avenue for the rhetoric of the body.’10 The fusion of the textual and the

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corporeal so central to the rhetorical tradition described in chapter 1, acquires even greater power in Christian writing since the Christian Logos is a fundamentally linguistic, textual phenomenon. The enfleshing of the Word is akin to the process of clothing thoughts in corporeal language and affixing them by means of the material elements of parchment, paper, pen, and ink.11 The centrality of the body in such fundamental Christian theological debates as the Incarnation, Resurrection, Trinity, Virgin Birth, and the Eucharist made the body perfectly suited for the metaphorization and symbolic manipulation it underwent in Christian writing.12 As Christian rhetoric was transformed into a textual phenomenon rooted in the miraculous bodies of Christ and his imitators, the classical concern for the masculine rectitude of the orator’s body and speech also came to be reimagined. As Averil Cameron has shown, one of the ways Christians engaged with the familiar secular classical concern with the gendering of speakers and their discourse was to focus on the intersections of female sexuality and language. Christian appropriation of the gendered and sexualized nature of discourse so prominent in the classical rhetorical tradition becomes most evident in the treatment of virginity, which came to function as a rhetorical and figural construct as well as a theological one.13 Prudentius, however, goes much further in the incorporation of gendered bodies into his discourse. While the virginal nature of female martyrs’ bodies in the Peristephanon is a crucial element in the textual economy of his poetry, Prudentius transposes the ‘ideational habits of masculine self-formation’14 away from the voice and body of the rhetor to language itself. Instead of locating virility in the disciplined convergence of gesture, voice, and discourse of the male orator, Prudentius endows his martyrs’ bodies with supercharged divine language, with an ‘idealized realm of logos’ which is ‘power, creativity, order, knowledge, insight and virility itself.’15 Prudentius’s displacement of human generation away from the body to language allows him to harness this power in his poetry in order to master the feminized textual body and to sow the seeds of salvation for all Christians as well as for himself. Prudentius’s literary aesthetic is typical of late antique culture. The graphic descriptions in the Peristephanon of the blood and gore of martyrdom and his emphasis on the miraculous evince ‘an enthusiasm for the weird and wonderful’ typical of fourth-century literary tastes.16 Prudentius often dresses his striking subject matter in language notable for its rich visual and semantic patterning, the hallmarks of what

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Michael Roberts has termed the jewelled style of late antique poetics.17 Prudentius participates in an already established tradition of reading and writing where images, intertextual allusions, and etymological wordplay convey more meaning than plot and narrative. The location of meaning in the poet’s manipulation of language allows the reader a much greater role in the construction of this meaning. Prudentius’s linguistic playfulness (both literal and semantic) manifests itself in the use of etymology, wordplay, and anagrams which all invite the reader to engender meaning, to participate in the dynamism of literary discourse.18 The vitality of Prudentius’s poetic text is mirrored by his conception of the act of writing as a dynamic force capable of achieving the redemption of both Christian souls and discourse. Prudentius’s Peristephanon is an eloquent witness to the redemptive power of the written word. The poet declares himself to be painfully aware of the mediatory power of the poems he offers to the martyrs: O Christi decus, audi poetam rusticum cordis fatentem crimina et facta prodentem sua. Indignus, agnosco et scio quem Christus ipse exaudiat, sed per patronos martyras potest medellam consequi.19 (Oh glory of Christ, listen to an unsophisticated poet as he confesses the sins of his heart and puts his deeds in writing. I am unworthy, I know and own, that Christ himself should hear me; but through the intercession of the martyrs, a cure may be attained.)

Prudentius, although referring to his poetic activity, attributes conventional qualities of orality to his poems (‘audi,’ ‘exaudiat’), and thereby betrays an attitude that views writing as a kind of masterful, persuasive, oral performance that will reach the ears of Christ.20 Prudentius hopes that his poetic text will enable him to communicate with the martyrs, who will then themselves assume a textual role in that they will instantaneously relay his words to God: ‘audiunt statimque ad aurem regis aeterni ferunt’ (they listen to our prayer and straightway carry it to the ear of the eternal King, Pe I.18). Prudentius then, is writing a poem free from the deformative temporal gap that severs author

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from text. His belief in and reliance upon the efficacy of writing poetry in order to gain a hearing before God, and hopefully to be granted salvation, is manifested most clearly by his metaphorization of the martyrs’ salvific bodies as written texts and by the transformation of the experience of martyrdom into an act of writing. The martyrs’ role as intercessors between human beings and Christ is effectively concretized by their textualization.21 The metaphor of the body as text in the opera of Prudentius has received very little critical attention. Most of the critics who have dealt with the Peristephanon have directed their efforts more towards determining Prudentius’s sources and the classical influences upon him than to the study of his poetic imagery.22 The first critic to comment on his use of textual metaphors was Ernst Robert Curtius, who viewed him as one of the links in the chain of the literary continuity of the ‘metaphorics of the book’ extending from antiquity through the Renaissance.23 However, Curtius was not interested in the function which the image of the body as book has within the Peristephanon, nor in the importance of this metaphor for an understanding of the poet’s views about written language in general, and the poetic Christian text in particular. More recently, Klaus Thraede has meticulously traced Prudentius’s sources of Schreibmetaphern from their Greek roots, through their elaboration in rhetorical, patristic, and literary texts.24 His treatment, although highly nuanced, makes no attempt to analyse Prudentius’s use of the metaphorics of writing as a self-reflexive means of considering the nature of writing and authorship. Most recently, Michael Roberts has discussed the textualization of the martyrs’ bodies in the Peristephanon, but his interest lies more in the ‘sacred poetics’ of martyrdom created by Prudentius than in the linguistic and textual implications of this metaphor.25 Prudentius is, perhaps, the first writer to use the image of the martyr’s body as a written text in order to formulate a specifically Christian conception of writing. For him, writing acquires a divine corporeality that physically engenders more language, be it in the form of more spoken words or human poetic texts. Prudentius revels in the corporeality of writing and redeems it by literally transforming it into an agent of bodily punishment and death capable of conferring salvation upon those who receive its marks. By transmuting martyrs into texts, Prudentius sanctifies writing, presenting it as divine discourse, which is not just a shadow of the fullness of the spoken Word, but

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55

which retains its dynamism even if it is several times removed from its sacred source. The martyrs are not merely dead texts severed from their author or vivifying principle. Rather, they have the textual advantage of fixity or permanence in that they cannot by erased or expunged from heaven, ensuring their connection with their divine author. Yet, precisely because they are written texts independent from the mind (i.e., God’s) which gave birth to them, they retain an immortal life of their own and are capable of seeing to it that salvation be bestowed on others. The most striking aspect of Christian writing as embodied by the martyrs is its virile reproductive power manifested figuratively by the production of spiritual fruit in the form of more believers and salvation, and literally, by the engendering of more discourse in the form of textual offspring.26 This chapter will explore the configuration of the martyr-text and the implications of its gendering, the ways in which Prudentius exploits its revivifying qualities, and the relationship he sets up between his own written text, the Peristephanon, and the Christian writing of the martyrs’ bodies. Textual Elements of Martyrdom In the Peristephanon the connection between martyrdom and writing is established from the outset. The first lines Prudentius writes contain the inscription of the martyrs’ names in the book of heaven: Scripta sunt caelo duorum martyrum uocabula, aureis quae Christus illic adnotauit litteris, sanguinis notis eadem scripta terris tradidit.

(Pe I.1–3)

(Written in heaven are the names of two martyrs; Christ has made note of them there in letters of gold, while on earth he has recorded them in characters of blood.)

By opening the poem with a textualization of martyrdom, Prudentius is hinting that his conception of martyrdom is inseparable from a poetic, or literary, experience: it occurs along with an act of inscription. Also, the martyrs come to be associated with books in which they are textually apotheosized. The martyrs’ names written into the book of heaven (Pe IV.169–72) are, metonymically speaking, the embodiment of the martyrs themselves. This conception of martyrdom can also be found in artistic representations of martyrs nearly contemporaneous with

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Prudentius. In the Chapel of St Victor in the Church of St Ambrose in Milan, there is a mosaic dating from the early fifth century that depicts the martyr Victor holding an open book in front of him on whose pages the name ‘Victor’ is written.27 Since Prudentius spent many years serving in the imperial court in Milan,28 he would likely have been familiar with this artistic convention of equating a martyr with a written text. Martyrdom was also described as a process of infusing meaning into language. St Ignatius of Antioch, in a letter written before his martyrdom in 117, terms his imminent execution a conversion from phone, an inarticulate, empty voice, into logos, a meaningful, intelligible word of God.29 Like St Ignatius’s conversion from phone to logos, martyrdom for Prudentius is a process whereby the dumb, animal flesh is transformed into a divine text.30 Unlike the subjection of the orator’s body to the rigorous norms of masculine persuasion, textualization itself becomes a form of ascetic discipline enabling the inscribed object to transcend the carnal and to pass on to a disembodied realm of pure reason and spirit where masculinity is manifested in the mind rather than in the flesh.31 By repeatedly referring to the martyrs’ torn bodies as texts, Prudentius is emphasizing that the martyrs are dead to the fleshly world, and, as written texts, they rise above the chaotic cacophony of the carnal to abide eternally in the spiritual world of silent, organized, rational, intelligible discourse overflowing with God’s meaning. The extended metaphor of the martyr’s body as text is a characteristic feature of Prudentius’s poetic vocabulary. The poems dedicated to Eulalia and Cassian (Pe III and IX) are ones in which the image of the martyr’s body as text is particularly strong and, interestingly enough, these are the poems for which Prudentius has no known literary source.32 There are, however, some earlier isolated instances in which a martyr’s wounded body is described as a written text. Lactantius, for example, referred to martyrs as bearing letters impressed on their tortured bodies: quis cum uideat laterum suorum cicatrices, non magis oderit deos, propter quos aeterna poenarum insignia et impressas uisceribus suis notas gestet?33 (Who when he sees the scars on the sides of his body will not hate the gods even more, on whose account he bears eternal marks of torment and letters engraved onto his flesh?)

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In Prudentius, this textual metaphor is far more explicit and highly developed than in any earlier Christian writer. Romanus is called ‘inscripta Christo pagina’ (a page inscribed by Christ, Pe X.1119), and Cassian is a page wet with red ink (‘umens pagina,’ Pe IX.50). Eulalia observes that God’s name is written on her body: ‘scriberis ecce mihi, domine’ (Pe III.136), thereby attesting to her transformation into an immortal text. The martyr’s unbroken passive body, which is a blank and receptive page or parchment, is only part of the configuration of the body-text. The marks or letters recorded in the text are the wounds inflicted on the martyr’s body. The angel who takes notes on Romanus’s passion includes the wounds on his body as part of the discourse that is being recorded: Excepit adstans angelus coram deo et quae locutus martyr et quae pertulit; nec uerba solum disserentis condidit, sed ipsa pingens uulnera expressit stilo laterum genarum pectorisque et faucium.

(Pe X.1121–5)

(An angel standing in the presence of God took down all that the martyr said and all that he bore, and not only recorded the words of his discourse but with his pen drew exact pictures of the wounds on his sides, cheeks, breast, and throat.)

Romanus’s wounds are treated in exactly the same way as his words by the recording angel, thus cementing the equivalence of wounds and words. In Peristephanon I, it is stated that God wrote the names of the martyrs in letters of blood on earth (Pe I.2–3). The bloody letters etched into the martyrs’ bodies do not always signify their names. In the case of Eulalia, the holy name of God is written on her body: Nomen et ipsa sacrum loquitur purpura sanguinis eliciti.

(Pe III.139–40)

(The very scarlet of the blood that is drawn speaks the holy name.)

The holy text inscribed upon Eulalia is a perfectly legible one since she says that she is able to read the letters which signify God’s victory for her (Pe III.137–8).

58 Figuring the Feminine

The marks scored into the bodies of the martyrs come from the pen of God. Eulalia addresses God directly while she is being written upon (Pe III.136), and it is Christ’s pen that produces the letter-wounds upon the earthly bodies of Emeterius and Chelidonius (Pe I.2–3). Since it is God who writes on the martyr, the resulting text must possess unique qualities. God imbues Romanus with immortality when he becomes a divine, eternal text inscribed by the powerful pen of Christ: ‘inscripta Christo pagina inmortalis est’ (Pe X.1119). The torturer who tears Romanus’s face is, in reality, God who is creating an indelible and indestructible text: Charaxat ambas ungulis scribentibus genas cruentis et secat faciem notis,

(Pe X.557–8)

(He engraves both cheeks with marks written by the claws and he cuts bloody letters into his face.)

The word ‘charaxat’ refers to a divine kind of writing. The only contemporary attestation of this verb, which was borrowed from the Greek, occurs in a Pseudo-Augustinian text where it is used to describe the etching of the Decalogue by God.34 The etymologically related word character appears in the Vulgate, but only in the Apocalypse of John (13:16; 13:17; 14:9; 14:11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4), and is used to refer to the mark impressed on the foreheads and right hands of the damned by the beast of the Apocalypse. Here, the character is also akin to writing whose origin is supernatural or divine. Prudentius, in his use of the uncommon verb charaxare, is emphasizing the divine source of the martyrs’ wounds and is indirectly comparing them to the awesomely powerful and durable text miraculously engraved on tablets of stone by the finger of God. The martyr-text is a transcendent text copied by God from the earthly body of the martyr into the book of heaven (Pe I.1–3). The immortal and indelible nature of the heavenly martyr-text is underlined by the contrasting ephemeral nature of texts written by men. Earthly texts are subject to deterioration and destruction, whereas Christ’s writing can never fade: Illas sed aetas conficit diutina, fuligo fuscat, puluis obducit situ, carpit senectus aut ruinis obruit.

Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Peristephanon Inscripta Christo pagina inmortalis est nec obsolescit ullus in caelis apex.

59

(Pe X.1116–20)

(But those records the long passage of time destroys, grime blackens them, dust covers them in neglect, old age tatters them or buries them under ruins; whereas the page written upon by Christ is immortal, and not even one little stroke fades away in heaven.)

Earthly texts can be deliberately manipulated or suppressed by those who want to control the flow of information, in contrast to the divine text of the martyrs which, since it is inscribed in the heavens, is eternally accessible to all those who would read and believe.35 The pagan soldier may attempt to prevent the fame of the martyrs from spreading by destroying the written account of their suffering (Pe I.73–8), but he cannot expunge the sparkling letters of gold which spell out their names in heaven (Pe I.1–2).36 Like Christ, whose body was racked and torn so that he would be able to defeat death and thereby redeem humanity, the martyrs’ bodies too become bloody texts so that they can mimic Christ’s redemptive role in the function of their wounded bodies as instruments of salvation. Their wounds are the gateways to heaven: ‘nobilis per uulnus amplum porta iustis panditur’ (through the wide wound a glorious gateway opens to the righteous, Pe I.29). However, since the wounds are also letters (Pe I.3), the reading of these bloody marks can also result in the attainment of salvation. It is not enough that the martyrs’ bodies bear redemptive wounds, since what is required is a participation in their suffering made possible by the transformation of their bodies into texts. To share actively in their martyrdom one must read the marks on their bodies before salvation can be conferred. In addition to facilitating salvation, the transformation of a martyr’s body into a written text can have other, more mundane consequences. The inscription of a body reflects a desire to objectify and control: the letters are markers of possession. By turning a martyr-text into a repository of the holy, Prudentius is also, in effect, turning it into a commodity subject to exchange, a kind of currency bearing the signs of its maker.37 It is interesting to note that it was in the fourth century, the period of Prudentius’s poetic production, that martyrs’ bodies began to be treated like commodities.38 Bodies were transferred from one tomb to another, or they were fragmented into relics which were dispersed and traded and became the currency of spiritual power.

60 Figuring the Feminine

Prudentius could very well have been witness to the commercialization of martyrs’ bodies, because Ambrose, in the year 390, transported the remains of several martyrs found in Milan and Bologna to a Milanese basilica,39 at which time Prudentius may have been in Milan. The metaphor of the martyr’s body as a written text is, perhaps, Prudentius’s own interpretation of the logic of the commodification of the martyrs. By turning their martyred bodies into poems, Prudentius can ensure that they will circulate from reader to reader, and like relics, impart spiritual power to those with whom they come into contact.40 As Peter Brown has shown, the church hierarchy was attempting, in the fourth century, to counter the trend towards ‘privatized’ access to the holy whereby wealthy Christian patrons would obtain martyrs’ bodies and place them in family tombs.41 Churchmen such as Ambrose were dedicated to breaking down the social hierarchization evident in such a monopoly of holiness by democratically rendering the martyrs accessible to the whole community.42 However, even the development of a martyr’s cult that was open to all imposed certain limitations on the availability of the saint’s praesentia. Martyrs’ cults were usually local and thus the holiness of the martyr’s body was accessible only to those who were physically present at that place. Even if the faithful were to seek close proximity to the holy by going on pilgrimages to martyrs’ shrines, they still could only achieve partial and limited access to relics, given the tendency of such shrines to hide or block the view of the holy.43 What is novel and daring in Prudentius’s transformation of martyrs’ bodies into texts is the true democritization of the holy. Prudentius makes possible full disclosure and possession of the holy by turning martyrs into texts that can potentially reach many faithful.44 By touching and reading the text, Christians can experience the holiness and glory of martyrdom more fully than by going on pilgrimage.45 Fertile Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies The most remarkable aspect of the martyr-text is its fertility. Prudentius combines in complex ways a series of images which he uses to emphasize the renewal and rebirth that the martyrs’ intercession entails. Prudentius draws upon Ambrose’s characterization of Christ as a fertile seed and extends the comparison to the martyrs, who are the imitators of Christ’s passion. Christ, the Logos, died and was planted and reborn in order to bring the fruit of salvation:

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ut enim Dominus noster Iesus Christus sicut granum cecidit in terram et mortuus est, ut multum fructum afferret.46 (for our lord Jesus Christ fell into the earth like a seed and died, so that he would bring forth much fruit.)

Augustine brings out the linguistic implications of the fertility of Christ by speaking of the sowing of Christ as the implanting of a name: Mortuus est; et non periit nomen eius, sed seminatum est nomen eius: mortuus est; sed granum fuit, quo mortificato seges continuo exsurgeret.47 (He died [i.e., Christ]; and his name did not perish, but rather his name was sown: he died; but he was a seed by whose mortification a crop immediately would arise.)

The bodies of the martyrs may also bear Christ’s name written on them (for example, Eulalia), and thus they too are potentially fertile. In the early church the martyr was conceived of as an extension of the bloody sacrifice of Christ, and thereby as a participant in the redemptive fertility of the blood spilled by Christ.48 Christ embodies the fertile Word of God, whereas Prudentius’s martyr-texts become fertile written texts. The fecundity of the blood spilled by Christian martyrs was considered to have the ability to attract more believers to the Christian faith. Tertullian, in his Apologeticum, tells his persecutors that Christian blood is fertile and will result in a harvest of more Christians,49 whereas in the liturgy the Apostles are celebrated as those who planted the church by their blood.50 Augustine explicitly describes martyrdom as a fertile sowing whose fruits are the faithful: Sicut ille unus animam suam pro nobis posuit: ita et imitati sunt martyres, et animas suas pro fratribus posuerunt, atque ut ista populorum tanquam germinum copiosissima fertilitas surgeret, terram suo sanguine irrigaverunt. Fructus laboris ergo illorum etiam nos sumus.51 (Just as he alone gave up his soul for us, so the martyrs imitated him and gave up their souls for their brothers, and they watered the earth with their blood so that this great fertile abundance of people or, as it were, seeds, should spring up. We are the fruits of their labour.)

62 Figuring the Feminine

Prudentius extends the metaphor of the blood of Christian martyrs as fertile seeds which result in the production of more offspring for the church in the form of more believers by metaphorizing the martyrs’ bodies themselves as fields made fertile by the ploughing of the instruments of torture.52 The passive nature of the generative materiality of the martyrs’ bodies is akin to a feminized materia that awaits the active, abstract, ‘masculine’ formative mind to quicken it. An essential element of Prudentius’s Christian anthropology is the association of human bodies with the earth from which God originally formed them.53 This link between human bodies and earth takes on a heightened significance in light of the language Prudentius uses to speak of the martyrs. Cassian is closely related to the ground which he consecrates with his body. When the character ‘Prudentius’ arrives at Cassian’s tomb in Imola, he bows down to the ground before it: Stratus humi tumulo advolvebar, quem sacer ornat martyr dicato Cassianus corpore.

(Pe IX.5–6)

(In front of the tomb I fell prostrate upon the earth which the holy martyr Cassian honors with his consecrated body.)

The word ‘humus,’ which denotes ‘soil, earth, ground’, evokes the fertility of the soil, and is commonly used when referring to sowing as in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 5.647: ‘semina spargere humo’ (to sow seeds in the earth). The earth and the neighbouring tomb of Cassian are made holy by the proximity of his body, which, as it were, fertilized the surrounding earth. The mutilation of Cassian’s body by the vengeful schoolboys who tear it or write upon it with their stili is likened to the ploughing of a field. His body is like a wax tablet furrowed by writing: ‘aratis cera sulcis scribitur’ (The wax is marked by the ploughing of furrows, Pe IX,52). The students refer to their writing on Cassian’s body as an interweaving of furrows: ‘Pangere puncta libet sulcisque intexere sulcos’ (We like making pricks and interlacing furrows with other furrows, Pe IX.77).54 When the judge of the martyr Vincent speaks of reopening the martyr’s wounds in order to cause him more pain, he directs the torturers to replough, to refurrow, Vincent’s body: ‘Praesicca rursus ulcera, dum se cicatrix colligit

Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Peristephanon refrigerati sanguinis, manus resulcans diruet.’

63

(Pe V.141–4)

(When the wounds are quite dry and the congealed blood is gathering in a scar, your hand will plough them up again and tear them open.)

Agricultural language is also used to describe the wounds or letters on Romanus’s body which an angel transcribes into the book of heaven: Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio, ut quamque plagam sulcus exarauerit

(Pe X.1126–7)

(The measure of blood from each was noted, and how the ploughing furrowed each wound.)

The repeated use by Prudentius of the word sulcus to refer to the wounds on the martyrs’ bodies clearly brings out the idea that they are fertile fields whose lines or furrows of writing are opened up so that something can be implanted by God, the result of which will be the yielding of a marvellous fruit, the fruit of salvation. The representation of male martyrs like Cassian as earth awaiting the implantation of textual seeds is clearly playing on gendered notions of writing that posit a potent male author who subjects to his will a feminized surface of inscription. This ambiguously gendered male martyr seems to be in opposition to the topos of martyrdom as the ultimate test of manhood that should ideally lead to the attainment of ‘a new and superior state of maleness.’55 While the blurring of gender boundaries may be seen as a strategic refusal of Roman values and norms, a subversion of heroic masculinity by passive, but empowering, resistance or patientia,56 the overt feminization of martyrs like Cassian and Laurence57 can also be considered as necessary for their incorporation in Prudentius’s book. In order to be materialized in the Peristephanon, they must first be rendered into verbal materia, which Prudentius can master within the confines of his text. In the case of other martyrs, especially female martyrs, the fruit springing from their fecund bodies is metaphorized as flowers. The martyrs were sometimes visualized in heaven bearing bouquets of flowers.58 Prudentius’s account of the martyrdom of St Eulalia and its aftermath is structured around the metaphorical transformation of Eulalia’s body into a fertile field in which flowers bloom. When Eulalia first goes before

64 Figuring the Feminine

the judge, she impresses him by her extreme youth. He calls her a ‘flos … tener’ (tender flower, Pe III.109), referring to her tender age and virginal body. This is an ironic foreshadowing of her actual transformation into a flower: she will not only become a flower in the church’s garland of martyrs,59 but the wounds her body receives will undergo a miraculous metamorphosis and will reappear as blood-red flowers.60 In a brilliant series of metonymies, Prudentius moves from Eulalia’s wounds to the floor of her tomb and then to the flowers springing up around the tomb. The sacred text of Eulalia’s body is described in vivid colour, ‘scarlet’ (purpura) blood ‘speak[ing] the holy name’ (Pe III.139– 40). When Eulalia’s martyred body is enshrined in the earth, the holy wounds she bore are transferred to and imprinted upon the floor of her tomb, which, like her maiden’s body is a virginal meadow: saxaque caesa solum uariant, floribus ut rosulenta putes prata rubescere multimodis.

(Pe III.198–200)

(Cut stones colour the floor so that it seems like a rose-covered meadow blushing with varied blooms.)

The flowers which appear to be blooming on the stone floor of the martyr’s tomb are concretized, in reality, in the living flowers growing in the earth outside the tomb, whose floor, instead of remaining only a metaphorically intact meadow that contains the virginally fertile body of Eulalia, becomes a fertile field or body that yields real flowers: Carpite purpureas uiolas sanguineosque crocos metite! Non caret his genialis hiems, laxat et arua tepens glacies, floribus ut cumulet calathos.

(Pe III.201–5)

(Pluck the scarlet violets, gather the blood-red crocuses. Joyful winter has no lack of them; the cold is tempered and frees the fields to load our baskets with flowers.)

The blood-red crocuses and scarlet (‘purpureas’) violets are the metamorphosed bloody letter-wounds which Eulalia’s body bore. The flowering of the martyr’s body in the earth, which was fertilized by her body and blood, attests to the redemptive power of Eulalia whose

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body has force sufficient to change the laws of nature and cause the earth to yield flowers in the midst of winter.61 There is a remarkable representation of the transformation of a female martyr into a flower in early Christian art. The picture in question is a fresco from an anonymous martyrium at Abu Girge (near Alexandria) dating from the fifth to sixth centuries. In it a saint is depicted who appears to be sprouting in a field like a flower. The martyr is surrounded by other flowers, some of which bear the symbol of the cross, suggesting that their martyred bodies have become flowers in paradise.62 Eulalia too has assuredly become a flower in paradise, but she, through the fertility of her martyred body has strewn the earth with salvific fruit. The image of Eulalia’s body as a fertile field has very strong sexual associations. In ancient Greek literature, to call a woman’s body a field, was, in effect, to establish a metaphorical connection between the field and the woman’s sexual organs.63 The flowering of Eulalia is, paradoxically, the fruit of a chaste marriage, by means of which she preserves her virginity and allows herself to be made fertile. Eulalia resists being ploughed or inscribed by a human husband by defying both parental and civic authority, and remaining firm in her desire to maintain her virginity: Iam dederat prius indicium tendere se patris ad solium nec sua membra dicata toro;

(Pe III.16–18)

(Already she had given an early sign that she sought the Father’s throne, and that her body was not destined for marriage.)

Eulalia will give in to no man as her body is preserved only for that husband with whom she will be united spiritually. The judge urges Eulalia to reconsider her foolish opposition and tries to dissuade her from her course of action by reminding her of the joys she will lose if she dies before she reaches the married state: respice gaudia quanta metas, quae tibi fert genialis honor!

(Pe III.104–5)

(Consider how many joys you are cutting off which the honor of marriage offers you).

He evokes the sorrow she will cause her family by bringing an untimely death upon herself:

66 Figuring the Feminine ingemit anxia nobilitas flore quod occidis in tenero proxima dotibus et thalamo.

(Pe III.108–10)

(Your noble stock mourns over you in distress because you are dying in the bloom of youth when you are just reaching the age of dowry and wedlock.)

Eulalia, however, rejects physical union with any man. As soon as the judge finishes haranguing her, she spits in his face, and this act sets in motion the instruments of torture. Her body receives the imprint of Christ as it is broken open or ploughed by her torturers, thereby implying that she is being wedded to Christ. Although this marriage will not result in the production of children, Eulalia’s marriage to Christ is still a fertile one, since her body blooms with colourful flowers.64 The rending of Eulalia’s body is not described in terms of sexual union. The joining of the martyr with Christ is sexualized to the extent that it is portrayed as a substitute for marriage to a man, and that it involves the opening up of Eulalia’s formerly integral body. Prudentius, in his narration of the martyrdom of Agnes, another young virgin saint, fills in this metaphorical gap. When Agnes refuses to give offerings to pagan gods, the judge condemns her to prostitution, knowing of her desire to preserve her virginity for Christ. God, of course, protects Agnes from all defilement, thwarting the judge’s cruel intentions. Mad for revenge, the judge orders his soldier to draw his sword to kill Agnes, who, upon seeing the naked weapon, welcomes it like a lover who is soon to consummate her marriage: vt uidit Agnes stare trucem uirum mucrone nudo, laetior haec ait: ‘Exulto, talis quod potius uenit uaesanus atrox turbidus armiger, quam si ueniret languidus ac tener mollisque ephebus tinctus aromate, qui me pudoris funere perderet. Hic, hic amator iam, fateor, placet. Ibo inruentis gressibus obuiam nec demorabor uota calentia; ferrum in papillas omne recepero pectusque ad imum uim gladii traham.’

(Pe XIV.67–78)

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(When Agnes saw the fierce man standing there with his naked sword her gladness increased and she said: ‘I rejoice that such a man comes, a savage, cruel, wild man-at-arms rather than a listless, soft, womanish youth bathed in perfume, coming to destroy me with the death of my modesty. This one, this lover at last, I confess pleases me. I shall meet his eager steps half-way and not put off his hot desires. I shall welcome the whole length of his blade into my bosom, drawing the sword-blow to the depths of my breast.’)

This striking passage leaves no doubt that Agnes views her union with Christ like the physical consummation of an earthly marriage. However, although the metaphorical sexual penetration envisioned by Agnes takes the form of decapitation rather than the more sexually charged stabbing, Agnes’s death redirects her fertile female sexuality to a more spiritual plane and enables her to produce offspring or ‘fruit’ that takes the form of heavenly splendour radiating from her martyr’s crown:65 Cingit coronis interea deus frontem duabus martyris innubae; unam decemplex edita sexies merces perenni lumine conficit, centenus extat fructus in altera.

(Pe XIV.119–23)

(Meanwhile God encircles the unwedded martyr’s brow with two crowns. Recompense issuing sixty-fold makes the one out of eternal light, and fruit, a hundredfold, appears in the other.)

Like Eulalia, Agnes too is a virgin field, ploughed by Christ and made fertile. This passage recalls Matthew 13:23 where the parable of the sower is explained: ‘qui vero in terra bona seminatus est hic est qui audit verbum et intellegit et fructum adfert et facit aliud quidem centum aliud autem sexaginta porro aliud triginta’ (And the seed sown in rich soil is someone who hears the word and understands it; this is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty). Thus, Agnes is not only made fertile by the grisly marking of martyrdom, but she herself, as martyr, as witness to and upholder of God’s word, becomes the seed which will miraculously result in a superabundance of offspring.66 In the case of Eulalia, the tearing of her body is at the same time an inscription that carries with it resonances of sexual violence.67 The

68 Figuring the Feminine

blood-red letters carved into her body are evocative of the scarlet thread used by Procne in Ovid’s Metamorphoses to narrate the story of her rape by Tereus: ‘purpureasque notas filis intexuit albis’ (She wove scarlet letters on a white background, Met. Vi.577).68 Eulalia, too, bears red letters on a background of white parchment or flesh, and it can even said to have been embroidered: Dirus abest dolor ex animo membraque picta cruore nouo fonte cutem recalente lauant.

(Pe III.143–5)

(The dreadful pain did not reach her spirit while the fresh blood painted [or embroidered] her body and washed her skin in its warm stream.)

The verb pingo can refer to pictorial representation produced both by a pencil and a needle. Thus, Eulalia’s body is painted or decorated by Christ’s pen as well as being embroidered by his needle. The echoes of rape and violence embodied in this metaphor of Eulalia’s body as a white garment sexually violated by the sword, pen, and needle of her tormentor are disturbing since it is Christ himself who is inscribing and possessing her. However, in order for Eulalia to become a martyr, she must suffer a violent death. Thus, her ‘rape’ by Christ via the sword of her persecutor is a necessary element in the economy of Christian salvation. Just as Christ had to die in order to defeat death, in the same way, Eulalia must die a sexually violent death so as to transcend both her carnality and her mortality.69 The bloody text written on the body of the martyr can also be replicated on the earth, which is itself often assimilated to the martyr’s body in Prudentius’s imagistic system. If the earth yields the offspring of the martyrs’ bodies, it too can be the metaphorical recipient of the bloody letters marked on the latter. The land of Hispania is marked or written upon by the divine pen whose bloody ink dripped from the martyrs’ bodies to the soil of Calagurris: Hic calentes hausit undas caede tinctus duplici, inlitas cruore sancto nunc harenas incolae confrequentant obsecrantes uoce uotis munere.

(Pe I.7–9)

(Here it drank in the warm streams when it was wetted by the slaughter of the two, and now its people throng to the ground that was stained with their holy blood, making petitions with voice and heart and gifts.)

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The martyrs have turned Hispania into a holy text whose letters or markers of sanctity are their bones (Pe I.5). The faithful who follow the holy text by visiting martyria internalize and appropriate for themselves the passion and sacrifice of the martyrs in a pilgrimage that is analogous to an act of reading. The image of the earth as a text stained by the blood of martyrs and subsequently read by other Christians is most clearly expressed in the narration of Hippolytus’s martyrdom.70 Prudentius, when in Rome, reads a visual narrative on Hippolytus’s tomb which represents the horrible passion of the martyr who was torn apart by horses: picta super tumulum species liquidis uiget umbris effigians tracti membra cruenta uiri. Rorantes saxorum apices uidi, optime papa, purpureasque notas uepribus inpositas.

(Pe XI.125–8)

(Depicted above the tomb, the spectacle comes to life in flowing images, actively portraying the drawn man’s bleeding body parts. I saw the tips of the rocks dripping, most excellent father, and scarlet marks imprinted on the briars.)

The word ‘notas’ is used by Prudentius to describe the letter-wounds inscribed upon the martyrs’ bodies,71 and the tips of the rocks (‘saxorum apices’) are like stili that write their bloody text on the briars. (The immortal text etched on Romanus’s body consisted of ‘apices’ which would never fade away in heaven.)72 The letters or wounds inflicted upon Hippolytus’s body are re-written on the rocky earth since his body is so destroyed that it has become illegible. As Hippolytus’s loving disciples gather up the pieces of his body they must follow a gory trail of body parts and of blood-soaked rock and earth: Maerore attoniti atque oculis rimantibus ibant inplebantque sinus uisceribus laceris. Ille caput niueum conplectitur ac reuerendam canitiem molli confouet in gremio; hic umeros truncasque manus et bracchia et ulnas et genua et crurum fragmina nuda legit.

(Pe XI.135–40)

(Stunned with grief they went seeking with their eyes, and gathering the mangled flesh in their bosoms. One clasps the snowy head, cherishing the

70 Figuring the Feminine venerable white hair on his loving breast, while another collects the shoulders, the severed hands, arms, elbows, knees, and bare fragments of legs.)

Hippolytus’s followers, by collecting his remains, also read the text his body left on the earth, as is evinced by the twofold meaning of the verb lego (to read; to gather). Such a collatio is not unlike the process of memory as described in the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition whereby material to be remembered is impressed onto the mind in a highly structured and organized manner. The re-membering of Hippolytus by his followers will serve as well as a kind of mnemonic of violence of the sort recommended by the Rhetorica ad Herennium. In this pseudoCiceronian rhetorical manual, the author counsels the formation of striking or bloody imagines agentes as a means of facilitating the retention of material in the memory.73 The action of collecting Hippolytus’s body parts and blood (ll. 135–44) suggests that the martyr will live on in a very vivid way in the hearts and memories of his faithful disciples and of those who read Prudentius’s poem. The ‘oculis rimantibus’ also suggests the action of reading, in which the eyes seek out the words and letters which are then introduced into the mind.74 The use of the verb rimor to designate the act of reading posits a fascinating link between textuality and sowing. Rimor, in addition to meaning ‘to seek,’ is also an agricultural term for tearing up or ploughing the ground. The disciples of Hippolytus who collect his body and who read his bloody text are also ploughing or fertilizing this sacred text, which will enable him to be a more fertile text, i.e., one which will result in the springing up of more spiritual offspring who will accrue to the church. Hippolytus’s scattered body parts are like letters or seeds.75 The ancient Greek myth of Kadmos posits an essential connection between writing and sowing. Kadmos killed the dragon guarding the city of Kadmeia and then sowed the beast’s teeth in the earth whence sprung the Spartoi, the ancestors of the Thebans. As Page Dubois succinctly describes, Kadmos was also credited with the introduction of the alphabet and writing into the Greek world ‘The alphabet, marks carved into stone, bronze, wax or wood, is, like seed, disseminated over a blank, receptive surface. The invention of writing is metaphorically equivalent to the sowing of the dragon’s seed; the autochthonous Spartoi are reproduced like letters on a blank tablet.’76 The martyrs’ bodies that are written upon are ploughed and receive the seeds of Christ from which grow flowers or more Christian believers.

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The bodies of martyrs ploughed and furrowed by torture77 become tombstones furrowed by writing: Nos pio fletu, date, perluamus marmorum sulcos

(Pe IV.193–4)

(Come, let us with pious tears wash the furrows of letters cut into the marble slabs.)

The fertile tombstone-texts jutting out from the earth like teeth recall the sowing of the dragon’s teeth. However, instead of Spartan warriors emerging from the earth, the redeemed bodies of the martyrs will arise and lead all believers to salvation: Sterne te totam generosa sanctis ciuitas mecum tumulis, deinde mox resurgentes animas et artus tota sequeris.

(Pe IV.197–200)

(Cast thyself down along with me, noble city, on the holy graves; then when their souls and bodies rise again, you and all your people will follow them.)

Prudentius’s Poetic Text and the Divine Writing of Martyrdom The displacement of human generativity upward from bodies to the words issuing forth from them distances the process of writing from the messy materiality of female carnality.78 For Prudentius, writing poetry allows him to exercise perfect control over the proliferation of divine words. Writing is like reading the Word already sown in the bodies of the martyrs and harvesting the resulting meaning like sons.79 The offspring of the fecund martyr-texts manifests itself not only in the form of flowers, but also in the generation of new marks, of more discourse. If martyrdom for Prudentius is coterminous with writing, then the fertility of the martyr’s body-text implies a concept of language whose regenerative capacities are equal to that of the martyr’s bodyfield. Indeed, the flowers which spring from Eulalia’s body-field are related to discourse. Palmer cites an Ovidian intertext for the ‘sanguineos crocos’ (Pe III.202) which are equivalent to Eulalia’s metamorphosed

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letter-wounds.80 In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, after Ajax is killed, his blood is absorbed by the earth and is transformed into a purple flower whose petals are inscribed with letters: expulit ipse cruor, rubefactaque sanguine tellus purpureum viridi genuit de caespite florem, qui prius Oebalio fuerat de vulnere natus; littera communis mediis pueroque viroque inscripta est foliis, haec nominis, illa querellae.

(Met. XIII.394–8)

(The blood itself drove it out. The blood-stained ground produced from the green sod a purple flower, which in old time had sprung from Hyacinth’s blood. The petals are inscribed with letters, serving alike for hero and for boy: this one a name, and that a cry of woe.)

Prudentius is very aware of the textual nature of the blood-red flowers growing out of Eulalia. The poet, unlike the girls and boys who pick the flowers around Eulalia’s tomb and present them to her, weaves poetic garlands of words in order to honour her: Ista comantibus e foliis munera, uirgo puerque, date! Ast ego serta choro in medio texta feram pede dactylico, uilia marcida, festa tamen.

(Pe III.206–10)

(Give her these gifts, girls and boys, from the luxuriant leaves. But I, in the midst of your company will bring garlands woven of dactylic measures, of little worth, withered, but still joyous.)

Prudentius offers a text to Eulalia woven from poetic flowers which are the letter-wounds of the saint’s body, which have, in turn, been converted back to letters by the poet in order to reinscribe the text of Eulalia’s martyrdom. Those who gather the heavenly flower-letters outside of the martyr’s tomb can ‘read’ and inhale the odour of her wounds of sanctity in the same way that the reader can appropriate the flowers of words which reenact the inscribing (i.e., martyrdom) of Eulalia. The fertility of Eulalia on a textual level is manifested in the poem Prudentius writes for her, which is a transcription of the holy text of the martyr’s body. The regenerative power of divine writing or

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speech has as its paradigm the Word or Logos of God. Augustine conceives of the Word of God as responsible for the multiplication of earthly creatures81 or as a ‘nomen’ which is planted and yields fruit.82 The holy text on the martyrs’ bodies behaves in a similar fashion in that it is a miraculously dynamic and fecund form of discourse. Romanus’s torturers plough furrows into his face so as to stop his incessant speech: vertat ictum carnifex in os loquentis inque maxillas manum sulcosque acutos et fidiculas transferat.

(Pe X.548– 50)

(Let the executioner turn the stroke to his speaking mouth. Let him transfer his hand to the jaws and inflict severe gashes and cords.)

These furrows dug into the martyr’s face are explicitly termed divine writing by the poet: Charaxat ambas ungulis scribentibus genas cruentis et secat faciem notis,

(Pe X.557– 8)

(He engraves both cheeks with marks written by the claws and he cuts bloody letters into his face.)

The judge, however, cannot force sterility or silence upon Romanus, since each of the wounds inflicted on him only generates more discourse: Rimas patentes inuenit uox edita multisque fusa rictibus reddit sonos hinc inde plures et profatur undique Christi patrisque sempiternam gloriam. Tot ecce laudant ora sunt uulnera.’

(Pe X.566–70)

(Now the voice I utter finds open fissures; issuing by many a wide-open mouth, it delivers more sounds on this side and on that, proclaiming from all sides the everlasting glory of Christ and of the Father. For every wound I have, you see a mouth uttering praise.)

The irrepressible superabundance of verbal offspring issuing from the wound-furrows of Romanus is manifested by the astonishing length of

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the discourse which he sustains and which is faithfully recorded by the pen of Prudentius.83 The ability of the martyr-texts to engender more discourse is also reflected in a proliferation of narrative levels so that the martyr’s text multiplies and is mirrored in many forms. The martyrdom of Cassian is first encountered by Prudentius in the form of a painting, a visual narrative. The visual text is then glossed by the commentary of the sacristan who recounts the event to the poet. Within the sacristan’s narrative is the divine text of martyrdom written upon Cassian’s body, which lies at the heart of and is the rationale behind all the other levels of narrative. All these narrative layers or boxes are framed by the controlling poem written by Prudentius, through which the other forms of discourse are filtered. A similar technique is used in the poem about Hippolytus’s martyrdom. Prudentius learns of Hippolytus by reading an epitaph dedicated to him (Pe XI.18–20), and this presumably intimates what manner of death he suffered, since the poet launches into an account of it. Then, the reader discovers that Prudentius is reading the bloody occurrence from a painting (Pe XI.123–6), itself a representation of the writing of a sacred, gory text upon the ground by means of Hippolytus’s body and blood which is read by his disciples. The reader of Prudentius’s poem reads about the character ‘Prudentius’ who reads a painting in which Hippolytus’s followers read the saint’s holy text. The sacred text of the martyr’s body is, again, at the centre of the narrative and radiates outward through various layers of narrative. The reader of Prudentius’s poem can still discern the divine body-text, which is the kernel of the narrative, but it is filtered through other levels of discourse and thus appears ‘per speculum in aenigmate’ (I Cor 13:12). The most telling result of the fecundity of the martyrs and the texts inscribed upon them is the poetic production of Prudentius, who thereby ensures the perpetuation of the martyrs’ textual offspring. Prudentius, like God’s angel who records the oral and written discourse of Romanus’s martyrdom, is the transcriber of a divine text. The poet appeals to God to fill his mouth with eloquent words which he may then record in poetic form: Sum mutus ipse, sed potens facundiae mea lingua Christus luculente disseret.

(Pe X.21–2)

(In myself I am dumb, but Christ is master of eloquence; he will be my tongue and discourse excellently.)

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In effect, Prudentius mimetically writes the same text as the angel by recreating in words the bloody text carved into Romanus’s body and by recording the passionate words uttered by the saint during his trial. Prudentius’s role as poet is also that of a disseminator of the holy martyr-texts. Since the martyrdom of St Laurence occurred in far-away Rome, neither the poet nor his fellow Spaniards can see or read the holy text of Laurence’s charred body. Thus, Prudentius looks to heaven in order to read the sacred text written by God, and transcribes the heavenly narrative into his own book: Sed qui caremus his bonis nec sanguinis uestigia uidere coram possumus, caelum intuemur eminus.

(Pe II.545–8)

(Still though we lack these blessings and cannot see the traces of blood with our own eyes, we look up to heaven on high.)

The recopying of the martyr-texts into Prudentius’s book is his contribution to the preservation and exaltation of the martyrs’ eternal glory. The poems which recopy and reenact the sufferings of the martyrs are themselves, in a sense, metaphorical martyr-texts, since, as was pointed out above, the very act of writing embodies martyrdom. In the poem dedicated to Eulalia, Prudentius is, in effect, retextualizing the bloody letters or words which Christ had inscribed on her body. The verbal flowers (which are really Eulalia’s metamorphosed wounds) which the poet interweaves to form a poetic text constitute an actualization of the martyrdom and an evocation of the holy body-text of the martyr herself. Prudentius’s text is equivalent to Eulalia’s body. Prudentius, through his transcription of the holy martyr-text, makes Eulalia’s body present and accessible to all Christians. Only Eulalia and the eye-witnesses of the passion could read the bloody words written on her by Christ. Prudentius reinscribes the body so that all believers can read God’s miraculous text and he also revivifies the saint’s body so it can manifest its sanctity more easily in the world.84 The poetic garland of flowers woven by Prudentius for Eulalia is not only a mimetic representation of her martyred body, but is also a reflection of his Peristephanon, which consists of a series of poems, each of which embodies one or several martyrs. He has turned the martyrs into poems woven or strung together to form a garland or crown for

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the church. By reading the Peristephanon, the reader can metaphorically wear the crown, and can thereby fleetingly participate in the drama of martyrdom. By assimilating his own poetic creation to the bodies of the martyrs, Prudentius is indirectly exalting his own poetry as well as the martyrs’ body-texts since his book is raised to the same level of imperishable and immortal textuality as are these holy texts.85 Indeed, Prudentius’s attitude towards the power of the written text is manifested by his treatment of St Cyprian’s writings.86 In Cyprian’s case, his eloquent writings are the relics, not his body’s bloody text of martyrdom: Incubat in Libya sanguis, sed ubique lingua pollet, sola superstes agit de corpore, sola obire nescit,

(Pe XIII.4–5)

(His blood rests in Africa, but his tongue is potent everywhere, it alone of all his body still survives in life, it alone cannot die.)

Prudentius turns almost immediately from talking about Cyprian’s body to his written texts and their reading: Dum liber ullus erit, dum scrinia sacra litterarum, te leget omnis amans Christum, tua, Cypriane, discet.

(Pe XIII.7–8)

(As long as there shall be any book, any collections of sacred writings, every lover of Christ will read you, Cyprian, and learn your teachings.)

Cyprian’s linguistic relics have the same power that is more normally associated with the body or body parts of a martyr: Desine flere bonum tantum, tenet ille regna caeli nec minus inuolitat terris nec ab hoc recedit orbe. Disserit eloquitur tractat docet instruit profetat

(Pe XIII.99–101)

(Weep no more for this great blessing! He has attained to the realms of heaven, yet none the less he moves over the earth and does not leave this world: he still discourses, speaking out, expounding, teaching, instructing, prophesying)

Prudentius’s poems, since they are simultaneously texts about and bodies of martyrs, ought to be able to have an impact both on earth and in heaven.

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In choosing to fashion his poetry out of the corpus of martyrdom narrative and out of the corpora of the martyrs themselves, Prudentius has incorporated the most perfect materia into his poetic art. The recital to God of the names of the martyrs by an angel constitutes the highest form of poetry: Plenus est artis modus adnotatas nominum formas recitare Christo, quas tenet caeli liber explicandus tempore iusto.

(Pe IV.169–72)

(The measure of the art is full if we read aloud to Christ the forms of the names as they are written down and contained in the book of heaven which will be opened at the due time.)

The names of the martyrs are the only criterion for perfect poetry. They establish new poetic rules: Carminis leges amor aureorum nominum parui facit et loquendi cura de sanctis uitiosa non est nec rudis umquam.

(Pe IV.165–8)

(Love of their golden names makes light of the rules of verse, and concern to speak of the saints is never sinful nor barbarous.)

Thus, the martyrs are the perfect subject for the poet since they cannot but enhance his poetic art. Likewise, the martyrs’ wounds are also the essence of poetic materia since they embody poetic metre. Wounds which are ‘longam’ or ‘brevem’ (Pe X.1128) can be likened to long or short vowels which are the metrical basis of poetry. By writing a book of poetry which has the martyrdom of Christian bodies as its subject and form, Prudentius has shown himself to be a quintessentially Christian poet. His poems, which are mimetic reenactments and representations of martyred bodies, are a fitting attempt to gain the salvation he so desires. Just as the martyrs’ bodies are redemptive texts which can intercede on behalf of the faithful, so Prudentius hopes his Peristephanon will be able to gain him a hearing with the holy martyrs who then will plead his case with Christ. Prudentius, in the Praefatio to his poetic works, clearly defines his conversion to a more Christian way of life as being embodied in his poetic vocation:

78 Figuring the Feminine Atqui fine sub ultimo peccatrix anima stultitiam exuat; saltem uoce deum concelebret, si meritis nequit.87 (Yet as my last end draws near, let my sinning soul put off her folly. With voice at least, let her honour God, if with good deeds she cannot.)

Prudentius expresses the wish that he meet death while engaged in the act of writing poetry: Haec dum scribo uel eloquor, uinclis o utinam corporis emicem liber quo tulerit lingua sono mobilis ultimo!

(Praef. 43–5)

(And while I write or speak of these themes, O may I fly forth in freedom from the bonds of the body, to the place where my busy tongue’s last word is born.)

The poet sees the dedication of his life to the praising of God and his saints in poetry as a means of gaining personal salvation.88 By incorporating the inscribed martyr-texts into his own poetry and thus enabling the fertile language of God to proliferate, Prudentius is attempting to harness the power of the martyrs on his own behalf.89 Prudentius sees his own corpus of poetry as a transmuted form of the martyrs’ divine body-texts, and therefore as capable of exercising the same mediatory function. Martyrs mediate between man and Christ, whereas his poems mediate between himself and the martyrs: Sic uenerarier ossa libet ossibus altar et inpositum, illa [Eulalia] dei sita sub pedibus prospicit haec populosque suos carmine propitiata fouet.

(Pe III.211–15)

(So ought her bones to be venerated and an altar placed above them, while she, set at the feet of God, views all our doings, our song wins her favour, and she cherishes her people.)

Although Prudentius’s poetry is only a pale reflection of the divine writing on the martyrs’ bodies, he is hopeful that it retains and participates

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in some of the divine fullness he has attempted to capture in his recreation of the text of martyrdom. Prudentius’s conception of written poetic discourse as both redemptive and fertile is grounded in the bodies of martyrs endowed with the supercharged presence and power of God’s Word. Detached from any one virile body, God’s Word reaped from the martyrs’ bodies inseminates Prudentius’s Christian poetry. The salvific potential of the written word explains why Prudentius’s poetic vocation was of such importance to him. It not only enabled him to experience fully his Christianity, but it held out the promise of salvation by virtue of his collaboration in the embodiment of God’s writing. Prudentius’s representation of himself as participating in the textual drama of martyrdom is made possible by his subjection of the martyrs’ bodies to the discipline of his poetic art and to their confinement in the spaces of his Peristephanon. However, his self positioning as the coauthor of the text of martyrdom scored into the martyrs’ bodies is at odds with the martyrs’ resistance to human authority and control. The act of willing martyrdom constitutes a heroic rejection of the classical world’s social and religious norms. The ‘new economy of the body’90 embraced by Christians and practised to powerful effect in the suffering of martyrdom was one which reversed the delicate balance of power that calibrated the relationship of man to woman, of society to individual, and of master to slave. The passivity adopted by Prudentius’s male martyrs, whose bodies invite penetration and humiliation and whose potent masculinity will be withheld from the social demands of family and city, makes of the body a site of struggle and resistance to dominant modes of ideology.91 Prudentius’s appropriation of the broken, feminized bodies of the male martyrs in order to disseminate them in poetic form is consonant with the subversion of Roman values of male activity and integrity. The treatment by Prudentius of the female martyrs Eulalia and Agnes is somewhat more complex. The wounding of their bodies is far more sexually charged and is more tightly imbricated with their challenging of patriarchal discursive and social practices. During her interrogation by the Roman judge, Eulalia decisively rejects the socially sanctioned role of wife, signalling her refusal to participate in the commodified cycle of marriage (Pe III.16–18; 104–13). She places her body beyond the control of family and society by freely choosing to direct her sexuality to God instead of fulfilling her duty to produce physical offspring for the purpose of ensuring the prosperity and continuity of

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her lineage. The virgin-martyr Agnes miraculously withstands the attempt of the cruel judge to master her body and will by forcing her to prostitute herself in a brothel (Pe XIV.25–8). Agnes mocks him further by addressing him as a lover who will subdue her through sexual penetration, when in fact, the thrusts of his sword will liberate her body and soul from the marketplace of family, society, and empire.92 The defiant subjectivity expressed by Eulalia and Agnes that accompanies their textualization by their torturers is coopted by the poet Prudentius when he, in effect, ‘refeminizes’ them by subjecting them to the yoke of his metre. Yet, as Prudentius himself acknowledges, however much he may embody the martyrs in his poetic text, their triumphant suffering overflows the boundaries of any text . While he may be able through his poetic art to match the ‘long’ and ‘short’ wounds (Pe X.1128) of the martyrs’ bodies to the necessities of metre, their disembodied souls are free to trample upon earthly passions and possessions whose ‘short’ or ‘long’ duration (Pe XIV.107) is indicative of their insubstantial, ephemeral nature. The power of Prudentius’s Peristephanon lies not in its embodiment of the martyrs’ bloody bodies, but in its incarnational function as the material vehicle whereby the fertile dynamism of textualized martyrdom may work its spiritual magic.

3 Macho Words: Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid

The words of defiance uttered by Eulalia and Agnes before their bloodthirsty judges result in the penetrative textualization of their bodies by the instruments of torture, a writing that is then harnessed and disseminated by the pen of Prudentius. The question of the relationship of verbal presence and its textual reenactment that Prudentius so deftly negotiates by means of the metaphor of female embodiment is subtly recast in the anonymous early-thirteenth-century Spanish epic poem Poema de mio Cid. As in Prudentius’s Peristephanon, the bodies of women function as the arena in which the parameters of linguistic authority and culturally coded gender roles are both tested and reified. While Prudentius’s feminized texts of martyrdom are a locus of resistance to dominant ideologies and function as exemplars of Christian defiance that have consequences well beyond the confines of the text, the wounding of female bodies in the Poema de mio Cid is more tightly enmeshed in the patriarchal values of a warrior society that views women as pawns in a high-stakes game of politics and power. Although a span of eight hundred years separates the genesis of the Peristephanon and the Poema de mio Cid, the influence of the Prudentian text in the Iberian Peninsula remained constant. Many of the lives of Spanish saints that circulated throughout the Peninsula from the sixth to the eleventh centuries had their origin in or were influenced by Prudentius’s text. The narration of the martyrdom of Eulalia, which represents the apotheosis of writing, sexuality, and death, was incorporated in its entirety into the Mozarabic liturgy, where it was also compressed into shorter centos.1 As Peter Brown notes, the ritual power of the martyrs’ lives in the Mozarabic Sacramentary, which invited participation and imitation by the faithful, resided in both the metaphorical vibrance

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of Prudentius’s language and in the miraculous sufferings of the martyrs’ bodies.2 In fact, the imitation of Prudentius’s models of martyrdom informed to a high degree the textualization of the ninth-century martyrs of Córdoba, who sacrificed themselves for the sake of preserving their Christian identity from the influence of the predominant Arabic culture and preeminent position of Islam. Eulogius’s narration of the martyrdoms of Flora and María is particularly influenced by Prudentius’s hymn to Eulalia, parts of which are reproduced verbatim as a means of imparting the defiance and resistance to authority embodied by that virgin-martyr.3 Prudentius’s role as the founder of Hispanic hagiography4 and as a major literary figure in medieval Iberia is also attested by numerous references to his works in library catalogues and book lists from the Peninsula during the Middle Ages.5 The tortured and textualized feminine body as a site for the contestation of discursive power also animates the Poema de mio Cid. The confrontation of embodied speech and its weak, unreliable, derivative counterpart, the written word, is resolved in the poem only by violent acts of corporeal inscription. Tension between speech and writing not only conditions the text itself, but it also lies at the heart of the critical debate surrounding the Poema. As Michael Gerli has shown, the question of the origins of the poem in the spontaneous oral composition by a juglar or in the textual reworking of an oral tradition at the hands of an individual author has been the driving force behind much of the scholarship produced since the inception of the Poema de mio Cid’s critical tradition.6 Rather than seeking to resolve the problematic issues of origins and method of composition, I want to recast the terms of the debate by displacing the exocritical poles of speech and writing into the thematic, structural, and linguistic centre of the Poema.7 The poem itself stages a struggle between two radically different modes of discourse, the fully present voice of the hero, and the devious, twisted language of the Infantes de Carrión, and locates this struggle on the bodies of women. The poet represents the assault on Elvira and Sol as an act of violent inscription directed against the discursive dominance of the hero’s verbal presence. The location of this violent clash between speech and writing on the bodies of women is significant since it emphasizes the parallel binarism of speaking/writing and that of the masculine/the feminine, thereby transforming the tension between voice and letter into a gendered struggle over the control of language, and consequently of power.8 The Poema de mio Cid has been described as a transitional text, exhibiting features that derive from orally composed epic as well as those

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 83

that can only be attributed to the intervention of a literate poet who rewove a preexisting oral or written text.9 While the precise conditions of the genesis of the Poema will probably never be known with any certainty, the period during which the text was produced can accurately be described as one in which a transition from an oral culture to one more dependent on the written word was taking place. The attribution of a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century date of composition10 places the poem on the cusp of a new era of institutionalized literacy and literate modes of thought. The historian José Angel García de Cortázar characterizes the reign of Alfonso VIII (1158–1214) as one which saw the triumph of writing in the areas of legislation, administration, and the recording of history, whose result was a devaluation of the spoken word. Memory became dependent on the silent verification of written testimony, and power increasingly came to reside in those trained in the now essential ‘technology of the word.’11 As García de Cortázar puts it, ‘A partir de ese momento, ya se ha abierto la profunda sima que separará a quienes adquieren la familiaridad con el escrito de quienes sólo la tengan con lo oral’12 (From this moment on, the profound abyss that will separate those who acquire familiarity with writing from those who only are familiar with orality has opened up). Although there is convincing evidence that there was an increasing use of documents during the period which produced the Poema de mio Cid, there is still no detailed study of the ways this new technology affected modes of thought and models of truth.13 Critics have acknowledged that the textualization of the Poema occurred precisely during this transitional period.14 Such an epistemic shift from an oral to a literate mentality would surely have been fraught with the kind of anxiety and sense of loss described so eloquently by Walter Ong.15 The reflection of a visceral tension between the authority of the living voice and that of the dead letter informs and structures many examples of medieval epic. The epic genre is particularly well suited for the exploration of such discursive issues since it is essentially the representation of an older, oral, heroic world frozen in the words inscribed on the page. Whether epic texts were once untouched by the literate world is really moot since their survival as written texts marks them as a site of rupture from the world they purport to create. The objective consciousness of a split between literate and non-literate worlds is one that only literates reflect upon. An oral culture only gains awareness of its orality once it has come into contact with writing.16

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Eugene Vance has studied the Chanson de Roland as the embodiment in writing of an impossibly present oral world whose alienation is due to the mediation of writing. For the scriptor of the Roland, Roland’s lost world of oral presence reflects his own anxiety at the momentous transition to a culture of inscription. The awareness in the Roland of the potential for writing to result in absence and loss brings to the fore the Pauline and Augustinian preoccupation with the letter that kills.17 In the Poema de mio Cid the violence inherent in this traditional conception of writing is made very explicit in the Afrenta de Corpes. The violent marking of the bodies of Elvira and Sol by the Infantes de Carrión is represented by the poet as an act of writing whose purpose is to demean and shame the Cid. The Afrenta has been the object of much critical debate, with some critics attempting to delineate its sources,18 while others assess its thematic or structural importance within the Poema.19 John Walsh and Colbert Nepaulsingh have both pointed to Prudentius’s Peristephanon as an intertext for the Afrenta.20 As we have seen in chapter 1, Prudentius represented the bodies of female martyrs as surfaces of violent inscription and penetration that result in the salvation of the martyrs themselves and of all those who ‘read’ their bodies, in the redemption of the written word, and in the transcendence of sexuality. In addition to the verbal and thematic echoes of the Peristephanon pointed out by Walsh and Nepaulsingh, the Prudentian textualization of the female body as a means of rearticulating the relationship between oral and written forms of discourse is found, as well, in the Poema de mio Cid. Writing the Body in the Afrenta de Corpes The violent marking of the bodies of Elvira and Sol by the Infantes de Carrión is represented by the poet as a scene of inscription that harks back to the humiliation suffered by the Infantes as a result of ‘lo del león’ (what happened with the lion, l. 3363).21 The fear and cowardice displayed by the brothers after they flee and hide from the Cid’s escaped lion are visible in the stains that mark Diego’s clothing acquired after he hid behind a wine press: Tras una viga lagar metios con grant pavor el manto y el brial todo suzio lo saco.

(ll. 2290–1)

(In his terror he got behind the wine press and made his cloak and tunic all filthy.)

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As James Burke has pointed out, it is unclear whether these stains are due to a loss of control over bladder or bowels, or to the wine press, in which case the blotches would resemble bloody wounds.22 What is certain is that these stains signify vividly a shameful lack of valour and manhood on the part of the Infantes in the eyes of the Cid and his entourage. The marks on Diego’s garments constitute a ‘text’ of shame read by the Cid and his followers.23 The humiliation of the Infantes before many witnesses is detrimental to both their honour and their status in the tightly knit group of fighting men who form the Cid’s inner circle. The Afrenta is their attempt to reinscribe the shameful stains of cowardice and effeminacy on the bodies of women so as to reassert control over their own virility. The Cid poet explicitly represents the assault as an act of writing, as a means of textual communication. In Mediterranean societies the loss of honour is a form of social death that can only be remedied through the spilling of blood.24 Thus the manner in which the Infantes’ honour is publicly offended explains in part why the lion incident will require the bloody marking of bodies. The Infantes’ cowardly behaviour when confronted by the loose lion, as well as their notable lack of courage on the battlefield, implies that their loss of honour is shot through with an undercurrent of effeminacy or sexual inadequacy. The affront to the Infantes’ manhood, which is graphically visible to all after the lion incident, is not the only instance in the Spanish epic tradition where the staining of clothing with blood carries strong associations of sexual ineptitude. In the Siete Infantes de Lara, one of the earliest epics in the Peninsula,25 Gonzalo, the youngest of seven brothers is dirtied after a blood-filled cucumber is thrown at him. The attack on Gonzalo is instigated by his aunt Doña Lambra, who is offended by Gonzalo’s removal of most of his clothing for the purpose of bathing his hawk. The sexual tension between Lambra and her nephew which manifested itself during the celebrations of her wedding causes her to respond to a perceived sexual taunt in such a way as to undermine Gonzalo’s virility.26 Doña Lambra orders her servant, the instrument of her revenge, to fill a cucumber with blood and to hurl it against the chest of Gonzalo:27 Los inffantes quando vieron venir a aquell omne contra si, cuedaron que les enuiaua su cunnada alguna cosa de comer, por que se tardaua la yantar; ca tenian ellos que bien estauan conella, et ella que los amaua sin toda arte, mas eran ellos engannados en esto. Et assi cuemo llego aquell omne, alço aquel cogonbro, et tirol, et dio conell a Gonçaluo Gonçaluez en los

86 Figuring the Feminine pechos, conla sangre, et fuxo. Los otros hermanos quando esto uieron, commmençaron de reir mas non de coraçon. (When the Infantes saw that man coming towards them, they thought their aunt was sending them something to eat, because lunch was late; for they thought they were on good terms with her and that she loved them without any guile, but they were deceived in this. And so, as that man approached, he raised up the cucumber and threw it and smashed it against Gonzalo González’s chest as his mistress had ordered him to do. And he sullied him with the blood, and he fled. The other brothers, when they saw this, began to laugh, but not wholeheartedly.)

The use of such a phallic writing instrument as a cucumber to mark Gonzalo with the bloody ink of shame is to impugn unabashedly his manhood by forcing him to assume a feminine role of passivity. Gonzalo, in effect, is made to appear effeminate; he is cast in the role of a sexually assaulted woman by means of the castigating phallus wielded by Doña Lambra’s servant, thereby greatly intensifying the insult. Like the Infante Diego in the Poema de mio Cid, Gonzalo’s ‘pannos de lino’ (linen clothing, i.e., underclothing, 213) are inscribed with red signs whose meaning is related to the humiliation of his manhood. In the Poema, the Infantes de Carrión are the objects of ridicule: ‘non viestes tal guego commo iva por la cort!’ (You never saw such jesting and mockery as then went round the palace, l. 2307), just as Gonzalo is the butt of his brothers’ laughter. The similar sense of degradation of both Gonzalo and the Infantes de Carrión leads them to the same logic of retaliation. Gonzalo, incensed and enraged, enlists the aid of his brothers in avenging the insult. They give chase to Doña Lambra’s manservant, whom she has hidden beneath her cloak for protection upon the assumption that her nephews would not dare to violate the private space of her person. The Infantes de Lara transform the cucumber-pen into their swords, which penetrate Lambra’s servant, resulting in the death of her phallus-wielding agent, or in her metaphorical castration. It is now Doña Lambra who is the object of inscription: Et de las feridas que dauan enell cayo de la sangre sobre las tocas et en los pannos de donna Llambla, de guisa que toda finco ende enssangrentada. (pp. 215–16)

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 87 (And blood fell from the wounds which they were inflicting upon him onto the head coverings and clothing of Doña Lambra, so that she became all bloody from it.)

In exacting their revenge, the Infantes de Lara reassert the dominance and power of their phallic sword-pens to rewrite the bloody text of shame and humiliation on the person of Doña Lambra.28 The transference by the Infantes de Lara of the shameful writing to the clothing and body of Doña Lambra in response to the bloody assault upon their manhood is structured by a logic that also informs the revenge of the Infantes de Carrión in the Poema de mio Cid. Since they too have suffered the red stains of cowardice and effeminacy, this logic dictates that they must reinscribe this message of shame on the bodies of women so as to reassert control over their own virility. The Afrenta de Corpes, therefore, is an entirely logical episode.29 What distinguishes the Afrenta from the attack on Doña Lambra is the emphasis placed on it by the Cid poet as a textual means of communication. Immediately prior to the physical assault carried out by the Infantes de Carrión on their wives in the isolated Robledo de Corpes, Diego and Fernando recite aloud the contents of the message of vengeance about to be scored into the bodies of Elvira and Sol: ‘Bien lo creades don Elvira e doña Sol: aqui seredes escarnidas en estos fieros montes; oy nos partiremos e dexadas seredes de nos, non abredes part en tierras de Carrion. Hiran aquestos mandados al Çid Campeador; ¡nos vengaremos aquesta por la del leon!’

(ll. 2714–19)

(‘Do you hear, Doña Elvira and Doña Sol? We are going to scorn you here in this wild forest. Today we shall separate and you will be abandoned by us. You will then have no claim to any of our lands in Carrión. This message30 will go to the Cid Campeador; this is our vengeance for the dishonour with the lion.’)

It is clear that the Infantes intend to make their wives the physical means whereby their ‘mandado’ will be transmitted to the Cid. These words of torture are also the most effective way of communicating to the audience of the Poema the exact contents of the message about to be written on the bodies of Elvira and Sol.31

88 Figuring the Feminine

The textual nature of the imminent assault is immediately clear to the women, who attempt to dissuade their husbands from using their bodies as the surface upon which the ‘words’ of revenge will be inscribed. Elvira and Sol plead with the Infantes: ‘¡atan malos enssienplos / non fagades sobre nos! (l. 2731, Don’t inflict such wretched exempla upon us! – my translation). The word ‘enssienplo’ has usually been translated as ‘notable deed’;32 however, it has a range of meanings, many of which involve connotations of a literary, textual nature. Corominas, who gives its meaning in this verse of the Poema as ‘acción notable,’ points out that its more usual medieval sense is ‘pequeña narración que puede servir de ocasión para una moraleja’ (a short narrative that can serve as an occasion for providing moral guidance).33 The Latin exemplum, of which enssienplo is the Old Spanish equivalent, includes numerous medieval meanings in the semantic field of literature and writing, such as ‘grammatical or rhetorical illustration,’ ‘example,’ ‘literary genre,’ ‘pattern,’ and ‘transcript.’34 The awareness on the part of the Cid’s daughters that they have been violently transformed into textual objects is painfully obvious in the account of the aftermath of the Afrenta narrated in the Alfonsine Primera cronica general, where the women tell their father of the assault in a letter: ‘et aquell carta era escripta con sangre’ (and that letter was written in blood).35 This bloody letter sent by Elvira and Sol to their father is a mimetic representation of the one written on their bodies and clothing by their husbands, and suggests that their flesh had undergone what they perceived to be a textualization. The Infantes, by rending and marking their wives’ clothing and bodies with spurs and saddlestraps (ll. 2735–9), are intent upon sending a clear message of shame and vengeance to the Cid in retaliation for the public ignominy they had suffered when their cowardice was openly displayed to the Cid and his men. Normally, in a society of honour and shame, the humiliation of the Cid’s honour should have occurred publicly or in the Cid’s presence. However, the Infantes’ already proven lack of courage leads them to rely on the inherent absence of writing in order to shame the Cid from a safe distance, although it is still important that their text be clearly disseminated. In order for the text to convey effectively its message it must be plainly visible so that it can be read without any difficulty. This would explain the rather discordant action of the Infantes who take away the girls’ cloaks and leave them bereft of any covering. One could consider this gesture as another example of the Infantes’ cupidity, or as a conscious

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 89

desire on their part to make sure that their text of shame is immediately visible. In the municipal legal code, Fuero de Logroño, from the year 1095, the value of the body as a ‘text’ which can bear signs of dishonour or shame was explicitly recognized. Wounds on the face or other visible parts of the body were more severely punished than those inflicted on parts covered by clothing: ‘la lesión visible es baldón que atestigua la afrenta’ (the visible wound is a stain that testifies to the affront).36 This would explain why the Infantes undress their wives (l. 2720) and take away their ‘mantos’ after the assault: Llevaron les los mantos e las pieles armiñas mas dexanlas maridas en briales y en camisas

(ll. 2749–50)

(They stripped them of their cloaks and ermine furs. They left them there distressed, in their tunics and shifts.)

In order for the message on the bodies and clothing of the women to be disseminated effectively the Infantes make it difficult for the wounds to be covered up when the women are found and ‘read.’ The Infantes need witnesses to the Afrenta if it is to fulfil its function as an attack on the Cid’s honour. Félez Muñoz, the nephew of the Cid who was sent by him to escort and protect his cousins Elvira and Sol, becomes very suspicious when the Infantes separate themselves and their wives from the rest of the party. He disobeys the Infantes’ orders to continue on without them, and instead, remains hidden in the woods in an attempt to discover what Diego and Fernando are really doing. The Infantes must surely have reasoned that Félez would not disobey the Cid’s orders ‘que vayas con ellas / fata dentro en Carrion’ (l. 2620, that you accompany them as far as Carrión), and that Félez would be the one most likely to find the dead women, read the text of shame, and spread the news. Although the text of the Poema makes it appear that if the Infantes were to discover Félez Muñoz in hiding, they would most probably kill him (l. 2774), this is likely just a projection of Félez’s own fear and anxiety of being caught in hiding, for if he is not the instrument of disseminating the ‘text,’ there would be no one to send ‘aquestos mandados / a Valencia la mayor;’ (l. 2826, this message to the great city of Valencia). In order for the Infantes’ text to relay its message clearly it must be free from any competing form of discourse. The text must be fixed in death, unable to answer or modify its contents as all written texts are.37

90 Figuring the Feminine

The Infantes purposefully intend to kill their wives so that the marks of shame inflicted upon their bodies can be read without any verbal, oral interference: Canssados son de ferir ellos amos a dos ensayandos amos qual dara mejores colpes. hya non pueden fablar don Elvira e doña Sol, por muertas las dexaron en el robredo de Corpes. (ll. 2745–8; emphasis added) (The two young men struck till they were weary, trying to see which of them could deal the hardest blows. Doña Elvira and Doña Sol could not utter a word, and were left for dead in the oak forest of Corpes.)

The intention of the Infantes to deprive their wives of their voices by killing them is made quite clear by the three-time repetition of ‘por muertas las dexaron’ (they left them for dead, ll. 2747, 2752, 2755). Diego and Fernando want to write a permanent, indelible text of shame whose bloody markings are the only words which express the triumphant vengeance intended by the Infantes to humiliate the Cid. The Infantes, however, are unsuccessful in their attempted mastery over the ‘text’ they have written, for the Cid’s daughters are not dead, and they are capable of asserting their own voices to counteract the words of shame scored into their bodies. Félez Muñoz, the first reader of the text, immediately intercepts it by covering up its hideous words: ‘con el so manto / a amas las cubrio’ (l. 2807, He covered them with his cloak), thereby thwarting the Infantes’ intention of leaving their wives’ mangled flesh visible and uncovered. Elvira and Sol, when found by Félez, are at first unable to use their voices (l. 2784), but they slowly regain consciousness and the ability to speak (ll. 2790–8). Indeed, the assaulted women declare that they will erase the dishonourable text and replace it with spoken words of rancour that will bring further shame upon the Infantes by telling of their cowardly behaviour: ‘En los dias de vagar / toda nuestra rencura sabremos contar’ (l. 2862, When we have more leisure, we shall be able to tell all we have suffered). Elvira’s and Sol’s verbal efforts to counter their textualization and to control the Infantes’ discourse are in evidence not only after the Afrenta, when the dissemination of the text is at issue, but also during the outrage itself. When the women realize that their husbands intend to beat them with spurs and straps, they attempt to dissuade the

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Infantes from employing such painful and humiliating instruments of torture so as to engineer a more noble inscription: ‘¡Por Dios vos rogamos don Diego e don Ferando! Dos espadas tenedes fuertes e tajadores – al una dizen Colada e al otra Tizon – ¡cortandos las cabeças, martires seremos nos! Moros e christianos departiran desta razon …’

(ll. 2725–9)

(‘We implore you, Don Diego and Don Fernando, in God’s name! You have two sharp swords, Colada and Tizon. Cut off our heads and make martyrs of us. Everyone will speak of this … ’)

The Cid’s daughters endeavour to control their own deaths, to subvert the Infantes’ intention of writing a text of shame which will dishonour the Cid, by becoming glorious texts of martyrdom as are the female martyr-saints whose textualization had been described by Prudentius. This intertext of martyrdom in the Afrenta has already been noted by Nepaulsingh and Walsh, but neither of these critics has drawn attention to the similarly cruel inscription of bodies in the Afrenta and in the martyrdom accounts of the Peristephanon. The association of writing with physical violence, which permeates both works, results in a similar tendency to view the body as an object, a surface of inscription vulnerable to the dominating mastery of the pen/phallus.38 In the Peristephanon the sexually violent nature of the assaults upon the bodies of Eulalia and Agnes is made very clear, and in the case of the male martyrs, their inscription constitutes a penetration and fertilization of their bodies through physical torture, thereby linking the ideas of textuality and fertility. The Afrenta too (like the texts of shame and vengeance in the Siete Infantes de Lara) is characterized by an undercurrent of sexuality associated with violent writing. The prior cowardice and lack of male prowess on the part of the Infantes also necessitates that the assault carry an element of sexual violence, since the Afrenta constitutes for them a vindication of their manhood. The sexual nature of the outrage is immediately made clear when the Infantes arrive at the spot where they will soon carry out the attack: ‘entrados son los ifantes / al robredo de Corpes’ (l. 2697, The Infantes entered the oak forest of Corpes). The ‘robredo de Corpes’ which is being entered into by the Infantes evokes the image of a body being

92 Figuring the Feminine

penetrated since the word ‘Corpes’ is so similar in sound to the Latin corpus. The ‘robredo’ itself is described in terms of a classic locus amoenus or hortus conclusus which in medieval tradition is symbolic of the virginal state characteristic of paradise:39 Falaron un vergel con una linpia fuent, mandan fincar la tienda ifantes de Carrion;

(ll. 2700–1)

(They found a grassy clearing with a fresh spring, and there the Infantes ordered a tent to be set up.)

The entering into this locus amoenus is another signal of imminent sexual, physical violation. In fact, the Infantes actually make love to their wives in this spot: con quantos que ellos traen i yazen essa noch. Con sus mugieres en braços demuestran les amor: ¡mal gelo cunplieron quando salie el sol!

(ll. 2703–5)

(On this spot they spent the night with all their company, and with their wives, to whom they made love. They proved that love in a strange way when the sun rose next morning.)

This sexual penetration which precedes the Afrenta establishes a logic of the female body as an object mastered by Diego and Fernando. The exclamation by the poet in l. 2705 that the Infantes proved or completed their love-making in the morning through the physical abuse of their wives is an indication that the Afrenta is a sort of sexual attack. If one accepts the suggestion of Colin Smith that the marriages of the Cid’s daughters were consummated on the night before the Afrenta, the penetration of their virgin bodies would have resulted in a bloody marking.40 The tearing of the women’s flesh on the morrow, therefore, can be considered as a continuation of the violation of bodily integrity begun on the night prior to the Afrenta proper. The attempt of the Infantes to inscribe the virgin body-surface of their wives and thereby to transform the women into passive textual objects ironically coincides with the first time in which the voices of Elvira and Sol assert themselves.41 Before the Afrenta, the women are mute and inarticulate vis-à-vis their husbands, lacking even the verbal labels of their own names. The first time the Infantes refer to their wives by name, rather than as ‘las fijas del Campeador’ (ll. 2323, 2551,

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 93

2566, the daughters of the Campeador), or as ‘nuestras mugieres’ (ll. 2543, 2562, our wives) occurs when they tell Elvira and Sol that they are about to be attacked. The appearance of the names and voices of the women coincides almost exactly with their being made to bear words inscribed upon them. The sudden verbal presence granted to the women by the poet at this particular moment underscores the nature of the Afrenta as a struggle between the cruel written discourse incarnated by the Infantes and the powerful spoken discourse embodied by the forces of the Cid. Diego and Fernando mistakenly believe that the silencing of their wives’ voices by means of the imposition of corporeal ‘letters that kill,’42 will result in a triumph over the Cid. Speech and Writing in the Poema de mio Cid As an enactment of the conflict between two opposing forms of language, the Afrenta encapsulates the tension running through the whole Poema de mio Cid between the transparent and fully present discourse which characterizes the forces of the Cid, and the Infantes’ opaque, twisted, hollow discourse characteristic of a fallen world dependent on the artificial externality of writing. The typically patristic association of speech with nature, life, spirit, and presence, and of writing with artifice, death, matter, and absence subtends the conflict between the opposing discursive worlds of the Cid and the Infantes. In recent years Cid scholarship has begun to take more notice of the ways in which issues of language inform the structure and content of the Poema. Malcolm Read, in an excellent study of the linguistic world of the Poema de mio Cid views the function of language in the poem as inextricably tied to deeds, as significant only when words are speech acts,43 whereas Edward H. Friedman considers the poem to be a statement on language which brings about a reconciliation of speech and action.44 According to Thomas Montgomery, the Poema reflects an oral culture in transition to literacy with the Infantes as the irrational representatives of a more primitive folk culture and the Cid as the embodiment of a fusion of ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’ modes of expression.45 In a more recent article Montgomery has come to focus on the role of writing in Spanish epic, viewing it as a sinister force abused by those in power.46 These analyses of the Poema call attention to, but do not elaborate in detail on, the underlying tension between speech and writing, and they all overlook the fundamental role of the Afrenta as the scene where this conflict is explicitly delineated.

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The Cid’s most striking and effective means of communication is the use of gesture and facial expression. The famous opening lines of the poem where the Cid, with tears streaming down his face, turns his head for one last look at the home he is forced to abandon, establishes from the outset the vivid physicality of the hero’s discursive world:47 De los sus ojos tan fuerte mientre lorando tornava la cabeça y estave los catando.

(ll. 1–2)

(Tears streamed from his eyes as he turned his head and stood looking at them.)

In Augustinian terms, the Cid’s language of emotive gesture is the closest analogue to the natural prelapsarian language of paradise whose immediacy signalled absolute unity between signifier and signified. The use of the body to contextualize meaning beyond the strictly verbal is a basic trait of oral communication48 and is an important means of publicly exteriorizing thought and feeling. Aware of the symbolic value of his body, the Cid imposes meaning upon it in a conscious and manipulative manner when he vows to allow his beard to signify his determination to regain the king’s favour: Yal creçe la barba e vale allongando. Dixo mio Çid de la su boca atanto: ‘Por amor del rey Alffonso que de tierra me a echado nin entrarie en ela tigera ni un pelo non avrie tajado, e que fablassen desto moros e christianos.’

(ll. 1238–42)

(His beard was growing long and full, for the Cid had said: ‘For the love I bear King Alfonso, who has banished me, no shears shall touch it, and not a hair shall be cut. Let this be common talk among Moors and Christians alike.’)

The Cid’s discourse is so tied up with the realm of the physical that he makes use of metaphorical expressions which involve the body to express his emotional state: ‘alla me levades / las telas del coraçon’ (l. 2578, you take away my heart strings). Another aspect of the symbolic use of gesture is the way he makes even objects meaningful by the bestowal of gifts upon those to whom he wants to convey a particular message.49 The Cid’s manipulation of the gift vis-à-vis Alfonso enables him to ‘spread his reputation through a dramatic gesture.’50

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 95

The language of the Cid, by means of the frequent use of direct discourse in the Poema, is made to appear fully exteriorized and wholly transparent.51 The oral force of the Cid, constituted by his presence as a speaking subject, comes across most clearly when his voice embodies the unity of thought and meaning. Often there is a combination of the use of emotive body language and direct speech: Enclino las manos [el de] la barba velida, a las sus fijas en braço’ las prendia, legolas al coraçon ca mucho las queria. Lora de los ojos, tan fuerte mientre sospira: ¡‘Ya doña Ximena la mi mugier tan complida, commo a la mi alma yo tanto vos queria!’

(ll. 274–9)

(The Cid stretched out his hands, took his daughters in his arms and pressed them to his heart, for he loved them dearly. He wept and sighed heavily (saying): ‘Doña Jimena, my excellent wife, I have always loved you with all my heart’)

The profusion of direct discourse associated with Rodrigo Díaz betrays a concern for the spoken word, an attempt to embody the materiality of the voice.52 In contrast to the Cid’s use of spoken language and gesture to articulate clearly both thought and meaning, the discourse associated with the Infantes de Carrión is opaque and devious,53 and exhibits traits which can be identified with ‘writing.’54 The Infantes are notably lacking in the gestural expressiveness of oral presence, and if their body parts are mentioned at all, it is usually in a context of passivity: they are taken by the hands (ll. 2121–2) or they interact in a formulaic, rigid manner with the bodies of others (ll. 2215, 2235). Diego and Fernando are also conspicuously absent from the gestural economy of oral culture since they refuse to participate in the cycle of gifts and countergifts.55 The speech of the Infantes represents a fall from the open clarity of the Cid’s words, and constitutes a symbolic disjunction, an absence that is both physical and moral. When they speak they almost always physically separate themselves from others so their words may resound in their own secret space:56 De los iffantes de Carrion yo vos quiero contar, fablando en su conssejo, aviendo su poridad:

(ll. 1879–80)

96 Figuring the Feminine (Now I must tell you about the Infantes de Carrion, who were consulting together privately and saying:) amos salieron apart – vera mientre son hermanos –

(l. 2538)

(They went outside to talk in private – a fine pair of brothers –)

The physical separation characteristic of the Infantes’ discourse manifests itself morally in a violent twisting of their own language, betraying an utter lack of correspondence between the inner, true thoughts in their hearts and their words. When the Infantes withdraw into their own space to talk about the possibility of marrying the Cid’s daughters, they are primarily concerned with the advantages the match will bring to them: ‘demandemos sus fijas pora con ellas casar; creçremos en nuestra ondra e iremos adelant.’

(ll. 1882–3; my emphasis)

(‘let us ask for his daughters in marriage, for we shall increase our prestige and better our prospects by making this match.’)

Yet, when Diego and Fernando propose their idea to King Alfonso, they twist their former, secret words into a meaning which is in exact contrast to the one they really intend. They tell the king that the marriage with the Cid’s daughters would increase the ‘ondra’ accruing to the Cid: ‘casar queremos con ellas / a su ondra e a nuestro pro’ (l. 1888, By marrying them we shall bring honour to them and advantage to ourselves). Unlike the Cid, whose mastery of the spoken word and bodily gestures fully reflects the state of his inner being, the discourse of the Infantes can be viewed as dead externality, as artificial language which constitutes a violent threat to the interior, natural expression of the Cid.57 In fact, their speech is explicitly categorized as untruth in the judicial confrontation between the Cid’s band and that of the BaniGómez, when Diego and Fernando are openly accused of lying, of being ‘boca sin verdad’ (l. 3362, mouth without truth). The same scission or separation which characterizes the speech of the Infantes and aligns it with a Christian, Neoplatonic view of writing, is an integral element of the Afrenta, the scene of inscription. The Infantes manage to cut themselves off from the rest of their company so that they can carry out their violent writing:

Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 97 adelant eran idos los de criazon. Assi lo mandaron los ifantes de Carrion que non i fincas ninguno, mugier nin varon, si non amas sus mugieres doña Elvira e doña Sol;

(ll. 2707–10)

([They gave orders] that all members of their household should go on ahead. No man or woman was to remain behind except their wives, Doña Elvira and Doña Sol.)

Just as the Infantes’ words create a gap, break the bond between signifier and signified, their writing not only does physical violence to the body in a literal sense, but also corrupts it by removing it from the Cid’s discursive world of transparent gesture and meaning. The Afrenta de Corpes, therefore, constitutes not only an attack on the Cid’s honour, but also the representation of the female body as a site of struggle between what was then a fading world of heroic oral presence and the new world of writing that enabled severed words embodied in texts to take on a life of their own. The location of this discursive tension in the sexually charged bodies of Elvira and Sol places the binary opposition speech/writing in a parallel relationship with that of the masculine / the feminine. The fully present transparent speech of the Cid and his inner circle is ‘manly’ whereas the twisted, devious discourse of the Infantes is gendered as feminine. As mentioned earlier the Cid knows how to manipulate gesture and speech in order to call attention to his assertive virility. The Cid’s drawing attention to his beard both by words (ll. 1240–2) and by the action of tying up his beard before the confrontation with the Infantes at the Cortes (l. 3097) attests to the poet’s representation of him as the incarnation of a masculine ideal. In medieval Castile the connection between military superiority and manliness was commonplace, as was the use of verbal dueling as a prelude to the proving of one’s manhood.58 The Cid’s military success as well as the efficacy of his restrained, to-the-point, guileless words make him a symbol of the most prized masculine attributes. In contrast to the Cid, the Infantes de Carrión lack the traits and behaviours considered ideal for men in medieval Castile. As Louise Mirrer points out, powerlessness in literary representation is akin to the attribution of female sexual status and identity.59 The Infantes’ shameful display of fear during the lion incident and their notable lack of valour on the battlefield emphasize an absence of manliness. In anthropological terms the Infantes are the feminized, passive objects of

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commodification from the perspective of the Cid’s lineage. Diego and Fernando contribute their familial prestige to the Cid’s clan and enable the Cid to perpetuate his lineage, thereby resulting in the absorption of the Infantes into the Cid’s clan and in the transformation of Elvira and Sol into ‘surrogate male heirs.’60 The characterization of the Infantes as ‘feminine’ constitutes a transgressive, disruptive crossing of the boundaries of gender that was often construed as fraudulent or mendacious by medieval culture.61 The Infantes’ violent discourse that obfuscates truth, that tears asunder the bond between words and intentions, and that is most graphically figured as the hideous carnal writing of the Afrenta is represented as a destructively threatening feminine force that must be mastered and suppressed by the masculine voice of truth. Thomas Montgomery has described the transparent language of good characters in the Poema de mio Cid as a tool of cohesion binding the Cid’s men to each other and to their surrounding reality. In attempting to account for the paucity of metaphorical language in the poem, Montgomery contends that the poet is mirroring the expressive immediacy of the Cid and his men through a marked preference for metonymy and an avoidance of metaphor. Metaphorical language was viewed as less soldierly and trustworthy, as a distraction that could serve only to disrupt the homosociability of this male world of war and conquest. Montgomery views the privileging of metonymic relationships as the embodiment of integrity, as ‘the absence of occult meaning, of the tricks of the mind inherent in symbolic language. A metonym may speak by indirection, but it does not overtly say one thing and mean another.’62 Although the language is overwhelmingly synechdochic, the way the Infantes use language can be described as metaphorical in the most literal sense. The Infantes function like tropes in the way they violently transfer words away from truth and use language as a means of veiling their true intentions. What Montgomery does not discuss is the longstanding association of both metaphorical language and writing in general with a notion of the feminine as dangerously disruptive and subversive. In the early Christian era, exegetes likened Eve’s physical derivation from Adam to a perversely figurative deviation from the proper and literal whose end result was the loss of Adamic unity of body, language, and meaning.63 Not only did the creation of Eve mark the irruption of the figurative into the hitherto masculine Adamic world, but it would lead to the destruction of this world. Patristic exegetes construed the serpent’s

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and Eve’s persuasively seductive words as an example of a deformed rhetoric where truth has been severed from language, where it has been occluded by the corporeal veils in which language has become clothed. That such alluring verbal artifice was gendered as feminine is made absolutely clear in the church fathers’ fulminations against all decoration, whether linguistic or sartorial, as seductive, womanly embellishment that is equivalent to Satanic enticement.64 The characterization of figurative, troping language as a fall from the primary unity of word and thing can also be applied to the notion of writing. Patristic writers viewed written discourse as a sign of the Fall from a preliterate world of natural, inner speech where the spoken fully embodied its signifié. In explicating the Fall, exegetes represented writing as an inferior, corporeal replacement for the unmediated ‘voice’ of the law inscribed upon Adam’s heart and erased by the Fall. The fig leaves ( folia) sewn together by Adam and Eve after their sin are likened to the folia of a written codex and are indicative of the artificial, manufactured nature of writing, as well as of the link between writing and the body. The fig leaves that conceal the genitals of Adam and Eve are emblematic of the liability of writing to cover or conceal truth in such a way as to incite illicit desire.65 The configuration of writing as clothing that provokes pleasure brings us back to the artificial, corporeal veils of rhetorical language associated with the seductive rhetoric that caused the Fall. Thus, in the Poema de mio Cid, the Infantes’ devious, ‘translative’ use of language as well as their act of violent writing contribute to their characterization as deceitful, ‘feminine’ liars whose discursive world contrasts totally with the paradisiacal world of spontaneous orality, transparent meaning, and truth inhabited by the Cid and his men. The seductive, persuasive words uttered by the serpent and by Eve result in a rupture between God and man, and in the corruption of language, of which the external, sensuous, embodied nature of writing is the sign par excellence. The deviation of language away from a monologic, masculine model of truth to one of unreliable, devious, ‘feminine’ artificiality exerts a profoundly destabilizing force upon both discourse and society.66 In the Poema the linking of language with the corporeal realm of the feminine results in a similar linguistic and social chaos of exile. The struggle between the forces of the Cid and the Benigómez over the control of meaning and over the subsequent assertion of political power is inseparable from the clash between two opposingly gendered modes of discourse. The false, deformative words

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of the ‘malos mestureros’ (l. 267) bring about the political fall of the Cid in the same way that the deviously seductive words uttered in Eden caused the Fall of man into the artificial exteriority of the body of which writing is but one graphic manifestation. The poem’s opening scene is a moving description of the Cid as he contemplates the now desolate home soon to be abandoned as he prepares to ride off into exile. With tears streaming down his face, the hero turns his head for one last look at the open doors and the unnaturally bare pegs, stripped of the customary fine cloaks and hunting birds (ll. 1–5).67 The fall of the Cid from the king’s favour and his subsequent punishment of exile are reminiscent of the paradigmatic Fall in Christian history. Like Adam, who must earn his bread with the sweat of his brow (Gen. 3:19: ‘In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane …’), the Cid is forced to live by means of his wits and his sword in order to ‘ganarse el pan’ (l. 1643). The twisting, serpentine words of those whose slander brought about the Cid’s demise have the same negative feminine connotations as the serpent’s or Eve’s words in the Garden. Although there is no explicit textual allusion in the Poema to the Cid as an Adamic figure, the patterning of the hero’s life along familiar soteriological tracks is evident.68 The notion of the Fall as a ‘felix culpa’ is brought out by the Cid’s attitude towards his exile as a welcome opportunity to achieve an even higher level of honour and status than he would have if he had no adverse fortune to overcome. The Cid’s rejoicing in his status as an outcast can be taken as an indication of his defiantly optimistic outlook: ‘¡Albricia, Albar Fáñez, / ca echados somos de tierra!’ (l. 14 Good cheer, Alvar Fáñez, for we are banished from this land). This optimism is inscribed within the Christian narrative subtext of the poem when the Cid becomes the new Adam who not only reverses the fall, but ascends to an even higher level of glory.69 The Cid’s passing from this world on the day of Pentecost (‘Passado es d’este sieglo / el día de cinquaesma,’ l. 3726) is symbolic of the level of glory achieved by the hero, and of the mapping of the focal points of the Cid’s life onto the exemplary narrative of Salvation history.70 The Cid’s success in conquest and his subsequent enrichment result in his political rehabilitation. The Afrenta de Corpes constitutes a second fall from honour for the Cid, and like his first fall, it too is brought about by a deformation of language, by the gruesome message scored into the bodies of Elvira and Sol. This perverse writing figures the Infantes’ absence of integrity and their effeminate cowardice in their feeble attempt to send a message to the Cid via the bodies of women

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instead of speaking their grievance in the Cid’s presence. Like Christ the Logos, the Cid is cast in the role of linguistic saviour who restores the bond between intention and language, between words and deeds, between one group of men and another. The Cid, having already overcome the hardship and shame of exile, must respond forcefully to the Infantes’ affront to his honour and verbal power. The Cid reasserts his verbal mastery in sublime fashion at the cortes where he unwrites the Infantes’ cowardly text of shame by subsuming their written words into his voice, and by appropriating and redirecting their meaning. Ulrich Leo, in a sensitive reading of the Afrenta de Corpes episode and the confrontation at the cortes, has suggested that the forces of the Cid have reappropriated the language used by the Infantes during the Afrenta.71 Leo points out that the Infantes’ language changes during the Afrenta scene in that they repeatedly use certain words only in this episode. The debacle of the ‘leon’ is mentioned four times (ll. 2548, 2556, 2719, 2762), the idea of vengeance and the word ‘escarnir’ (scorn) are both expressed three times (‘vengar’: ll. 2719, 2758, 2762; ‘escarnir’: ll. 2551, 2555, 2715).72 Although the narrator of the Poema does not explicitly tell his audience the precise contents of the text inflicted on the bodies and clothing of Elvira and Sol, it is safe to assume that these key words, which characterize the language of the Infantes during the Afrenta, would convey the import of the message written there, i.e., a message of shame, mockery, and revenge for the lion incident. As Leo astutely observes, it is the Cid and his men, and not the Infantes, who make use of these very same words at the cortes. This is highly significant for it shows that the Cid has regained the linguistic upper hand. The Cid and his men breathe new life into the Infantes’ words of death and revenge by vocally subsuming them, by unwriting them in a new oral context. The lion incident is recounted by Pero Bermúdez (ll. 3330 ff.) and again by Martín Antolínez (ll. 3363 ff.) in order to reaffirm publicly the effeminate cowardice which the Infantes had intended to cancel out by their ‘macho’ inscription of their wives’ bodies. Instead of the message of vengeance written by Diego and Fernando upon the women, the word ‘vengar’ is reappropriated by the Cid who wields it in a weapon-like manner exactly three times to correspond to the Infantes’ threefold use of it. The Infantes’ use of ‘vengar’ had been to avenge their being shamed by the lion: ‘La desondra del leon / assis ira vengando’ (l. 2762, In this way the dishonour brought on us by the lion will be avenged), but the Cid redirects these

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very same words to the vengeance he is exacting against them for the assault on his daughters: ‘assis iran vengando / don Elvira e doña Sol’ (l. 3187, thus will Doña Elvira and Doña Sol be avenged). The appropriation of these words by the Cid occurs immediately after he has regained possession of the Infantes’ swords, thereby implying that these words inflicted on the women’s bodies by the Infantes are just as dangerous as the swords recovered by the Cid. The Cid’s ‘undoing’ of the Afrenta is completed in the duels between his champions Pero Bermúdez and Martín Antolínez, and the Infantes. The results of the duels present the Infantes as ineffectual fighters and writers, for they are unable to reproduce the message of shame which they had written on the bodies of their wives.73 The ‘cinchas,’ which the Infantes had used to inflict wounds upon the women’s bodies during the Afrenta, are broken and useless: quebraron le las çinchas, ninguna nol ovo pro, por la copla del cavallo en tierra lo echo.

(ll. 3639–40)

(His [Fernando’s] saddle-girths were broken, none remained intact, and over the horse’s back he was thrown to the ground.)

The sadistic vigour displayed by the Infantes during the Afrenta when they competed in the delivery of blows to the defenceless women, ‘ensayandos amos / qual dara mejores colpes’ (l. 2746, each striving to strike the harsher blows) is not in evidence when they are faced with real opponents: ‘Dia Gonçalez espada tiene en mano / mas no la ensayava;’ (l. 3662, Diego González held his sword in his hand but he did not use it [my emphasis]). The forces of the Cid have repossessed both the language and ‘writing’ materials that the Infantes had employed during the Afrenta, thereby establishing the complete dominance of the manly world of verbal presence, and neutralizing the alienating threat that the ‘effeminate’ mediation of writing represented for the immediate oral world of the hero. In this struggle between the feminized writing of absence and death and the manly vitality of the Cid’s discourse, the voices of Elvira and Sol appear to be reinforcing the discursive oral dominance of the Cid, and upholding the essentialist binary logic that posits a link between orality, presence, truth, and masculinity as opposed to writing, absence, falsehood, and femininity. The sudden verbal presence of the women just before they are attacked and the Infantes’ inability to still

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these voices by means of violent writing seem to undermine further the masculinity of the Infantes, and to buttress the masculine warrior society of the Cid where thoughts, words, and actions signify in an immediate, straightforward manner. The words of rancour uttered by the women contribute to the Cid’s erasure of the Infantes’ cowardly text of shame, which is subsumed into the hero’s voice and cancelled out by the swords of his champions. Once this is accomplished, there is no need for the voices of Elvira and Sol since their father has mastered the villainous and deceitful discursive world of the Infantes. The text presents the women as fully integrated into and accepting of the tribal, patriarchically structured world of the Cid. After the women recover from the Afrenta, they lapse back into silence for the duration of the poem. They are reconverted into silent objects of exchange whose function is to bring glory and status to the Cid’s lineage through their marriages into royal bloodlines. It is highly paradoxical that Elvira and Sol’s accession to subjectivity coincides with a revaluation of the overwhelmingly masculine discursive world of the Cid. Ironically they gain voices as men, not as women, and they are positioned and empowered as masculine in the interests of maintaining the primacy of a dominant patriarchal culture that feels threatened by the decontextualized, potentially duplicitous nature of the written word. However, the accession to speech by Elvira and Sol occurs just after they have been sexually penetrated by their husbands, and immediately prior to the continuation of this logic of violation in the bloody writing scored into their bodies, thereby linking their newly acquired voices with sexual subjugation. As E. Jane Burns has demonstrated in her analysis of the Old French Philomena, the fact that the newly emergent voices and subjectivities of the women are ‘embedded in an account of sexual assault’ ought to make us listen much harder to the voices issuing from their eroticized bodies. I would contend that their ‘bodytalk’ blurs and certainly problematizes the positioning of the masculine and feminine in reference to oral and written discourse,74 and perhaps more significantly, constitutes a critique and a rejection of the culture of verbal mastery and physical violence that denies women the right to speak and to exercise control over their own bodies and destinies.75 It is not coincidental that Burns’s formulation of the concept of ‘bodytalk’ emerges from a reading of a version of the Ovidian story of the rape and mutilation of Philomela by Tereus. This myth has at its core the representation of language anxiety in terms of the sexual

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violation of the woman’s body. Philomela, the sister-in-law of Tereus, has no voice in the text until moments after the assault when she cries out against the barbarous act committed against her, begs for death, and vows to publicize his infamy.76 Her verbal presence and power is only fleeting, for Tereus attempts to silence her by cutting out her tongue. However, Philomela is not silenced by the severance of her tongue and the loss of her voice for she narrates her story by weaving red thread on white fabric in a literally textual evocation of her rape. Feminist critics have read the myth as a demonstration of ‘how the political hierarchy built upon male sexual dominance requires the violent appropriation of the woman’s power to speak,’77 or as the emergence of body language, a mode of narration that is not ‘phalloscripture,’ that is not patriarchal, and ironically was made possible only by severance and loss.78 The Afrenta de Corpes resonates with echoes of the story of Philomela and Tereus. As Alan Deyermond and David Hook have suggestively shown, this Ovidian myth and its tradition in Iberia as exemplified in the Alfonsine version of the General estoria has many parallels in the Afrenta de Corpes. In both the Poema de mio Cid and the Ovidian story, the men who perpetrate the assault share the kinship status of sons-inlaw, and the objects of violence are similarly the daughter(s) of the father-in-law. Both Tereus and the Infantes separate the women from paternal protection to bring them into the sphere of influence where the men exercise power (Thrace and the lands of Carrión). Tereus and the Infantes cut themselves off from their entourages in order to gain complete control over the women. Like Philomela, Elvira and Sol find their voices and cry out against their husbands, and like the Ovidian heroine, they also ask for death. In the Alfonsine version, the additional mention of wild beasts roaming around the forest where the assault is about to take place evokes ‘las bestias fieras / que andan aderrador’ (l. 2699, the wild beasts that roam at large) of the Robledo de Corpes.79 Aside from these very compelling parallels adduced by Deyermond and Hook, both stories link the emergence of the woman’s subjectivity and voice with the rape and mutilation of her body in a savage contest over the control of discourse and the female body. As we have seen in our analysis of Prudentius’s Peristephanon, the torture of the martyrs’ bodies transforms them into subversively redemptive texts, and results in the liberation of these bodies from patriarchal authority, and in the dismantling of the hierarchical relationship between speech and writing, thereby allowing the ‘feminine’ embodied materiality of writing to

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proliferate and redeem both the bodies and souls of other believers. Prudentius’s account of the textualization of Eulalia bears traces of the Ovidian myth of Philomela, while the representation in the Peristephanon of the martyrs as texts made fertile through torture certainly subtends the inscription of Elvira and Sol in the Poema de mio Cid. As Deyermond and Hook point out, it is difficult to disentangle the various Ovidian, martyrological, and folkloric threads that are woven together in the narration of the Afrenta,80 but what is striking in the cases of Ovid and Prudentius is the sexually charged wounding of the female body as a means of challenging patriarchal discursive and social practices. The desperate cries of Elvira and Sol for martyrdom, ‘cortandos las cabeças, / mártires seremos nós’ (l. 2728, Cut off our heads and make martyrs of us), issuing from their newly eroticized bodies, point simultaneously to the bloody countertext woven by Philomela and especially to the violent textualization of the female martyrs; the end result of which is the liberation of their bodies from sexual subordination and the transformation of writing itself into a powerfully dynamic and fertile force. The story provoked by the violent writing of the Afrenta is a ‘latent narrative’81 in both content and in its relationship to and use of discourse. Elvira’s and Sol’s all too fleeting accession to subjectivity can be read as their anguished expression of their very real desire to free themselves from the bonds of patriarchy where their sole function is to serve as objects of exchange between men.82 By invoking indirectly the female martyrs’ defiant rejection of the conventions of female behaviour, Elvira and Sol are functioning as critical readers of the masculinist, hegemonic ideology conveyed by the text. The words of the Cid’s daughters that make themselves heard only in this one textual moment undermine the nature of patriarchal discursive practice. The glorification of masculine, oralist, epic ideology accomplished by the vilification of writing through its association with all the negative cultural connotations of the ‘feminine’ is dramatically called into question by the anguished voices of Elvira and Sol. The sexual violation of the women and its culmination in their bloody textualization and accession to speech results in the writing of a countertext, in the articulation of an alternate point of view that refers back to the Prudentian construction of writing as gloriously fertile and redemptive (both socially and soteriologically), a ‘feminine’ concept of writing that is suppressed by the text of the Poema de mio Cid in the interests of maintaining a static social and political order.

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The ‘bodytalk’ issuing from the mouths of Elvira and Sol not only challenges the discursive and social ideologies espoused by the text, but it undermines the essentialized binarism that underlies the oppositional structure of the masculine/the feminine, speech/writing, subject/object. A ‘mouvance of gender identity’83 whereby the masculine and the feminine shift valences and positions in the text problematizes both the nature of gender identity and its association with the discursive practices of speaking and writing. The masculine, oral epic world that supposedly masters and erases the cowardly words written by the feminized Infantes de Carrión is undone by the voices of women who, although they are positioned as masculine, utter words that empower their objectified bodies and vilified discourse by speaking of a potent, feminine notion of writing whose power challenges the text’s privileging of masculine modes of discourse. After their brief verbal presence in the Afrenta de Corpes, Elvira and Sol lapse back into silence. Their defiant words are suppressed as the Cid unwrites the Infantes’ cowardly message at the cortes. The reconversion into orality of the Infantes’ text of shame constitutes not only an erasure of the bloody marks of vengeance, but also the reassertion of his power over the bodies and language of his daughters. The Cid had referred to Elvira and Sol as ‘tan blancas commo el sol’ (l. 2333, as white as the sun). Before his appearance at the cortes, the Cid takes great care to clothe himself in garments whose symbolic magnificence cannot fail to impress all those present with his power and prestige (ll. 3085–3100). One of the items of clothing the Cid dons is a ‘camisa de rançal / tan blanca commo el sol’ (l. 3087, a fine shirt, of cloth shining white like the sun). The use of the same metaphorical expression for whiteness suggests an identification of the Cid’s clothing with his daughters’ bodies. The wearing of a fine, white garment at his moment of linguistic triumph is a symbol for the erasure of the Infantes’ text of infamy inscribed on Elvira’s and Sol’s fine, white clothing and bodies. The words of the Cid are responsible for the reconversion of the women into words that can be exchanged for the furthering of the interests of their father’s lineage. Once again they are blank surfaces of inscription, symbolic virgins suitable for marriage into royal bloodlines. Elvira and Sol are now as they used to be – silent objects of exchange. The sexually charged violent inscription that coincided with their destabilizing accession to language and subjectivity has been erased and entirely suppressed by the all powerful voice of the father. They are no longer martyrs whose bodies yield fertile words.

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Yet, the poignant words uttered by Elvira and Sol also constitute a challenge to the modern reader of medieval texts. When Elvira and Sol speak their defiance and attempt to exert authority over the symbolism of their bodies, they, in effect, function as astute readers of the socially sanctioned warrior ethos by which their voices are suppressed and their bodies commodified.84 While the text of the Poema de mio Cid may condemn Elvira and Sol to passive reabsorption into a patriarchal economy of speech and social relations, their words remain to be revivified by critical readers who seek to recast the relationship between language, gender, and society in contexts both medieval and modern.

4 The Metaphorics of Mary: Language and Embodiment in Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora

The struggle over discursive authority and mastery played out on the bodies of women in the Poema de mio Cid must be staged in a very different way when the female body becomes the condition and source of all language. The body of the Virgin Mary becomes both the enabler of language and the linguistic creation of Gonzalo de Berceo in his Milagros de Nuestra Señora. Berceo, a thirteenth-century Castilian poet, fuses text and body as a strategic means of exercising control over both the textualization of Mary and the interpretive strategies required for appropriating her.1 However, unlike the bodies of Elvira and Sol in the Poema de mio Cid, whose textualization attests to their efforts to achieve an achingly brief moment of subjectivity by wresting control over their textualized bodies away from their husbands, the Virgin’s body cannot be as easily yoked to gendered notions of discourse and writing. Although Berceo exploits the conventionally gendered imagery of feminized body and clothing in his creation of a book that both confines and replicates the language of the maternal body in a selfauthorized act of writing that is construed as one of male mastery and power, the gendered nature of the textual product is complicated by Berceo’s fusion of virginal body and textual entity. The paradoxical nature of Mary’s body as both inhabiting his book of miracles and as the powerful authorizing source of all language problematizes the nature of Berceo’s status as auctor. How can Berceo both write the female body and, at the same time, be produced and nourished by that body and the language it enables? Before we can hazard an answer to this question, we first need to understand the way in which Berceo fuses language and body so as to achieve an enviable and almost unimaginable textual mastery.

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109

His Milagros takes its inspiration from the corporeal imagery of metaphor and allegory as modes of enfleshing, as figural mechanisms whereby intangible, ineffable truths or meanings are made manifest to the senses and reason.2 The concept of metaphor as an embodiment of language that enables abstract meaning to take on a concrete form by being clothed in a body or garment is fundamental for an understanding of the way in which Berceo manipulates the figure of the Virgin Mary. Like Prudentius and the anonymous Cid poet, Berceo, in his Milagros de Nuestra Señora, fuses text and feminine body in order to comment metacritically upon the discursive phenomena exemplified in his poem. However, unlike the bodies of the female martyrs and the Cid’s daughters, which are textualized by being written upon in blood, Berceo’s text is not an inscribed body, but rather a poem in which the Virgin is embodied. By making his poetic text equivalent to Mary’s virginal body, Berceo places himself in a position of mastery over both the process of composition or inscription of his corporeal book, and the interpretive strategies required for its correct understanding. However, in Berceo’s Milagros there is tension between Berceo’s writing of the Virgin’s body and the metaphorical function of Mary who bodies forth important truths in rhetorically wrought language, and whose guidance and linguistic example are required for both the composition and the interpretation of those words she embodies. Ever since Jesus was referred to as the Word in Johannine writings (John 1:1–14), the tradition of Christ as incarnate Word was fundamental in the development of the Christology and Trinitarian theology of the early church. The linguistic implications of Christ as Word extend, as well, to Mary, the woman who gave form to and bore the Word. Mary’s relationship to Christ can be viewed as metaphorical in the sense that she enables Christ, the ultimate metaphor, to be made manifest. As we saw in chapter 1, Alain de Lille referred to Christ as the supreme example of a metaphor: as the Verbum incarnatum, he enables truth to become visible so that fallen men, who can perceive reality only through figures (‘per speculum in aenigmate,’ I Cor. 13:12), may apprehend the essence of divinity. However, as modern theorists of metaphor have discovered, a metaphor consists of more than just one translative element. Like an idea which becomes perceptible when it is expressed in language, Christ’s assumption of the garment of humanity from Mary is metaphorical in the sense that a transfer has been accomplished from the properly divine mode to a figurative human one. In order for Christ’s metaphorical crossing of boundaries to be

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articulated, an underlying frame must be present.3 Mary fulfils this important metaphorical function allowing for the distinct articulation of the focus (Christ). She is the underlying literal ‘tenor’ in which the metaphorical or translative ‘vehicle’ becomes embodied. Mary’s metaphorical function of providing the means whereby the previously ineffable Logos is given a tangible, literal humanity, is clearly expressed by another thirteenth-century Hispanic poet. Alfonso X, el Sabio, in cantiga 110 of his Cantigas de Santa María credits Mary with the ability to give body to language: E como pode per lingua seer loada a que fez porque Deus a ssa carne sagrada quis fillar e ser ome, per que foi mostrada sa deidad’ en carne, vista e oyda?4 (And how can one praise with words she who enabled God to want to take on her holy flesh and become man so that his incarnate divinity would be displayed, seen and heard?)

Mary is the means whereby Christ the Word came to be seen and heard. Mary’s metaphorical function can also be expressed in the traditional language of garment which so characterized medieval discussions of metaphor. Richard de St Laurent, master of theology at the University of Paris in the mid-thirteenth century, wrote a huge compendium of Marian lore in which he expresses the Virgin’s incarnational role in images of clothing. Like a metaphor, Mary dresses the Word in a body which she draws out of the wardrobe of her womb: Item, Vestiarium hujus thalami, Gallice, ‘la garderobe’, uterus proprie virginalis, in quo summus pontifex induit vestes mundissimae carnis.5 (Also, the clothes-chest of this chamber, ‘wardrobe’ in French, is the properly virginal womb in which the highest pontiff donned the garment of purest flesh.)

In the Milagros de Nuestra Señora, Mary’s capacity to body forth language is not limited to the articulation of the divine Logos, but also includes the embodiment of poetic discourse.

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In the introduction to his Milagros de Nuestra Señora, Gonzalo de Berceo describes the experience of a pilgrim named ‘Gonçalvo de Verceo’ who happens upon an idyllic garden which corresponds in most of its elements to the topos of the locus amoenus.6 The first fifteen stanzas of the forty-six stanza introduction consist of the presentation of an allegory in which a pilgrim removes his clothes in a fertile meadow blessed with a profusion of flowers, fruit trees, sweetly singing birds and cool, running fountains.7 The rest of the introduction is, for the most part, devoted to the apparently unproblematic allegorical exegesis of the meaning of all these wonders of nature. However, a close reading of the introduction makes it clear that the poet’s explanation of the paradisiacal garden calls for further interpretation on the part of the reader, for Berceo is not only describing and explicating a wondrous garden, but he is also trying to tell us something about the nature of poetic, literary language and its relationship to Mary’s intact body.8 By embodying the Virgin in an allegorical garden and in the words of his book, Berceo exploits Mary’s linguistic presence in his text to offer a series of self-reflexive paradigms of poetic composition and textual interpretation that serve to underscore his own authoritative participation in the incarnational drama of literary production. The association of a woman’s body with a garden or field can be traced back through the ancient cultures of the Near East and the Mediterranean. In the Greek tradition the hortus conclusus or ‘enclosed garden’ was linked to the representation of such a garden as the metaphorical seat of female sexuality and fertility.9 This idea was transmitted to Christian medieval Europe through the Song of Songs which identifies the body of the beloved as a ‘hortus conclusus’ (Cant. 4:12: ‘hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa hortus conclusus fons signatus’).10 Medieval exegetes of the Song of Songs such as Honorius of Autun interpreted the hortus conclusus typologically as the intact, ‘closed’ body of the Virgin Mary who blossoms with virtues and who bears the fruit of Christ.11 Richard de St Laurent, in his Mariale, the De laudibus B. Mariae Virginis, dedicates an entire book of the twelvebook work to the minutely detailed elaboration of Mary as hortus conclusus. One of the dominant characteristics of this garden, according to Richard, is its quality of virginity: ‘Hortus conclusus, quasi duplici clausura corporalis et spiritualis virginitas’ (A Garden enclosed, stands for the twofold physical and spiritual closure of virginity).12

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As is perfectly clear from even a cursory reading of the Song of Songs, the garden is a place of erotic temptation. Despite the attempts of exegetes to restrain the sexual connotations of the hortus by identifying it as the virginal body of Mary, secular Latin poetic and rhetorical texts often emphasize the erotic carnality of the garden. In Latin goliardic lyrics, there is often a correspondence between the features of the garden and the body of a woman, which is meant as a parody of the Song of Songs.13 The thirteenth-century rhetorician Boncompagno da Signa, in his Rhetorica novissima, instructs the student of rhetoric to metaphorize a woman’s body by ‘translating’ it into a fruit-filled garden: pectus vero transumitur in hortulum odoramentorum, et corpus in pomerium florigerum seu pratum amenum. Mamille transumuntur in poma paradisi, vel globos rosarum;14 (indeed, her chest is metaphorized as a little garden full of perfume, and her body as a flowery orchard or a delightful meadow. Her breasts are metaphorized as the fruits of paradise or as the round shapes of roses;)

Berceo’s presentation of Mary’s body as a meadow graced with flowers and fruit-bearing trees is permeated by a desire which becomes apparent when the integral body of the Virgin assumes the position of interpretive object. An examination of the qualities of Berceo’s allegorical garden of Mary will make clearer the implications for the reading and writing of the Virgin’s body. In the first place, the delightful meadow of Mary, which the pilgrim ‘Verceo’ happens to discover, is one that is integral in two senses. It is untouched or intact because it is untilled, and it remains constant or whole in its eternal green freshness: Yo maestro Gonçalvo de Verceo nomnado, yendo en romería caecí en un prado, verde e bien sencido, de flores bien poblado15

(2 abc)

(I who am called Master Gonzalo de Verceo, while on a pilgrimage, happened upon a green, untouched meadow filled with flowers.) El prado qe vos digo avié otra bondat: por calor nin por frío non perdié su beltat,

Language and Embodiment in Milagros de Nuestra Señora siempre estave verde en su entegredat non perdié la verdura por nulla tempestat.

113

(11)

(The meadow about which I am telling you had another good quality: it did not lose its beauty on account of either heat or cold; it was always integrally green and did not lose its greenness due to any storm.)

The reader subsequently discovers that the unchanging greenness of the meadow is a metaphor for Mary’s perpetual chastity and virginity and that the meadow’s integrity represents the Virgin’s body which was intact (‘illesa, incorrupta’) both during and after the birth of Christ (st. 20). Aside from the perfect wholeness embodied in the meadow of Mary, its other remarkable characteristic is its ability to yield a profusion of flowers and trees. The fertility of this field which is unploughed (‘bien sencido,’ 2c) emphasizes the feminine nature of the body of Mary who is both mother (mater) and earth or matter (materia). As meadow, Mary is assimilated to the parthenogenetic earth which requires no man to work it since it is fruitful and powerful in and of itself. Richard de St Laurent is in harmony with Berceo when he refers to Mary as the virgin earth: ‘Nullus enim homo operatus est in ea terra virgine, de qua formatus est Christus’ (For no man has worked that virgin earth from which Christ was formed, De laud. VIII.1, p. 400; my trans.). These qualities of fertility and integrity that are essential to this corporeal meadow are mirrored by numerous other aspects of the hortus. In addition to symbolizing the body of Mary, the garden can also be viewed as a textual entity partaking of the same closure and dynamism as the body-field. Fields, flowers, and gardens have a long tradition of being associated metaphorically with writing and literary language. The image of writing as the sowing of a field is a very ancient one and formed the basis for Prudentius’s transformation of the written letters of martyrdom into such a dynamic, salvific force. The rhetorical tradition has always used the language of flowers to refer to the adornment of an oral or written text with figures and tropes.16 In the case of Prudentius’s Peristephanon, which I discussed in chapter 2, the written words of torture inflicted on the body of the martyr Eulalia are metamorphosed into flowers growing around her body, and are subsequently turned back into words by the poet who weaves poetic garlands to honour the virgin-saint.

114 Figuring the Feminine

In later medieval formulations, the trees, which are usually an integral element of a garden, are often allegorized as pertaining to discursive phenomena. Rabanus Maurus likens the leaves of trees to the words of God: ‘Folium est verbum Dei’ (A leaf is the word of God); ‘Folium vero sermonem doctrinae significat’ (A leaf signifies the language of doctrine).17 Richard de St Laurent, in his De laudibus makes the trees of Mary’s hortus bear leaves which are ‘verba et exempla,’ although it is unclear whether these ‘verba’ are Mary’s or God’s (De laud. XII.i.6.1, p. 613). It was also a common dictum that ‘praedicare est arborizare’ (to preach is to make a tree) since as Peter Dronke points out ‘the well-grown sermon must be rooted in a theme, that flourishes in the trunk of a biblical auctoritas, and thence grows into branches and twigs: the divisions and subdivisions whereby the preacher extends his subject matter.’18 Matthew of Vendôme in his Ars versificatoria, prologue 7, considers that poems are, in a sense, equivalent to trees since he admonishes versifiers not to write ragged, subversive poems which have so little foliage that they cast shade by their trunks rather than by their leaves.19 The trees in Mary’s garden in the Milagros must be similar to very well-wrought poems since they cast a shade which is ‘tan temprada’ (so cool, st. 6b), and so inviting that the pilgrim removes his clothing so that he may more easily enjoy the pleasures of the shade (st. 6cd, 7a).20 When the ‘meaning’ of the garden is revealed, we discover that the shade of the trees is, indeed, discursive in nature since it is a metaphor of the mediatory prayers (and most likely poetic ones) which Mary sends to heaven on behalf of earthly sinners: La sombra de los árbores, buena, dulz e sanía en qui ave repaire toda la romería, sí son oraciones que faz santa María que por los peccadores ruega noche e día.

(23)

(The good, sweet, healthful shade of the trees in which all pilgrims have refuge is indeed the prayers which holy Mary says on behalf of the sinners for whom she prays night and day.)

It is quite striking that the pleasure and refreshment that the naked pilgrim derives from the shade of Mary’s trees is also the pleasure of language used by Mary to intercede with Christ or God on his behalf.

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The gardens which beautified the cloisters of medieval monasteries were thought to prefigure the celestial paradise that awaits the virtuous monk. Honorius of Autun interprets the fruit-bearing trees of this garden in an explicitly textual manner: ‘Diversae arbores fructiferae sunt diversi libri sacrae Scripturae’ (The different fruit-bearing trees are the various books of sacred Scripture).21 The implication of this symbolic equivalence is that if the monk correctly consumes and internalizes the words or fruit of Scripture, he will attain the blessing of paradise. The interpretive potential of the textual nature of the garden is brought out most clearly by Richard de St Laurent: Et hi flores sunt sententiae Evangelii, quae tempore veris, id est, gratiae emanaverunt de pratis Scripturae Veteris Testamenti, quae clausae erant tempore hiemis, id est legis. (De laud. XII.vi.1.2, p. 715) (And these flowers are the meanings of the Gospels, which, in the springtime, that is, the time of grace, emanated from the fields of the Old Testament and which had been confined by the wintertime, that is, the Law.)

The sententiae or ‘flowers’ of the Gospels represent the blossoming (or fulfilment) of the Old Testament, since not only are the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New, but Christ himself constitutes the culmination of Old Testament law. The flowers of ‘textual meaning’ growing out of the books of the Old Testament are symbols of the proper figural interpretation required for an understanding of Scripture, which will quicken and animate its meaning so that the reader, like the flowers, will flourish and escape the sterile consequences of a carnal, literal reading. The garden created by Berceo in the introduction to the Milagros embodies in a literal way the virginity and fertility of Mary, as has already been evinced by the integrality of the meadow which is Mary’s body and by the copiousness of the trees and flowers produced by it. However, the garden-body of Mary formed out of Berceo’s poetic language also partakes of the linguistic, textual nature which characterized other allegorical representations of the medieval garden. The running fountains that are a part of any typical description of a garden acquire a rather uncharacteristic interpretation. The description in stanza 3cd that places the ‘fuentes claras’ (clear fountains) flowing out of all four corners of the meadow, becomes much more interesting when, in stanza 21, the reader discovers that they are allegorically equivalent to the four Gospels:

116 Figuring the Feminine Las quatro fuentes claras qe del prado manavan, los quatro evangelios, esso significavan, ca los evangelistas quatro qe los dictavan quando los escrivién con ella se fablavan.

(21)

(The four clear fountains which flowed from the meadow signified the four Gospels, because the four Evangelists who drafted them were speaking with her [Mary] when they wrote them down in final version.)

The fact that the discourse of the Gospels seems to flow effortlessly from the meadow that is Mary’s body, and that the Evangelists derive the content and form of their compositions from the authoritative mouth of the Virgin, suggest that Mary and her garden are at the source of discourse, both divine and earthly. Berceo’s identification of Mary’s body as the metaphorical vehicle whereby not only the Word, but also written words of Scripture are formed finds a close analogue in Richard de St Laurent’s designation of the fountains of the Virgin’s hortus as the ‘sacrarum fluenta Scripturarum’ (streams of sacred Scripture), and of the Virgin herself as ‘armarium Scripturarum’ (a bookcase for the Scriptures, De laud. XII.ii.11, p. 643). Saint Ildephonsus of Toledo wrote in his De virginitate perpetua Sanctae Mariae (which was to become a model for both Berceo’s and Alfonso el Sabio’s literary attitudes towards Mary)22 that the Virgin is a fertile source of the Word: ‘Verbo fecunda, uerbo repleta, uerbo uberrima.’23 Mary is not only a passive source of language out of whom stream the words of God, but rather, she exerts direct control over the discourse emanating from her body. After she functions as the source of the writings of the evangelists, she then impresses her linguistic authority upon their written texts: Quatro escrivién ellos, ella lo emendava, esso era bien firme lo qe ella laudava; parece que el riego todo d’ella manava quando a menos d’ella nada non se guiava.24

(22)

(The four of them were writing and she was correcting it. Whatever she praised was set down firmly. It seems that the entire stream was flowing from her since without her there would be no guidance.)

There are other instances in Berceo’s opus where he explicitly makes of Mary a spur to literary activity or a source of narrative or poetic materia.

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In El duelo de la Virgen, Mary appears to the monk St Bernard who has been devoutly praying to her with a request that he collaborate with her in the writing of a literary narrative: el tu ruego me trae apriessa e cueitossa: quiero qe compongamos yo e tú una prossa.25 (Your prayer draws me with haste and sadness: I want you and I to compose a narrative.)

Berceo presents the Virgin as the instigator of literary production, as the Muse which impels the saint to want to relate Christ’s story. Bernard is almost like a note-taker of the materia supplied by Mary (12ab) and it is clear that he is not in control of the text he is writing since it is Mary who steers the course of the story. She is the one who decides that enough has been said about Christ’s Crucifixion since one can already read about it in the Gospels (43), and that it is time to turn the narrative to her own spiritual crucifixion (44cd). In effect, Mary is presiding over the process of her own textualization which began when her white clothing received the red stains of Christ’s blood during the Passion (53ab). In another of Berceo’s works, the Loores de Nuestra Señora, Mary is the source of the poet’s discourse since it is she who furnishes the materia necessary for the elaboration of the text: tú.m da bien empeçar tú.m da bien acomplir, que pueda tu materia qual o como seguir.26 (Let me make a good beginning and a good end, let your ‘materia’ tell me what to write and how to proceed.)

Mary’s materia is an inexhaustible source of poetry which will never run dry when poets drink from its waters of inspiration (Loores 225). Mary’s connection to language in the introduction to the Milagros is evident not only in the streams of language flowing from her body, but also in the flowers beautifying her meadow. The allegorical explanation for the flowers runs as follows: Tornemos ennas flores qe componen el prado, qe lo facen fermoso, apuesto e temprado;

118 Figuring the Feminine las flores son los nomnes qe li da el dictado a la Virgo María, madre del buen Criado.

(31)

(Let us return to the flowers which compose the meadow and make it beautiful, delightful, and harmonious; the flowers are the names which poetry gives to the Virgin Mary, mother of the good Son.)

I have chosen to translate ‘dictado’ as ‘poetry’ rather than as ‘book’ or ‘text,’ which would accord with the more common interpretation of this stanza as proving Berceo’s reliance upon written sources. The Old Spanish word dictado was used in the Libro de buen amor to refer to ‘poesía’ and the medieval Latin meaning of the verb dicto and its derivative forms encompasses the semantic field of ‘versifying.’27 Alejandro Uli Ballaz is the only reader of Berceo’s Milagros to point out that the ‘dictado,’ or the names of Mary which we ‘read’ refers not to a source, but to the text itself of the Milagros, which contains many poetic references to Mary, or it may refer to poetry in general from which one can garner praise for her.28 These poetic names growing in Mary’s hortus adorn the virginal meadow in the same way that rhetorical figures and tropes (or ‘flowers’) beautify the body or res of a text. Geoffrey of Vinsauf, in his Poetria nova calls the easy figures (‘ornatus facilis’) flowers which the mind’s finger plucks from the field of rhetoric and strews throughout the composition upon which it is intent.29 Geoffrey, in a passage of great subtlety, talks about the metaphorical construction of hidden comparisons as a technique in which a contrived transsumptio is made to appear as natural as plants in the garden of the poet’s materia: Hoc genus est plantae, quod si plantetur in horto Materiae, tractatus erit jocundior

(Poetria nova, ll. 256–7)

(It is a kind of plant; if it is planted in the garden of the material, the treatise will be pleasanter. [Trans. Nims, slightly modified, p. 25])

In Berceo’s garden, the Virgin’s body is the materia adorned by the rhetorical flowers which are, in fact, metaphorical, poetic names that beautify the book of the Milagros as well as Mary. As Berceo indicates in stanza 31 of the introduction, these flowers or poetic names ‘componen’ (‘compose’ in both senses of ‘form’ and ‘create a literary work’) by participating in the artistic elaboration of the meadow, and of Mary as she is embodied in it.

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There is yet another tradition of imagery reaching as far back as the classical period, in which poetry is symbolized by a field and individual poems are metaphorical flowers.30 The equation of poems or prayers with flowers subtends the rise of the cult of the Virgin Mary, which develops a form of worship known as the rosarium. The rosary consisted of beads (in Spain these beads may have been made from the petals of roses) which stood for individual psalms or prayers strung together like roses in a garland. As Colbert Nepaulsingh has shown, rosaries were sometimes the structural model for the composition of literary works which he calls ‘books on a string,’ and in which tradition he places the Milagros and Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa María.31 In the Cantigas there are several explicit instances in which flowers substitute for poems or prayers, and vice versa. In cantiga 121, a devotee of Mary weaves a garland of roses for her, but in the absence of roses he recites an ‘Ave Maria’ which then takes the place of the rose in the string of flowers.32 In the miracle related in cantiga 56, the reward of a faithful monk who composed five psalms for Mary (one for each letter in her name), set them to music, and recited them every day throughout his life was the discovery, after his death, of a rosebush boasting five blooms growing out of his mouth.33 In this case, the words and music written in praise of Mary are replaced by roses which are a representation of the Virgin as ‘rosa mystica.’ Berceo, by allegorizing the flowers of Mary’s integral hortus as poetic names, is tapping into an established tradition of Marian symbolism. However, unlike most other authors of works praising the Virgin but similar to Prudentius, who weaves his poetic garlands out of the spiritually charged bodies of virgin martyrs, Berceo characterizes the flowers of the virginal meadow in such a way that the miraculous qualities of Mary are absorbed by the language of poetry growing out of her body. The body of Mary which, although virgin, produces parthenogenetically its own flowers and trees, exemplifies a fertility that comes to characterize the poetry of the ‘names’ which poets reap from her. As in the case of the streams of discourse flowing out of her in the form of the four Gospels, Mary is a source of poetry that is spontaneously fertile and inexhaustible; the moment one picks these flowers, new ones immediately spring up to replace them: Los omnes e las aves, quantos acaecién, levavan de las flores quantas levar querién, mas mengua en el prado ninguna non facién, por una qe levavan tres e quatro nacién.

(13)

120 Figuring the Feminine (The men and birds who happened upon [this place] took as many of the flowers as they desired; but there was no shortage in the meadow because for every one that they took, another three or four sprang up.)

The poetic compositions or names glorifying Mary are innumerable and potentially endless, embodying both those already written, which we can read, and those that have yet to be articulated (42cd). This representation of the Virgin as an endless source of discourse is also reinforced by the imagery of water, which signifies the streams of language that never cease flowing from her. In the last miracle of the collection (miracle 25, ‘La iglesia robada’), Berceo reminds the reader that the poetic narrative that he is about to recount is only one of an unfathomable number of miracles and miracle-texts of which Mary is source: Aún otro miraclo vos querría contar, qe fizo la Gloriosa, non es de oblidar; fuent perenal es Ella de qui mana la mar, qe en sazón ninguna non cessa de manar.

(703 [867])

(I would like to recount still another miracle which La Gloriosa performed; it should not be forgotten; She is an eternal source from which flows the sea, and at no time does it ever cease flowing.)

Berceo’s book of Mary, consisting of twenty-five miracle texts in addition to the introduction is, in fact, identical to the Virgin’s garden as the reader discovers in stanza 25 when it is stated that the trees in the hortus are Mary’s miracles. At the end of the introduction the voice of the author says that it is time to ascend, like a bird, to the miracle-trees for the purpose of committing them to writing in the book that follows (45ab). The book, then, shares the same qualities of fertility and integrity as the meadow, body, and garden which both contain and are contained by Mary. If the Virgin’s ‘exiemplos’ or miracles multiply like the flowers growing out of her body-field, they are too numerous to be contained by any one ‘dictado’ (412), and this implies that the discourse or poetic language which has its source in Mary must necessarily overflow the boundaries of this garden-book (or any book for that matter) that attempts to contain her. This hortus, although integral and complete, paradoxically signals a need for expansion to accommodate the books of miracle-trees and flowers engendered by Mary which will be written by future poets. Mary, by virtue of her miracles and of her

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metaphorical status as a vehicle for language, generates the potentiality for endless discourse and written texts.34 The integrity of the Virgin’s hortus is reflected in other elements of the garden which can also be considered as textual. In stanza 7 of the introduction, Berceo describes the harmonious singing of birds that fills the air: odí sonos de aves dulces e modulados; nunqa udieron omnes órganos más temprados, nin qe formar pudiessen sones más acordados

(7bcd)

(I heard the sweet, well modulated sounds of birds; never has anyone heard more well-tuned instruments, nor could anyone make more harmonious sounds.)

The melody created by these birds is quite unearthly, since their singing is far superior to any sound produced by musical instruments (8). The harmony of the birds’ diaphonal song results in a unity or a ‘materia ungada,’35 which can be likened to a weaving whose filaments of sound blend perfectly into the melodious whole. In the latter part of the introduction, the birds’ mellifluous song is allegorized as the writings of the church fathers who wove written texts about the Virgin: Las aves que organan entre essos fructales, qe han las dulzes vozes, dizen cantos leales, estos son Agustino, Gregorio, otros tales, quantos qe escrivieron los sus fechos reales.

(26)

(The birds who sing in the fruit trees, who have sweet voices, and who warble loyal songs, they are Augustine, Gregory, and all others like them who wrote down her majestic deeds.)

The strings or threads of this musical text are the church fathers whose writings about Mary are woven into a doctrinal whole which is as unified and incorruptible as she herself is: todos fablavan d’ella, cascuno su sentencia, pero tenién por todo todos una creencia.

(27cd)

(they were all speaking of her, each one had his own expression, but they all held one belief.)

122 Figuring the Feminine

Thus Mary, embodied in her integral garden-book, is the kind of text that is characterized as a doctrinal monolith whose elements are contained in the garden and throughout the Milagros. In fact, Berceo presents himself as one of the authoritative (and male) birds whose voices form the threads of this seamless song: Quiero en estos árbores un ratiello sobir e de los sos miraclos algunos escrivir.

(45ab)

(I want to climb up into those trees for a while and write down some of her miracles.)

Berceo seems to be suggesting that, as one of the birds in the trees of Mary’s hortus, he has the poetic power to produce a text for Mary which embodies the qualities of integrality and harmony that characterize the Virgin herself. In fact, the production of both music and poetry was considered to be so similar in the Middle Ages that poetry was traditionally seen as a branch of music, as another manifestation in sound of musica.36 In one famous expression of the commonality of music and poetry, Guido of Arezzo stresses the similar laws governing both art forms and the resulting pleasure of proportional sound: sicut persaepe videmus tam consonos et sibimet alterutrum respondentes versus in metris, ut quamdam quasi symphoniam grammaticae admireris. Cui si musica simili responsione iungatur, duplici modulatione dupliciter delecteris.37 (Thus in verse we often see such concordant and mutually congruous lines that you wonder, as it were, at a certain harmony of language. And if music were added to this, with a similar internal congruity, you would be double charmed by a twofold melody.)

Musical composition was also sometimes referred to as the rhetorical elaboration of materia which included terms of troping and the language of flowers.38 Not only was music conceived of in terms of poetry, but the writing of poetry was thought to be a thoroughly musical activity in which it was important to arrange harmoniously syllables, lines, and stanzas. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, vernacular poets sought to create ‘armonia’ in words by a precise numbering of syllables.39 This is most interesting since Berceo was

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writing his poetic embodiment of Mary in a verse form that is known as ‘cuaderna vía,’ one of whose primary characteristics is that it is ‘a sílabas contadas.’40 Berceo is certainly aware of the interpenetration of poetry and music when he presents his authorial role as that of a bird who will sing a harmonious book of miracles in praise of Mary. The structural integrity of the meadow and the song of the birds is also mirrored by the strong sense of unity and closure which characterizes the book of the Milagros as a whole. As the reader or listener progresses through the narration of each miracle, he is constantly reminded that he has not left the sealed, integral enclosure of the garden, which is so carefully laid out and explained in the introduction. In Berceo’s prefatory remarks to miracle 21 ‘La abadesa preñada,’ he refers to the coming narration as a ‘place’ which God has helped the reader or listener to reach, thereby suggesting that the book of the Milagros is a metaphorical journey through the garden of Mary. Berceo, as a bird who sings/writes of the miracle-trees, escorts the reader into the Virgin’s garden, and guides him through it, pausing before each tree to elucidate in writing the miracle which it represents: Sennores e amigos, companna de prestar deque Dios se vos quiso traer a est logar,41 aún si me quissiéssedes un poco esperar, en un otro miraclo vos querría fablar.

(500)

(Gentlemen and friends, most worthy company, since it was God’s will to bring you to this place, if you would be a little patient with me, I would like to tell you another miracle.)

At the end of miracle 5, ‘El pobre caritativo,’ Berceo urges the audience on to the shade of the next tree. The trees of the introduction are those to which the reader or listener must proceed, for these are the trees in whose shade birds sing harmoniously and tired pilgrims/readers rest: Aun más adelante queremos aguijar, tal razón como ésta non es de destajar, ca éstos son los árbores do devemos folgar, en cuya sombra suelen las aves organar.

(141)42

(We want to move still further on; a story like this one ought not to be abbreviated, for these are the trees where we should rest, in whose shade birds are wont to sing harmoniously.)

124 Figuring the Feminine

If the narration of Mary’s miracles is equivalent to a walk through her garden, the Christian who makes a pilgrimage to this embodiment of her will surely encounter other elements of the hortus invoked throughout the book.43 The sweet and tasty fruit of redemption temptingly hanging from Mary’s miracle-trees (15abc) is recalled by a reference to a delicious morsel which will reward the reader or listener who absorbs into memory or ‘digests’44 the miracle that he is about to hear: De un otro miraclo vos querría contar qe fizo la Gloriosa estrella de la mar, si oírme quisiéredes bien podedes jurar qe de mejor boccado non podriédes tastar.

(501)

(I would like to tell you another miracle that the Glorious Virgin, guiding star, performed, if you deign to hear me, you can well swear that you could not eat a tastier morsel.)

In miracle 12, ‘El prior y Uberto el sacristán,’ Mary rescues the prior of a monastery from the rigours of hell by escorting him to a temperate and protected place (297ab) where he, like the romero in the introduction, happens upon (or falls into: ‘caer en’) a sweet garden (‘dulz vergel’) where there is no lack of food (298cd).45 This paradisiacal garden is in essence the same as the one in which Mary and Berceo’s book are embodied, and which is also described as an analogue of Paradise (14a). The mirroring of the book by the garden is achieved, in part, by the technique of weaving various elements of the introduction into the fabric of the whole book for the purpose of producing an integral, coherent text. This coherence is most evident in the scattering of the poetic flowers growing out of Mary throughout the Milagros. Berceo adds his own epilogue to miracle 13, ‘Jerónimo, el nuevo ovispo de Pavia,’ in which he praises Mary profusely by employing the kind of poetic epithets (although these ‘flowers’ are literal adjectives rather than allegorical names) that would qualify him as a true craftsman of rosaries. At the end of miracle 22, ‘El náufrago salvado por la Virgen,’ Berceo adds five stanzas of loores (620–4) to his adaptation of the Latin miracle in order to underscore the presence of the ‘flowers’ of the introduction which have been woven together to form a poetic garland.

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The physical closure of the Virgin’s body that is reflected in the enclosed hortus and the unploughed meadow is manifested structurally in the book as a kind of reiterative circularity whereby the first miracle is linked to the last. Before discussing the thematic and interpretive implications of this linkage, I want briefly to sketch out the textual evidence for viewing the Milagros in this light. First, however, it needs to be pointed out that the last miracle of the collection will be considered to be the one entitled ‘La iglesia robada,’ which Brian Dutton, following the order of manuscript F rather than that of the older manuscript I tradition, chose to place next to last since he thought the miracle of Teófilo had a more fitting ending.46 As James Burke has pointed out, the placing of ‘La iglesia robada’ in the final position would allow one to view miracles number 1 and 25 as having the function of a subframe for the book and as being tied to the introduction through the use of clothing imagery.47 In the introduction, the romero removes his clothing, and instead ‘puts on’ Mary by lying down in her meadow; in the first miracle, that of ‘La casulla de San Ildefonso,’ the Virgin’s seamless garment is fittingly donned by the favoured Ildephonsus and is improperly appropriated by the arrogant Siagrio; while in miracle 25, pieces of cloth associated with Mary are manhandled by thieves and shown proper respect by those devoted to her.48 The structural stability of the Milagros in which the end rejoins the beginning exemplifies a common theoretical precept of medieval poetics where the closure of a text can be treated as a way of harmonizing the means and end, or content and structure, of a literary work. Geoffrey of Vinsauf considers that a skilful poet will have the end of the work in mind from the outset, and that this should determine how the text will begin. Rosemarie P. McGerr has explained this idea of closure as follows: ‘By presenting the text’s “end” as the introduction as well as conclusion, an author can lead the audience to view the rest of the text from a specific perspective – which may be the whole point of rhetorical language.’49 Berceo’s ‘closed’ or integral structuring of the Milagros accomplishes two literary goals: it emphasizes that this book of Mary’s miracles is a reflection or embodiment of the Virgin’s corporeal integrity that is under the firm control of Berceo’s literary mastery, and it leads the reader or listener to consider the importance of garments to the understanding of the work as a whole. The transference of the physical quality of virginity or closure to a book is not without basis in the richly elaborated symbolic world of mariology. Richard de St Laurent allegorizes Mary as a book (‘Fuit

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enim Maria liber continens’ [For Mary was a chaste book], De laud. XII.vii.4.2, p. 830) composed by the Holy Spirit, who was also responsible for the writing of the Word inside her virginal womb. The chaste or enclosed quality of Mary as book poses problems of interpretation, since it is impossible to read a book that is ‘closed’: Et dicitur liber iste ‘grandis’ dignitate, scientiae profunditate, multimoda difficultate, sententiarum inscrutabilitate, et omnimoda utilitate’ (De laud. XII.vii.4.2, p. 830) (And this book is ‘great’ in dignity, in the profundity of its wisdom, in its multifaceted difficulty, in the inscrutability of its meanings and in its allpurpose utility.)

However, the reader of Berceo’s virginal book has its author as a guide to the interpretive procedures necessary for the uncovering or opening up of its meanings. The relationship of the Virgin’s hortus to the embodiment and expression of words, especially the writing down of texts, brings us to a consideration of another kind of textuality, that which is associated with the weaving (texere) of rhetorical garments or words which may impede or facilitate interpretation. As we saw in chapter 1, the manipulation of garment imagery is a common way of referring to the embodiment of language in veils of metaphor or allegory, and to the revelation of an underlying meaning or truth hidden beneath an integumentum which may protectively cover or deceitfully disguise that meaning. In the introduction to the Milagros, the body-field of Mary is adorned by poetic flowers in the same way that rhetorical figures and tropes clothe and beautify literary materia. The poetic garment of flowers in which Mary is dressed is, in fact, an outgrowth of her own body, and therefore would in all likelihood share in the remarkable qualities of the virgin meadow. In Spanish Romanesque art, statues of the Virgin were carved with cloaks which were coterminous with their bodies, and thus appeared to be stuck or fused to the body underneath. Such cloaks were often without pleats which made it more difficult to distinguish them from the Virgin’s body.50 The identity of actual garments associated with Mary and those garments of words woven for her by devotees such as Berceo or Alfonso X implies that the Virgin’s wholeness is present not only in her body, but is also imparted to the ‘texts’ which come into contact with her. A proper respect for Mary’s intact body would also have to manifest

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itself in the weaving of suitably harmonious poetic words and vestments. In cantiga 295 of Alfonso’s Cantigas de Santa María, there is a remarkable poem about a king who greatly honoured Mary by doing two things. First, he would clothe her statues in rich clothing: e fazia-as [figuras] vestir … De mui ricos panos d’ouro/ e de mui nobre lavor,

(ll. 10–12, 3:85)

(and he dressed [the statues] in rich gold cloth, nobly worked.)

On feast days he would dress the Virgin in more elaborate finery in order to do her even greater honour (ll. 17–18, 3:85). The second way the king did obeisance to her was to praise her miracles in song: demais trobava per ela / segund’ oý departir … Des i aqueles cantares / eran dos miragres seus muitos e maravillosos / que mostra por ela Deus,

(ll. 20–3, 3:85–6)

(In addition, he would write and sing poetry for her, as I heard tell … And those songs were about the many and wondrous miracles which God displays by means of her,)

The actions of dressing Mary and recounting her miracles in poetic song won for the king a special reward from the Heavenly Queen who humbled herself before the king in a vision so as to repay his devotion to her (ll. 37–55). This king, who probably is meant to be Alfonso himself, receives a reward from Mary because he respected and honoured her by dressing her body in both clothing and words. What stands out in this episode is the association between the body of the Virgin and the language of poetry, which suggests that a proper linguistic stance vis-à-vis Mary is tied to a veneration of that body that enabled the Word to become visible and audible. Berceo, having written the book of the Milagros, which is an embodiment of the holy virginity of Mary, has demonstrated his privileged ability to ‘read’ and understand Mary’s mystery. He has been blessed with the knowledge of how to remove the Virgin’s integuments so that he can better render the wonders of her body in words of poetry, and this is the knowledge that he wishes to convey to his readers. Although Berceo appears to acknowledge Mary as the source of all language, his

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appropriation of this language through his self-reflexive act of writing and auto-interpretation makes Mary’s linguistic power dependent on his textual and hermeneutic mastery. Through the manipulation of clothing imagery in the introduction and in miracles 1 and 25, Berceo attempts not only to guide the reader through his book, but also to reveal that the appropriation of the Virgin’s verbal power is predicated on an understanding and respect for the Virgin concretized in the individual’s correct use and interpretation of language.51 Both reading and writing the body of Mary become gendered acts which serve to channel the Virgin’s power and efface the priority of her linguistic nature. As we have already seen, the allegorical introduction is much more than the presentation and exegesis of a delightful garden. This hortus is bound up with so much textual symbolism that we might be tempted to think that we are in the garden of poetry or literary language, as well as in the confines of Berceo’s book. Before Berceo explicates the meaning of the garden-allegory whose components he has just described, he alerts the reader to a need for allegoresis in terms that are entirely conventional: Sennores e amigos, lo qe dicho avemos palavra es oscura, esponerla queremos; tolgamos la corteza, al meollo entremos, prendamos lo de dentro, lo de fuera dessemos.

(16)

(Gentlemen and friends, what we have said is obscure in its language, [and] we want to explain it; let us remove the shell and penetrate to the kernel; let us take what is on the inside, and leave what is on the outside.)

Berceo is using a traditional metaphor of integumentary interpretation to indicate to the reader that the removal of a veil or integumentum is required in order for the underlying meaning of the garden to be rendered manifest.52 The first two elements of the hortus to be explained are the ‘romero’ and the meadow. The former, we discover, corresponds to ‘everyman’s’ pilgrimage through life in this world (17–19) until the destination of Paradise can be reached. Such pilgrims need the meadow of Mary to refresh them during their long and arduous journey (17–19). The latter component, the meadow, is explained as the intact body of the Virgin (20). The mention of the pilgrim and the meadow immediately after the narrator advises the reader to remove a textual integument sends the reader back to the beginning of the allegory where a

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pilgrim removes his clothing (or ‘integuments’) and lies down in the meadow. It is quite curious that this divestment of garments on the part of the romero is virtually the only element in the allegory which is not subsequently explained. It is only referred to in a very indirect manner when Berceo mentions that weary pilgrims who journey through life may take refuge in the meadow of Mary (19ab). There is the possibility, however, that the ‘corteza’ is a reference to the pilgrim’s removal of his clothing, and if so, what would this have to do with the allegorical strategy of reading implied by this imagery? In stanza 6, a pilgrim who is named ‘Gonçalvo de Verceo’ takes off his clothing (‘ropiella’) and lies beneath the shade of a tree in a meadow which is also a representation of both Mary’s integrity and the book of the Milagros. If the romero is not only ‘Verceo,’ but also every Christian who journeys from this life to the next, the removal of the garments or integuments by the pilgrim must be intended as a demonstration for all Christians who want to know how to interpret or ‘put on’ the body of Mary as it manifests itself in language, how to ‘read’ the salvific meaning of Mary. The romero appears to slide effortlessly out of his garments, thereby indicating that the removal of integuments poses no problem for him. The fact that he managed to find his way into the sealed meadow of Mary suggests that the pilgrim enjoys a privileged relationship to the truth of Mary which allows him to take off his clothing and assimilate himself to her (or ‘don’ her) by lying naked in the meadow which is both her body and the words it produces. The exchange of the pilgrim’s garment for that of Mary has been seen by critics as the sloughing off of the garment of sin in order to wear the perfect garment of Mary, or as the elimination of the need for any kind of covering, since the need for clothing came about only as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin in Eden.53 In both interpretations, the removal of the romero’s clothing is indicative of the attainment of a perfect state of grace, innocence, and redemption. However, given the association of the meadow with the book of miracles, of the trees with narrative episodes, of the flowers with poetry, and of the fountains with discourse, the pilgrim’s removal of his clothing must point to a particularly intimate relationship between the male body of the poet/ pilgrim and the feminized sacred earth whose feminized body yields spiritually powerful words. As Berceo has already demonstrated to the reader, he knows how to remove the integumenta of her garden. What Berceo is doing is sending a clear signal to the reader that he must follow the pilgrim ‘Verceo’ into the garden and throughout the book, and

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carefully observe the example of the romero if he desires to follow the procedures set forth for the removal of integuments. Only then will the reader learn how to ‘read’ Mary’s book and thus to attain the proper linguistic, interpretive relationship with her which will enable him to ‘put on’ Mary and be led to salvation. One important way of using language correctly in connection with Mary is the composition of poetry in her honour, as the poet-king in Alfonso’s Cantigas was well aware. The exchange of garments on the part of the pilgrim may also indicate that one must not only grasp the meaning and truth of Mary’s garden, body, or book through interpretation, but that one is required to imitate her metaphorical function by producing words that share in the quality of divinity by reflecting the rectitudo which should characterize man’s language vis-à-vis God. Geoffrey of Vinsauf refers to tropes such as metaphor as ‘translationes,’ or as the movement from one place to another. Words become pilgrims or ‘wander’ when they assume a metaphorical function, just as the romero named Verceo happens upon Mary’s garden.54 In a sense, he has accomplished a poetic translatio which is only underscored by the action of exchanging his garment for that of Mary (another kind of translatio), since the dressing or veiling of meaning in other clothes is a fundamentally poetic or metaphorical gesture (see chapter 1). Thus, ‘Verceo,’ by happening upon Mary’s pleasant garden while on a pilgrimage and by donning the garment-meadow-body of the Virgin, engages in an essentially poetic journey. This journey begins in the allegorical garden where the romero, in paradigmatic fashion, displays to the reader or listener the removal of Mary’s integumenta so that her beauty and truth may be apprehended and simultaneously transformed into harmonious words of poetry. By miracle 25, the end of the journey, Berceo will have demonstrated, through the use of positive and negative exempla, how one ought to treat the body of Mary and the language it bears. If the reader learns his lesson well, he should receive Mary’s divine favour. After setting out in rather cryptic form some guidelines for the removal of integuments and the proper use of language, Berceo steers the audience out of the introduction, to the first miracle-tree, ‘Milagro de la casulla de San Ildefonso’ where there is a much more explicit lesson about the correct use of language and the fitting reverence for Mary’s body. In this miracle, which is part of the book’s subframe, writing, garments, and corporeal integrity all play a fundamental role in the elucidation of this interpretive exemplum. Saint Ildephonsus is said to

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have honoured Mary in two ways: by moving her feast day from March to mid-December so that it would be closer to the date of Christ’s birth, and thus its celebration would no longer be restricted by the Lenten season (52, 54–6); and by writing a book praising her virginity: Fizo d’ella un libro de dichos colorados de su virginitat contra tres renegados.

(51cd)

(He made a book about (of) her, about her virginity, coloured with beautiful words, which was directed against three heretics.)

The preposition ‘de’ in 51c is quite ambiguous for it can mean either ‘about’ or ‘of,’ which would allow for a twofold interpretation of this verse. Ildephonsus obviously wrote a book about Mary’s virginity, but like Berceo’s book of Milagros, it may also have been one which turned the Virgin’s physical integrity into a text embodying her corporeal closure. Like Berceo, the Toledan saint used the flowers of rhetoric (‘dichos colorados’) to adorn and beautify his textual evocation of Mary’s physical state. Ildephonsus and Berceo are similar because they both have written books in praise of Mary, and they have, therefore, behaved in a proper linguistic manner towards the Virgin and have shown the required respect to her body. The reward, in both cases, is the granting of the privilege to ‘wear’ Mary. It is as a result of his having written such a book that the Virgin appears to Ildephonsus with his book in her hand, and bestows upon him a wondrous chasuble: Apareció.l la Madre del Rey de magestat, con un libro en mano de muy grand claridat, el qe él avié fecho de la virginidat: plogo.l a Illefonso de toda voluntat. Fízoli otra gracia qual nunca fue oída: dioli una casulla sin aguja cosida; obra era angélica, non de omne texida, fablóli pocos vierbos, razón buena, complida.55

(59–60)

(The Mother of the majestic king appeared to him with a shining book in her hand; it was the one he had written about her virginity. This pleased Ildephonsus through and through. She did him another honour, the like

132 Figuring the Feminine of which has never been heard: she gave him a chasuble, sewn without a needle; it was an angelic piece of work, not woven by man; she said a few words to him; her speech was perfect and good.)

Ildephonsus’s action of using language to praise Mary’s virginity in textual form brings about the bestowal of a garment (another kind of ‘text’) which also embodies the corporeal perfection of Mary since it is seamlessly woven without the agency of human hands or needle. Thus Saint Ildephonsus is graced with the privilege of wearing a heavenly garment which is also an incarnation of Mary’s physical integrity. Like the romero in the introduction, Ildephonsus has used words to praise and embody the perfection of Mary, thereby demonstrating his love and understanding of her truth. It is this that enables both Ildephonsus and ‘Verceo’ to become assimilated to Mary, to ‘put on’ the virginal garment of redemption. In contrast to the positive exemplum of Ildephonsus, whose discourse of praise won him the blessing of wearing the seamless chasuble, his successor to the archbishopric of Toledo, an arrogant man named Siagrio, demonstrates that an abuse of language goes hand in hand with a disrespect for the Virgin’s body. When Ildephonsus received the chasuble from Mary, she stated explicitly that only his body should come into contact with it. If anyone else were to wear it, she would not look kindly upon the usurper (63). Siagrio is a man who is ‘sovervioso’ (arrogant, 67b) in his desire to be the equal of his predecessor (67c). In a recapitulation of Satan’s sin of disobedience to God and presumptuous desire to be God’s equal, Siagrio errs by failing to obey Mary’s will and by insolently setting himself up as equal to Ildephonsus. Such rebellion against Mary’s authority is reflected in the way in which Siagrio twists language away from the truth.56 Siagrio may be equal to Ildephonsus in rank, but he is far inferior to him in his use of language. Siagrio cannot don the garment of Mary, cannot assimilate himself to her virginal body and perfect Words because he abuses language. The linguistic sin which he commits is an affront to the seamless integrity and Truth embodied in Mary’s garment.57 Siagrio speaks ill considered words (‘disso palabras locas,’ he spoke crazy words, 68c) which betray a disrespectful attitude towards Mary and her virginal garment: ‘disso unas palabras / de muy grand liviandat’ (he spoke words of great sophistry, 69a).58 Siagrio’s sophistic language places him in the discursive realm of rhetoric where language is used to violate truth by using words to deceive. Siagrio speaks false words which pervert the laws of logical discourse:

Language and Embodiment in Milagros de Nuestra Señora ‘Nunqa fue Illefonso de mayor dignidat, tan bien so consegrado como él por verdat, todos somos eguales enna umanidat.’

133

(69bcd)

(‘Ildephonsus was never of higher rank; in truth, I am just as consecrated as he is; we are all equal in our humanity.’)

The language Siagrio uses to justify that he is as worthy of the chasuble as Ildephonsus falls into the sophistic vice of perverted logic. His reasoning is fallacious in two ways. In the first place, he is using a logical structure made up of propositions that are connected only ‘per accidens.’ The relationship between Siagrio’s first two propositions is contingent: it is really incidental that both he and Ildephonsus share the same rank. Siagrio ends his argument with an essential or universal conclusion (‘we are all equal in humanity’) which is based only on ‘accidentally’ related propositions. This process of arguing from the incidental to the essential is known as fallacia accidentis (fallacy of the incidental) and is considered to be an example of sophism.59 In the second place, Siagrio, in his attempt to establish perfect identity and equality between himself and Ildephonsus, commits another logical error because he bases his argument on selective evidence that is not representative of the situation as a whole. In the first premise, he chooses to emphasize the fact that Ildephonsus never held a higher rank than Siagrio does. The second premise reiterates the first by asserting equality between Ildephonsus and himself in another particular way, i.e., he is also consecrated. From this single aspect of identity, Siagrio draws the conclusion that he and Ildephonsus are equal in all ways because they are both human, since he assumes that to be equal in humanity implies that all humans are equal. Thus, Siagrio further implicates himself in the web of logical fallacy since he argues from the part to the whole ( fallacia secundum quid et simpliciter), and therefore attempts to identify one narrow aspect of a thing with its complete nature.60 Once Siagrio has ‘proved’ that he is equal to Ildephonsus in the aspect of their rank, he concludes by affirming that they are equal in their entirety. This enables him to justify his donning of the holy chasuble. Such an inference does not follow from the preceding argument since Siagrio ignores both Mary’s prohibition and the fact that Ildephonsus acted very differently from Siagrio in his praise and love for Mary. Berceo makes it absolutely clear that Siagrio’s ‘big mouth’ has caused him to fall:

134 Figuring the Feminine Si non fuesse Siagrio tan adelanto ido, si oviesse su lengua un poco retenido, non serié enna ira del Crïador caído,

(70abc)

(If Siagrio had not gone so far, if he had held his tongue a little, he would not have fallen into the wrath of the Creator.)

Siagrio’s linguistic offence is a destruction of the integrity and incorruptibility of the language of truth embodied by Christ the Word and by Mary in her seamless, textual garment, and it therefore constitutes an assault on God. Siagrio’s speech resembles that of the evil demons in miracle 2, ‘El sacristán fornicario.’ In this miracle, Mary acts as advocate for the soul of a sacristan who had always been loyal to her, and who had been lured into the vice of fornication by the devil. Mary and the demons who possess the sacristan’s soul engage in verbal combat, pitting the elegant and rhetorically persuasive words of the Virgin against the twisted sophistry of the demons. Mary’s rhetorical prowess (‘Propuso la Gloriosa palabra colorada’ [Mary spoke rhetorically elaborated words], 89a) is so effective because it reflects the truth of the sacristan’s situation (89, 92) and it is used charitably (i.e., in a Christian sense). Opposed to Mary’s elegant frankness and forthrightness is the devil’s deceptive rhetoric: De la otra partida recudió el vozero un savidor dïablo, sotil e muy puntero (90ab; these lines are not in Berceo’s Latin source) (From the other side, the loud-mouth answered; he was a savvy devil, shrewd and well versed in sophistry.)

The demon demonstrates his sophistic abuse of divine discourse by attempting to base his false arguments upon scriptural authority: Escripto es que omne allí do es fallado o en bien o en mal, por ello es judgado; si esti tal decreto por ti [i.e., Mary] fuere falssado, el pleit del Evangelio todo es descuajado. (91; there is also no mention of the Gospel and its authority in the Latin text) (It is written that wherever a man’s soul is found, either in a good or bad state, it is judged on that basis; if this law were to be broken by you, the authority of Scripture would be entirely destroyed.)

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These words spoken by the demon neglect the facts of the case since they do not accurately represent the sacristan’s devotion to Mary. Moreover, his speech participates in a deformed rhetoric which openly attacks the integrity of divine discourse – of Scripture and of Mary. The demon’s attempt to ‘undo’ or ‘subvert’ (descuajar) the Gospels (which, we remember flow out of Mary and are ‘written’ by her in the garden) constitutes an abuse or perversion of language similar to Siagrio’s violation of the rules of logic. Siagrio’s improper linguistic stance bars him from entering the virginal meadow of Mary, and from donning her seamless garment, since his words do not preserve the linguistic integrity of Truth. His punishment fits the crime. The chasuble, moments after it has been wrongfully appropriated by Siagrio, seizes him by the throat and strangles him to death, thereby taking away his ability to produce more offensive sounds: Pero qe ampla era la sancta vestidura, issióli a Sïagrio angosta sin mesura; prisoli la garganta como cadena dura, fue luego enfogado por la su grand locura

(72)

(Although the holy vestment was roomy, it turned out to be tight beyond measure on Siagrio; it took him by the throat like a strong chain, and it then strangled him on account of his crazy deed.)

By drawing attention to the attack on Siagrio’s throat, Berceo seems to be particularly at pains to emphasize the linguistic nature of Siagrio’s sin since, in the Latin source, there is no mention at all of what part of the body the chasuble squeezed.61 It appears that Berceo perceives the bestowing and wearing of the chasuble as being related to a correct or incorrect use of language. Siagrio, unlike Ildephonsus who had praised Mary’s virginity by writing a book, uses false, ragged language which is an affront both to the integrity of Mary’s body and to the seamless chasuble, which is, in effect, an embodiment of Mary’s physical perfection and an integument coterminous with the truth it covers. Ildephonsus, like Berceo, has used language in a way that respects the virginity of Mary, and the reward for both of them is the ‘wearing’ of Mary. Berceo continues to display his respectful linguistic stance towards the Virgin throughout the rest of the miracles which he narrates. When he arrives at the twenty-fifth miracle with the reader in tow, he reinforces the lessons about textual integuments which had been set forth for the reader in the introduction and in the first miracle. Miracle 25

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proves to be such a fitting closure of the book since it recapitulates all the attitudes about virginal bodies, language, and garments that Berceo desires to inculcate in the reader.62 Berceo begins the narration of this miracle, ‘La iglesia robada’ with a reminder that Mary is a ‘fuente perenal’ (eternal fountain, 703c) from which oceans never cease flowing. This language, of course, recalls the depiction of Mary in the allegorical garden as the source of discourse from whose streams the Gospels came to be written down. Immediately following this evocation of the Virgin, Berceo begins to speak of allegorical integumenta: Bien creo qe qui esti miráculo oyere no li querrá toller la toca qe cubriere, ni li qerra por fuerça toller lo qe toviere, membrarli deve esto demientre qe visquiere.

(704)

(I truly believe that whoever hears this miracle should not desire to remove the veil which covers it, nor should he want to take away by force what it possesses; he ought to remember this as long as he lives.)

As one critic has pointed out, the ‘toca’ and its removal from it/her (‘li’) refers to the narrative, and signals a hidden meaning of which the reader should be aware.63 Berceo seems to be setting out guidelines for the interpretation of this miracle, whose integumentum must not be removed violently. Such advice recalls the mistreatment in miracle 1 of Mary’s garment and body by Siagrio, whose abuse of language signalled his contempt for the Virgin. In this miracle, the reader is first instructed how not to interpret by means of a negative exemplum involving other textual embodiments (i.e., garments) of Mary. Berceo narrates an attack by thieves upon the cell of a nun which is adjacent to a church, almost as if it were a sexual assault. The thieves make their move at night, forcing their way into the cell which they knew would be ‘virginal,’ or without a man: Barruntaron la cosa estos ambos ladrones moviéronse de noche con sennos açadones; desquizaron las puertas buscaron los rencones, bien entendién qe era la ciella sin varones.

(709)

(This pair of thieves secretly planned the action; they moved by night, each one carrying a hoe; they unsealed (or unhinged) the doors and searched the corners; they understood very well that the cell was bereft of men.)

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The breaking down of the doors and forced entry into the cell must surely carry overtones of sexual violence since the biblical metaphor of the virgin as a walled city would have been familiar to medieval readers, and the rhetorical convention of metaphorizing a woman’s body recommends that a woman’s sexual organs be referred to as ‘ianuam paradisi.’64 The searching of the cell’s corners may imply the invasion of the secret or hidden parts of the nun’s person by the aggressive thieves who take advantage of their victim’s vulnerable status of being ‘sin varones’ (without men). This break-in is symbolic of an assault on a virginal place (like a hortus conclusus) which is representative of the corporeal and textual integrity of Mary. Of the nun’s possessions, the thieves are most attracted to a beautiful piece of cloth (710cd). Given the equivalence of a seamless garment with the virginity of Mary in miracle 1, it is safe to assume that this alluring ‘panno’ (‘era cosa boniella,’ ‘cubierta apostiella’ [it was a pretty thing, an attractive cover], 710cd) is a metaphorical representation of the nun’s chaste body. Berceo stresses the thieves’ physical interaction with the unfortunate nun’s possessions: Lo qe fue en la ciella fue todo abarrido, malament maneado, en un saco metido;

(711ab)

(Everything that was in the cell was cleaned out, badly manhandled, and thrown into a sack.)

Such language leads one to the conclusion that the thieves’ act of pillage went hand in hand with that of rape. After the assault on the nun, the thieves’ lust is far from satisfied and now seizes upon the Virgin Mary and her sealed church (712). They use their hoes to smash violently through the closed doors of the church (713; the phallic implications are unmistakable) so that they may appropriate the objects they desire. Their first action inside the church is to denude the holy place of all its ‘texts’ (both garments and books): Despojaron las sábanas qe cubrién el altar, libros e vestimentas con qe solién cantar; fue mal desvaratado el precioso lugar

(714abc)

(They took away the cloths which covered the altar, and the books and vestments which were used in singing; the precious place was ruined badly.)

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Once they have ‘undressed’ Mary’s church, the despoilers turn their lascivious greed to the Virgin’s statue which is covered by a veil that is as fine and white as a woman’s body:65 Tenié en la cabeza corona muy onrrada, de suso una impla, blanca e muy delgada, a diestro e siniestro la tenié colgada, asmaron de tollérgela mas non ganaron nada.

(716)

(On her head she wore a most noble crown, and above it was a wimple, white and very fine; it hung beautifully both on the left and right sides; they thought they could take it off her, but they gained nothing.)

The attempts to remove Mary’s fine, white garment signal an intention to violate her integral body, and the Virgin is duly outraged by the thieves’ brazen assault. She reacts like a woman whose virtue is under attack: Tóvose la Gloriosa qe era afontada, qe tan villanamient la avién despojada;

(718ab)

(The glorious Virgin considered herself to have been dishonoured for she had been so vilely disrobed.)

The symbolic identification of the wimple with the virginal body of Mary is made even clearer when this garment assumes the function of skin, by attaching and moulding itself perfectly to the body of the thief. The ‘toca,’ when it comes into contact with the thief’s body, sticks to him like skin and cannot be detached: Luego qe de la toca travó el malfadado, pegóseli tan firme en el punno cerrado qe con englut ninguno non serié travado, nin con clavo qe fuesse con martiello calcado.

(719)

(After the wretch seized the wimple, it stuck so firmly to his closed fist that no glue could have afixed it so tightly, nor hammer or nail fastened it so firmly.)

These thieves have obviously committed a grievous assault upon the integrity of the Virgin’s garment, which is, in effect, the equivalent of an attack on her body and on the language she embodies.

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At the outset of the narration of this miracle, Berceo had warned the reader against the violent removal of the integument or toca covering the meaning of the story. Berceo presents the exemplum of the thieves’ sexually motivated attack on the Virgin’s wimple as an illustration of what it means to apply improper interpretive or reading strategies to a text that embodies the perfect chastity of Mary. As we saw in the introduction, Mary is intrinsically related to the process whereby truth and beauty are made manifest in the utterance or writing of words. The Virgin functions as a source of discourse that flows out of her body, but she herself can also be embodied in the weavings or texts which mirror her integral nature. Berceo’s book is one such weaving where Mary’s perfection is brought to life in poetic language. This miracle, which comes at the close of Berceo’s Milagros, has obvious implications for the understanding of the book. The reader should learn his lesson from the intemperate actions of the thieves, and realize that the seamless body of the Virgin, whether manifested in physical spaces (like gardens), garments, or poetic texts must always be treated with reverence and respect. Only such a ‘reading’ of the Virgin will result in salvation. This proper interpretation of Mary should, in typical medieval fashion, lead to glosses of praise in the form of more poetic garments woven for her by people like Berceo. Berceo, as demonstrated by his ability to marshal the discourse flowing and growing out of the Virgin’s body into a perfect embodiment of her integrity and by his control over this body by its interpretive undressing, constructs an authorial persona for himself which draws its strength from deeply rooted notions of gender and power, whereby feminine materia is shaped and adorned by a male creative principle. The thief who violated the Virgin’s wimple is punished by blindness, and by the public display of the evidence of his crime: the wimple is stuck to his hand for all to see. The problem, now, is to discover the correct means of removing this integument. The thieves, blind and dumb, are found in the church by local peasants who, responding to the hue and cry raised by the victimized nun (724–5), proceed to punish the culprits with kicks and blows. On the next day, a devout canon of Mary’s church sees the Virgin’s toca sewn to the hand of the guilty thief (730b), and successfully detaches it: Quiso el omne bono de la toca travar, en vez de la Gloriosa el su velo besar, mas al christiano bono quísolo Dios onrrar: despegóse la toca adiesso del pulgar.

(731)

140 Figuring the Feminine (The good man tried to take the wimple and to kiss the veil instead of the figure of the Virgin, but God wanted to honour the good Christian, and so the wimple immediately detached itself from the thumb of the thief.)

This virtuous canon displays the proper love and devotion to Mary through chastely kissing her veil instead of attempting to touch ‘la Gloriosa,’ which is perhaps what the thief desired to do when he ‘undressed’ her. Only a reader who, like the canon, is a devout Christian and chaste lover of Mary can remove the integumenta from the Virgin and understand the meaning of her beauty in the many forms in which it is embodied. The canon not only displays the proper respect for Mary’s body-garment, but, like St Ildephonsus, he uses language to point out the truth of her miraculous justice: quando vío la toca con la mano cosida, dizié qe tal justicia nunqa non fue oída.

(730cd)

(When he saw the wimple sewed to the [thief’s] hand, he said that such justice had never been heard of before.)

The canon’s action of speaking up emphasizes that the removal of Mary’s integumentum calls for the verbal recognition of the truth she embodies as well as the display of reverence for her seamless body. The author of the Milagros, Gonzalo de Berceo, inserted himself into the introduction of his book as the pilgrim ‘Verceo’ in order to demonstrate that he is both reliable and worthy in his literary task of incarnating Mary’s perfection in poetry. By removing his clothes and assimilating himself to the body-meadow of the Virgin, Berceo illustrates his proper relation to Mary and the Word she bodies forth. Rather than attempting to seize the perfection (physical and linguistic) that Mary signifies, the romero removes his clothing to sink peacefully into the virginal body, and dons the textual, poetic integrity of which she is the source, resulting in an assimilatio of language. Mary so affects the linguistic expression of Berceo that the text he produces is her body, metaphorically speaking. The introduction promises that the reader, like ‘Verceo’ will also be shown how to remove the corteza of the allegorical garden, and indeed of the entire book of miracles contained in it. By the end of miracle 25, the reader has progressed from being a naive, passive receiver of interpretive instructions to someone who must actively make sense of and

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put into practice the exempla which graphically outline the proper attitudes towards the seamless body of Mary and the ‘texts’ associated with it. In the first miracle, Saint Ildephonsus shows the reader that one must adore Mary’s virginity by means of words which fully reflect the truth of her perfection if one hopes to wear the garment of salvation. In miracle 25, the devout canon gains possession of Mary’s wimple through his love and respect for the holy integrity embodied in her person and in the piece of cloth, and thereby proves his ability to interpret her mystery in an appropriate way. Like Ildephonsus, he uses language positively to speak the truth about the divine powers of Mary. Those who do not respect the virginal integrity of Mary’s body, either because they deform wilfully the discourse it generates, or because they display a misdirected voluntas that results in a greedy misappropriation of the symbols she embodies (books or garments), receive the punishment they merit. Those exempla involving images of Marian garments organize the reading of the Milagros by illustrating clearly for the reader how to praise Mary’s corporeal perfection in words, and how to interpret or appropriate the textual embodiment of the Virgin. Because Mary is equivalent to and contained in Berceo’s book, one can apply these exempla to it as well. One must approach the book with love and respect, and take care not to remove its toca or corteza by force so as not to destroy the book’s integrity (after all, it is about Mary’s integrity). By creating a book in which the virginal body of Mary is the closed, seamless structure of the text, Berceo is not only honouring Mary, but is also writing a work whose interpretive strategies are embedded in its content and form. The integumentary imagery running through the introduction and miracles 1 and 25 alerts the reader to the need for interpretation, and, in fact, constitutes the meaning of Berceo’s text. This book of miracles is about Mary and about the correct interpretive procedures for understanding both her and it. If the reader has learned his lesson well, he will adore Mary’s perfection in language and will reach the end of this rosary of miracles by rejoining the romero in the garden of Mary, where he will then don the garment of salvation, fly up into the miracle-trees, and add his voice to the harmonious textual evocations of Mary. There, in the garden, he will be able to drink from the stream of discourse flowing out of the virginal meadow and pluck from it words of poetry that he may then weave together to form poetic garlands which are as closed and integral as Mary’s seamless body.

142 Figuring the Feminine

Berceo’s representation of himself as firmly in control of both the textual evocation and appropriation of Mary’s body and the spiritual power and privilege immanent in it is not unlike the gendered mastery exercised by Prudentius over the poeticized and feminized bodies of the martyrs. Both poets fashion their texts out of words reaped from holy bodies and both position themselves as disseminators of corporeal sanctity and divine wisdom. However, the positioning of the male poet as master of feminized, embodied materia is always fraught with ambivalence. Prudentius ultimately is only a conduit for the supercharged potency of the martyrs’ bodies rather than their true ‘author,’ and the bodies of Elvira and Sol momentarily resist their inscription and absorption into a patriarchally structured warrior culture. Berceo’s mastery of the Virgin’s body, too, is not as unassailable as his poetic persona would have us believe. Although Berceo’s apparently authoritative exempla guide our reading of the book, I want to conclude by returning to the one element of the opening allegory that Berceo neglected to elucidate, for this signals a weakness in Berceo’s corporeal fabric of words. As discussed earlier, Berceo is careful to explain all the elements of the allegorical dream vision in the introduction except for the pilgrim’s removal of his ‘ropiella’ so that he may derive more enjoyment from lying down in the maternal meadow of Mary (6cd). Freud, in The Interpretation of Dreams, describes the spot in a dream that is inexplicable or ‘unplumbable’ as its navel. David Willbern has described the dream’s navel as ‘the remnant of an umbilical connection to a primal origin, which Freud calls the “unknown” … Metaphorically, the unknown and unknowable represent the maternal body, and the dream and its navel become the mark of primary connection between the mother and her heroic, riddlesolving son.’66 It is striking that the navel of the pilgrim Verceo’s dream vision involves the exact imagery that Freud attributes to its latent source. Verceo’s disrobing in the mother earth that is Mary is a means of calling attention to his ‘umbilical connection’ with her, and to the related question of the birth of his own poetic words and authorial persona.67 This trinitarian relationship of language, the maternal body, and the status of the poet lies at the heart of the Milagros.68 Berceo, naked in the body of Mary, places himself in the confines of her womb, thereby subtly suggesting that he enjoys a privileged relationship to language because he occupies the same physical space as did Christ the Word. Like the Logos, the poetic words of Berceo partake of the salvific nature of redeemed language. This constitutes an

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extraordinary assumption of textual divinity on the part of Berceo since the image of his authorial persona in the sacred matrix of language suggests that he views himself and his text as capable of harnessing divine power.69 Berceo’s translation of the Virgin’s literal flesh into a series of figures – she is at once womb, earth, flowers, trees, shade – as a means of asserting his own linguistic authority has the simultaneous effect of suppressing Mary’s material priority.70 The transformation of Mary into a ‘silent ground of representation’ through her metaphoric function as the vehicle that ‘bears the word’ is symptomatic of an attitude towards the mother which founds and sustains the symbolic order of language, as it is described in psychoanalytic theory. The disembodying of the mother through an endless series of figurative substitutes really amounts to a denial and distancing of the power of the mother’s literal body.71 In both Freudian and Lacanian thought, it is the rupture of the preOedipal bond between mother and child by the father’s prohibition of incest that constitutes the child’s entry into the symbolic world of language and social relations, both of which are governed by the phallus.72 The mother-child dyad is characterized as prelinguistic, imaginary, or in Kristevan theory, as ‘semiotic,’ i.e., as a world of nonlinear musical sound which stands in stark contrast to the linear, coherent, rational structures characteristic of the phallic economy of language. Participation in language and society only becomes possible if the ‘plenitude’ of the mother-child relationship gives way to the recognition of absence and lack of the symbolic phallus. Berceo’s self-positioning as language within the body of Mary enables him to recreate in words both her body and the discourse emanating from it. The oneness of Berceo with the Virgin’s body is both cause and effect of a written text that is rhetorically persuasive, subtly structured, and logically conceived, the kind of discourse that belongs to the rational realm of the symbolic. Here, in Berceo’s text, the mother’s body, pregnant with words, lies at the source of all language, both poetic and linear. Instead of positing the separation of the child from the mother and the suppression of the mother’s body as necessary for the individual’s accession to language, the Milagros celebrates the presence of the mother’s fecund body as essential for all linguistic expression. The powerful presence of Mary’s (material) body in the introduction not only undermines the logic of the birth of male subjectivity and the symbolic use of language as a scission from the maternal, but also calls

144 Figuring the Feminine

into question Berceo’s literary authority. Berceo’s attempts to control the divine potential of his text through his metaphorization of Mary is belied by his own representation of her body as the source not only of divine language, but also of his own words. He is simultaneously author of Mary and her text, writer and written, by virtue of his location in her womb.73 By creating a text that is Mary’s seamless body, Berceo suggests that he can master both the woman’s body and the language produced by it, while his self-positioning within the body of Mary implies that any such mastery is merely an illusion. The text’s navel reveals the impossible dream of domesticating the maternal body through writing, while paradoxically acknowledging the prior dependence of all language on her corporeality.

5 Undressing the Libro de buen amor

The Libro de buen amor, written during the second quarter of the fourteenth century in Castile by Juan Ruiz, archpriest of Hita, shares in the same imagistic nexus of bodies, garments, and texts as does Berceo’s Milagros when issues of poetic composition and interpretation are raised. However, unlike the Milagros, whose source and meaning are the stable and determinate truth of Mary, the Libro de buen amor undermines the belief in an immanent, transcendent referent of poetic language. Berceo used the language of metaphor and allegory to embody truth in words and to guide the reader to an interpretive practice that is properly respectful and chaste, whereas Juan Ruiz exploits this imagery to sexualize the processes of reading and writing, to subvert orthodox Christian models of interpretation, and to highlight the problematic nature of literary authority and textual transmission. Juan Ruiz’s text proves that the anxieties of earlier theoreticians of poetry such as Matthew of Vendôme and Geoffrey of Vinsauf were not unfounded. Their warnings that ostentatious verbal garments may be used to prostitute an honest meaning, or to conceal something shameful, betray an anxiety about the sexual propriety of poetic representation of which Juan Ruiz takes advantage. The insistence by the authors of the artes poetriae on the seamlessness of the garments of words clothing the materia underneath stems from an attempt to harness the erotic potential of a reading practice that would require the reader to ‘undress’ the desired meaning. Seamless textual clothing allows the reader to identify at once what lies beneath the integumenta and to be in control of any subversive, feminine carnality that may lurk there. The fear of ‘feminine’ texts which threaten to eroticize the act of reading through a subversive and deceptive tearing of the bond between

146 Figuring the Feminine

language and meaning also accounts for the horror of ragged, unwholesome literary composition expressed by these writers.1 ‘Juan Ruiz,’2 by contrast, revels in the erotic connotations of the language of textual corporeality. The Libro de buen amor is a loosely structured text whose narrative frame consists of the efforts of a series of male protagonists to obtain the love of women. Within this framework, the text’s compilation-like structure allows for the inclusion of many kinds of medieval discourses, ranging from the sacred to the profane, the scholastic to the bawdy, the didactic to the comic. The text’s narration of the often ineffectual attempts at seduction foregrounds desire not only in the text’s protagonists, but also in the reader who seeks meaning, and in the writer whose words are but feeble substitutes for physical satisfaction. The use of garment imagery to refer to the patching together of the poem and to the laying bare of its meaning is crucial for understanding how the reader is seduced into participating in the desire that characterizes the literary process. Garment Imagery in the Libro de buen amor The most striking aspect of the representation of clothing in Juan Ruiz’s text is its close association with sex and deception. Garments are often the agents by means of which the alcahueta, or go-between, tricks her female victims into satisfying the erotic desire of eager male clients.3 Don Amor describes the ideal intermediary as a garment or covering whose expertise in deception is disguised by her ‘mala rropa’ (evil garment): De aquestas viejas todas, ésta es la mejor; rruegal que te non mienta, muéstral buen amor, que mucha mala bestia vende buen corredor, e mucha mala rropa cubre buen cobertor.4 (Of all those old women, this one is the best; beg her not to lie to you, display good love towards her, for a good broker is able to sell plenty of poor cattle, and lots of poor clothes can be covered by a good cloak.)5

The selling of cloth (‘manteles’) also serves the alcahueta as a pretext for gaining entry into the homes of women whom she is attempting to procure for the needy protagonist (723).

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 147

Once the procuress has gained access to the woman’s home by means of her apparently innocuous selling of cloth, she paradoxically makes use of her cunning garments so as to be able to see beneath the clothing of the woman she is stalking: Puna de aver muger que la vea sin camisa, que la talla del cuerpo, te dirá esto a guisa.

(435cd)

(Try to get hold of some woman who can see her without her blouse on, who will tell you about the form of her body: arrange this.)

Don Amor is also guilty of cloaking his plots with a ‘mal paño’ (bad cloth), but his stratagems diabolically arouse hopes of erotic satisfaction only to frustrate the desire of the would-be lover (216). It is not surprising to find garments so closely linked with notions of sexuality and deception given the medieval view of postlapsarian humanity. The loss of innocence in the garden of Eden was followed by the sewing together of fig leaves to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. For St Augustine, the new self-consciousness on the part of Adam and Eve was a reflection of the dislocation of the will from reason, which he considered to be one of the most disturbing consequences of the Fall. The inability of men to control rationally their sexual members was seen as symptomatic of this loss. The introduction of sexual desire after the Fall is described by Augustine as an exchange of the ‘garment of grace’ for the aprons of fig leaves sewed together by Adam and Eve out of shame to cover ‘the disobedience of their own flesh.’6 The wearing of clothing and the subjection to sexual desire characteristic of man’s fallen state were occasioned by a ‘turning away’ (or trope) of language from its proper end. The serpent employed potent rhetoric to persuade Eve to disobey God’s prohibition and undermine divine authority. The diabolical cloaking of the serpent’s true intentions and meaning in the garments of language was considered by one medieval rhetorician to be one of the sources of rhetoric.7 The sweet, lying words of the serpent bespeak a rupture between word and thing, making possible the release of language into a world of shifting appearances and ambiguities. Once the serpent’s deceptive use of language has brought about the Fall, Adam’s and Eve’s language turns away from the divine linguistic paradigm where language and truth are synonymous, to the new fallen model of language in which words

148 Figuring the Feminine

begin to be used as garments to cloak the shame and guilt of sin.8 Language may still communicate truth, but it may also assume the guise of an alluring exterior surface masking mere emptiness or evil. In the Libro de buen amor, words are used in much the same way as the serpent uses them. For Juan Ruiz, language can function as a garment to deceive women and bring about a fall into the sins of the flesh. Both Don Amor and the alcahueta manipulate language with a view to bringing about a successful ‘juntamiento con fenbra plazentera’ (71d, coupling with a pleasant female). Don Amor uses alluring words to deceive: ‘engañas [i.e., Don Amor] todo el mundo con palabra fermosa’ (320b, you delude everybody with your fair words); and to entrap: ‘fablas con grand sinpleza porque muchos enlazes’ (372d, you speak with great simplicity, by which means you snare many a one). The alcahuetas in the Libro are portrayed as mistresses of verbal deceit. The protagonist names one of the most essential characteristics of the go-between, that of wordiness, when he calls her ‘Picaça parladera!’ (920a, chattering magpie). She must not only be prolix, but she must also be adept at manipulating language for her devious purposes: Puña en quanto puedas que la tu mensajera sea bien rrasonada, sotil e costumera; sepa mentir fermoso, e siga la carrera,

(437abc)

(Make sure, as best you can, that your go-between is well-spoken, subtle and familiar with her job; that she knows how to tell beautiful lies and stay on the trail)

A good example of the way in which the go-between twists language is the use she makes of traditional moral exempla as a means of seducing her intended prey into trusting her. Trotaconventos tells Doña Endrina the story of the bustard and the swallow supposedly to warn her of the dangers of being entrapped in widowhood, and of therefore being exposed to the machinations of greedy men who merely seek to possess her inheritance: Guardat vos mucho desto, señora, doña Endrina; si non, contesçer vos puede a vós mucho aína commo al abutarda, quando la golondrina le dava buen conssejo, commo buena madrina;

(745)

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 149 (Take good care against this, Lady Sloe; if not, it may soon happen to you as it did to the bustard when the swallow gave her good advice, like a true godmother.)

Trotaconventos ironically assumes the role of the ‘buena madrina’ and casts herself as the swallow who wants to protect the bustard from the traps of the bird hunter. The bustard ignores the good advice of the well meaning swallow and is snared and plucked by the hunter. Trotaconventos has twisted the narrative so as to make it appear as if she is the swallow rather than the hunter who is trying to entrap Doña Endrina. She is only telling this story in order to lure her into becoming the bustard whose feathers will be plucked before Don Melón can eat the bird. The irony of stripping the bird becomes more patent in stanza 754 when Trotaconventos tells Endrina that she will be stripped if she does not follow her advice: Que muchos se ayuntan e son de un conssejo, por astragar lo vuestro e fazer vos mal trebejo; juran que cada día vos levarán a conçejo; commo al abutarda, vos pelarán el pellejo. (because many men are assembling and plotting to ruin your holdings completely and play a bad trick on you; they swear that they will take you to court every single day: as happened to the bustard, they will pluck your feathers. [Translation slightly modified])

In reality, the object of Don Melón and Trotaconventos is to bring about Endrina’s seduction which will, of course, entail the plucking of her feathers, or the removal of her garments.9 Trotaconventos’s verbal virtuosity succeeds in blinding Doña Endrina’s good sense, resulting in her seduction by Don Melón. However, not all the intended victims of the go-between allow themselves to be seduced by her manipulation of language. One potential victim remains safe from the alcahueta’s verbal tricks because she is able to see through or remove the go-between’s garments of words: Díxol por qué iva e dio le aquestos verssos. ‘Señora’, diz, ‘conprad traveseros e aviesos.’ Dixo la buena dueña: ‘Tus dezires traviesos, entienden los, Urraca, todos, ésos y ésos.’

(1325)

150 Figuring the Feminine (She told the lady why she had come and gave her these verses: ‘Lady,’ said she, ‘please buy some bolsters and fold-back sheets [?].’ Said the good lady: ‘As for your sly words, I understand them all, Urraca, spoken and written [those and those].’)

This vigilant woman sees through or understands the true intentions signified by the alcahueta’s duplicitous claims that she is selling garments (sheets and pillows) for beds. Not only are the misleading words of the alcahueta like garments which hide her true intentions of leading unsuspecting or trusting women to be seduced by her clients, but she herself is likened to a deceptive garment. In the litany of names given to the alcahueta by the protagonist of one of the erotic adventures narrated in the Libro, she is called ‘tia’ and ‘cobertor’ (925a). Tía can be taken to mean ‘pillowcase’ here, and it has been termed a ‘galicismo textil’ by Joan Coromines.10 The go-between is the ‘cobertor’ who is in turn covered up by another layer of deceptive clothing (443d). The nun, Doña Garoça, who is not entirely blind to the alcahueta’s wiles, refers to her as a tattered weaving, a false friend: ‘El mundo es texido de malos arigotes; en buen andança el omne tiene muchos galeotes, parientes apostizos, amigos paviotes, desque le veen en coíta, non dan por él dos motes.

(1477)

(The world is woven out of worthless rags: in wealth a man has many traitors, bogus relatives, friends as fancy as peacocks; but when they see him in trouble they don’t care two words for him. [Translation modified])

Thus, the go-between is herself a garment that disguises, but she is also a ragged garment whose characteristics are falseness and defectiveness.11 The friend who could not be trusted had been described earlier as a garment with a run in it (94cd). The garment imagery that is such a distinctive feature of the gobetween is extended to apply to Juan Ruiz’s book as a whole. His words are like garments which deceitfully and elegantly cover both the good and the bad: que saber bien e mal dezir encobierto e doñeguil tú non fallarás uno de trobadores mill.

(65cd)

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 151 (You’ll not discover one among a thousand troubadours Who veils both good and evil gracefully, upon command.)12

His text both consists of and covers ‘buen amor’ whose contours may be visualized under his garment of words: Las del buen amor son rrazones encubiertas: trabaja do fallares las sus señales ciertas.

(68ab)

(The utterances of good love are veiled: strive to find their true meanings.)

In an idiosyncratic version of the topos of authorial modesty, Juan Ruiz even refers to himself as a tailor who patches or sews together the text: rremendar bien non sabe todo alfayate nuevo;13 a trobar con locura non creas que me muevo:

(66bc)

(not every new tailor can do a good job of mending; don’t imagine that I am impelled to compose poems as a fool does:)

The resulting poetic garment, like the alcahueta, may be an imperfect one since the tailor-author is claiming to be inexperienced. Since both Juan Ruiz’s text and the go-between have been described as garments that are far from seamless perfection, it is not surprising to find other places in the text which equate the alcahueta with a book. She herself functions as a communicative text in that she relays verbal messages (both oral and written) between seducers and their desired victims: Levol una mi carta a la missa de prima; troxo me buena rrespuesta de la fermosa rrima;

(1498ab)

(She took her a letter of mine at the Mass of Prime, she brought me back a good answer to my pretty verse;)

She is directly referred to as a written text by one of her clients who calls her ‘registro nin glosa’ (927b, register-book or gloss). The alcahueta, who is a ragged garment, is explicitly equated with Juan Ruiz’s text. The go-between says that she is called ‘Buen Amor’:

152 Figuring the Feminine Nunca digades nonbre malo nin de fealdat; llamat me Buen Amor e faré yo lealtat;

(932ab)

(Never utter a bad name or an ugly name; call me ‘Good Love’ and I will be loyal to you;)

Then, Juan Ruiz clearly states that the book is the alcahueta and vice versa: Por amor de la vieja, e por dezir rrazón, ‘buen amor’ dixe al libro, e a ella toda saçón;

(933ab)

(For love of the old woman and to speak the truth, I named this book ‘Good Love’ and her the same; [translation modified])

The total equivalence of the two is underlined by ‘toda saçón’ which implies their interchangeability. In stanza 66, where Juan Ruiz calls himself a tailor who sews together his text, he refers in line d to ‘buen amor’: ‘lo que buen amor dize con rrazón te lo pruevo’ (what good love says, I will prove to you with good reasoning). Here, Juan Ruiz must be referring to his text ‘buen amor’ which is at the same time a garment sewn together by his needle/pen and an intermediary like Trotaconventos, who is herself a garment possessed of great verbal artistry. The go-betweens in the Libro de buen amor function as erotic intermediaries who minister to the desires of male protagonists by practising verbal trickery, which both covers up their sinister intentions and blinds the common sense of their female victims. Is it possible to consider Juan Ruiz’s ragged text as an erotic intermediary representing a world similar to the imperfectly woven one of Trotaconventos? The identification of the go-between in stanza 1477a with ragged weaving is explicitly called an erotic intermediary or ‘galeote’ in line 1477b: ‘en buen andança el omne tiene muchos galeotes.’ Since Juan Ruiz characterizes the faulty text (or weaving) of the world in which false friends and relatives (‘parientes apostizos, amigos paviotes,’ 1477c) heartlessly betray those who trust them, the word ‘galeote’ must also fit into this semantic field since it forms part of the enumeration of deceptively reliable people. The usual sense of galeote, ‘rower,’ seems to be at odds with the context. The definition of galeote as an erotic intermediary, first put forth by Aguado in his Glosario sobre Juan Ruiz and subsequently supported by others such as Boggs and Chiarini, is wholly consonant with the

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 153

expression of a fear of false friends.14 Aguado thought that the term galeote was an echo of the book ‘Galeotto’ in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the reading of which led Paolo and Francesca to commit a sexual sin thereby leading them to perdition: ‘galeotto fu il libro e qui lo scrisse’ (Inferno V.137). The ‘galeotto’ to whom Dante is referring is Gallehault, the erotic intermediary of the Lancelot romance which corrupted Paolo and Francesca, therefore making the term ‘galeote’ particularly apt for the description of Trotaconventos, who fulfils the same function as did Gallehault. By associating the word galeote with the go-between who is herself an erotic intermediary, Juan Ruiz is strongly hinting that his book too is a galeote, especially since both the alcahueta and the book have already been identified as similarly imperfect garment-texts. If the Libro de buen amor is an erotic intermediary whose deceptive words are intended to result in a sexual pay-off, it is at the same time an object of interpretation. If the words of the book cover up truth rather than convey it, its verbal surface presents readers with only appearances, making it impossible to maintain any distinction between good and evil, or between ‘buen amor’ and ‘loco amor.’15 Such ambiguity (along with sexual desire and the need for clothing) is another result of the Fall, since, once the devil’s rhetoric twisted language away from its proper referents, words were no longer anchored to a transcendent signifier.16 Thus, when Juan Ruiz claims that his book is not necessarily an erotic intermediary, and that, if correctly interpreted, the book can be beneficial for the soul (13d), his words ought not to be taken at face value. The uncertainty surrounding his statements of moralizing intent lead one to question the sincerity of his disclaimers. Although the peripheral prologue of Manuscript S (the most complete of all three MSS of the Libro) may serve as an official, proper supertext for the central carnivalesque interior, it too is shot through with a decidedly improper ambiguity.17 Juan Ruiz contends that the reading of his book can lead to salvation, thereby associating it with heavenly intermediaries like Christ or Mary: E ansí este mi libro a todo omne o muger, al cuerdo e al non cuerdo, al que entendiere el bien e escogiere salvaçión e obrare bien, amando a Dios; otrosí al que quisiere el amor loco; el la carrera que andudiere, puede cada uno bien dezir, ‘Intellectum tibi dabo, e çetera.’ (p. 110, ll.74–8; my emphasis) (And so this book of mine, to every man or woman, to the wise and the unwise, to whomsoever may understand the good and choose salvation

154 Figuring the Feminine and do good works loving God, and likewise to whomsoever may desire mad and heedless love on the road which he walks along, to each one it can truly say: ‘I will give thee understanding, et cetera.’ [p. 10])

By appending ‘otrosí al que quisiere el amor loco,’ Juan Ruiz negates the claim that the reading of the book will result in religious salvation, and rather, implies that its reading can just as easily lead to a carnal heaven. The book will provide the ‘intellectum’ for both purposes. The prologue’s ambiguity becomes even more patent when Juan Ruiz draws a distinction between the purposes of the prologue and those of the rest of the Libro: Escogiendo e amando con buena voluntad salvaçión e gloria del paraíso para mi anima, fiz esta chica escriptura en memoria de bien, e conpuse este nuevo libro en que son escriptas algunas maneras e maestrías e sotilezas engañosas del loco amor del mundo que usan algunos para pecar. (p. 109, ll.58–61) (Choosing and loving, with good will, salvation and the bliss of Heaven for my soul, I wrote this little text in mindfulness of what is good. And I composed this new book in which are written down certain of the ways and tricks and deceitful wiles of the mad and heedless love of this world, which some people employ to commit sin. [p. 8])

It appears that only the ‘chica escriptura’ of the prologue is about the good love of God, and not the rest of the book, which is about worldly love. The ambiguous term ‘buen amor’ has been the subject of much debate.18 It can refer to divine love, to carnal love, to charity, to courtly ‘fin amors,’ to the alcahueta, and to Juan Ruiz’s text. In the 1330 edition of the Libro de buen amor, the first time the term ‘buen amor’ appeared would have been in stanzas 13 and 14. The archpriest asks God to help him write a book of good love, and he then tells his listeners and readers that there are no lies in it since ‘it’ is done by everyone (14d). The ‘it’ here must be taken to refer to ‘buen amor’ since there is no other logical antecedent. The only sense of ‘buen amor’ which would be consonant with something that everyone does is the carnal, sexual meaning. It is significant that in the first edition of the Libro, before the addition of the ‘pious’ prologue, the term ‘buen amor’ is presented as one that is loaded with sexual overtones.19

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 155

Another example of the way Juan Ruiz exploits the ambiguity of this term is to blur the meaning of charity or goodwill with that of sexual love. In speaking of the book, he says: Pues es de buen amor, enprestad lo de grado: non desmintades su nonbre, nil dedes rrefertado; non le dedes por dineros, vendido nin alquilado; ca non ha grado nin graçia nin buen amor conprado.

(1630)

(Since it is of good love, lend it gladly; don’t deny it its name and don’t give it censure; don’t give it for pay, either by sale or by rental, for good love that is purchased has no delight or grace.)

If ‘buen amor’ refers to the charitable love of one’s fellow man which prompts one to generosity, then the meaning is straightforward. However, one cannot help but remember that ‘buen amor’ was the name of the alcahueta who took payment for the procuring of women. This would suggest that Juan Ruiz has in mind a sexual pun on the term ‘buen amor,’ and is jokingly suggesting to the reader that to accept money for it would be a means of prostituting the book, rather than a charitable sharing of its good love. Undressing the Text: The Pleasure of Interpretation As a book whose language is deceitful and ambiguous, the Libro de buen amor is an exemplary fallen book. Clothing and words constantly cloak the true meanings and intentions of both the alcahuetas and Juan Ruiz in the hope that an erotic union will be achieved. It is clear that the client of the go-between will be able to satisfy his sexual desire if the procuress succeeds in luring her female victim into a compromising situation, but what role does Juan Ruiz’s book play in the evocation and satisfaction of desire in the reader? How can desire be manifested in language, and what is the role of the reader who attempts to appropriate a meaning for himself out of such language? In order to answer such questions with reference to the Libro, we will examine the metaphorical garments (which, incidentally, are also the garments of metaphor) in which the book is dressed, for clothing can do more than trick unwitting women or readers into surrendering to erotic desire, since the very act of veiling implies a whole series of erotically charged images and actions.

156 Figuring the Feminine

The discussion of the tropes of metaphor and allegory by medieval rhetoricians in terms of the clothing or adorning of a meaning necessarily evokes a sort of eroticism: as soon as one perceives the garments of figurative language, one is made aware of the body beneath it, resulting in a desire to divest the underlying thought of its integumenta. Boncompagno da Signa credits the veils of metaphor with the intensification of erotic desire: et non solum milites et domine verum etiam populares jocundis quandocumque transmutacionibus vtuntur et sic sub quodam verborum velamine vigor amoris intenditur et amicabile suscepit incrementum.20 (And not only knights and ladies, but even commoners at times make use of pleasing metaphors; and thus, under a sort of veil of words, the vigor of love is intensified and takes on welcome increase.)

The pleasure that a reader derives while deciphering the exterior surface of figurative language becomes an integral part of the experience of literature in the later Middle Ages. Glending Olson has demonstrated the way in which medieval aesthetics came to accommodate a principle of literary pleasure separate from that of a moralizing or didactic allegorical practice.21 The work of A.J. Minnis complements that of Olson by delineating the process whereby the literal sense of all poetry (both sacred and secular) is revalorized and appreciated for its rhetorical impact on the emotions (affectus) of the reader, thereby allowing for a justification of an ethic of literary delight based solely on the beautiful garments of surface rhetorical artistry.22 Juan Ruiz calls attention to the garments of his text by using a series of integumentary metaphors to refer to the reading and interpretation of his book. However, making use of a standard modesty topos, he disingenuously attempts to deny or restrain the allure of his book’s material exterior by asserting that its clothes are poor and shabby in comparison to what they conceal. Thus, he is, in effect, inciting the interpreter’s desire by spurring him to undress his text in order to discover an inner meaning that is worthier than what its deceptive external veils suggest. The exterior corteza that must be discarded if one is to discover the valuable meollo is meant to lead the reader to believe that Juan Ruiz is espousing an allegorical model of interpretation whose purpose is to lead the reader to a higher truth or moral. Through an examination of the book’s textual metaphors, we

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 157

can discover what kind of meollo the book contains, and what its extraction entails. Juan Ruiz tells the reader that his text wears a garment that must be removed before its true, inner meaning can be discovered: commo so mala capa yaze buen bevedor ansí so el mal tabardo está el buen amor

(18cd)

(just as under a bad cape lies a good drinker, so under a bad cloak lies good love.)

Given the ambiguity of ‘buen amor’ and its association with erotic intermediaries, the ‘good love’ under the tabard may very well be sexual love. The only other use of the word ‘tabardo’ in the Libro de buen amor occurs when Don Amor tells the would-be lover not to hide under his ‘tabardo’ if he wants to make love to a woman: Con muger non enpereçes, nin te enbuelvas en tabardo: del vestido más chico sea tu ardit alardo.

(455cd)

(Don’t be laggardly with a woman and don’t wrap yourself all up in your cloak; show your dashing ways by wearing the scantiest clothing possible.)

Thus, the removal of a tabard is a sexually charged action, suggesting that the divestment of the tabard of words clothing the meaning of Juan Ruiz’s text is equivalent to the attainment of erotic pleasure. For both the book and the lover, the ‘tabardo’ must be shed in order to have ‘buen amor.’ The book is also likened to a shabby purse whose contents are good knowledge: ca, segund buen dinero yaze en vil correo, ansí en feo libro está saber non feo.

(16cd)

(for, just as good money can be stowed in a worthless purse, so in an uglylooking book lies wisdom that is not uncomely.)

Juan Ruiz is suggesting here that a pay-off awaits the reader who interprets the book correctly. The equating of the attractive knowledge to be gained from the book with something as worldly as money undermines

158 Figuring the Feminine

the supposed beauty and piousness of its hidden meaning. The use of money in the Libro is often associated with the procuring of sexual favours. Trotaconventos assures Don Melón that she will satisfy his desire by serving up Doña Endrina to him, but only after he pays what he owes: Amigo, segund creo, por mí avredes conorte; por mí verná la dueña andar al estricote. Mas yo de vós non tengo si non este pellote; si buen manjar queredes, pagad bien el escote.

(815)

(My friend, I do believe that you will get solace through me; by my doing the lady will come to be led submissively; but from you I have received only this cloak: if you want a good meal, pay up well for your share.)

Sex becomes the equivalent of payment for the demanding serranas who require the lost and frozen traveller to pay for food and lodging in the form of sexual service (966–71; 992). Given this linking of payment and sex, the reward gained from the reading of the text would be tainted by its association with sexual commerce. Another metaphor used by Juan Ruiz to describe the text and its inner meaning is that of a black outside covering up something white, sweet, and soft: El axenuz de fuera más negro es que caldera; es de dentro muy blanco más que la peña vera; blanca farina está so negra cobertera; açucar dulçe e blanco está en vil caña vera.

(17)

(The fennel seed, on the outside blacker than a cooking pot, is very white inside, whiter than ermine; white flour lies within a black covering; sweet white sugar lies inside the humble sugar-cane. [Translation slightly modified])

This image of a black integument hiding something white recalls the archpriest’s description of the lovely nun Doña Garoça clad in a dark habit. The archpriest goes to Mass to have a look at the nun, and he is very favourably impressed: ¡Valme Santa María! Mis manos aprieto. ¿Quién dio a blanca rrosa ábito, velo prieto?

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 159 Más valdríe a la fermosa tener fijos e nieto que atal velo prieto, nin que ábitos çiento.

(1500)

(Help me, Holy Mary! I clasp my hands! Who gave to a white rose a nun’s habit and black veil? It would be better for this lovely thing to have children and a grandchild than a black veil like that, or a hundred nun’s habits.)

The whiteness refers to the desired body of Doña Garoça which must be divested of its dark garments before the archpriest can possess it. There is a very clear erotic intertext for the dressing of a white, carnal meollo in black integumenta in the writings of goliardic poets and medieval rhetoricians. One such goliardic poem describes the snow-white limbs of a nun under her dark clothes, and Boncompagno da Signa composed a model letter addressed to a nun in which he envisions her milk-white body beneath her black veil.23 Thus, the removal of a dark integument in order to attain a white, soft meaning has explicit sexual connotations. The inner meaning under the dark covering of the book is also described as white flour. This image of flour brings to mind the episode of the baker girl Cruz who was designated as the bread that the traitorous messenger Ferrán García ate: ‘el comió el pan más duz’ (118d, he ate the sweetest bread). Ferrán’s ‘eating’ or sexual possession of Cruz’s body meshes well with the association of bread and fertility in medieval Spain. James Burke has adduced evidence that ritual loaves of bread in the shape of a woman’s body were produced in the Iberian Peninsula.24 Ferrán’s sexual conquest of the baker girl is equivalent not only to eating bread, which is, of course, made from flour, but it is also likened to eating sweet bread. The meollo of the book is also as sweet and white as sugar (‘açucar dulçe e blanco está en vil caña vera’), thereby strengthening the equivalence of the interpretation of the book with a sexual act. Juan Ruiz continues the series of integumentary images with a description of the book’s meaning as a rose of wisdom, the claiming of which entails the successful avoidance of its thorns on the part of the reader: Sobre la espina está la noble rrosa flor; en fea letra está saber de grand dotor;

(18ab)

(Under the thorn lies the rose, a noble flower; in ugly letters lies the wisdom of a great teacher;)

160 Figuring the Feminine

The plucking of this flower is also sexually charged as is evinced by the archpriest’s desire to enjoy the white rose of Doña Garoça’s body (st. 1500). In addition to this reference to the rose, Don Amor speaks of roses within a framework of erotic desire and satisfaction. He advises the male protagonist to find a go-between who will lure the desired girl out to the garden to pick roses, where she herself will become the rose who is plucked and subsequently deflowered: ‘que la lieve a las huertas por las rrosas bermejas’ (378b, have your panderess lead her out into fields to gather red roses).25 Again, the interpretation of the book has been turned by Juan Ruiz into an act of defloration. Although Juan Ruiz does not explicitly describe his text as fruit lying within a peel or chaff, this metaphor for interpretation is a common variation of the integumentary metaphors he has already used. It is such a standard image that the reader will infer it even though it is not stated.26 Juan Ruiz manipulates the resonances of this metaphor in order to suggest that the gathering of the fruits of meaning is laden with sexual implications. The pseudo-Ovidian Pamphilus episode is adapted by Juan Ruiz27 to emphasize the connotations of the image of eating fruit as relating to the interpretation of the book’s sweet kernel of truth, and to the attainment of sexual satisfaction. In the Pamphilus, the names of the protagonists of the amorous adventure were Pamphilus and Galathea, which become Don Melón de la Huerta and Doña Endrina in Juan Ruiz’s version. Endrina refers to the sloe, a fruit that has the property of being easily peeled,28 and Don Melón is the fruit-stealing badger29 who plucks her from the tree and peels her. The alcahueta whom Don Melón has employed promises him that she will deliver the appetizing Endrina to him by lowering the branch (i.e., her mother, ‘Lady Branch’) so the lover can pick the fruit and eat it (812cd). Endrina is lured to the house of the go-between by a promise of fruit and nuts (862), upon whose enumeration Juan Ruiz’s pen lingers. He has expanded the Pamphilus by placing much more emphasis on the listing of the fruits, which suggests that he is consciously exploiting the use of this fruit imagery to connote sexual love. Once Endrina has yielded to the tempting fruits offered to her by the alcahueta, she, like the woman who is a rose to be plucked, becomes one of the fruits that is peeled and eaten by the sexually aggressive Don Melón. Thus, if the reader were familiar with the standard metaphor of the discovery of a hidden meaning of a text as the peeling of a sweet fruit, he would surely have understood the double entendre of Juan Ruiz’s use of fruit imagery, and would have

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 161

made the connection between the reading of the book and the satisfaction of erotic desire. It appears that the interpretation of the Libro de buen amor is consistent with an erotics of reading that views the hermeneutic process as the undressing of a sexually charged body, and the extracted meaning as one that is akin to sexual pleasure. There is one more metaphor for the book and its interpretation, which, although it does not involve integumentary imagery, when deciphered, implicates the reader in an act that is openly and unapologetically erotic. I am referring to stanza 70, where the book acquires its own voice to proclaim itself a musical instrument whose melody is produced by the fingers (either skilled or inept) of the readers who pluck its strings: De todos instrumentos yo, libro, só pariente: bien o mal, qual puntares, tal te diré çiertamente. Qual tú dezir quisieres, ý faz punto, ý, ten te; si me puntar sopieres, sienpre me avrás en miente.30 (I, this book, am akin to all instruments of music; according as you point [play music] well or badly, so, most assuredly, will I speak, in whatever way you choose to speak, make a point [stop] there and hold fast; if you know how to point me [pluck my strings], you will always hold me in mind.)

The likening of textual interpretation to the playing of a musical instrument would have been quite conventional in Juan Ruiz’s time. Hugh of St Victor, in the Didascalicon described the Scriptures as a cithar, the plucking of whose strings yields spiritual melodies or understanding made possible by the carnal wood of the literal level of meaning which binds together all the allegorical senses into one instrumental object.31 It is not surprising that the interpretation or ‘playing’ of the Scriptures yields a perfectly harmonious blending of senses, since it is, after all, God’s book. However, in a fallen world there exist both music and texts that are far from perfect. One early Christian writer, Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 315–403) sees in the aulos’ music an imitation of the serpent’s voice that cunningly brought about the deception of Eve.32 Epiphanius’s suspicion of the treacherous persuasive powers of music occupies a similar position to that of rhetorically ornate language, which for Boncompagno da Signa, has its origins at the Fall. If the serpent’s deceptively sweet words are considered as a kind of poisonous

162 Figuring the Feminine

music that causes the Fall of mankind into carnal sin, music becomes implicated in the sexual consequences of the Fall. The church fathers related the deformation of God’s harmony by the devil to the orgiastic rites of pagan idolators, and infernal music was associated with the seductive gyrations of Salome, or with the personification of luxuria lasciviously playing musical instruments.33 There is ample evidence of the presence of divine and carnal music in the Libro de buen amor. David G. Lanoue has shown how the juxtaposition of divine and carnal music structures the text, and he provides detailed examples both for the existence of a tradition of ‘música deshonesta’ in Spain, and of the close connection between music and sex in the Libro.34 Don Amor advises the archpriest to use music as a sexual stratagem (515–16), and Trotaconventos includes in her description of the archpriest’s fittingness for love, his proficiency at playing musical instruments (1489).35 The metaphor of the text as a musical instrument played by the interpreter, therefore suggests that this image too, like the series of integumentary images of the book, has overt sexual connotations. In the parody of the canonical hours, the word ‘instrumentos’ refers to sexual organs that are played: Nunca vi sancristán que a vísperas mejor tanga; todos los instrumentos tocas con la chica manga;

(384ab)

(I never saw a sexton who could ring for vespers better; you play all the instruments [female sexual organs] with your short handle. [My translation])

Venus, the goddess of love, advises Don Melón that he should not ‘play’ Doña Endrina too soon: Guarda te non la tengas la primera vegada; non acometas cosa por que finque espantada; sin su plazer non sea tañida36 nin trexnada;

(646abc; my emphasis)

(Do not handle your beloved at the very first opportunity, nor do anything else that might frighten her off; do not ‘play’ her or handle her without her consent.)37

It seems that Juan Ruiz’s book is an instrument of perversion whose purpose is to lead the interpreter to the attainment of pseudo-sexual pleasure.38

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 163

It was not uncommon in the Middle Ages for stringed instruments to be represented in erotic terms, since they possessed cords that could be rubbed or caressed, resulting in sweet, lascivious sounds.39 If the Libro de buen amor is such an instrument, it too can be likened to a woman’s body that is ‘played’ by the reader. The image of a woman’s body as a stringed instrument may be a very traditional representation of an Oriental metaphor that called woman ‘Satan’s lyre.’40 Peninsular evidence for such a tradition can be found at a small Romanesque church in Colina de Losa in the province of Burgos where a capital carved at the portal depicts a naked fishlike siren who has a viola instead of a head.41 There is also a compelling literary example in a thirteenth-century Castilian text. The anonymous Libro de Apolonio contains an episode in which Luciana, the daughter of King Archistrates, attempts to cheer up the shipwrecked and forlorn Apolonio. She decides that this can best be accomplished by playing the vihuela and singing to him. She begins by stripping down to her underclothing, thereby linking the playing of the music with a greater visibility of her body: Aguisósse la dueña, fizieronle logar; tempró bien la vihuela en un son natural; dexó cayer el manto, parós’ en un brial: començó una laude, homne non vïó tal.42

(178)

(The girl made herself ready, they gave her room to perform; she tuned her fiddle well until it had a fluid sound; she let her cloak fall to the floor, and stood there in her undertunic: she began with a song of praise, no one ever saw anything like it.)

Luciana and her instrument seem to merge into one entity (‘¡la dueña e la vihuela tan bien se avinién!’ [180b, the girl and the fiddle came together so well!]), with the vihuela acquiring its own voice and textual capacity: Fazía fermosos sones, fermosas daballadas, quedaba a sabiendas la voz a las vegadas; fazía a la vihuela dezir puntos ortados semejaban que eran palabras afirmadas.

(179)

(She emitted beautiful sounds, beautifully descending from one note to another; at times she skilfully suppressed her voice; she made the vihuela

164 Figuring the Feminine speak refined sounds that seemed as if they were firmly fixed [or written] words.)43

Like Juan Ruiz’s instrument-book that speaks in its own voice (‘Yo libro’), Luciana’s body, together with the strings of her fiddle, is an instrument of textual production. Aroused from his depression by Luciana’s playing, Apolonio desires to top her performance. Apolonio’s response to her initial musical advances is to play the fiddle (which is, as we have seen, nearly indistinguishable from Luciana herself) in a manner which is akin to the metaphorical seduction of the innocent young girl: Alçó contra la dueña un poquiello el cejo, fue ella de vergüenza presa un poquillejo; fue tañendo el arco, egual e muy parejo, avés cabía la dueña de gozo ‘n su pellejo.

(188)

(He raised his eyebrow a little in the direction of the girl, and she felt herself to be slightly ashamed; he was using his fiddlestick deftly and smoothly; the girl nearly jumped out of her skin with ecstasy.)

Shortly after this ‘courtship,’ the musical passion felt by Luciana is translated into real passion when she falls madly in love with Apolonio (197), resulting in a happy marriage (241). Once one realizes that Juan Ruiz’s text may be equivalent to both a musical instrument and a woman whose meaning or sounds the interpreter elicits through reading and interpretation, one cannot dismiss as meaningless the author’s promise of a ‘dueña garrida’ (64d, pretty woman) as a reward for the application of correct hermeneutic strategies. There are, however, further textual arguments for the equation of the book with a woman, as Olga Tudorica Impey has convincingly demonstrated.44 In the section of the Libro de buen amor where small women are praised (1606–17), Juan Ruiz relates the idea of brevity in speech to the quality of smallness in women, preferring the ‘least’ to the ‘most.’ Therefore, at the very beginning of this section, he accomplishes a link between brief written or oral texts and small women: Quiero vos abreviar, señores, la predicaçión, que sienpre me pagué de pequeño sermón,

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 165 e de dueña pequeña e de breve rrazón, ca poco e bien dicho, afinca se el coraçón.

(1606)

(I want, ladies and gentlemen, to curtail my preachment to you, for I have always taken pleasure in a short sermon, and in a little woman, and in a brief poem; for what is concise and well-said stays fixed in the memory. [Translation modified])

Both the ‘dueña chica’ and book are described in similar rhetorical terms, using integumentary imagery which emphasizes the discrepancy between surface appearance and inner essence. The pleasures that small women offer resemble those derived from the interpretation of the book. Like the sweet, white sugar hidden in the humble exterior of the book (17d), the ‘dueña chica’ is likened to a small amount of sugar that yields great sweetness (1610b). She is also a small rose that produces much colour (1612a), in the same way that the meaning of the Libro is a rose whose outer thorns the reader must avoid (18ab). Just as the book harbours money in a shabby purse (16c), the small woman is a little gold piece whose value is very great (1612b). What is even more striking is that ‘buen amor’ is found in both the book (68ab) and the ‘dueña chica’ where it, of course, takes the form of ‘grand amor’ (1610c) so as to fit in with the series of contrasts between qualities of ‘bigness’ and smallness. Impey has astutely pointed out that Juan Ruiz incites the would-be lover of small women to ponder their abundant good qualities (‘mucho ál ý fallaredes, adó bien parades mientes’ 1609d, you will find much more there: put your minds well and truly on it), in much the same way as he invites the readers of his text to think hard about its meaning (‘Entiende bien mis dichos e piensa la sentencia’ 46a, Understand my words correctly and ponder their meaning). This analogy implies that both the book and small women require the active participation of lover or reader. The book as musical instrument calls for the hand of the reader to make it sound out a meaning in the same way that the ‘dueña chica’ needs a lover’s hands to release her sweet song.45 It seems clear that the reading and interpretation of the Libro de buen amor involves unabashed eroticism. The reader must ‘undress’ the integumenta of the text in order to discover a sexually charged meaning, and while he ‘plays’ the book like an instrument, he is both eliciting its meaning and stroking a woman’s body. If the words of the Libro are a deceptive verbal garment that misleads the reader and causes him to

166 Figuring the Feminine

engage in erotic activity merely by the act of reading, one wonders about the supposed freedom which Juan Ruiz gives the reader to choose his own interpretation. Juan Ruiz asserts that readers will select their own interpretations in accordance with their moral predispositions: En general a todos fabla la escriptura: los cuerdos con buen sesso entendrán la cordura; los mançebos livianos guarden se de locura; escoja lo mejor el de buena ventura.

(67)

(The text speaks to everyone in general: people of good sense will discern its wisdom; as for frivolous young people, let them refrain from folly: Let him who is fortunate select the better side.)

However, given Juan Ruiz’s tendency to use words as verbal garments which hide and deceive, one must approach his metatextual commentary with caution. In stanza 934, the canny alcahueta deceives people by removing her garments so that those guarding her female prey will be thrown off guard, and will view her as merely a crazy old woman instead of the dangerous plotter against an innocent girl’s virtue that she truly is: Fizo grand maestría e sotil travesura: fizo se loca pública, andando sin vestidura; dixo luego la gente: ‘¡Dé Dios mala ventura a vieja de mal seso que faze tal locura!’

(934)

(She did something very crafty, a subtle piece of trickery; she acted crazy in public by going around without her clothes on; people quickly said: ‘May God confound an addlepated old woman who does such a crazy thing.’)

The alcahueta’s stratagem of concealing by revealing is very successful since she delivers the girl to the amorous protagonist (941–2). Juan Ruiz employs the same tactic when he self-reflexively removes the garments of his text and tells the reader that he is free to interpret it as he wishes. Whenever Juan Ruiz indulges in metatextual commentary about how to interpret the book, or about the book’s hidden meanings, he may only be revealing the book’s process (i.e., removing its garments) in order to conceal its status as an erotic intermediary, and

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 167

thereby to trick the reader into believing that it is possible to extract a pious, moral meaning from the book. The metaphorization of the book as a musical instrument that can be made to emit good or bad sounds, depending on the moral status of the reader, is another example of the illusion of interpretive freedom. Juan Ruiz is an artist who carefully crafts his text, and therefore necessarily limits its interpretive possibilities, just as the maker of a fiddle creates an instrument that produces a particular kind of sound. Lynn Williams points out that the episode of the Greeks and Romans (44–64), rather than signalling the arbitrary nature of signs, emphasizes the conventionality of signs as an obstacle to correct understanding. The Romans, by dressing their bully in deceptive clothing, violated a convention that would have facilitated communication. Therefore, when Juan Ruiz appears to stress the arbitrariness of language by declaring that words mean only what their interpreters take them to mean (64b), the reader must react with caution.46 The author’s attempt to shift the burden of interpretive responsibility to the reader is very clever,47 since the reader, if he succeeds in discovering that to interpret the Libro de buen amor is to engage in an ‘erotic’ act, is made to feel that he is responsible for his own fall, which makes the realization of the book’s meaning all the more shocking.48 The Book’s Corteza: The Episode of the Greeks and Romans If the meollo at the heart of the various integumentary images of the book is equivalent to carnal sin, what value, then, ought one to attach to the corteza, to the ‘son feo de las palabras’ (prol., p. 110, ugly sound of the words p. 10)? Many critics have attempted to separate the inner meanings of the Libro from its outer garments, in an effort to determine Juan Ruiz’s intentions with regard to both halves of this binary opposition.49 The episode of the Greeks and Romans has often been viewed as a paradigm of the process of linguistic interpretation and the problems inherent in it, and particularly as the key to the meaning of the entire text.50 This episode also alerts the reader to the nature of the corteza of the book, and what its removal signifies.51 The proliferation of garments (both real ones and verbal integumenta) in the Libro de buen amor can also be observed in this episode of linguistic deceit and ineptitude. Although very few critics have commented on the role of clothing in the parable, except in a cursory manner,52 the doctoral robes in which the Romans disguise their low-brow

168 Figuring the Feminine

representative are fundamental to the understanding not only of the parable, but of the whole Libro. In this episode, it is the deceptive garment of the Roman hoodlum which causes the Greek philosopher to misinterpret his signs. The Roman’s garment both inhibits correct interpretation and facilitates the deception since it hides the true nature of the hoodlum: Vistieron lo muy bien paños de grand valía, commo si fuese doctor en la filosofía.

(53ab)

(They dressed him in rich robes of great price, as though he were a doctor of philosophy. [Translation slightly modified])

This garment creates an illusion of goodness since the positive value (‘grand valía’) assigned to the philosopher’s robes is only deceptively good since they clothe the baseness of a crude, uneducated bully. The true meaning under the Roman’s false clothing is of little value. The falsely good garments of the hoodlum lead the Greek to interpret his signs as religious truth: Desque ví que entendién e creyén la Trinidad, entendí que meresçién de leyes çertenidad.

(60cd)

(When I saw that they understood and believed in the Trinity, I understood that they deserved assurance of [receiving] laws.)

The Roman’s inability to interpret the Greek’s signs can be attributed to his lack of learning, whereas the supposedly wise Greek is completely fooled by the Roman’s false garments. Juan Ruiz has the Roman hoodlum unwittingly call attention to his deceptive clothing as a kind of warning to the Greek interpreter: ‘Assentó se el neçio, catando sus vestidos’ (56d, quickly he sat down, gazing at his robes). However, the Greek is not sufficiently aware of the possibility of falsehood and deception, and thus he misses the point. Juan Ruiz seems to equate the Greek interpreter with the reader of his signs, the words of the Libro de buen amor, when he warns the reader not to be fooled by false garments as was the Greek philosopher: Entiende bien mis dichos e piensa la sentencia: non me contesca con tigo como al doctor de Greçia53 con el rribaldo rromanno e con su poca sabiençia

(46abc)

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 169 (Understand my words correctly and ponder their meaning; don’t let it happen between you and I as it happened to the wise man from Greece with the Roman hoodlum of very little knowledge. [Translation modified])

Like the Greek philosopher, the reader of Juan Ruiz’s text is confronted by deceptively pious garments in the Libro which cover nothing more than the sexuality of man’s fallen nature. In fact, the characterization of the Roman as a ‘ribaldo’ resonates with latent sexuality. As Louise Vasvári has shown, the word ribaldo has its origins in the Old French ribalt meaning ‘bellaco’ or ‘libertino’ and also ‘rufián de mujeres públicas.’ Vasvári describes the stock character of the ribaldo as the representation of ‘all that is considered “low,” the aggressively sexual and scatological, and a mocker of reason, authority, and abstract language. In short, he is the power of the corporeal at its most grotesque, which conquers all higher principles.’54 The Greek, fooled by the deceptive clothing hiding the true nature of the Roman’s phallic discourse, allows the Roman to reduce the truths of Christianity to nothing more than obscene sexual gestures.55 The ambiguous piety of the prologue, of the concept of ‘buen amor,’ and the dissonant poetry are the means whereby Juan Ruiz attempts to fool the reader into accepting his very impious, erotic stories as the repositories of religious truth. Juan Ruiz, like the Roman hoodlum, calls attention to the falsely pious garments with which he clothes his text by referring to the integumenta of the book. The ‘mala capa’ and ‘mal tabardo’ are bad precisely because they seduce the reader into seeking a religious, moral truth. The archpriest wants the reader of his text to be more perspicacious than was the Greek philosopher, and holds the Greek up to ridicule for his naive assumption that signs are transparent and can be interpreted with confidence. The Greek is ‘sosegado, de vagar’ (55a, calm, unhurried, my trans.) while he is being tricked by the Romans. The textual prominence Juan Ruiz gives to this parable by placing it at the head of all the episodes narrated in the Libro attests to the importance of the interpretive paradigm it sets forth, and to the need for extreme caution on the part of the reader who ought to be on guard against deceptive garments. In another exemplum, that of the devil and the hermit, pious words cover up the devil’s sinister intentions, and seduce the naive and trusting hermit into getting drunk and committing a sexual sin. The devil tricks the hermit by using words that only appear to be pious. He leads the hermit into thinking that the consumption of wine is a religious act since wine is a holy sacrament which is turned into the blood of Christ:

170 Figuring the Feminine ‘Non deves tener dubda que del vino se faze la sangre verdadera de Dios; en ello yaze sacramento muy santo; prueva lo si te plaze.’ El diablo al monge arma do lo enlaze.

(534)

(‘You must have no doubt that the true blood God is made from wine: on this fact there is based a most holy sacrament; taste it, if you would like to.’ The Devil was fixing up a place to snare the monk.)

Colbert Nepaulsingh has pointed out that the devil’s familiarity with religious doctrine enables him to use it effectively for the purposes of deception. He also calls the narrator of the Libro ‘diabolical’ since he too uses the false garment of orthodoxy to fool naive readers.56 The garment of the Roman that deceives the Greek into mistaking the vulgar gesticulations of a bully for religious truth, and the devil’s veneer of verbal piety suggest that the reader must beware of falsely virtuous and pious integumenta. The structure of the Libro de buen amor is such that it can be said to be dressed in integumenta of religion, which corteza the reader must remove. In the 1330 version of the text (MS G), the gozos to the Virgin were placed at the beginning of the book, while the end of the book mirrored the beginning with another series of Marian gozos.57 One could, therefore, view the gozos as a pious covering which contains the book. Even the later 1343 tradition of the Libro can be said to open with a questionably ‘religious’ prologue and to close with the gozos to the Virgin. Germán Orduna has argued that the opening prayer and final cantigas found in MS S ought to be considered as accretions to the text rather than as integral elements of it.58 This would mean that both versions of the Libro are structured in such a way as to call attention to a corteza of Christian virtue in which is hidden the true carnal meaning of the text. The reader’s task is to remove the veneer of religious orthodoxy and enjoy the text. Thus, Juan Ruiz’s text wears the clothing of the rhetorical tropes of metaphor and allegory. Although the archpriest attempts to lead the interpreter to believe that he is confronting the veils of allegory that usually hide lofty and profound truths, Juan Ruiz, in fact, subverts this conventional integumentary model of interpretation.59 The integumenta of the Libro have more in common with the clothing of metaphor that hides a base meaning. Just as metaphor may be considered a violation of order,60 the structuring by Juan Ruiz of his book in terms of the imagery of metaphor may have a similar transgressive purpose since

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 171

its integumentary structure both recognizes and transgresses the structure and logic of allegorical interpretive models. The outer layers which must be removed are the garments of piety instead of the more usual corteza of impious stories and poetic fables. The meaning, which is revealed once the ‘bad’ integuments of religious orthodoxy are removed, may be equivalent to sexual pleasure rather than to a kernel of moral or Christian truth.61 This same reversal of the model of allegorical, integumentary interpretation has been noted in Boccaccio’s Decameron by Giuseppe Mazzotta who described it as pornography: ‘pornography is an allegory for like an allegory it needs a cover. In allegory, the ambiguities are provided by the husk that envelops the moral kernel; in the present figuration of pornography, morality is the chaff hiding the erotic fruit.’62 Like Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz has turned sexuality into a book,63 the reading and interpretation of which are saturated with eroticism. However, unlike pornography, which is transparent, or wears a flimsy cover only to signal its forbidden status, Juan Ruiz’s book invites the audience to reflect self-consciously on the process of removing integumenta in order to gratify erotic desire. His book may mislead unsuspecting readers, but while doing so it should arouse awareness in sophisticated readers of the fallen carnality of the letter. Language and Desire in the Libro de buen amor ‘A vezes de chica fabla viene mucha folgura’ (652d, Sometimes few words can bring great pleasure). These words spoken by Don Melón express his hope that the satisfaction of his desire to possess physically Doña Endrina will follow from the articulation of this desire in language. Although the Libro is far from being a ‘chica fabla,’ it too employs language to narrate the efforts of a series of male protagonists to satisfy their sexual desire, while at the same time its discourse evokes desire in the reader for meaning and reflects the desire of the writer whose words are but feeble substitutes for physical satisfaction. The various manifestations of desire in the text of the Libro point to a necessary relationship between desire and language. According to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, the breaking of the seamless unity of mother and child precipitates the child into the world of language where the mother’s absence is translated into the speaking of a desire whose condition is to remain perpetually unsatisfied. The Libro de buen amor enacts and mirrors the inevitable entrapment of desire in the web of discourse by sexualizing the processes of writing and reading. As

172 Figuring the Feminine

we have already seen, the author figure ‘Juan Ruiz’ configures the meaning of the text as an object of interpretive desire by metaphorizing the writing of the book as the veiling of a valuable meaning in unworthy integumenta that the reader must remove. This conventional language of allegorical veiling, associated in medieval poetics with the protective hiding of transcendent truths, becomes part of a hermeneutic of pleasure. The Libro de buen amor, in calling attention to its poor, shabby outer garments, incites the interpreter’s desire, spurring him on to undress the text in order to discover an inner meaning that is worthier than its deceptive external veils suggest. The dressing of a kernel of meaning in linguistic clothing brings us to another convention of medieval poetics, that of the poem as a body. Geoffrey of Vinsauf refers to his rhetorical treatise as a ‘body of words’ (Poetria Nova, l. 83), and to a poem as possessing a ‘face’ (l. 69) which can be blemished by an error in writing. To create poetry was to clothe rude ‘materia’ in rhetorically ornate garments. This poetic body adorned with words was usually gendered as a feminine body which ought to remain virginal and free from overwrought, whorish adornment. The Libro’s erotically charged invitation to the reader to disrobe its meaning is surely playing upon the conventional expectation that poetic meaning is a feminine body or a ‘pretty woman’ awaiting appropriation by the interpreter: ‘Entiende bien mi dicho e avrás dueña garrida’ (64d). The text also engenders desire through the incorporation of logical, metaphorical, and actual absences or holes which in medieval poetic theory are signs of sexual promiscuity and textual mendacity. Roland Barthes, in The Pleasure of the Text, distinguishes between texts that produce plaisir and those that yield jouissance (ecstasy).64 The text of pleasure is the readerly text whereas the text of ecstasy is one that unsettles the historical, cultural, or psychological assumptions of the reader by leaving him/her in a state of loss. Like the text of ecstasy, the Libro de buen amor disrupts the reader’s expectations, subverting the literary conventions on which the reader was wont to depend, and ensnaring him in the text’s carnality. In declaring himself to be an inexperienced tailor who is turning out an imperfectly sewn poem65 (‘rremendar bien non sabe todo alfayate nuevo’ (st. 66b, [not every new tailor can do a good job of mending]), Juan Ruiz is acknowledging that his text contains seams, cuts, and dissolves that are the loci of pleasure.66 As we have already seen in chapter 1, ragged texts are a sign of a debased meaning. The rhetoricians warn poets not to dress the chaste feminine

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 173

body of their materia in ragged clothing since the negative connotations of raggedness (i.e., a lack of integrity – both moral and physical) would imply a prostitution of an honest meaning.67 The text of the Libro de buen amor constantly reminds the reader that its meaning does not correspond with what its outer words suggest: ‘fasta que el libro entiendas, dél bien non digas nin mal, ca tú entenderás uno e el libro dize ál’ (986cd). This gap between superficial words and an underlying feminine body of textual meaning implies a lack of integrity in the textual body. Like the text exposed to the gaze and interpretive efforts of the reader, the evocation in words of the body of the ideal woman reflects a similar lack of unity and only serves to arouse the desire of both the protagonist and the reader. Don Amor, as part of his response to the unsuccessful and unsatisfied protagonist, describes the kind of woman the would-be lover ought to pursue. Following the rhetorical conventions of descriptio, he begins with the woman’s head and face and proceeds to enumerate every mentionable part of the woman’s body. The body of the ideal woman, fragmented and fetishized by such a disjointed description, ought to provide pleasure to the reader whose position of mastery should enable him to exercise greater control over the ‘other’ as represented by Woman.68 However, after Don Amor has described every desirable feature of the ideal woman’s face (432–5ab), he severs the woman’s head from her body by the insertion of a description of the ideal alcahueta, after which continues the enumeration of her ‘mienbros,’ ‘pechos,’ ‘braços,’ etc. (444–5). This ‘descriptio interrupta,’ instead of allowing the satisfaction of control over the body, only frustrates the voyeuristic impulse of both reader and protagonist by creating a gap, a hole emblematic of the desire for unity. The gaping body of the ideal woman that arouses and frustrates desire can be seen as a figure for the unintegral nature of the Libro’s text, and as a sign of materia whose meaning is indecent and debased according to rhetorical connotations of raggedness. The raggedness of the Libro is stated explicitly by the authorial voice, who likens the role of author to that of an inexperienced tailor whose text resembles a patched-together garment: rremendar bien non sabe todo alfayate nuevo; a trobar con locura non creas que me muevo:

(66bc)

(Not every new tailor knows how to mend well; don’t think that I am moved to write poetry out of foolishness:)

174 Figuring the Feminine

The deceptive lack of congruence between word and meaning connoted by the quality of raggedness and the relationship of this dishonesty to a masculine fear of feminine carnality can also be seen in the construction of the alcahueta. Like a text whose beguiling outer garments seduce and deceive the reader, the go-betweens in the Libro manipulate words both to arouse desire in their intended female victims, and to enable their male clients to satisfy their desire. The nun, Doña Garoça, expresses her fear of false intermediaries using the language of raggedness: El mundo es texido de malos arigotes; en buen andança el omne tiene muchos galeotes, parientes apostizos, amigos paviotes, desque le veen en coíta, non dan por él dos motes.

(1477)

(The world is woven out of worthless rags: in wealth a man has many traitors, bogus relatives, friends as fancy as peacocks; but when they see him in trouble they don’t care two words for him.)

Given the stated equivalence between the book and the alcahueta (933ab), the book, then, aside from generating desire for meaning and coherence, is also implicated in the mendacity and sexual dishonesty characteristic of ragged poetic texts. The image of the text as a badly mended garment is also manifested on the levels of narrative and structure. The narration of the protagonist’s obsessive desire for sexual union and of the repeated failures of his erotic endeavours reveals a different kind of gap. The more the ‘archpriest’ fails in his attempts to seduce women, the more he ignores past experiences of failure and adheres even more closely to the artificial logic of erotic fiction.69 In the episode of Don Melón and Doña Endrina the identity of the narrative voice becomes blurred when the archpriest suddenly becomes Don Melón in stanza 727. However, Doña Endrina’s reference to ‘mi amor de Fita’ (845a) makes the lover’s identity even more problematic. Such confusion, perhaps like a Freudian slip, constitutes the insertion of the desire of the author figure into this story. Since this is one of the few narratives in which the male lover satisfies his desire, the voice of ‘Juan Ruiz’ becomes that of the lover Don Melón, whereby ‘Juan Ruiz’ is transformed into a stock character of Ovidian erotic fiction in which the well taught lover always achieves his aim. Thus, by writing himself into a stereotypical Ovidian situation,

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 175

the Arcipreste de Hita momentarily leaves behind his experiences of failure and attempts to appropriate for himself the amorous success of a fictional character. This gap between experience and imaginative logic is emblematic of the desire for closure, both narrative and physical. The protagonist’s desire to force his concrete experience to correlate with a model of erotic fiction (of the sort exemplified by the Pamphilus, and the De amore of Andreas Capellanus) must necessarily result in failure and frustration. The Libro is also riddled with logical gaps and inconsistencies. The gaping edges of Juan Ruiz’s ragged poetic garment mirror an absence of harmony that corresponds to the disproportionate domination of the flesh over reason. Logic is deliberately perverted in the Libro through the intentional use of fallacious arguments and the deformation of biblical authority, as Vicente Cantarino has amply proven.70 There are also logical gaps and discontinuities between the narrative and inserted fables, whose moral point is often contradicted by a final exemplum characterized by ambivalent logic or absurdity.71 The traditional tension between the spirit and the flesh in Christian thought was often conceived of as an opposition between the harmonious music of the spirit and the discordant music of the flesh consisting of rationes that are illogical or disproportionate.72 The dissonant, atonal music of carnal desire is the result of the purposeful deformation of holy music by the devil, who, like Juan Ruiz’s book, encourages men to satisfy their erotic impulses. The literary construction of the Libro in the form of abrupt transitions between episodes73 mirrors the metaphor of the poetic text as a ragged garment and serves to actualize the frustration of the protagonist and draw the reader into this cycle of desire and probable sexual failure by emphasizing the impossibility of reconciling the reading experience with the conventional literary principle or expectation that posits the ideal, virtuous text as one which flows with apparent ease from part to part. The incoherent structure of the Libro calls attention to a desire for unity. The psychoanalytical theory of suture describes the process whereby the subject attempts to reconstitute the prelinguistic imaginative plenitude that is lost when the child enters the order of language. With the accession to the symbolic order of language comes the division of the subject who attempts to reconstruct an imaginary unified self in every act of signification. Narrative (both cinematic and literary) is often constructed in such a way as to expose narrative discontinuities

176 Figuring the Feminine

so that the reader or viewer is led to want to suture the gaps, to construct an imaginary unity. Such a narrative shuttles the interpreter from a state of imaginary plenitude to the awareness of a lack, leading him/her to desire the next narrative sequence. Satisfying narratives are, therefore, ones which ultimately result in a successful suturing of their disjunctions.74 Instead of facilitating the process of suturing over the narrative gaps, leading to the attainment of pleasure, the Libro forces the reader to confront his desire by calling attention to the seams of the text, to its status as a ragged, patchwork text. The narrative form of the Libro problematizes and exacerbates the desire of its readers in the same way its narrative content marks the seams between the desire of the protagonist for sexual union and the impossibility of pouring experience into fictional erotic moulds. In the Libro de buen amor, both readers and protagonists seek to fulfil their respective desires. The raggedness of the Libro’s text serves to highlight and thematize the desire which grips both its readers and male characters, and even, perhaps its author figure. The Arcipreste de Hita, the protagonist of many of the amorous adventures narrated in the Libro complains of his entrapment in a state of perpetually unsatisfied desire after failing to seduce three different women: Ca, segund vos he dicho, de tal ventura seo que, si lo faz mi signo o si mi mal asseo, nunca puedo acabar lo medio que desseo;

(180abc)

(For as I have told you, my fortune is such that I can never attain half of what I desire whether on account of the sign under which I was born or my bad appearance.)

The protagonist’s desire is shared by both the narrator and the commentator who are also named Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita. After the desire-inducing description of the ideal woman by Don Amor, the narrator links his poetic activity to the desire impelling him to seek the perfect woman: Yo Johan Ruiz, el sobre dicho açipreste de Hita, pero que mi coraçón de trobar non se quita, nunca fallé tal dueña como a vós Amor pinta; nin creo que la falle en toda esta cohita.

(575)

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 177 (I Juan Ruiz, the aforesaid archpriest of Hita, have never found a woman like the one Don Amor describes for you, nor do I believe that I will find her around here at all. Although this is so, my heart will not stop composing poetry.)

The protagonist in the Doña Endrina episode speaks of his unfulfilled desire and the suffering it causes him. In stanza 649 he mentions various forms of discourse enacted by others which fail to ease his pain: minstrels may comfort, but their songs do not cure him; sweet songs only increase his suffering; and the words of advice offered to him by Doña Venus do not ease his burden. In line d of this stanza, which is an addition by the author to his source material in the Pamphilus, the voice of the lover has no choice but to keep on expressing his desire in language: ‘ayuda otra non me queda si non lengua e parlares’ (649d, I have no recourse left except my tongue and my words). The introduction of desire into the process of writing implies the relinquishing of control over the text. According to Don Amor, once desire has been set aflame it becomes an uncontrollable, irresistible force that takes over the will. In the examples he provides to illustrate the effect of desire, he includes the honest woman whose vergüenza (sense of modesty) is easily overcome, the gambler who loses his pants while caught up in the game, the songstress who is carried away by the rhythm of the music, and the weaver whose body is taken over by the automatic, hypnotic motion of the loom: Texedor e cantadera nunca tienen los pies quedos en el telar e en la dança sienpre bullen los dedos; la muger sin vergüenza por dar le diez Toledos non dexaría de fazer sus antojos azedos.

(471)

(The feet of the weaver and singer are never still; their hands and feet are constantly moving as they weave and dance. So a woman without shame, even if you presented her with ten Toledos, could not help following her intense desires.)

Given the textual associations of garment imagery in medieval poetic theory in general and its exploitation in the Libro de buen amor, the inclusion of the texedor in this enumeration of those who are swept away by desire suggests that the weaver of a text which both enacts

178 Figuring the Feminine

and provokes desire abandons himself to the act of writing, which, in effect, takes on a life and will of its own. The exemplum of Pitas Payas makes clear the consequences of the intrusion of desire into textuality for both writer and reader.75 Don Amor narrates the story of Pitas Payas to the ‘archpriest’ ostensibly to warn him of the dire effects of neglecting one’s lover. Pitas Payas, after only one month of marriage to his young wife, leaves her to go to Flanders on a business trip. In order to secure her sexual fidelity he paints a little lamb below her navel (476–7). The merchant uses his wife’s body as a surface of inscription when he marks her with his desire for sexual mastery and control: ‘Dixo don Pitas Payas: ‘Dona de fermosura, yo volo fazer in vós una bona figura, por que seades guardada de toda altra locura.’

(476abc; my emphasis)

(Pitas Payas said: ‘Beautiful lady, I want to place upon you a good figure so that you may refrain from all wild acts.’)

However, the woman defies the authority of her absent husband/author and uses her body as she pleases. After Pitas has been away a short while she takes a lover with whom she is so frequently intimate that the text inscribed on her body is erased. This act of defiance constitutes the slipping away of both women and language from the authoritative attempts of Pitas to impose sexual and textual mastery. When the woman hears that her husband has returned after a two-year absence, in a panic, she implores her lover to restore the erased text (479). Instead of a lamb, however, he manipulates the original sign and reinscribes her with a figure of a horned ram (483) which, of course, signifies Pitas’s status as a cuckold. The original sign of her body is erased and then reversed so that instead of signifying chastity, it now signifies its opposite, sexual infidelity. The implications of this parable of adultery and writing are many. In the first instance, it implies a connection between the sexual power of women and the slippage and reversal of signs. Language, when linked to sexual desire, becomes radically unstable, and is unable to maintain an unambiguous meaning governed by its ‘author’s’ intentions. In this exemplum, writing is allegorized as the inscription of marks of possession on a female textual body, which ultimately slips away from the author and is irrevocably changed when it is appropriated by the desire of new readers. As readers are ensnared in the desire engendered by the

Undressing the Libro de buen amor 179

book, they may very well erase the book’s signs and replace them with ones whose meaning may undermine, contradict, or cancel out the original ones inscribed there. The absence of the male author makes possible the adultery or sexual defiance of the text. Since all texts are eventually separated from their authors due to factors of time and place, it is inevitable that other readers will appropriate the text, will come to know its body so well that its original words will fade and be replaced by ones that signify the author’s textual/sexual cuckoldry.76 The text shares the negative properties of women that the concept of raggedness connotes: it behaves in a wanton manner and its meaning is dangerously unstable. What is so striking about this parable is that these consequences of textual promiscuity are welcomed by the Libro. Built into the text is an acute awareness of the problem of ‘timely reading’77 whereby the temporal character of reading leads to distortion of authorship and the discovery of ‘new’ meanings. The text invites its audience to read and enjoy freely its body with the full realization that these readers will likely erase or emend its words: Qual quier que lo oya, si bien trobar sopiere, puede más ý añadir e emendar, si quisiere; ande de mano en mano, a quien quier quel pidiere,

(1629)

(Whoever hears [or reads] it, if he knows how to compose poetry may add to it and emend whatever he wishes; let it pass from hand to hand,)

The authorial persona of Juan Ruiz is willing to let go of ‘his’ text, to forego the body he once possessed, although he wants to ensure that its desirable body will not be prostituted: Pues es de buen amor, enprestad lo de grado: non desmintades su nonbre, nil dedes rrefertado; non le dedes por dineros, vendido nin alqilado; ca non ha grado nin graçia nin buen amor conprado.

(1630)

(Since it is of good love, lend it gladly; don’t deny it its name and don’t give it censure; don’t give it for pay, either by sale or by rental, for good love that is purchased has no delight or grace.)

Unlike Pitas Payas who was made to look like a fool for believing that his text would be permanent despite his absence, and for failing to

180 Figuring the Feminine

recognize the slipperiness of women and signifiers, the Libro de buen amor accepts the infidelity of textual transmission.78 The abdication of mastery over the textual body by the author of the Libro de buen amor both underscores the inevitability of textual transgression and welcomes its potential productivity. Like the Bakhtinian notion of the grotesque lower body whose nutritive and regenerative material functions involve the opening of its orifices through ingestion, penetration, or defecation, the body of the Libro shares in the vibrant physicality of the bas corporel.79 As Bakhtin asserts, ‘The very material bodily lower stratum of the grotesque image (food, wine, the genital force, the organs of the body) bears a deeply positive character. This principle is victorious, for the final result is always abundance, increase.’80 The Libro’s wanton body that circulates from reader to reader evoking desire for meaning results in a proliferation of readings and in the generation of new writing when the reader’s desire is translated into new markings of textual possession, a possession that can, however, only be provisional. Although the feminized textual body is objectified and commodified by being passed from reader to reader, it ultimately resists being bound by any patriarchal interpretive superstructure that entangles the ‘questions of art, style and truth [with] the question of the woman.’81 The playful loosening of the rules of interpretation and the resulting destabilization of truth facilitated by the Libro’s sexualized body does not, however, constitute only a temporary ‘suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions’ of the established order, unlike the temporary subversion effected by the grotesque, maternally fecund body which, according to Bakhtin, only asserts its dominance during the limited time of carnival.82 Unlike the feminized textual bodies in the Poema de mio Cid which were silenced by the poet, and those of the martyrs and the Virgin whose power Prudentius and Berceo attempted to compel and confine by subjecting them to textualization, the elusive body of the Libro de buen amor thumbs its nose at any attempt to contain or control it and remains irrepressibly vital to readers, both medieval and modern.

6 Configuring Culture: Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión

At the same time that the Libro de buen amor was disseminating its message of wanton textual instability, Rabbi Shem Tov ben Isaac Ardutiel of Carrión (or Santob as he is known in Spanish) was examining the nature of textuality and the consequences of linking writing and sex. Like Juan Ruiz, Shem Tov exploits the trope of a woman’s body covered in layers of words to refer to texts and their interpretation and, astonishingly, he also celebrates textual ambiguity by fashioning a text whose lack of integrity is figured as literal raggedness. Where Juan Ruiz is the tailor who patches together his text in such a way that it is impossible to conceal its rough seams, Shem Tov proudly claims to have used scissors to create a text riddled with holes and gaping edges. Such a convergence of images to denote the act of writing poetry and the problems inherent in its decoding is not a matter of mere coincidence. Indeed, the work that best exemplifies Shem Tov’s concern with the nature of writing and its interpretation, the Hebrew Ma ‘aseh haRav: Mil h. emet ha-‘et ve-ha-misparayim (Battle between the Pen and the Scissors), was written in 1345, just subsequent to the later edition of the Libro de buen amor, in the town of Carrión, the same region of northern Castile that produced the archpriest of Hita’s text. Although it is impossible to prove that these two authors knew each other, one can view them as participants in a common literary culture that selfreflexively examined the possibility of communicating meaning.1 Author of works in both Castilian and Hebrew, Shem Tov has his literary feet planted firmly in two worlds. His Proverbios morales,2 a gnomic work that circulated widely among both Jews and Christians, draws upon a variety of Semitic sapiential sources and is noted for its infusion into Castilian of modes of expression and stylistic devices

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common to Hebrew and Arabic literature.3 Jacques Joset even terms the poetic voice adopted by Shem Tov in the Proverbios a ‘yo acculturé’ given its Christian, confessional connotations.4 Shem Tov’s Hebrew literary production is more varied, consisting of the aforementioned Battle between the Pen and the Scissors as well as two liturgical poems: one, a religious text, Yam Qohelet (Sea of Ecclesiastes), in which all of its two thousand words begin with the letter mem, and the other, a long confessional poem written for liturgical use on the Day of Atonement.5 In addition, he was well versed in Arabic language and literary techniques, having translated into Hebrew a Jewish liturgical text written in Arabic by Israel b. Joseph b. Israel.6 While a number of critics have commented on Shem Tov’s cultural and literary hybrid status, based on the fusion of Semitic and Romance literary sensibilities in the Proverbios, very little attention has been paid to his espousal of Castilian literary values and their influence on his Hebrew writing. In the Battle, Shem Tov considers his poetic role as encompassing both Hebrew and Castilian when he claims he must memorialize the scissors’ feat in both the holy tongue and that of ‘the people.’7 The intrusion of an adopted alien literary language and aesthetic into the very tightly knit group of Hebrew poets active in the area of Carrión de los Condes and Fromista drew sharp criticism from Samuel Ibn Sasson, who urged Shem Tov not to use ‘their’ language, but to remain faithful to Hebrew, ‘the pure language, close to you.’8 Ibn Sasson’s rebuke points to the perception among Jewish writers that use of and exposure to Romance literary models were pernicious and ought to be avoided. While Shem Tov’s use of Castilian in the Proverbios attracted the critical eye of Ibn Sasson, this linguistic heresy is symptomatic of a much more profound literary acculturation. In his Hebrew debate poem, Shem Tov employs metaphors for writing and interpretation that are rooted in the Latin/Romance poetic tradition. He constructs a text as a sexually charged feminine body in order to reflect on the nature of poetic truth, the relationship between content and form, the tension between the literal and the figurative, and the dilemma of contradictory cultural imperatives. In The Battle between the Pen and the Scissors Shem Tov pits two kinds of textual embodiment against each other. As both author and protagonist of the debate poem, Shem Tov is forced to write with scissors when a terrible frost descends upon the land and freezes the ink, thereby incapacitating the pen.9 The heart of the Battle is the central section in which the pen and the scissors boast about the

Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión 183

superiority of their respective texts and accuse the other of creating a text whose virtue and meaning are suspect. Shem Tov’s Battle belongs to the Hebrew genre of the maqama, a composition of rhymed prose interspersed with poems that encapsulate the essence of the preceding narrative sections.10 The maqama genre has a long and complex history in Spain. As Dan Pagis points out, the term ‘maqama’ originally was used to refer to the classical Arabic maqama which was made famous by Alhariri of Basra (1054–1122) and was already establishing itself as a literary genre in Spain in the eleventh century before becoming more widely used by both Jews and Muslims in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries after Judah Al h. arizi translated Alhariri’s maqamas into Hebrew and wrote his own original work, The Book of the Ta h. kemoni. The classical maqama is a series of loosely connected episodes framed by a controlling narrative pattern and the omnipresence of two main characters, and distinguished by an ‘over the top’ rhetorical brilliance. Most of the rhymed prose and verse compositions in Spain borrowed elements of the classical model, but departed significantly from it, preferring a more coherent narrative structure and a more varied palette of themes. One of the central motifs of the more broadly defined Hebrew maqama is that of the debate, a common literary theme in both European and Arabic literary cultures.11 Shem Tov’s Battle grows out of the well established tradition of Hebrew debate maqamas developed over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,12 and the choice of a pen and scissors as the combatants is a riff on the conventional disputes between swords and pens that were commonplace in Arabic literature and whose first fully developed manifestation was the eleventh-century debate by the Spanish Ah. mad Ibn Burd the Younger.13 At the same time that the Hispano-Arabic Ibn Burd was producing his debate, early eleventh-century Hebrew poets were already making use of the Arabic topos of the pen as a fierce weapon whose power rivals or exceeds that of the sword.14 Critics have praised the Battle for its humour and originality while recognizing Shem Tov’s debt to linguistic norms and imagistic conventions.15 The few critical readings of the Battle share a tendency to allegorize the text, seeking to explain the meaning of the conflict between the pen and the scissors by means of extratextual, historical circumstances. Sanford Shepard views the scissors’ usurpation of the pen’s role and their destructive impact on the text as emblematic of Abner of Burgos, the Jewish apostate who deliberately distorted the meaning of Jewish religious writings by cutting passages out of context before

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condemning them as anti-Christian or presenting them as proofs of the truth of Christianity.16 Clark Colahan attempts to read the Battle as a political allegory, in which the scissors represent Gonzalo Martínez who, in the year 1339, attempted to persuade the fiscally pressed King Alfonso XI of Castile to sell to him the Jews of the kingdom, and in which the pen stands for the suffering, but miraculously rescued Jewish people.17 The editors of the Hebrew text propose that the displacement of the pen by the scissors is an allegory for the turbulent times experienced by Jewish communities in Spain when ignorant men rose to positions of power after ousting their more intellectually and morally qualified coreligionists.18 Only Susan Einbinder has called for a literary approach to the text, sensing that the ‘story is somehow “about” both writing and clear versus coded meaning, objective versus interpretive truth.’19 Indeed, the debate is so saturated with images of writing and interpretation that one can only begin to grasp exactly what its literary point is after a careful unpacking of its metaphorical language and an understanding of the resonances of these metaphors in the tricultural literary world in which Shem Tov operated. One of the most predominant images used to describe the texts written by the pen and scissors in Shem Tov’s Battle is that of a guf me s. uyyar (l. 270), a body decorated or covered up by the words of poetry. The hiding of a desirable meaning within layers of words is, as we have seen, a conventional way of referring to the processes of writing and textual interpretation. The presence of such imagery in medieval Hebrew writing is not surprising given that Arabic poetics had already absorbed and transformed the classical poetic disjunction between matter and form. Medieval Hebrew poets in the lands of Islam were full participants in Arabic literary culture and they were exposed to the same rhetoric and ideology of writing. One of the conduits for Arabic rhetorical thought and practice was the Judeo-Arabic prose writings of Moses Ibn Ezra (ca. 1055–after 1135), the great poet, theorist, and critic who sought to explain and justify the composition of Andalusian Hebrew poetry to the less knowledgeable Jews of northern Christian Spain. His Kitãb al-muh. ãd. ara wa-‘l-mudãhkara (The Book of Conversation and Discussion) is an excellent guide to Hispano-Hebrew attitudes towards poetry since in this treatise he both defends and condemns it.20 Basing himself on Arabic predecessors, Ibn Ezra describes the writing of poetry as the weaving of rhetorically ornate language in order to adorn an inner content.21 The inner matter or ‘heart’ of the poem is likened by Ibn Ezra to the soul inhabiting and vivifying the linguistic

Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión 185

body in which it is clothed, or to a stable, unchanging ‘seed’ (gar’in) nestled in the ‘shell’ (qelipah) of words perceived by the senses of the reader or listener.22 The division between content or meaning and form is also figured as a disjunction between the literal and figurative levels of meaning. Ibn Ezra distinguishes between h. aqiqah, language that represents reality as it is captured by reason and the senses, language whose meaning is not in conflict with a literal understanding of the words, and majaz, figurative language which deviates from the literal.23 The Arabic word ‘majaz’ has similar transgressive connotations to the Latin translatio since it is derived from the verb jãza ‘to cross over.’24 Majaz involves the use of tropes which signal a lack of congruence between the outside (bar) or exterior of an utterance and its interior. The beautiful clothing of a subject by majaz should still hint at what lies beneath, yet ought not to reveal the contours of the body too obviously.25 The disjunction between the content and the clothing of the poem admits the possibility that poetry might be nothing more than a beautiful, alluring vehicle for the perversion of truth. Jewish poets and philosophers expressed an anxiety similar to that found among Latin rhetoricians that the integumenta of a poem might deceitfully conceal something unworthy. Moses Ibn Ezra’s ambivalent attitude towards poetry is a response to the conventional Semitic poetic tenet that ‘if a poem were devoid of lies, it would not be poetry.’26 While recognizing that deception is the essence of poetry, Ibn Ezra locates the falsehood of poetry in the ephemeral words of majaz in contrast to the truth at the heart of the poem, and he places the onus on the poet to ensure that the contents of the poem are true and to restrain the potentially distorting proliferation of figurative language.27 In his attempt to give the matter of the poem its due, Ibn Ezra challenges the Arabic literary attitude that regarded the weaving of the garments of poetry out of brilliant figures as central, and the subject matter as trivial.28 Yet, even Ibn Ezra’s own Book of Conversation and Discussion accords figurative language an essential role, privileging the use of metaphorical language by placing it at the head of the list of the twenty rhetorical devices which beautify a poem, and without which a poem would be a naked stutterer instead of a splendidly attired example of eloquence.29 The ambivalence expressed by Ibn Ezra about the potential of poetry to deceive the reader by means of its dazzling verbal virtuosity continued to condition attitudes towards the writing of poetry among the Jewish intellectuals of Christian Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Poets such as the thirteenth-century philosopher Shem Tov

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Falaqera adopted the traditional pose of the ‘compunctious poet’ who comes to reject the frivolous, deceptive path of poetry in favour of the higher road of philosophy as the best means of attaining truth. However, many other Hebrew poets of the same period were enthusiastic composers of maqamas, a genre that embraced ‘the use of masks and literary screens that force the characters and the reader respectively to unmask illusion and recognize reality.’30 The playful ambiguity that characterizes the maqama harks back to the earlier Arabic literary aesthetic that celebrates the poet’s ability to bend reality by means of sheer verbal artistry. The composers of maqamas had no qualms about privileging the potential of poetic language to distort reality by dressing it in deceptive clothing.31 The metaphor of the text as a body swathed in ornate verbal garments that may deceive the reader about the nature of the body underneath is one that exercised the imaginations of Latin rhetoricians, and as we have already seen in chapter 1, led them to exploit the language of gender to characterize the deceptive, slippery relationship of materia and forma. The Latin artes poetriae are quite explicit in their categorization of the alluring veils of figurative language as a feminine wile that evokes desire in the reader for a meaning that may be far from virtuous. The loose relationship between the content and form of a text is graphically represented as a whorish woman whose ragged clothing affords the reader illicit glimpses of her unchaste materia. While the imagery of a textual body concealed beneath verbal integumenta is common to both Western and Eastern poetics, it is striking that the anxiety felt by Semitic poets and theoreticians about the deceptive potential of poetry is not feminized or sexualized.32 However, Shem Tov’s Battle, like the Libro de buen amor, eroticizes the textual body and makes its concealment or revelation a vehicle for self-reflexive commentary on the nature of poetic truth and meaning. Gender imagery is an important structural feature of Shem Tov’s Battle. The text opens with a description of the abnormal state of nature that has befallen Shem Tov’s town of Carrión. He describes the unprecedented deep freeze that has descended upon Castile as a transformation of the sea into dry land (l. 19) and a subjugation of the sun’s warmth and light by frigid darkness (ll. 21–4). The narrator, after having lamented his state of isolation and loneliness since the weather has marooned all his companions, turns to praise his trusty pen with which he intends to write in order to while away the time. In the lavish praise bestowed upon the pen, the narrator uses images of strength

Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión 187

and masculinity to describe the pen’s communicative activity. The phallic connotations of the images used to describe the pen are unmistakable. The pen is a ‘blade of fire,’ the ‘blade of a spear’ (lahav esh ’o lahav h. erev wa-h. enitot, l. 41), a ‘staff’ (mat.eh, l. 36), and an ‘additional finger’ (‘ s. ba‘ yeterah, l. 35). Later on in the maqama, when the pen is justifying the text he produces, exploiting the sexually charged language of sowing he describes his action on the page as a watering of the page’s furrows (l. 375) that will render her fertile. The designation of the pen’s potency as distinctly phallic is made explicit in the aftermath of the narrator’s attempt to wield his instrument. The pen’s failure to penetrate the inkwell on account of the frozen ink is a metaphorical emasculation. The pen, making excuses for his miserable performance, reminds the narrator of all that he has done for him in the past and terms his present predicament a loss of masculine power (‘tashash koh. i ki-neqevah,’ l. 151).33 The narrator humiliates the pen further by making reference to the intact, virginal state of the inkwell (l. 199).34 Reduced to a state of impotence, the pen can only listen helplessly when the scissors raise their voice and offer themselves as a more virile alternative writing implement. Unlike the dessicated pen, the scissors are able to ‘plough’ (h. oresh, l. 299) the page and bring forth words miraculously, like God’s phallic engraving of the Tablets (ll. 413–14).35 The scissors’ assumption of the pen’s role as virile, potent tool is underscored by Shem Tov’s playful manipulation of the traditional imagery of the pen as a warrior who rides in the chariot of the writer’s hand. The scissors assail the pen’s decay (rokev, l. 295) by punning on the word for ‘chariot’ (rokhev) thereby emphasizing the pen’s fall from his erstwhile bellicose masculine glory and power. The description of the activity of both the pen and the scissors in terms of masculine potency constructs the page, the passive ground that receives the cuts or marks of the writing implements, as a woman’s body. In the ensuing debate between the pen and the scissors about the merits and drawbacks of both kinds of writing, the action of each tool on the somatized page implies both hermeneutic and sexual consequences. The text produced by the pen is characterized by a confining modesty which literally keeps the text’s desirable body under wraps. A letter written by a pen can be folded up and sealed so that its words will only be enjoyed by the eyes for which they were intended. The pen’s letter is sealed and intact, ‘bolted and barred’ to ensure both secrecy and chastity (l. 387). The sexually restrained nature of this text is underscored by the conventionel language of virginity from Song of

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Songs 4:12: ‘gan na‘ul ‘ah. oti khalah’ (A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, Battle, l. 384). Like the seamless, chaste text of the Virgin Mary in Berceo’s Milagros whose beginning mirrored its end to form a perfectly closed circle, the head of the pen’s text rejoins the end of the letter, thereby effectively sealing it (‘ro’shah be-sof ‘iqarah,’ l. 385). The pen takes seriously his masculine role of ensuring that the text’s feminine carnality remains within bounds by locking her in behind ‘bars and doors’ (l. 382), and the pen’s reference to her as a tied-up (‘ s. erurah’) bundle of myrrh (l. 380) is a clever pun that turns on the notion of the ‘ishah s. erurah,’ the widowed or deserted woman who must be shut up in order to prevent her from remarrying. The pen’s inability to fulfil his masculine role of inseminating and protecting the chastity of the text’s body allows the scissors to assert their own potency and to configure a feminine text whose sensuality is not so easily restrained. The narrator, in praising the scissors’ astonishing manner of writing, describes their text in terms that make it clear that the text generated by the scissors is as equally aligned with the feminine as that of the pen. The scissors penetrate the body of the text and withdraw from it leaving it riddled with orifices whose feminine nature is unmistakable. The word for holes or orifices is neqavim, from whose root (nqv) comes the word for ‘feminine,’ neqevah (l. 271). The pen looks down on the scissors’ relation with their text, condemning it as an unseemly exposure of her holes: ‘it is full of holes, open to and known by everyone!’ (l. 394). According to the pen, the scissors’ text is wanton, suffering from a whorish shamelessness that is essential to its nature. The letter written by the scissors cannot be rolled up to keep its charms modestly hidden because of the physical flimsiness of the paper itself once letters have been cut from it. The letters of the scissors’ text stand on ‘nothingness’ (belimah) and are unable to withstand the folding or rolling necessary to keep the body of the text under wraps. Therefore, as the pen asserts: ‘your letter will always be spread out (perusah) and beguiling/cunning/naked (‘arumah); a breached city without a wall. Speechless, with her mouth open, you will render all her secrets and defects before the eyes of everyone’(ll. 358–61). Through his use of the word perusah, a near homonym of peru s. ah ‘prostitute,’ Shem Tov is exploiting the conventional biblical figurative pattern that condemns Israel’s spiritual infidelity by likening the city whose walls or gates have been violated to the body of a prostitute open and available to all comers. The pen responds to the scissors’ boastful claims about the dazzling beauty of their text by pointing out that the scissors’ writing is a violent

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prostitution of the text. The pen deflates the scissors’ contention that their text is like a miraculous stone engraved by God (ll. 302–6). The pen turns the scissors’ own laudatory words about their text into scornful condemnation by transforming the bejewelled facets or ‘eyes’ (‘einayim) of this marvellous stone into the ‘eyes’ of the text gouged out by the scissors’ mutilating cutting (l. 329). In contradistinction to the scissors’ assault on the body of his text, the pen lovingly adorns and enhances the attractiveness of his letter by painting her eyes with his kohl-like ink (ll. 327–8). The pen even goes so far as to imply that the scissors rape the text as they engage in the cutting out of the letters. Unlike the pen who embroiders his text, the scissors rip the tapestry into twelve pieces, an action whose biblical context is one of rape and dismemberment. In Judges 19:29, after the brutal rape of his wife, an outraged and bereaved husband cuts her violated body into twelve pieces, which he then sends all over the territory of the tribe of Israel, thereby turning her body into a literal text which is to be read as a call to vengeance. The torn body of the scissors’ letter can be interpreted as a figure for the prior rape of the textual body by the scissors themselves. The mutilation of the text by the scissors is emblematic of the inherent violence that Shem Tov attributes to the act of writing. In the Proverbios morales language in general is regarded as a potential source of danger. Shem Tov counsels caution in one’s use of language if one is to protect oneself from physical danger and financial loss. However, it is writing that poses the greater threat since spoken words can be retracted: pero lo que fablares, si escribto non es, si por tu pro fallares, negarlo as después. Negar lo que se dize a vezes ha logar; mas, si escribto yaze, non se puede negar.

(st. 458–9)

(But what you speak of, if it is not in writing, you can later deny if it is not in your interest. What is spoken can at times be denied; but it cannot be denied if it is in writing.)

If discourse is oral, one can only rely on the fallible power of memory, thus enabling the speaker to make memory conform to his will and interests. Writing, by contrast, is a much more effective and deadly means of communication since it fixes language in a permanent state of materiality. Unlike the fleeting spoken word that leaves no trace, writing makes its bloody mark:

190 Figuring the Feminine Non ha lança que false todas las armaduras nin que tanto trespase como las escribturas:

(st. 465)

(There is no lance that pierces and passes through all kinds of armour like writing does.)

Written discourse constitutes a twofold violation: it violates the speaking subject’s control over his/her own text because once a text is severed from its author, that text slips out from his/her control; and by its piercing of armour the corporeal presence of writing does violence to the reader. Writing’s physical presence makes it a vital, effective and dangerous weapon that penetrates to the quick. Indeed, it is more deadly than any arrow that hits its target since writing can inflict harm upon those who are physically distant, or even upon those who are already dead: que la saeta lança fasta un çierto fito, e la letra alcança de Burgos a Aíbto; E la saeta fiere al vivo que se siente, e la letra conquiere en vida e en muerte;

(st. 466–7)

(for an arrow is shot toward a certain target, but the written word reaches from Burgos to Egypt; and an arrow strikes the living who feel it, and the written word conquers both in life and death.)

Whereas one can attempt to shield oneself against arrows, there is no defence against the violent impact of writing. Like the Proverbios where writing is figured as a violent thrusting that wounds like a weapon and as unruly because its meaning is defiant of authorial control and intention, the discourse produced by the scissors is characterized as fundamentally destructive and wanton. The lack of coherence of the scissors’ writing is inherent in their physical form: the separation of the scissors’ blades is a precondition to their being able to write at all. As Sanford Shepard has pointed out, the Kabbalistic tradition in Spain maintained that evil came into the world due to the separation of the forbidden fruit from the tree, which action is symbolic of the perversion of the rightful order of the world as ordained by God.36 The tearing of the fruit from the tree constitutes man’s usurpation of God’s place in the same way that the separation

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of the scissors’ blades in order to write is a usurpation of the pen’s natural function. The appropriation of the rightful place of the pen by the scissors carries with it connotations of violence and deception. The scissors, when attempting to defend themselves against the accusations of the pen, describe the poetic text they write as speaking with the voice of Jacob, but as written with the hands of Esau (l. 281). This comment is most revealing because instead of emphasizing the scissors’ ability to create poetry, it ironically recalls the deception to which Jacob resorted in his usurpation of his brother’s rightful place, and the association of Esau with violence. After losing Isaac’s blessing, it is Esau’s lot to live by the sword and serve his brother (Gen. 27:39–40). The pen denounces the scissors’ writing not only for its mutilation of the page (they ‘gouge out the paper’s eyes’ [l. 329] and rip it to shreds [l. 330]), but also for its dangerous guile. The pen also characterizes the hole-filled, gaping text of the scissors as a net that threatens to entrap or as a spider’s web woven to ensnare flies (l. 333). The reference to the ‘qurei akavish’ (spider’s web) is based on a passage from Isaiah in which the prophet condemns the people of Israel’s wicked ways. The passage merits citation because it provides a subtext that emphasizes the violence and deception inherent in the scissors’ writing: For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. None calls in uprightness, nor any pleads in truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eats of their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed, a viper breaks out. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to do evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. (Is. 59:3–7)

The comparison in this passage of webs with garments recalls the description of the scissors’ text as ‘a garment eaten by moths’ (l. 270), and therefore not only strengthens the close association of the sinful, false, bloody nature of the scissors’ ragged writing with the evil separation of the people of Israel from God (Is. 59:2: ‘Your iniquities separate [mavdilim] you from God’), but also points to the problematic dialectic of revelation and concealment by means of a corrupt garment. The association of falsehood with the destructive weblike discourse of

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the scissors finds an analogue in medieval Latin rhetorical theory. Medieval rhetoricians such as Alberic of Montecassino and Matthew of Vendôme warned poets against the composition of ‘ragged texts’ in which there is a gap between words and intention. In medieval allegories the personifications of concepts such as Falsehood and Rhetoric were described as wearing ragged garments in contrast to the seamless, perfect clothing of figures such as Truth, Lady Philosophy, and the Virgin Mary, and the author of the Libro de buen amor refers to himself as an unskilled tailor who patches together a text whose truth status is notoriously slippery and ambiguous. The violence of writing as represented by Shem Tov in the scissors’ rending of the textual body also implies a perverse rupture between words and truth. The pen accuses the scissors’ text of being ‘arumah’ (l. 359), both ‘naked’ and ‘cunning, deceptive.’ The word arum was used in Gen. 3:1 to describe the subversive, beguiling language used by the serpent to seduce Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. The double meaning of arum underlines the close link between the naked, sexualized body of the scissors’ text that flaunts itself before the eyes of the reader and the cunning, alluring nature of its words which may deviate from the path of truth. The scissors, then, do violence to the textual body by prostituting the text, by infusing a dangerous female carnality into discourse that threatens to sever the bond of language and intention. The feminine in medieval Hebrew Andalusi writing is often constructed as an unruly and corrupting force. Maimonides extends the Aristotelian attribution of feminine qualities to the philosophical principle of matter as opposed to the more masculine nature of form. Maimonides metaphorizes the female philosophical principle of matter as the harlot wife of the more disciplined form whose role it is to rule over and restrain his wife’s rampant sexuality. The sexualized corruption of matter can only be governed by the male philosopher’s exercise of reason and obedience to the commandments.37 Tevel (world, universe) is represented allegorically in Hebrew Andalusi poetry as Woman, and she incarnates all the danger inherent in the ephemeral, sensuous beauty of this world.38 Like a prostitute, she is a tempting illusion who dazzles men and leads them astray with her superficial carnal beauty until they fall into her trap. Only then do her hapless victims discover that beneath her enticing robes there is only ugly corruption.39 The personification of woman in the form of tevel highlights the disjunction between external appearance and inner essence by focusing attention

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on the role of beautifully deceptive clothing that disguises a debased female sexuality. Both the Jewish and Latin textual traditions construct the truth sought by the interpreter as a woman veiled in garments of figurative language which must be stripped off. Medieval Christian poets and rhetoricians were especially attuned to the possibility that the femininely charged clothing of metaphor and allegory could displace the desired truth of the text and cause the interpreter to revel in the fleshly pleasures promised by the alluring veils, or that an attractive corteza may conceal a base meollo, or may only cover a yawning lack of inner meaning. Shem Tov’s infusion of feminine carnality into the debate in the form of an eroticized textual body, and his attribution of unwholesome raggedness to the text of the scissors suggests that he was well aware of the implications of the conventional textual imagery of veiled meaning. The accusations and rebuttals exchanged by the pen and the scissors are so heated precisely because the interpretive stakes are so high. The position articulated by the scissors is one that views meaning as ideally transparent and which brooks no disjunction between inner truth and outer expression since each one should be present in the other. The narrator of Shem Tov’s debate describes the scissors’ writing as literal, as wheat without chaff: Behold a poem whose words are as literal as wheat (bar) without chaff (teven), as a dream without lying words. I purified it like silver, and the letters alone are freed to speak for you, and any addition to it would detract from its value. (ll. 315–16)

In this formulation, the language of textual interpretation is employed in order to suggest that the scissors’ text wears its meaning on the surface. The valuable kernel of meaning or truth that is usually hidden and can be appropriated only after much interpretive effort and probing is here ready and available at first glance: what you see is what you get. The scissors’ text styles itself as free from the weight of corporeal matter that would hinder the immediate apperception of its essence. In language that mirrors Moshe Ibn Ezra’s distinction between the content and form of poetry, the scissors assert that their writing is ‘form without matter, and spirit without a body’ (l. 310), thereby removing the taint of unruly feminine carnality that must be mastered by the male principles of form and spirit. The scissors appear to be the epitome of masculinity since their claims of undifferentiated form and

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content suggest that they have so effectively ruled over and restrained the sensuality of the textual body that the reader need not beware the wiles of any veiled meanings lurking there. Indeed, the scissors believe that it is more honest to lay bare the content of the text, to let it all hang out. Expressing the ideal of transparency, the scissors wonder why a text must wear a veil if that text has nothing shameful to hide: All of her is beautiful and there is no blemish in her – there is no wickedness inside her. To her belongs comely praise – How can one hide her as one hides nakedness? And if there is no impurity or error in her, should one cover her as one covers up a prostitute? And if she is a beautiful, but foolish woman, why should she have an integument? Should we hide her glory? Should we make a prostitute of our letter? (ll. 428–33)

In fact the scissors, in defending the honour of their text, mince no words when they boldly insult the chastity of the pen’s text: ‘Your letter is wicked in the eyes of her master, and people will think she is a whore because you covered up her face to conceal her shameful flaws’ (ll. 433–5). The scissors’ attitude towards the content or body of their text is one that celebrates its accessibility while at the same time they attempt to remain in control of the text’s chastity by removing any possibility of textual deception. The scissors exploit the language of rhetorical troping to link the sexual impropriety of the pen’s textual body to the perversion of truth. In contrasting the open nature of their own ‘uncovered’ text that has nothing shameful to hide with the unseemly secretive nature of the pen’s text, the scissors describe the pen’s use of verbal integumenta to enclose the textual body as deviant: ‘A letter written in ink is surely so full of shame, that it is veiled in an integumentum to conceal its jewel, to cover its nakedness … and this, our letter [ie., that of the scissors], is revealed before the eyes of our people, we are not like those who deviate [maseh se t. im] (ll. 437–9). The ‘turning away’ or deviation from the literal, or troping, signalled by the disguise of textual meaning in layers of figurative language suggests that the textual truth covered by the integumenta of figural language is one that may be unfaithful and ungovernable. The use of the word se t. im (deviations, digressions) to describe the wayward nature of the pen’s textual authority brings to mind not only the deceptive, usurpation of the literal meaning by means of the alluring veils of figurae, but also the figure of the biblical so t. ah, the unfaithful wife who turns away from her husband to the

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body and house of another man. Sharing the root sth, both se t. im and so t. ah embody ‘the potential to turn,’ and thus constitute a threat to the stability of societal, political, and textual verities which become tainted by the unruly carnality of language.40 The scissors’ representation of the pen’s text as straying from the chastity of literal truth is quite ironic since, in fact, it is the scissors who deviate from their normative function of utilitarian cutting to usurp the pen’s role of writing. The pen rebuts the scissors’ accusations of textual wantonness by using the same terminology of allegorical interpretation to prove that it is really the scissors who corrupt the truth at the core of the text. When responding to the scissors’ accusations, the pen appropriates the scissors’ language and wields it against his adversary. Refusing to be intimidated by the scissors’ boasting, the pen retorts that the menacing potential of the iron scissors will have no more effect on him than harmless straw (teven) (l. 447). The use of the word teven to deflate the threat of the scissors is not coincidental given that the scissors had used this very term to claim their text’s freedom from the distorting corteza of figurative language. By stating that the scissors’ language is as harmless as mere chaff, the pen is suggesting that the scissors’ text is insubstantial, containing no valuable inner meaning. The pen pursues the scissors’ distinction between wheat and chaff, between inner meaning and superficial layers of verbiage, by splitting apart the two levels of meaning and appropriating for himself the wheat of truth while tossing the scissors’ writing into the trash where chaff belongs. In emphasizing the difference between his own text and that of the scissors, the pen asks, ‘What has the chaff to do with the wheat?’ (l. 389) which implies that truth and falsehood, wheat and chaff are as different from each other as are the texts produced by the pen and scissors. Unlike the scissors, who had impugned the honour of the pen’s inner meaning, the pen does not deign to recognize that there is any truth at all in the scissors’ text. The integrity of the textual body that is breached by the violent cutting of the scissors is a sign of both the moral and interpretive debasement of the scissors’ text. The scissors stand accused of violating the relationship between language and meaning. The pen charges the scissors with misappropriating the inner meaning of their text: ‘and you take the allegory (mashal) out of the text, leaving it rotten and worn out’ (l. 397).41 Unlike the scissors whose excision of the kernel of truth leaves the text gaping and empty, the pen’s writing bestows on its text both substance and meollo: ‘And I endow my text with allegorical

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meaning (mashal) so as to bequeath substance (yesh) to my writing, and I will fill it with treasures’ (l. 400). Unlike the scissors’ moth-eaten text, the pen’s writing contains much of value beneath the protective layers of words. Although the scissors’ claim that the meaning of their text is transparent since no outer integument obscures the beauty of its meaning, the authority and truthfulness of this meaning are cast into doubt by the scissors’ own contradictory words. While exalting the flashy splendour of their text by comparing it to the dazzling jewel-like stone engraved by God (l. 303–6; Zac. 3:9), the scissors boast that their writing has the ability to slough off one form in favour of another: ‘[our writing] takes off one form ( s. urah) and puts on (lovesh) another’ (l. 306). The language of dressing and undressing used by the scissors to describe the miraculously protean nature of their text implies that not only does the body of the scissors’ text wear a garment, but that the meaning at the heart of the text is of little value since what really matters is the extent of its wardrobe. Instead of embodying a chastely literal text governed by the intentions of its male author, the scissors’ text behaves like a trope, which according to Alberic of Montecassino enables one to dress up a base meaning and pass it off as something worthy of dignity (Flores rhetorici VI.1, p. 45). The pen, cognizant of the possibility that the exterior ornamental robes of the text may not correspond with the inner content, attempts to demonstrate that his text suffers from no such disjunction. In language that echoes that of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, who had condemned as hypocritical the lack of harmony between words and content (Poetria nova, ll. 744–5), the pen asserts that his text does not dissemble, that its internal meaning is inseparable from the words in which it is expressed (‘tokhah ra s. uf ke varah’, ll. 384–5). This expression used by the pen to designate the integrity of form and content of his text cleverly enacts the very state of indissolubility that it describes. What is normally a pithy way of describing hypocrisy ’ein tokho ke varo’ (whose inside is not as his outside) emphasizes the disjunction between appearance and essence that is the hallmark of the hypocrite. Shem Tov has the pen change this expression so that it refers instead to the binding of internal meaning and external form. The bar (exterior) to which the inner content is seamlessly attached is also the bar (wheat) that Shem Tov uses to refer to the valuable meollo of textual meaning. If the inner content of the pen’s text is imbued with (ra s. uf) its outer layer, there is no longer any way to separate the shell from the kernel of

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meaning. Both become bar, whose two meanings are now wrapped into one. The collapsing of the distinction between textual meaning and linguistic form in the pen’s discourse graphically demonstrates that the textual harmony claimed by the pen strategically inhabits and informs the words and argument deployed against the scissors. After the exchange of so many volleys of accusations, countercharges, and rebuttals, the reader is left wondering breathlessly which text is superior, and most importantly, how any poor would-be interpreter of texts can ever be sure that he can extract meaning without falling into the many potential traps that await the unwary reader. Where is textual meaning? Is it apparent in the beauty of the words themselves, or must the reader probe further to uncover a valuable, protected truth? Are the rhetorical adornments of a text a sign of debased meaning, or do the textual integumenta ensure proper textual understanding? The poor reader, like a bewildered lover who is unsure about the appropriate way to court and attain the object of his desire, awaits a resolution that will guide him to the claiming of the textual body. After having failed to convince the scissors of his superiority the pen realizes that they have reached an impasse that can only be resolved by an impartial third party. The pen comes up with the zany and humorous scheme of going out into the market and rounding up the first poor wretch they find to adjudicate the dispute. In a hilarious scene, Shem Tov describes the pen sallying forth into the marketplace and convincing a poor but wise man to return with him to restore peace to the home of Shem Tov, the writer (ll. 496–502). Instead of using argumentation in an attempt to persuade the man of the justice of their causes, the pen and the scissors agree to leave off verbal duelling and to hide themselves among all the other utensils of the house. The judge, ignorant of the nature of the quarrel, is merely to wander around the house and use each implement according to its intended purpose. The man first picks up a flask of oil and lights the wicks of an oil lamp; then, with a gesture that foretells the restoration of textual integrity, he takes up a needle and thread and sews up the holes in his clothing. Following this, he hands victory to the pen when, after espying the pen hiding amongst all the household tools, he quickly takes hold of it and proceeds to use it to write in a book before the eyes of all who were observing him. The pen’s victory is complete when this man off the street gropes further into the pile of utensils and pulls out the scissors, with which he immediately begins to cut his fingernails and trim his hair and moustache.

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After performing a euphoric victory dance while the scissors look on in speechless shame, the triumphant pen throws a feast for those utensils who were steadfast in their support for him. This partisan group, together with the pen, issue a series of celebratory pronouncements which dictate the return to a normal state of affairs. In an attempt to restore things to their natural order, the group, using language like a weapon, categorically denounces the scissors’ usurpation of the pen’s role as an abomination: Each man shall enumerate his tools, each tool according to the purpose for which God made them, and he shall not misappropriate the occupation of his neighbour, and he should do the work for which he was originally created. He shall not alter it nor change it, a woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: the pen is for writing and the scissors for shaving; fire should be upon the altar, the sickle should cut and the bridle should restrain, and the whole nation shall come to its place in peace. (ll. 536–42; emphasis mine)

In calling for a return to the divinely ordained borders that delimit the function of each utensil, the pen and his supporters represent the sin of the scissors as an issue of gender. The charges of straying far from the sexual/textual norms of society levied against the scissors by the pen and his gang are more serious than those brought by the scissors against the pen’s brazen text. The real transgression inherent in the scissors’ usurpation of the pen’s role is that they have perversely confused the identities of male and female by cross-dressing, by using garments in such a way as to make it impossible to identify the gender of the concealed body.42 Towards the end of the quarrel between the pen and the scissors the pen identifies the root of the conflict between itself and the scissors. They are not arguing because the scissors are insolent or because the pen is weak. The crux of the matter is that the scissors have transgressed the boundary separating them, resulting in an unnatural confusion of function and identity. As the pen clearly states, ‘You came over my boundary, and I did not come over your border’ (ll. 461–2). The pen marks the subversion of natural boundaries as beginning with the unusual frost gripping the land, which led Shem Tov to take the scissors out of ‘their nature’ (l. 466) and to use them to accomplish deeds which they had never before performed. The pen describes this new state of affairs as the creation of ‘something new in the earth’ (l. 468; Jer. 31:21),

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an expression whose biblical context clearly links the transgression of the scissors to the subversion of gender. Once the reader supplies the rest of this verse from the book of Jeremiah, from which the pen’s words were taken, it becomes clear that the pen is relating the scissors’ unnatural act of writing to an inversion of gender roles. The biblical passage cited by the pen defines the new thing created in the earth by the Lord as ‘a woman shall court a man.’ The personification of Israel as a woman who transgresses the passive nature of the feminine to assume the active male role of wooing a city corresponds to the scissors’ turning away from their habitual role to assume an alien function. After the pen’s definitive triumph Shem Tov, the narrator of the debate, joyously enumerates the victorious pen’s merits as he returns to the rule of law (ll. 546–7) by once again taking up the instrument intended by God for writing. While singing the praises of the pen, the narrator contrasts the humble, righteous words issuing from the pen’s cleft mouth with the ‘twisted and crooked’ words (’imrei fiw ein bahem niftal we ‘iqesh,’ ll. 550–1) of his opponent. The ‘crooked’ turnings of language attributed to the scissors are emblematic of the moral and aesthetic deviation of the scissors’ text from socially and culturally ordained standards of behaviour. The scissors confuse the relationship between the masculine and the feminine by embodying a text which aggressively defies the convention which dictates the modest veiling of women by brazenly revealing the numerous charms of her body and countenance. Although the scissors’ text behaves like a man in its immodest attire, the flashy attractiveness of its writing exploits the superficial charms of the feminine to draw the reader into its web of deceit and trick him into seeking a non-existent authoritative truth. The victory of the pen represents the reestablishment of the proper boundaries that delineate the spheres of the masculine and the feminine. The chaste, compliant text who obeys the dictates of her author is not to be confused with the text whose essence is the uncontrolled and suspect exuberance of its corporeal appeal. The reader of Shem Tov’s Battle can finally heave a sigh of relief now that the authority of the laws of nature has been restored. The paralyzing cold that had emasculated the pen no longer has any effect so that the writer once again can dip his pen into the liquid ink and write to his heart’s content. The pen’s preeminence appears to be indisputable when one reads Shem Tov’s final panegyric to the pen in which he traces the pen’s meteoric rise from its humble origins as an inanimate piece of wood, which suffers the trials of being hewn and split at its

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point, to the supreme achievement of speech, wisdom, and immortality. Yet, immediately after this paean to the pen, the writer admits that the scissors were indispensable to him on the day of the terrible frost and proceeds to acknowledge his indebtedness to them. He ends by defending the scissors against those who would sow discord by hurling false accusations against the scissors. The narrator upholds the right of the writer of fiction (‘me sapper,’ l. 594) to compose with scissors, to create a text by bringing the blades together in a simultaneous act of unification and composition43 without anyone condemning him for wreaking violent havoc. Only an inept user of scissors leaves a trail of destruction and fear in his wake (ll. 591–4). What is most striking is that the narrator also defends the coming together of the scissors’ blades as an effective means of ‘twisting the text away from its literal meaning’ (le ho s. i’ miqra’ midai feshuto, l. 597). Here, the narrator seems to be suggesting that the transgressive ambiguity of the scissors’ text has a place alongside the more normative relationship between content and form embodied in the discourse of the pen. Like Juan Ruiz’s embrace of the elusive nature of his feminized text, Shem Tov is also undermining the myth of textual mastery, a mastery that is bound up with both gender hierarchy and cultural hegemony. The final blow to the pen’s apparent supremacy comes in the colophon to the Battle when Shem Tov of Carrión states explicitly that ‘the whole text was written and sealed without a pen and without ink’ (l. 611), implying that he, like his character Shem Tov, produced his text by means of scissors. This surprise ending further muddies the waters by turning the pen’s triumph in the debate into a hollow one, and effectively unwrites the pen’s victorious method of writing by the subversive scribal act of cutting.44 This impasse at the end of the Battle is an interpretive dead end which deliberately leaves unresolved the issue of what kind of text is more conducive to the extraction of truth or meaning. The displacement of the pen’s claim to normative textual authority by the scissors’ assumption of an alien function compounds the problem of disentangling things that should be clearly demarcated. The functional boundaries between writing and cutting have dissolved once the scissors trespass onto the pen’s territory. The scissors stand convicted of crossing sexual borders by cross-dressing, of producing a text whose hybrid gender status undermines social and heterosexual norms requiring the clear identification of gender so as to avoid any inappropriate encounters. The categories of form and content also become equivocal. The unsettling of esoteric and exoteric notions of textual

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interpretation by displacing the desired kernel of meaning from inside its safe shell onto the surface of the text or by cutting it out entirely makes it hard to distinguish between the wheat and chaff, between the body and soul of the text. The confusion between pen and scissors, masculine and feminine, corteza and meollo, chaste truth and whorish falsehood is only heightened when the Battle closes with the author’s admission that the reader’s understanding and mastery of the text are illusory since the whole text, including the victory scene of the pen, is in fact a product of the scissors. The reader, ensnared in the weblike ambiguity of the scissors’ words, appears to be at a loss in his efforts to appropriate the body of meaning beneath the layers of surface verbal artistry. Or, perhaps the reader should take the scissors’ claims of textual transparency at face value and seek to construe the meaning of the text as consisting of nothing more nor less than the impossibility of preventing transgression, of enforcing the separation between what nature, society, and literary convention deem to be discrete categories. The scissors had been condemned by the pen and his supporters for breaching the laws of nature that dictate the clear demarcation of writing and cutting, and of the male from the female. The description of the scissors’ transgression as a kind of transvestism can be considered a signal for what Marjorie Garber has called a ‘category crisis’ which ‘disrupts and calls attention to cultural, social, or aesthetic dissonances.’45 Given Shem Tov’s preoccupation throughout the debate with the dynamics of writing and interpretation, he appears to be signalling a crisis in textual culture, one in which the written text is marooned in a sea of language fraught with contradiction and ambiguity. Since Shem Tov was one of the few Jewish writers working in both the Romance and Hebrew poetic worlds, his fundamental literary identity would have been conditioned by the tension between culturally divergent attitudes towards the writing of poetry and the problematic of its interpretation. Criticized by his Jewish contemporaries for writing in an alien language and acutely aware that Christians might condemn his participation in the world of Castilian letters as the presumptuous overstepping of cultural and social boundaries, Shem Tov would have had to become adept at negotiating the transitions from one aesthetic and cultural world to the other. As Matthew Raden points out, the use of the vernacular in the Proverbios morales allows Shem Tov to exploit his ambiguous location both at the centre and the periphery of Christian culture and to mediate between his own Jewish

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world and that of the Christian majority in order to engage King Pedro I ‘in a process of direct, but civil negotiations for power.’46 The cultural dissonance experienced by Shem Tov as he passed from the small Jewish community of Carrión to the urbane court of Toledo is inscribed in the text of his maqama. Suspended between the aesthetic values of both Semitic and Latinate cultures, Shem Tov uses the opposing ideas about writing and interpretation incarnated by the texts of the pen and the scissors to articulate the state of cultural ambiguity that conditioned his being. The rhetoric of gender informing the dispute over the location and nature of literary truth and the procedures required for its extraction in the texts of both the pen and the scissors infuses Shem Tov’s very conventional Semitic maqama with a nexus of imagery and concerns more usually found in Romance discussions of composition and interpretation. Shem Tov plays with the suspicion of rhetorical adornment, so commonly expressed in the Western, Christian rhetorical tradition as the corruption of the ‘masculine’ content, meaning, or truth of a text by the intrusion of excessively feminine, corporeal, figurative language in order to privilege surface verbal artistry over content, a rhetorical strategy that mirrors the somewhat tenuous relation between content and form that was a virtue in Semitic poetic aesthetics. Shem Tov assumes from Romance textual tradition the sexualized images of the text as a feminized body dressed in alluring clothes and harnesses this imagery to support a Semitic poetic sensibility that valued an abundance of rhetorical figures (qishutim) as the essence of poetry.47 The discordant fusion of Western textual anxiety and Eastern aesthetic preferences is what predominates at the end of the debate. Shem Tov privileges the cultural dissonance embodied in the scissors by granting the ultimate victory to the scissors whose luxuriance in textual excess is represented as the meollo of their text. The text of the scissors is a figure for a rejection of boundaries that separate the male from the female, the Christian from the Jew. The triumph of the scissors’ fundamentally transgressive nature constitutes a recognition of the permeability of both naturally and culturally conceived borders and a celebration of the ambiguity that results when two become one. Shem Tov’s representation of two conflicting texts, the chaste, seamless, submissive text produced by the hegemonic male pen, and the loose, ragged, subversive text of the scissors whose openness disseminates its meaning to all comers, suggests that the lines of demarcation between readers and texts, between Jewish and Christian cultures, are as difficult

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to govern as is the sexual behaviour of woman by the dictates of patriarchal authority. Shem Tov ends the maqama by praising the scissors’ ability to come together and defeat difference: ‘The scissors greatly desired to stand together and that there should be no separation between them’ (l. 606). Shem Tov’s Battle, itself a product of the scissors, fuses Semitic and Romance poetic sensibilities to incarnate a meaning whose appropriation is fraught with all the contradiction, ambivalence, and vitality inherent in his culturally hybrid condition.

Conclusion

Hispanomedievalism, like medieval studies within the larger humanities curriculum, is a field struggling to maintain its footing within larger departments of Romance languages and literatures, or within departments of Spanish that tend to privilege the modern and the Latin American over the archaic language and arcane texts of medieval Iberia. As Lee Patterson has trenchantly observed, the reintegration of medieval studies into the human sciences as a whole is contingent upon its ability to ‘expound the powers and prerogatives of the past in ways that will command attention only when we acknowledge the mutual claims that past and present lay upon each other.’1 For Patterson, the discourses of feminism and Marxism offer the most fertile ground for establishing a productive dialogue between the medieval past and the postmodern present. Feminist theory’s revelation of gender as a historically contingent, materially motivated construct, and Marxist theory’s focus on the experience of social class as rooted in specific historical circumstances are both suited to the traditional engagement with historical and philological complexity characteristic of medieval studies. The recognition that medieval literary texts are governed by the same social forces of gender and class operative in modernity, manifested in historical and cultural terms that are wholly other, is a powerful glue binding past and present.2 The confluence of feminism and materialism in the bringing together of medievalism and postmodernity is also at work in the way the body functions in this book. As outlined in the introduction and enacted in the readings of individual texts, the textualized female body cannot be defined or understood through the lens of any one ideology. Rather, like the shifting nature of the concept of gender itself, the body figured

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as feminine in medieval literary culture is both subject to the restrictive social and cultural norms that governed the medieval gender system and, depending on the imbrication of a text in the particulars of historical circumstance, resistant to such ideologically motivated construction. The sensitivity to the question of gender, to why it makes a difference if the textualized body is gendered as feminine, has facilitated, I hope, a productive dialogue not only between texts but also between the past and the present, a dialogue whose essence and implications I will attempt to recapitulate here. The fusion of text and feminine body in all of the literary examples considered in this book points to the importance of gender to the culturally crucial medieval practice of textuality. The act of writing, constituted as an active, male, subjection of a passive, feminized materia, is an act of power whose ramifications extend far beyond the confines of the text into the larger power relations governing not only the relationships between men and women, but also those between individuals and the powerful institutional structures of church and kingship, as well as those between minority groups and a hegemonic majority. Common to all the examples of medieval writing considered here is the identification of either the page, the words themselves, or the finished product of the book as feminine. Classical rhetorical handbooks and medieval preceptive arts of poetry make it clear that the unruly stuff of language requires firm male control, not only because it is resistant to authority, but also because of its potential to mask or distort the essence of the thought to which it is giving form. This disruptive, seductive disjunction between underlying thought and its material articulation in the veils of language underscores a tension between the power of the male act of inscription and the inadequacy of that act to contain the impact of, or govern the behaviour of, the feminized language which it hopes to subdue and of the textual product it engenders. Both Prudentius and Berceo attempt to harness the divine power of the feminized holy bodies of the martyrs or that of the Virgin Mary, a power made manifest in the transformation of these bodies into vehicles for the divine word. Both authors harvest their words of poetry directly from their sacred corporeal source, and once these verbal flowers have been woven into textual form, the final textual product will embody the spiritual power of these divinely favoured bodies. Prudentius and Berceo cast themselves as sharing in an act of divine authorship. Like God, they are Auctores who exercise command over their textual creations. However, unlike God whose creative act of

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world-making is a result of goodness and not necessity, their act of writing betrays their dependence on the feminized text they produce. Prudentius hopes to bend the holy fertility of the martyrs’ bloody bodies to his desire for salvation and that of those who come into contact with his textual embodiment of them, and Berceo’s textual recreation of Mary’s virginal integrity dramatizes his vulnerable dependence on her maternal body for the achievement of his salvation. The epic Poema de mio Cid is not in itself an example of corporeal inscription like the texts of Prudentius and Berceo, but the surface of inscription in the core episode of the Afrenta de Corpes is once again the female body which is violently opened up in an act of writing that attempts to wrest power and authority from the Cid. Here, the writing inflicted on the bodies of the Cid’s daughters is an expression of the inadequacy experienced by the sons-in-law of the warrior hero. Since they are unable to subdue real enemies with the power of their swords, they resort to the rape and beating of their wives as a means of asserting their impugned masculinity. The Infantes de Carrión, in their callous treatment of their wives, reveal themselves to be even more lacking in honour and valour than their previous cowardice on and off the battlefield had evinced. Their ultimately fruitless attempt to use the female body as a means of shoring up their wounded manhood only underscores how they too hope to achieve social salvation through the inscription of female bodies. The Cid poet mirrors the Infantes’ instrumental use of the bodies of the women to articulate and reinforce a social vision that locates power firmly in the hands of those who embody and enact a warrior ethos that posits an essential identity between masculinity and speech brought to fruition through deeds. The Infantes’ sterile attempt at actively asserting their masculinity by writing is undone by the tongues of the Cid and his warriors, tongues that are all well equipped with the necessary hands to wield the weapons of male power. The last two texts considered in this book, the Libro de buen amor, and the Battle between the Pen and the Scissors, both play on the latent eroticism of the gendering of the text as feminine and of the act of writing as masculine. Shem Tov stages a debate between two different kinds of text where the power inherent in the male manipulation of feminized language or inscriptive surface is opened up to interrogation. The texts of the pen and the scissors explore the different possibilities for the relationship between writers, texts, and readers and underscore what difference the gendering of the text as feminine makes. A feminized

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textual body calls forth dominant conventions of gender-based behaviour which are to be imposed on the way the reader approaches the text. Shem Tov’s refusal to affirm unambiguously the victory of the chaste, modest text of the pen constitutes a challenge to and a questioning of the values of his society. Unlike the Infantes de Carrión, who wanted to use women’s bodies as a means of affirming their masculine prerogatives, Shem Tov’s text presents such dichotomous gender, thinking as hopelessly naive and illusory. His text reveals that language, gender, and truth exist in a state of constant flux and that any attempt by a ‘male’ author to use the feminine textual body as a means of salvation, either spiritual or social, is bound to fail. Juan Ruiz’s Libro engages in even more radical play with the utilitarian convention of readers or writers exploiting the conflation of text and feminized body as a means of achieving salvation. The Libro’s linking of a ‘proper’ understanding of the book with the good love of God and salvation in the opening prose sermon is problematized when the reader discovers that his desire for salvific meaning leads only to the naked, eroticized female body that has been undressed over the course of the hermeneutic process. In a reversal of the Augustinian dictum that counsels the reader not to enjoy, but only to make use of things,3 the Libro demonstrates that writers and readers may only enjoy the textual body. Neither Juan Ruiz nor the reader has any authority over the text and is therefore unable to bend it to his will. In all of these literary works the conflation of female body and text follows a utilitarian logic, whether that logic hopes to compel the intercession of God or Mary, to reinforce social values of power and gender, or even to interrogate and undermine the cultural and literary models that use the feminine as a heuristic critical tool. While Prudentius, the Cid poet, and Berceo figure the feminine as instrumental in the quest for the upholding of divine or social privilege, the Libro de buen amor and The Battle between the Pen and the Scissors use the feminized textual body to unsettle established notions of textual and cultural authority. However, as feminist critics of deconstruction have pointed out, the use of ‘woman’ as a means of critiquing the dominant sphere of masculinity is problematic. While one of the most powerful strategies of a deconstructive critical approach to Western metaphysics and its cultural artefacts is to reveal the suppressed and repressed dependence of the stronger term of a binary thought structure on its weaker, more abject other term, the use of the feminine both to reveal and disrupt this structure of dependence can be viewed as simply

208 Figuring the Feminine

another form of putting the feminine to use in the interest of a masculinist project, be it the exchange of women in the service of male subjectivity or of the unsettling of that same subjectivity.4 If using the woman’s body as a critical tool with which to think through substantive issues in medieval literary culture replicates the commodification of women, how then can the critic extricate herself from such complicity? Does ‘complicity’ in phallocentric traditions and norms have to be such a dirty word? As Elizabeth Grosz thoughtfully and courageously points out, the recognition and admission that complicity is an inherent feature of any oppositional discourse or practice, that there is no illusion or fantasy of a ‘safe,’ ‘pure’ theoretical position outside of a system or position, constitute an inevitable stage in the evolution of feminism, of its ability ‘to accept its internal limits and to use them in enabling and productive ways.’5 Although sharing in the instrumental use of the feminine as a means of revealing the ideological investments of medieval textuality, my focus on the fusion of feminine text and body in medieval Hispanic writing also offers insight into the ways in which gender can be seen to work productively within the confines of the particular situation of each text examined and to enable points of resistance to or subversion of phallocentric norms to become visible at the interstices of each text. The theoretical, preceptive writing about language and poetry discussed in chapter 1 makes clear the potential for subversion, deception, and seduction when language and the feminine are conjoined. This potential is represented as an inevitable byproduct of the embodiment of thought in language, of the rhetorically persuasive ornamentation of res by the sensual material folds of language. The violently textualized feminized bodies staged in the Peristephanon and the Poema de mio Cid, if listened to attentively, can be heard to articulate messages of defiance that run counter to the norms of their hegemonically structured patriarchal societies. By rejecting the social norms of either marriage and/or social and economic position, the Prudentian martyrs embrace a radically new Christian ideology that idealistically erases distinctions of class and gender, free from the repressive Roman state apparatus, they are empowered by Prudentius to function as fertile texts and disseminate God’s power, leading to the production of more Christians. The bodies of the Cid’s daughters, also opened up by torture, gain both verbal power and subjectivity when they articulate their resistance to the use made of them by their husbands and father. Although their textualization enables them to accede

Conclusion 209

to verbal presence and to wield heroically words of vengeance and desire, their speech is only a temporary wresting of the power invested in the word, a patriarchal power that resides in the body, voice, and sword of their father, el Cid, the paradigmatic warrior-hero. The Virgin Mary’s body in the Milagros de Nuestra Señora is both the text written by Berceo and the sacred garden whence he draws his words of love, respect, and praise for her. Here, rather than manifesting resistance to norms of gender embodied in the representatives of a patriarchally structured society, the textualized body of Mary allows for the interrogation of the relationship between language and gender. Berceo’s attempt to master the body and language of Mary, to create a perfect vehicle for her linguistic power, and to control the appropriation of her sacred corporeal meaning and truth, reveals the dependence of the male author on the maternal body, the source of both life and language. Berceo’s self-portrait as an author naked in the womb of Mary, enfolding himself in the materiality of language, undermines the myth of a disembodied, masculine, rational, logocentric, discursive economy and places the woman’s body at the centre of signification and culture. As suggested above, the fusion of feminized body and text in the works of Juan Ruiz and Shem Tov of Carrión is deployed more selfconsciously as a means of questioning and disrupting the logic that posits male mastery over language and culture. Juan Ruiz’s flamboyant embrace of textual instability and infidelity transforms the fusion of feminine body and language into a productive source of hermeneutic and theoretical multiplicity. The opening up of his textual body to readers who will write their own desires onto it is but the initiation of a chain of textual distancing and appropriation which takes on a life of its own and obeys only the dictates of its own kairotic instantiation. Shem Tov’s staging of two opposing texts, the chaste, seamless, obedient text created by the authoritative phallic pen and the loose, ragged, subversive text of the scissors whose meaning is available to all comers, suggests that the lines of demarcation between readers and texts, between Jewish and Christian cultures, are as difficult to govern as is the sexual behaviour of woman by the rigid oversight of patriarchal authority. Shem Tov’s Battle enacts the permeability of both the feminized textual body and cultural barriers, and revels in the productive ambiguity of cultural hybridity and textual promiscuity. The gap between the desire to use the feminized textual body to achieve specific authorial or critical goals and the often productive

210 Figuring the Feminine

consequences of textual intractability also condition this study’s analysis of the way medieval Hispanic texts embody the feminine. While the text of this book is not overtly figured as feminine, the loose, dialogic structure, the openness to different theoretical facets, and its responsiveness to the kairotic necessity of each text’s situation or context could, perhaps, enable one to consider it as sharing in the raggedness that so disturbed medieval theorists of poetry. However, I would hope that, like the text of the Libro de buen amor, this study will lead the reader off in many different directions, some of which may unsettle established notions of medieval textuality, of relations between authors, texts, and readers, and may result in the production of more ideas and texts that view the interpenetration of feminine body and language as grounding all medieval language and literature. My chronological limit of the mid-fourteenth century leaves the later medieval period unexplored. As the Middle Ages in Iberia gradually gave way to what is known as the early modern period, the recuperation and revaluation of many classical rhetorical texts would have reinvigorated the theoretical linguistic nexus between the feminine and the figurative. Spanish translations of classical rhetorical writing during the first decades of the fifteenth century were among the first to appear in any vernacular European language.6 As Patricia Parker has so effectively demonstrated in early modern English writing, the subversive turnings of feminized tropes act as methods of structuring and emplotting whole texts.7 The flowering of rhetorical writing in late medieval and early modern Spain bears closer scrutiny as a rich source for further understanding of how the feminine is figured at the heart of the literary and linguistic enterprise. The political and economic environment of Spain post-1492 certainly affected the way gender was written in a variety of discursive contexts, from historiography to satire to romance.8 The textual embodiment of the feminine in late medieval and early modern Hispanic writing awaits a future study that will seize the historical moment of rhetorical and cultural renewal to read the fusion of female body and text in new and productive ways.

Notes

Introduction 1 See, for example, Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference; Butler, Gender Trouble, and Bodies That Matter; and Bordo, The Flight to Objectivity. See Grosz, Volatile Bodies, 3–24, for a good overview of the uneasy status of the body in philosophy and the varied feminist responses to the dualistic split between mind and body. 2 Judith Butler cogently explains Irigaray’s position that the excluded feminine is at the heart of a system of binary oppositions, that it is the ‘enabling condition’ that paradoxically makes of the feminine a site of disruptive, improper, inarticulate challenge to coherence and systematicity. See Bodies That Matter, 36–42. 3 Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, 10–11. 4 This is Diana Fuss’s formulation. See her Essentially Speaking, 63. 5 See the chapter ‘Luce Irigaray’s Language of Essence’ in Fuss, Essentially Speaking, 55–72. 6 Butler, Gender Trouble, 33. My emphasis. 7 Ibid. 8 See Bordo, ‘Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender-Skepticism,’ and ‘Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern Bodies.’ Susan Hekman attempts to reconcile the positions of Butler and Bordo in ‘Material Bodies.’ See also Moi, ‘What Is a Woman?’ for a devastatingly cogent critique of Butler. 9 Butler, Bodies That Matter, 29. 10 Ibid., 31–2. Butler’s cursory archaeology of matter is really limited to Plato and Aristotle and their theoretical critique in Foucault and Irigaray. 11 Ibid., 68. 12 Ibid., 69–71.

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Notes to pages 5–9

13 Ibid., 90. 14 Ibid., 72. 15 Ibid., 90–1. As Toril Moi trenchantly observes in ‘What Is a Woman?’ 38, the envisioning of alternative sexualities, of bodies freed from the straightjacket of heterosexism as leading to more relaxed social norms, is ‘nothing but biological determinism with a liberal face.’ 16 Moi, ‘What Is a Woman?’ 51–2. 17 Bynum, ‘Why the Fuss over the Body?’ 6. 18 McNally, Bodies of Meaning, 6. 19 Butler, Bodies That Matter, 90. 20 Ibid. 21 McNally, Bodies of Meaning, 75. 22 Ibid., 6–9. 23 See Bynum’s criticism of the oversimplification of dualistic thought when dealing with medieval notions of body, soul, and gender, in ‘Why the Fuss over the Body?’ 13. 24 Judovitz, The Culture of the Body, 6. 25 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 181. 26 Ibid., 183. 27 Ibid., 181. 28 Ibid., 57. 29 See Grosz, Volatile Bodies, 103–7. See also Chanter, ‘Wild Meaning’; and Grosz, ‘Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray in the Flesh.’ 30 Grosz, Volatile Bodies, 94. 31 Moi, ‘What Is a Woman?’ 74. 32 For an analysis of the way the woman’s body functions as a space for exploring or thinking through questions of cultural importance, see Gallop, Thinking Through the Body. 33 There is much good recent work on medieval Spanish literary texts that, although not solely focused on the body, is animated by a rethinking of gender. See the excellent collection of essays in Blackmore and Hutcheson, Queer Iberia; Hutcheson, ‘The Sodimitic Moor,’ and ‘Leonor López de Córdoba and the Configuration of Female-Female Desire.’ On medieval Spanish epic, see Maria Eukene Lacarra Lanz, ‘Political Discourse and the Construction and Representation of Gender in Mocedades de Rodrigo’; and Graf, ‘Huellas de la violencia mimética y su resolución fálico-política en el Poema de Mio Cid: Girard y Lacan.’ 34 See Vasvári, ‘La semiología de la connotación’; ‘Chica cosa es dos nuezes’; ‘Vegetal-Genital Onomastics in the Libro de buen amor’; ‘A Tale of ‘Tailling’; ‘Gastro-Genital Rites of Reversal’; ‘Pitas Pajas’; ‘Festive Phallic Discourse in

Notes to pages 10–18

35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48

the Libro del Arcipreste’; ‘Peregrinaciones por topografías pornográficas en el Libro de buen amor’; and ‘The Novelness of the Libro de Buen Amor.’ Solomon, The Literature of Misogyny in Medieval Spain; Dangler, Mediating Fictions. See Burke, Desire against the Law. See Brown’s chapter ‘Between One Thing and the Other: The Libro de buen amor,’ in her Contrary Things, 116–44. See Weissberger, Isabel Rules. As Weissberger points out, ‘Feminist study of medieval Iberian culture is still in its infancy’ (xix). Filios, Performing Women in the Middle Ages. For a good discussion of how Plato’s totalizing thought attempts to suppress the relativistic, flexible, situational notion of Gorgianic discourse, see McComiskey, Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric, 21–31. White, in Kaironomia, 13–43, juxtaposes Aristotle’s privileging of a preexistent truth that can be revealed by means of a logical system to Gorgias’s sceptical embrace of an aesthetically pleasing but contingent and provisional occasionality. For a convincing new reading of Gorgias as an ‘antifoundationalist who repudiates the entire foundational project of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries,’ see Consigny, Gorgias: Sophist and Artist, 203. Bruce McComiskey articulates this view most clearly in Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric, 19–21. On the Encomium of Helen’s challenge to repressive conventions of gender, see Consigny, Gorgias: Sophist and Artist, 104–6; Crockett, ‘Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen’; and Race, ‘Sappho, Fr. 16 L-P and Alcaios, Fr. 42 L-P.’ McComiskey, Gorgias and The New Sophistic Rhetoric, 19–24. White, Kaironomia, 36. Plato, Gorgias, 463b. See White, Kaironomia, 28–31, for a good analysis of Aristotle’s view of both the limitations and heuristic possibilities of figurative language. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 41.

1 Carnal Knowledge: Metaphor, Allegory, and the Embodiment of Truth 1 2 3 4 5 6

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Burgard, ‘Introduction: Figures of Excess,’ 16. Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor, 35. Ibid., 48. Nietzsche, ‘On the Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,’ 84. Burgard, ‘Introduction: Figures of Excess,’ 7–8. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 8, sec. 4.

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Notes to pages 18–20

7 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 125 (¶ 232). 8 On the problem of Nietzsche and the feminine, see the following two collections of essays: Patton, ed., Nietzsche, Feminism and Political Theory; and Burgard, ed., Nietzsche and the Feminine. See also Picart, Resentment and the ‘Feminine’ in Nietzsche’s Politico-Aesthetics. 9 In Spurs, Jacques Derrida’s playful reading of Nietszche’s struggle with the feminine, he observes that in Nietzsche’s writing, ‘it is impossible to dissociate the questions of art, style and truth from the question of the woman’ (71). 10 By cookery (opsopoiia), Plato means ‘that preparation of pleasing foods, condiments, and candies to be judged by taste and texture alone without concern for nourishment’ (Plochmann and Robinson, A Friendly Companion to Plato’s ‘Gorgias,’ 58). This kind of cookery or ‘catering’ is likened to pandering or flattery since it presumes a familiarity with the body’s needs that is, in fact, based only on superficial knowledge. It is most unlike medicine, since it merely flatters the body’s whims, ignoring any intrinsic knowledge necessary for healing (65). 11 Plato, Gorgias, 465B. 12 Barilli, Rhetoric, 7. 13 Plato, Phaedrus, XXII, 267A. 14 In Phaedrus XX, 246C, Socrates states: ‘Any discourse ought to be constructed like a living creature, with its own body (sõma), as it were, it must not lack either a head or feet, it must have a middle and extremities so composed as to suit each other and the whole work.’ 15 The use of cosmetics in ancient Greece by women was frowned upon as the artificial, deceitful masking of one’s true natural state. It also carried with it overtones of sexual promiscuity and deviance since it was often thought to be a practice of prostitutes or of unnatural, effeminate men who willingly relinquish their proper masculine role of dominance. On cosmetics in ancient Greece, see Grillet, Les femmes et les fards dans l’antiquité grècque, and especially 97–114, for an overview of the bad reputation cosmetics had in Greek society. For a fascinating discussion of the way in which the cosmetic practice of depilation by men was seen as a sign of gender deviance, see Gleason, ‘The Semiotics of Gender,’ especially 399–402. 16 In speaking of the ‘feminine’ in negative terms, I in no way wish to imply that such classical and medieval formulations of misogyny have any validity, except in the way they expose the misogynistic underpinnings of the Western intellectual tradition. Nor do I wish to reduce the real, historical oppression of women in this period to the terminology of philosophical or literary discourse. However, the reduction in patriarchal culture of the

Notes to pages 20–4

17 18

19 20 21

22

23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30 31

32

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feminine to negative concepts, which can be manipulated so as to offset more positively valued male characteristics, is merely another manifestation of the misogyny that permeated most aspects of life and culture in classical and medieval Europe. See Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric, 38–44. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 72–7, discusses the relationship of language to the human body in Quintilian, and the sexually corrupting effect of metaphorically ornate language on the pure textual body. See Gleason, Making Men, for the relationship between oratorical performance and manliness. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, ed. and trans. H.E. Butler, Bk. V.xii.20. All further citations will follow this edition. As Miriam Brody points out, the deceptive nature of effeminate language is partly due to Quintilian’s association of this overly ornamented style with the ambiguous body and sexual status of a eunuch. See Manly Writing, 15–22. See Auerbach, ‘Figura,’ 11–26. Figura’s etymological root, fingere, counts among its many meanings those that bring together ideas of physical shaping, mental representation, and deception: ‘to mould,’ ‘to adorn,’ ‘to imagine,’ ‘to invent,’ and ‘to feign’ are all listed under the definition of fingere in Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary. Aristotle, Poetics XXI.18–19, in Aristotle’s Poetics, 37. Isidore of Seville, ‘De Grammatica,’ Book I of Etymologiarum sive originum, Libri XX, Bk.I.xxxvii.2. My translation. This same definition of metaphor is echoed by Matthew of Vendôme in his Ars versificatoria, p. 172, III.19: ‘Metaphora est alicuius verbi usurpata translatio.’ Cicero, De oratore, III.xxxviii.155. Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima, 2:281. My translation. Ibid. Umberto Eco, in his Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, 87, has also pointed out that metaphor is the trope par excellence: ‘To speak of metaphor, therefore, means to speak of rhetorical activity in all its complexity.’ Purcell, ‘Transsumptio: A Rhetorical Doctrine of the Thirteenth Century.’ I follow Purcell’s explanation and examples in this section. Kelley, ‘Fantastic Shapes,’ 234. Ibid. Aristotle appears to have limited the functioning of metaphor to the individual word. See Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 16–19. Aristotle, in his definition of metaphor in the Poetics, views it as the transfer of a name (Poetics 1475B 6–9). Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 93–4.

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Notes to pages 24–6

33 Ibid., 94: ‘If a satisfactory account can be given of what is implied in this kind of poetic meaning [i.e., metaphor], it must be possible to extend the same explication to larger entities such as the entire poem.’ 34 This article is found in Sheldon Sacks, ed., On Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 1–10. 35 Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 146–7. 36 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, VIII.vi.44. Similar definitions are also found in Cicero, De oratore III.xli.166 and 168; and in the Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.xxxiv.46. 37 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum I.xxxvii.22. My translation. 38 Boncompagno da Signa. Rhetoria novissima, 281. My translation. 39 Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 22. In his article ‘The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination and Feeling,’ 240, Ricoeur calls the newly produced meaning the ‘second-order reference’ which results from the suspension and abolition of the ordinary reference of figurative language. 40 Pépin, La tradition de l’allégorie, 208. 41 Ibid., 118. For the view of the nakedness of divine discourse as a prostitution of the holy, see 119–20. Macrobius, in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, faults Numenius for failing to cover divine mystery with a cloak of allegory. Macrobius dreams that the goddesses of the sanctuary appeared to him as courtesans in order to make it clear that Numenius’s oversight resulted in a prostitution of divinity. 42 For a good summary of the history of the veils of allegory, see Brinkmann, ‘Verhüllung (“integumentum”) als Literarische Darstellungsform im Mittelalter.’ For a more specific usage of the term, see Jeauneau, ‘L’Usage de la notion d’integumentum à travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches.’ For the related term involucrum, see Chénu, ‘Involucrum: le mythe selon les théologiens médiévaux.’ 43 Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannem 41.3 in PL 35, col. 1694. Quoted in Pépin, La tradition de l’allégorie, 94. 44 Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 34; Aristotle, Rhetoric 1410B.33. 45 Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV.xxxiv.45: ‘Ea [translatio] sumitur rei ante oculos ponendae causa’ (Metaphor is used for the sake of placing things before the eyes, translation modified). 46 Cicero, De oratore III.xl.160. ‘vel quod omnis translatio, quae quidem sumpta ratione est, ad sensus ipsos admovetur, maxime oculorum, qui est sensus acerrimus’ (or because every metaphor, provided it be a good one, has a direct appeal to the senses, especially the sense of sight, which is the keenest). 47 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria VIII.vi.19.

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48 Cicero, De oratore III.xxxix.157. 49 Alberic of Montecassins, Flores rhetorici, p. 45, VI.1. The word honestas can be taken to mean ‘honesty’ in a modern sense as well as ‘virtue’ or ‘beauty,’ also current in medieval Latin. Thus the ‘honesty’ infused into writing by metaphor carries both ethical and moral, as well as aesthetic connotations. See Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary and A Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources for numerous examples. 50 Augustine, De trinitate 9.3.3, 9.6.10, 10.1.1, 10.7.10. 51 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 4.34.54: ‘iste corporeae lucis est radius.’ Cited in Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2–173. 52 See Ricoeur, ‘The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination and Feeling,’ 228–47, for a discussion of the ways in which metaphor functions as a poetic image whose cognitive content may be understood as the resolution between semantic congruence and incongruence. 53 The ongoing debate among philosophers of language about the cognitive status of metaphor was provoked by Max Black’s contention that metaphor has the power to create similarities. Such a claim would have been perfectly comprehensible to medieval theorists of language. For a summary of discussions of this issue, see Johnson, ‘Introduction: Metaphor in the Philosophical Tradition,’ 35–42. 54 According to Gerald Bruns, this would be constitutive of the figure of allegory. See his ‘Allegory and Satire,’ 125–6. 55 This text is cited and translated by Peter Dronke in his Fabula, 35. 56 For the view of figurative language as symbolic of the exile of the Fall, see Ferguson, ‘Saint Augustine’s Region of Unlikeness.’ 57 Alan of Lille, Rithmus de Incarnatione Domini, quoted and translated by Nims, ‘“Difficult Statement” in Medieval Poetic Theory,’ 220. 58 Nims, ‘“Difficult Statement” in Medieval Poetic Theory,’ 221. 59 See Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric, 134. 60 For Gérard Genette, rhetorical form is a duplicitous surface which separates the present signifier from the absent signifier. See his ‘Figures,’ in Figures, 1:210–11. 61 See Evans, Augustine on Evil, 45–6, for a good analysis of the tension between body and soul in Augustine’s epistemology. 62 Augustine, De doctrina christiana, I.vi.6. The translation is by D.W. Robertson, Jr, in On Christian Doctrine. Page references to the translation will be provided in parentheses following each citation. 63 Augustine, De doctrina christiana IV.xi.26: ‘Quod cum adepti fuerint, ipsi delectabiliter ueritate pascuntur bonorumque ingeniorum insignis est

218

Notes to pages 29–33

indoles, in uerbis uerum amare, non uerba’ (And when they have become adept at it, they feast delightedly on this truth, for it is a mark of good and distinguished minds to love the truth within words and not the words) (136. Translation modified). 64 Augustine, De doctrina christiana III.v.9: Nam in principio cauendum est, ne figuratam locutionem ad litteram accipias. Et ad hoc enim pertinet, quod ait apostolus: ‘Littera occidit, spiritus autem uiuificat.’ Cum enim figurate dictum sic accipitur, tamquam proprie dictum sit, carnaliter sapitur. Neque ulla mors animae congruentius appellatur, quam cum id etiam, quod in ea bestiis antecellit, hoc est, litteram, translata uerba sicut propria tenet neque illud, quod proprio uerbo significatur, refert ad aliam significationem. Ea demum est miserabilis animi seruitas, signa pro rebus accipere; et supra creaturam corpoream, oculum mentis ad hauriendum aeternum lumen leuare non posse. (For at the outset you must be very careful lest you take figurative expressions literally. What the Apostle says pertains to this problem: ‘For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.’ That is, when that which is said figuratively is taken as though it were literal, it is understood carnally. Nor can anything more appropriately be called the death of the soul than that condition in which the thing which distinguishes us from beasts, which is the understanding, is subjected to the flesh in the pursuit of the letter. He who follows the letter takes figurative expressions as though they were literal and does not refer the things signified to anything else. There is a miserable servitude of the spirit in this habit of taking signs for things, so that one is not able to raise the eye of the mind above things that are corporal and created to drink in eternal light.) (83–4) 65 See Roberts, The Jeweled Style, 130, for a more detailed discussion of the subordination of dulcedo to utilitas in late antique Christian writers. 66 De trinitate I.i.2, in La trinité, ed. M. Mellet, and Th. Camelot, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, vol. 15 (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1955). The English translation is by McKenna, On The Trinity, 5. 67 Augustine, Epistle LV.xi.21 in PL 33.214. All translations of the Epistle are mine. Emphasis added. 68 For an excellent study of the Fall as a kind of primal scene for the development of medieval attitudes towards rhetoric and hermeneutics, see Jager, The Tempter’s Voice.

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69 Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima, II.4 (p. 255). My translation. By ‘persuasio,’ Boncompagno means rhetoric in a metonymic way, since persuasion, along with instruction and delight, was one of the prime functions of rhetoric. 70 Indeed, the woven nature of the fig leaves (folia) makes this also a metaphor for the written text: ‘The fig leaf garments, being human rather than purely natural products, suggested the status of writing as an instrument of culture, as artifice, as technique. In their concealing properties or opacity they represented the secrecy of writing, its tendency to “cover” or conceal the truth. As coverings for the genitals, they hinted at the link between writing and illicit desire or pleasure’ (Jager, The Tempter’s Voice, 69). 71 Ambrose, De paradiso XIII.65. My translation. 72 Jager, The Tempter’s Voice, 126–129. 73 The commentator in question is Victorinus, who is glossing Cicero’s De inventione. See Ward, ‘Artificiosa Eloquentia in the Middle Ages,’ 1:96. 74 Ibid., 1–289, gives an example from John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon. 75 Alan of Lille, De planctu naturae, XVIII.108–10. 76 In Donatus, tropes are deviant expressions whose function is to adorn: ‘Tropus est dictio translata a propria significatione ad non propriam similitudinem ornatus necessitatisue causa’ (A trope is a word transferred from its own meaning to a likeness which is not its own for the purpose of adornment or out of necessity). My trans. Ars maior III.6, in Louis Holtz, Donate et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical (Paris: CNRS, 1981), 667. 77 Augustine, Contra mendacium X.24 in PL 40.533. My translation. Emphasis added. 78 In Quintilian, the word proprietas can often mean ‘proper signification.’ See Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, for examples. 79 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, ll.765–9. The translation is by Margaret Nims. 80 Evrard the German, Laborintus, ll.247–8. My translation. 81 ‘La seconde maniere, ki est couverte, ne se fait pas connoistre a ses signes; ele ne vient pas en son abit, ains moustre une autre samblance dehors ki est si comme jointe a la verité dedens comme s’ele fust la matire meismes.’ Brunetto Latini, Li livres dou tresor, III.xiii.6. 82 Garland, The ‘Parisiana Poetria’ of John of Garland, IV.143–5. 83 See also Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima, II.ii (p. 254). 84 For Lady Philosophy’s garments, see Boethius, De consolatio Philosophiae, I.prose, 3. The allegorical figures of Natura and Veritas in Alan of Lille’s

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87 88 89 90

Notes to pages 38–40

De planctu naturae both wear integral garments: for Natura, see Nikolaus Häring’s edition in Studi medievali, terza serie, 19.2 (1978): 797–879, ll.196–8, and for Veritas, see XVIII.99–102. Christ’s clothing is described as ‘inconsutilis’ (seamless) in John 19:23. In the thirteenth-century Spanish collection of Marian miracles by Gonzalo de Berceo, the garment associated with Mary is ‘sin aguja cosida’ (sewn without a needle). See Los milagros de Nuestra Señora, stanza 60b. Matthew of Vendôme, Ars versificatoria II.5, p. 152. The translation is by Roger P. Parr. I have slightly modified the translation. The translation is taken from two sources: ‘Flowers of Rhetoric,’ trans. Miller, 135, and Dronke, The Medieval Poet and His World, 19, who translates the latter part of this passage. I have, however, changed Miller’s translation. For an interesting discussion in John of Garland of the vilification of ornate language as deceptive, see Birky, ‘The Word Was Made Flesh,’ 171–3. Flores rhetorici II. 5, p. 36. Translation from Dronke, The Medieval Poet and His World, 19. Matthew of Vendôme, Ars versificatoria II.11: Sed, quadam similitudine sumpta a rebus materiatis, sicut de lana caprina et de panniculis inveteratis nemo festivum potest contexere indumentum, quia modicum fermenti totam massam corrumpit, similiter in versibus, si festiva fuerit verborum materia, materiae festivitas in ipsum materiatum redundabit, et metra ornatu carentia aut ignorantiam aut versificatoris nuntiabunt negligentiam. (To continue this metaphor drawn from material things, no one can weave a gay garment from goat’s wool and old rags; just as a bit of yeast ferments the entire mixture, so it is in verses. If there is going to be felicitous disposition of words, this felicity of diction must be reflected in the material itself. Otherwise, the lack of elegance in the verse will announce either the ignorance or negligence of the versifier. [Parr’s translation modified])

91 Roberts, The Jeweled Style. 92 Ibid., 56. 93 See Horace, Ars poetica ll.1–38, and 150–2, for advice on how to create a coherent poem. Horace’s text was extremely influential in medieval poetic theory. See Friis-Jensen, ‘Horace and the Early Writers of the Arts of Poetry,’ ‘Medieval Commentaries on Horace,’ and ‘The Ars Poetica in Twelfth-Century France,’ and Villa, ‘Per una tipologia del commento mediolatino.’ 94 Roberts, The Jeweled Style, 3. See especially 111–12 for a description of the

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toga picta as an example of the ‘jeweled style’ in fashion. This particular garment is characterized by the same obvious joining together of disparate, eye-catching elements as is the poetry of the period. 95 See Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 7, 9–10. 96 Rita Copeland in ‘The Pardoner’s Body and the Disciplining of Rhetoric,’ views rhetoric as having a body whose unruly and transgressive nature offers itself to the discipline of institutional power. The transgressiveness of the body of rhetoric functions as a mechanism that enables cultural authority to reassert itself even more forcefully, and results in a strengthening of the very dominant institutions and ideologies which the rhetorical body had appeared to challenge. This carnivalesque logic assumes that the corporeal transgressiveness of rhetoric is merely an ephemeral step in a cycle of institutional tyranny. The problem with this view, as the writers of the artes poetriae were too well aware, is that the surplus desire and pleasure so powerfully present in the defiance of institutional norms resists all forms of suppression. 97 See Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, ll.220–5: … sententia cum sit Unica, non uno veniat contenta paratu, Sed variet vestes et mutatoria sumat; Sub verbis aliis praesumpta resume; repone Pluribus in clausis unum; multiplice forma Dissimuletur idem … (Although the meaning is one, let it not come content with one set of apparel. Let it vary its robes and assume different raiment. Let it take up again in other words what has already been said; let it reiterate, in a number of clauses, a single thought. Let one and the same thing be concealed under multiple forms …) 98 William of Conches uses the term ‘sartor’ (tailor) in a derogatory way to refer to sophistic practitioners of eloquence (the Cornificians) who overemphasize their own novelty at the expense of past auctores, the study of whom, they opine, should be excised from the arts course. Also, John of Salisbury relates how Bernard of Chartres would accuse students of sewing patches taken from an auctor to embellish their work. Bernard views such a patched garment as a sign of slavish imitation rather than a mature, honest appropriation of the ideas of others. See Ward, ‘“Artificiosa Eloquentia” in the Middle Ages,’ 1:282, 289. 99 This translation by Aubrey E. Galyon, The Art of Versification (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 84–5.

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Notes to pages 43–8

100 See Schor, Reading in Detail, 44–5. Bloch, ‘Medieval Misogyny,’ 11–12, points out that in patristic writings woman is equivalent to ornament and decoration. The coveting of ornamentation by women is, for Tertullian, a sign of woman’s persuasive, rhetorical participation in the Fall. Birky, ‘The Word Was Made Flesh,’ 174–6, also points out that Matthew’s exemplary descriptions of women and dissolute men are oriented towards physical description in contrast to the depictions of praiseworthy men, which have greater emphasis on interior qualities. In addition, her analysis (193–5) of the conjoining of rhetoric as woman to rhetoric as clothing is particularly noteworthy for the way it examines the female portraits offered by Geoffrey of Vinsauf both as examples of rhetorical ornamentation and figurative pleasure, and as sites of representation. 101 The passage in question from Matthew’s Ars is cited and discussed by Epp, ‘Learning to Write with Venus’s Pen,’ 275–6. 102 See Johnson, ‘Introduction: Metaphor in the Philosophical Tradition,’ 7; and see Black, ‘Metaphor,’ 69, for a similar description of the understanding of a metaphor in terms of the deciphering of a code or riddle. 103 Augustine, De civitate Dei, xvii.20. My translation. This passage is cited by Pépin, La tradition de l’allégorie, 104, note 44. See 100–4 for a discussion of the desire associated with images of veiling in Augustine. 104 Derrida, Spurs, 53. See also Alan D. Schrift’s discussion of the passage in Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 100. 105 Spivak, ‘Displacement and the Discourse of Woman,’ 60. Emphasis in original. 106 For an excellent, judicious evaluation of some of the harshest critiques levelled by feminist theorists against Derrida in particular and postmodernism in general, see Grosz, ‘Ontology and Equivocation.’ 107 See Burns’s critique of the work of Jean Charles Huchet, Alexandre Leupin, Michel Zink, and R. Howard Bloch in Bodytalk, 12–15. 108 Doane, ‘Veiling over Desire,’ 123. See 119–26 for her full discussion of Nietzsche. 109 See, for example, Janet Lungstrum, ‘Nietzsche Writing Woman / Woman Writing Nietzsche.’ 110 Ansell-Pearson, ‘Nietzsche, Woman and Political Theory,’ 37. 111 For an excellent evaluation of the productive nature of Derrida’s thought for feminist theory’s rethinking of the subject, see Grosz, ‘Ontology and Equivocation.’ See also Feder and Zakin, ‘Flirting with the Truth.’ 112 Derrida, Spurs, 125. Instead of the medieval theoretical terminology of raggedness, Derrida uses the term ‘fracture’ or ‘fragment.’ 113 Ibid., 133.

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114 Ibid., 139. 115 See Ballif, Seduction, Sophistry and the Woman with the Rhetorical Figure, for a stimulating discussion of the sophistic nature of the Nietzschean and postmodern intersections between woman and language. 116 Ibid., 100. 117 Gallop’s Thinking Through the Body attempts to treat the body as a site of knowledge, a medium of thought always mediated by its textuality and the mastery that such a condition implies. 118 Lomperis and Stanbury, ‘Introduction: Feminist Theory and Medieval “Body Politics,”’ x. 2 Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’s Peristephann 1 On the ‘Spanish’ consciousness of Prudentius and the impact of his martyrological writing on the development of later Spanish hagiography, see Guerreiro, ‘Un archétype ou des archétypes du Passionnaire hispanique?’ and Aldana García and Herrera Roldán, ‘Prudencio entre los mozárabes cordobeses.’ 2 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11.3.1. 3 See Gleason, Making Men; and Gunderson, Staging Masculinity. For the relation of Roman notions of honour to a supercharged masculinity, see Barton, Roman Honor. 4 Gunderson, Staging Masculinity, 165. 5 Ibid., 13. 6 Ibid., 39. For a discussion of the complex paradoxical relationship between the writing of living oratorical delivery, see Gunderson’s chapter ‘Reading and Writing,’ in Staging Masculinity, 29–57. 7 Ibid., 54. 8 Burrus, ‘Begotten, Not Made,’ 22; and Harris, Ancient Literacy, 321–2. 9 See Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, on the status of writing within early Christianity and the strategies used by Christians to absorb and transform pagan rhetorical practice. See especially 86, 110, 123. 10 Ibid., 69. Harpham, in The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, 14, also points out the close link between textuality and martyrdom for early Christians. 11 Cameron, Christianity and The Rhetoric of Empire, 6. 12 Ibid., 68. 13 Ibid., 72–3. 14 Burrus, ‘Begotten, Not Made,’ 14. 15 Ibid., 14.

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Notes to pages 52–5

16 Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 43. See the chapter entitled ‘Curiositas and Credulity’ for a good summary of fourth-century literary tastes. 17 See Roberts, The Jeweled Style. 18 Martha Malamud, in A Poetics of Transformation, studies Prudentius’s manipulation of language, classical mythology, and readers’ participation in deciphering the cultural, literary, and linguistic codes embedded in his poetry. See especially chapter 2, ‘Word Games,’ for a discussion of poets’ manipulation of language and its intended effect upon readers. 19 Prudentius, Peristephanon II.573–80, ed. and trans. H.J. Thomson, hereafter Pe. All further references to the Pe will be to this edition. I have sometimes modified the translation slightly. The verb prodo in this passage may be taken to refer either to oral expression or to written production. See Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, under prodo. 20 Of course, Prudentius was well aware that his poems would not have been read silently. Orality was an integral part of the reading process in the late antique world. See Saenger, ‘Silent Reading,’ 370–3 for a good description of the oral nature of Roman reading practices. 21 The body, in early Christian thought, was sometimes considered as an intermediary. Methodius, in his Symposium, treats the bodies of virgins as the perfect mediators between heaven and earth. Such a logic of mediation may explain the easy passage from body to text since both fulfil a fundamentally mediatory function. See Peter Brown, The Body and Society, 185. Prudentius’s textualization of the martyrs’ bodies is perfectly consistent with such a corporeal concept of mediation. 22 See, for example, Salvatore, Studi Prudenziani. Even some of the most recent scholarship on Prudentius has the same tendency: see Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs. 23 Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 311. For Curtius’s comments on Prudentius’s use of the book metaphor, see 311–12. 24 See the chapter entitled ‘Schreibmetaphern bei Prudentius: Vorgeschichte und literarische Funktion,’ in Thraede, Studien zu Sprache und Stil des Prudentius, 79–140. 25 See Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs. Roberts discusses the description of Cassian (141–5) and relates it to the ‘re-presentation’ of the martyrdom in Prudentius’s text (145). The textual nature of Hippolytus’s bodily remains is also noted by Roberts (155–6) and he views Prudentius’s poem as repeating the original ‘reading’ of Hippolytus’s body. 26 The representation of martyrdom as the sowing of fertile words of torture recalls the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:4–11. Here the seed that falls in good ground yields fruit a hundredfold. In verse 11, the explication of the

Notes to pages 56–9

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30

31 32 33 34

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parable reveals that the seed is linguistic in nature: ‘Est autem haec parabola semen est verbum Dei’ (Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God). See Grabar, Martyrium, vol. 2, plate XXXVI.1. Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, ch. 1. Ignatius of Antioch, ‘The Epistle to the Romans,’ 2:1, in Ignatius of Antioch, ed. Helmut Koester; commentary by William R. Schoedel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). Quoted in Harpham, ‘The Fertile Word,’ 252, note 2. J.B. Lightfoot, in The Apostolic Fathers, Part 2, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp (London: Macmillan, 1889), interprets this verse as follows: ‘His martyrdom alone would make his life an intelligible utterance; otherwise it was no better than the passionate cry of some irrational creature to whom life is pleasure or pain, and nothing more’ (200). The Latin translation of this letter of St Ignatius mirrors the contrast between logos and phone: ‘si enim de me silueritis, ego verbum dei; si autem carnem meam amaveritis, rursus ero vox’ (for if you say nothing to me, I am the word of God; and if you desire my flesh, I am turned back into voice). The Latin text is printed in Ignatii et Polycarpi Epistolae. Patres Apostolici ser. 1, vol. 2, Ed. Joseph Vizzini (Rome: Bibliotheca Ss Patrum, 1901), 137. John the Monk, writing in the late fourth century, comments on the opposition between logos and phone in St Ignatius as being that between flesh and spirit: ‘for every beast and bird together with cattle and creeping thing of the earth utter the voice only; but because man has in him a soul and is not like the rest of the other bodies, he uses the Word and the Voice.’ John’s comments are cited Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part 2, S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, 199. Harpham, ‘The Fertile Word,’ 239. Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 174. Lactantius, Institutiones divinae V.13.9. The translation is my own. The entry for charaxo in the Thesaurus linguae latinae (TLL) cites the following passage from the Pseudo-Augustinian Altercatio ecclesiae et sinagogae: ‘cum primum Moyses in monte Sina charaxatas decalogo duplices tabulas accepisset’ (when on Mount Sinai Moses first received the double tablets engraved with the decalogue). This passage recalls Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount where he states that the law of the prophets is to remain intact and inviolate: ‘Amen quippe dico vobis donec transeat caelum et terra iota unum aut unus apex non praeteribit a lege donec omnia fiant’ (Matt 5:18: For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one dot, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished). See also Luke 16:17. Here,

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41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

Notes to pages 59–61

Prudentius seems to be suggesting an equivalence between a martyr’s body and the law. Both are immortal, unchanging texts whose meaning must be respected and communicated to others as a precondition for entry into heaven (cf. Matt 5:19). The function of the martyrs as divine heavenly texts is also evident in the fourth-century Passio Saturnini, Dativi et aliorum plurimorum martyrum in Africa. The martyr Emeritus, when responding to the judge’s question as to whether he possesses scriptures, states that they are written in his heart (‘In corde meo illas habeo,’ 984). Emeritus goes on to suggest that the martyrs’ bodies are akin to walking divine books: ‘O martyrem Apostoli memorem, qui legem Domini conscriptam habuit, non atramento, sed Spiritu Dei uiui, non in tabulis lapideis, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus’ (XI 984–5: Oh martyr mindful of the Apostle who had God’s law written, not by means of ink but by the spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on the carnal tablets of the heart. [My translation]). See DuBois, Sowing the Body, 135, for a discussion of the objectification and commodification of the body through inscription or decoration. See Grabar, Martyrium, 1–40; and Hermann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, 29, 35, 49. Grabar, Martyrium, 1–40. Michael Roberts also points out that Prudentius is aware that a martyr’s presence is as fully present in the text of his/her passion as it is in the sacred place of the martyr’s shrine. Therefore, Roberts also considers that ‘Prudentius himself extends the principle of the plenitude of relics to the text of the passion and therefore to his own poetic endeavour.’ See Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 192–3. Brown, The Cult of the Saints. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 86–7. On the possible readers of Prudentius, see Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 91–4. Michael Roberts points out that Prudentius’s martyrdom narratives share ‘the ability of the devotional moment itself to transcend temporal distinctions’ (Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 19). Ambrose, Enarrationes in duodecim psalmos davidicos, 43.38; PL 14, col. 1108. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 40.1. My translation. Pellegrino, ‘Le sens ecclésial du martyre,’ 152. Tertullian, Apologeticum, 50.13 (CCSL, 1–171): ‘Nec quicquam tamen proficit exquisitior quaeque crudelitas uestra: illecebra est magis sectae. Etiam plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a uobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum!’

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50 Pellegrino, ‘Le sens ecclésial du martyre,’ 156. 51 Augustine, Sermo CCLXXX, ‘ In natali martyrum Perpetuae et Felicitatis,’ PL 38, col. 1283. My translation. 52 Klaus Thraede has traced the sources of the writing as sowing metaphor in Studien zu Sprache und Stil des Prudentius, 79–113. There are many other examples of the language of sowing applied to the suffering of martyrdom. For example, the Passio Saturnini VIII (p. 980 in Ruiz Bueno) describes the torture of martyrdom as follows: ‘geminata martyris dignitas iterato ungulis sulcantibus exaratur’ (again the two-fold dignity of the martyr is ploughed deeply by the claws that furrow him). In another example, John Chrysostom in De Sanctis Martyribus refers to the torture of martyrs as the tilling of the earth: ‘They tied the martyrs to the rack; making deep furrows they pierced their sides as if they were tilling the earth with a plough, and not mutilating human bodies’ (cited in Delehaye, Les Passions des martyres et les genres littéraires, 158–9. For the Greek text, see PG 50, col. 708.). Although images of sowing are common in the passiones of martyrs, Prudentius revivifies the metaphor by exploiting and directing its connotations of fertility and dynamism to the nature of martyrdom and the discourse in which it is expressed. 53 Torro, Antropología de Aurelio Prudencio, 20. 54 For a fuller discussion of Prudentius’s treatment of the inscription of Cassian, see Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 132–48. See especially 141–45 for the representation of Cassian in textual terms. 55 Conybeare, ‘The Ambiguous Laughter of Saint Laurence,’ 178. 56 For the power of passivity in the agon of martyrdom, see Shaw, ‘Body/ Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs.’ 57 Catherine Conybeare’s argument in ‘The Ambiguous Laughter of Saint Laurence,’ 175–202, turns on her exploration of the feminization of Saint Laurence. 58 See Pseudo-Ambrosius, Sermo 59 bis. 5 ‘Item Sermo de uno martyre,’ PL 17, col. 726: ‘tunc venient in exsultatione portantes manipulos suos, cum in resurrectione receperint flores suos’ (then will they come in exultation bearing their trophies since, in their resurrection, they will have received their flowers). Gregory the Great also spoke of martyrdom as a flowering: ‘Ecce iam mors martyrum floret in fide viventium’ (Behold, the death of the martyrs now blooms in the faith of the living). Homiliarum in Evangelia II.38.5 (PL 76, col. 1285). 59 Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 168. 60 For more classical and Christian analogues of the imagistic cluster of flowers, blood, and relics, see Miller, ‘The Little Blue Flower Is Red.’

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Notes to pages 65–9

61 It was common practice to refer to virgin-martyrs as ‘flowers.’ Once again, Prudentius breathes new life into what was, by his time, quite a dead metaphor. Michael Roberts points out that the motif of springtime in winter carries strong nuptial associations, and thus the celebration of Eulalia’s feast day is an ironic symbol of her rejection of physical marriage, and instead a joyous sign of her chaste, spiritual union with Christ. See Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 98–100. Anne-Marie Palmer also notes this connection in Prudentius on the Martyrs, 168–9. 62 Grabar, Martyrium, vol. 2, plate LX.3. There is no commentary in Grabar about the scene represented in the fresco. I am suggesting my own interpretation of the scene in question. 63 DuBois, Sowing the Body, 39. 64 Petruccione, ‘The Portrait of St. Eulalia of Mérida in Prudentius’ Peristephanon 3,’ provides ample evidence that Eulalia’s martyrdom should be read as an epithalamium; see especially 98–102. 65 The ambivalent oscillation between the poles of chastity and sexuality that characterizes Agnes is discussed by Malamud, ‘Making a Virtue of Perversity,’ 78–82, 83–4. Malamud, in A Poetics of Transformation, 169–70, views Agnes’s wished-for penetration by the executioner’s sword as explicitly sexual. 66 Burrus, ‘Reading Agnes,’ reads Agnes’s violent death as the suppression of her audacious female heroism, and as paradoxically necessary for the release of her body’s power and productivity (41–3). As we will see, Prudentius appropriates this productivity into his own poetic project, thereby converting words of feminine defiance into male-authored poems that implant the seeds of salvation into the souls of Christians. 67 In a fascinating study of the interpenetration of the sexual and the textual in the martyrdom narrative of Eulalia, Martha Malamud points out that Eulalia becomes a text that ‘reads and interprets itself’ and thus raises the question of the location of textual authority. See ‘Making a Virtue of Perversity,’ 76–85. 68 Although very little work has been done on Ovidian intertexts in the Pe, there is much evidence that points to a great familiarity of Prudentius with the work of Ovid. See Evenepoel, ‘La présence d’Ovide dans l’oeuvre de Prudence.’ See also Salvatore, ‘Ovidio cristiano,’ in his Studi Prudenziani, 35–57. 69 Although Eulalia is consumed by fire, the sexually charged torture of her body that precedes her death is an equally integral element of her martyrdom. 70 Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 155–6, also points out Prudentius’s use of the language of writing in the Hippolytus martrydom. He too

Notes to pages 69–73

71 72

73

74

75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82

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views the collection of Hippolytus’s body parts by his disciples as the deciphering of a text, analogous to the reading of an inscription that must be reconstructed in order to confer meaning. For example, see Pe III.135. Pe X.1119–20: inscripta Christo pagina inmortalis est, nec obsolescit ullus in caelis apex (The page that Christ has written upon is deathless and in heaven not a letter fades away). Rhetorica ad Herennium, ed. and trans. Harry Caplan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), III.xxii.37: ‘We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in the memory. And we shall do so if we establish likenesses as striking as possible … if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled by mud or smeared with red paint … that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily.’ See also Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 133–4, for an exposition of the development of this mnemonic of violence in the early fourteenth-century ars memorativa attributed to Thomas Bradwardine. The verb rimor, although not a precise term for ‘reading’ does have the sense of ‘searching for with the mind.’ Such a definition is consonant with the activity of reading, which requires active cognitive participation on the part of the reader. A good example of this usage of the verb occurs in Aulius Gellius’s Noctes Atticae I.4.1: ‘scripta omnia antiquiora … spectabat et aut virtutes pensitabat aut vitia rimabatur’ (he examined the works of the more ancient writers … weighing their virtues and searching out their errors [my trans.]). This example is taken from the Oxford Latin Dictionary. See DuBois, Sowing the Body, 56, for an ancient precedent for the linking of the themes of writing and sowing in Theban legend. Ibid., 55. Pe IV.118–20: ‘carnis et caesae spolium retentans / taetra quam sulcos habeant amaros / vulnera narras’ (Thou didst not quit hold of thy flesh though they cut it and would have robbed thee of it, and thou didst tell how grievous were the gashes [i.e., furrows] of thy hideous wounds). Burrus, ‘Begotten, Not Made,’ 14, 54. Burrus ascribes this conception of writing to Athanasius. See ‘Begotten, Not Made,’ 54–6. Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 174. Confessions XIII.xx.27. See also Harpham, ‘The Fertile Word,’ 249, for a discussion of the Word’s fertility. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 40, 1: ‘Mortuus est; et non periit nomen eius, sed seminatum est nomen eius’ (He is dead; and his name does not perish but his name is sown. [My translation]).

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Notes to pages 74–9

83 At 1,140 lines of verse, the narrative of Romanus’s passion is by far the longest in the Peristephanon. For more on Romanus’s rhetorical copia, see Levine, ‘Prudentius’ Romanus.’ 84 In early Christian practice, the reading aloud of a saint’s passion on his or her feast day was a powerful means of evoking the presence of the saint, of making available the saint’s potentia. The narrative recreation of the saint’s suffering was a vital element in the diffusion of holy power. See Brown, Cult of the Saints, 82. As a poet who fashions his text out of the tortured bodies of the martyrs, Prudentius surely must have been aware of his own participation in a literary process that was vital to both the recreation of the martyrs’ physical presence and to the dissemination of their power. Prudentius, by linking his own poetic production directly to the martyrs’ corporeal presence, arrogates to himself a privileged position for the control of the holy. 85 Martha Malamud has also noted Prudentius’s audacious attempt ‘to reinscribe his relationship with the Christian God within a paradigm that promises the ultimate vindication of the artist.’ See ‘Making a Virtue of Perversity,’ 84–6. The passage cited is on p. 86. 86 Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 123–5, also uses Cyprian as the exemplification of ‘the status of Christian writing by attributing to it a power equivalent to that of martyrs after their death.’ 87 Prudentius, Praefatio, in Prudentius, ed. and trans. H.J. Thomson, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), 1: 34–6. 88 See Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 15–16. See also Lana, Due Capitoli Prudenziani, 84. 89 Haijo Westra makes the interesting suggestion that one of the reasons St Augustine was silent about the work of Prudentius may have been due to Prudentius’s exalted claims that his poetry and his own role as poet were a means of salvation. See his ‘Augustine and Poetic Exegesis,’ 96. 90 Shaw, ‘Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,’ 305. 91 As Shaw observes, ‘The spectacular trials and executions of the Christians are but an extreme instance of the use of force to elicit a certain public behaviour from subject bodies, to inscribe one sort of ideology on the body.’ Christian resistance to this ideology was manifested in the empowerment of individual bodies to inscribe themselves with ‘ideologies that ran wholly contrary to those of the dominant power … This could involve a process as radical as a total inversion of the dominant male discourse on the body, the selective appropriation of its values, and the elevation of “feminine” bodily powers as the primary modes of identification and resistance’ (ibid., 311–12).

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92 Numerous historians of early Christianity have commented upon the figure of the female martyr as a disruptive threat to patriarchal social structures and authority. See Cordman, ‘Acts of the Women Martyrs,’ 146–7. Gail Paterson Corrington views martyrdom as a model of female empowerment that constituted a ‘denial of heteronomy (outside control) and an assertion of autonomy (self-control).’ See her ‘The “Divine Woman”?’ For more general treatments of the emancipatory potential of Christianity for women, see McNamara, A New Song; Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings. 3 Macho Words: Writing, Violence, and Gender in the Poema de mio Cid 1 On this point see Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 86. Other martyrdom accounts in the Pe were reduced to compact hymns which would have been sung in celebration of the saint’s feast day. As Gaiffier points out in ‘La lecture des actes des martyres dans la prière liturgique en Occident,’ 143, 158, such reading aloud of the acts of the saints was a common practice in Spain from the fifth century. 2 Brown, ‘Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity,’ 10. 3 For the influence of the Peristephanon on the hagiographers of the martyrs of Córdoba, see Aldana García and P. Herrera Roldán, ‘Prudencio entre los mózarabes cordobeses’; for Eulalia, see 770–5. 4 Rosa Guerreiro has termed Prudentius’s Peristephanon ‘l’acte de naissance de l’hagiographie hispanique’ in ‘Un archétype ou des archétypes du Passionnaire Hispanique?’ 27. 5 Díaz y Díaz, ‘Prudencio en la Hispania visigótica: Unas breves notas,’ 2–70, and Libros y librerías in la Rioja alto medieval, 274, where he notes a copy of ‘Prudentius’ borrowed in 1270 by Alfonso el Sabio. See also Faulhaber, Latin Rhetorical Theory in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Castile, 35. 6 Gerli, ‘Individualism and the Castilian Epic.’ Other recent evaluations and contributions to this debate include Webber, ‘The Cantar de mio Cid.’ 7 Miguel Garci-Gómez terms the interests of the neotraditionalist school ‘exocrítica.’ See his ‘Mio Cid,’ 13–14. Harney, Kinship and Polity in the ‘Poema de mio Cid,’ 4–5, concurs in the categorization ‘of the principal bibliographic rubrics covered by Cidian criticism over the past several decades’ (4) as exocritical. 8 Lomperis and Stanbury in their introduction to Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature point out that the terms ‘gender’ and ‘body’ are socially based categories that are fundamentally involved in questions of power and that ‘both stage and challenge the defining force of dominant ideologies’ (ix–x).

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9 See the excellent discussion of the issue in Burke, Structures From the Trivium in the ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’ 36–42. See also the recent summary of the debate in the introduction to Alberto Montaner Frutos’s edition of the poem, Cantar de mio Cid, 12–14. 10 Much convincing evidence is presented by Ubieto, ‘Observaciones al Cantar de Mio Cid,’ and El ‘Cantar de Mio Cid’ y algunos problemas históricos. Many other critics accept a date of composition in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. See Burke, Structures From the Trivium in the ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’ 74. Joseph J. Duggan, throughout his The ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’ presents much persuasive evidence for an early thirteenth-century date. Irene Zaderenko also posits an early thirteenth-century date for all three cantares, although she hypothesizes that each cantar was composed by a different author. See her Problemas de autoría, 171–89. On the dating of the poem and its unique manuscript, see Bayo, ‘La datación del Cantar de Mio Cid y el problema de su tradición manuscrita.’ 11 I borrow this term from Walter Ong who uses it throughout his Orality and Literacy. 12 García de Cortázar, ‘Cultura en el reinado de Alfonso VIII de Castilla,’ 177. See also Bono, ‘La práctica notarial del Reino de Castilla en el siglo XIII.’ See Gacto Fernández, Temas de historia del derecho, 128–9 for the process of the generalization and diffusion of written codes of law as opposed to local, oral customary law. 13 Clanchy, in From Memory to Written Record, makes excellent use of the rich data from England to detail the epistemic changes set in motion by the transition from voice to text. Smith, in ‘A Reading Public for the Poema de mio Cid?’ rightly calls for a Clanchy-like study of Iberia. 14 Montgomery, ‘The Poema de Mio Cid,’ describes the poem as belonging to a culture in transition from an oral, traditional society to one that is literate (94–5) and he views the poem itself as Western and literate in its system of thought, while its form of expression and representation of characters is more ‘primitive’ (106–7). In another article, ‘The Uses of Writing in the Spanish Epic,’ Montgomery places the Poema de mio Cid and other Spanish epics during the period when ’vernacular literacy was first spreading’ (184), and views the poem as an arena of struggle between speech and writing. In Structures from the Trivium, James Burke, following Montgomery, also considers the work a product of a culture in transition to literacy (39, 104, 120), one whose structure and themes reflect methods of composition and logic learned in the schools (40–4). There are, of course, numerous critics of the opinion that the Cid poet was thoroughly familiar with the techniques and culture of writing. See, for example, Hook, ‘On Certain

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Correspondences between the Poema de Mio Cid and Contemporary Legal Instruments,’ 52, 41. Ong, Orality and Literacy. Ong describes the tension in a culture suspended between oral and literate worlds: ‘There is hardly an oral or a predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy. This awareness is agony for persons rooted in primary orality, who want literacy passionately but who also know very well that moving into the exciting world of literacy means leaving behind much that is exciting and deeply loved in the earlier oral world’ (15). Eugene Vance makes this point in ‘Roland and Charlemagne: The Remembering Voices and the Crypt,’ in Mervelous Signals, 80. Brian Stock also points out that only litterati thought about literacy and non-literacy. See his ‘Medieval Literacy, Linguistic Theory and Social Organization,’ 16. Walter Ong, in Orality and Literacy, 80–1, has observed that the critique of a new technology like writing is made possible only by the very existence of that new technology. Literate modes of thought infiltrate and condition the mind of someone who may be very opposed to the new technology of writing. See Vance, ‘Roland and Charlemagne,’ 80–5. The scriptor of the Roland was not premature in the projection of the loss of the oral, heroic world due to the shifts in mentality occasioned by textuality since that loss became explicit by the thirteenth century. As Gabrielle Spiegel has demonstrated, the shift to written models of truth resulted in the stigmatization of oral signifying practices (such as epic and poetry in general) as unreliable fabrications. Truth and authority could only be conveyed by the now privileged written word. See her Romancing the Past. One trend in Cid scholarship tends to relate the Afrenta to historical circumstances. Romón Menéndez Pidal views it as an echo of the breaking off of the historical engagement of the Cid’s daughters to the Infantes de Carrión, See his essay, ‘Dos poetas en el Cantar de mio cid,’ in his En torno al ‘Poema del Cid,’ 130–8. Later in his career, in an essay entitled ‘Mitología en el Poema del Cid,’ in En torno al ‘Poema del Cid,’ 179–6, he expanded his interpretation of the Afrenta to include the possibility of mythological folk elements in the episode. More recent criticism is in agreement that the Afrenta, and indeed the entire third cantar are fictional, although there are differences of opinion as to what sources inform it. For the relationship of the Afrenta to the martyrological tradition, see Walsh, ‘Religious Motifs in the Early Spanish Epic’; and Nepaulsingh, ‘The Afrenta de Corpes and the Martyrological Tradition.’ Douglas Gifford views the Afrenta as a distant reflection of

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certain elements of the pagan Lupercalia in ‘European Folk-Tradition and the “Afrenta de Corpes.”’ Walker, in ‘A Possible Source for the “Afrenta de Corpes” Episode in the Poema de mio Cid,’ posits the French epic poem Florence de Rome as a likely source, but Alan Deyermond and David Hook convincingly refute this theory. Instead, they suggest the Ovidian intertext of the rape of Procne by Tereus in the Metamorphoses as a much stronger analogue in their study ‘The “Afrenta de Corpes” and Other Stories.’ Dorfman, for example, in The Narreme in the Medieval Romance Epic, 130, views the Afrenta as the structural centre of the whole poem. More recently, Sears, ‘The Blood of Innocents,’ views the Afrenta as bringing to the fore the brutality and horror of bloodshed that are omitted in the narration of the heroic battle scenes. For Sears, Elvira and Sol are the silenced innocents whose blood impresses into memory the reality of violence subtending the masculine economy of politics and law. For a very different perspective, see Clarke, ‘The Cid and His Daughters,’ where Elvira and Sol fulfil the role of sacrificial victims in an allegorical pairing of the story of Abraham and Isaac with that of the Cid and his daughters. Walsh, ‘Religious Motifs in the Early Spanish Epic,’ 169, note 15; and Nepaulsingh, ‘The Afrenta de Corpes and the Martyrological Tradition,’ 205–21. The citations are from Poema de mio Cid, ed. Ian Michael and the translation is that of Rita Hamilton and Janet Perry. James F. Burke is the only critic to have viewed the Afrenta as the impressing of meaningful signa on bodies, and to have linked it to a Prudentian intertext. See ‘Unas frases provocativas del Poema de Mío Cid,’ 181. He also draws a parallel between the shameful soiling or marking of the Infantes’ clothing during the lion incident and the Afrenta. See Structures From the Trivium, 148. Burke, Structures from the Trivium, 194, note 16. Cesáreo Bandera Gómez, in an analysis of the significance of the viga lagar (wine press) in this episode, has postulated a symbolic, Christological link between the Infantes and the press. The wine press, or torcular in Latin, is often associated in Christian writings with Christ himself. Bandera accepts this traditional symbolism and reads it into the lion episode by viewing the wine press as God’s providential means of separating the good from the evil. The Infante Diego, stained with the dregs of the viga lagar, therefore bears the mark of infamy and damnation. See El ‘Poema de Mío Cid,’ 172–7. For a fascinating reading of this episode of cowardice and of the Afrenta de Corpes, whereby the Infantes attempt to reassert phallic control over both bodies and weapons, as forming the axis of a phallocentric struggle between the Cid and the chaotic, destructive forces of violence, see Graf,

Notes to pages 85–8

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‘Huellas de la violencia mimética y su resolución fálico-política en el Poema de mio Cid.’ See Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honour and Social Status,’ 25. Deyermond, El ‘Cantar de Mio Cid’ y la épica medieval española, 75, agrees with Menéndez Pidal’s conclusion that the legend was in existence around the year 1000. The wedding feast of Doña Lambra included a game of ‘tablados’ in which young knights try to knock down a mock wooden castle by thrusting their spears at it. Burt, ‘The Bloody Cucumber and Related Matters in the Siete Infantes de Lara,’ 346–9, points out that the ‘castle’ is symbolic of Lambra’s body which is successfully penetrated by Gonzalo’s winning thrust, thereby establishing him as an icon of male strength and prowess. Bluestine, ‘The Power of Blood in the Siete Infantes de Lara,’ 203–4, also suggests that Gonzalo is sexually attracted to Lambra since he acts like a ‘jealous lover’ in response to Alvar Sánchez’s sexual bravado and success at ‘tablados.’ The version of the legend I am using is that of the Primera crónica general, in La leyenda de los Infantes de Lara, R. Menéndez Pidal, ed. 207–43. The reference to the assault with the cucumber is on p. 214. My translation. Lacarra, ‘Representación de la feminidad en el Cantar de los siete Infantes de Salas,’ also analyses the assault with the cucumber as a sexual insult to Gonzalo, as an attack on his virility. Lacarra views Gonzalo’s revenge on Lambra as charged with similar sexual connotations. She interprets Lambra’s punishment as a defloration and gang rape, and the red stains left on Lambra’s clothing as a symbol of her status as a prostitute. Cesáreo Bandera Gómez is also of the opinion that the lion episode leads logically to the Afrenta. See El ‘Poema de Mío Cid,’ 111–12. The word ‘mandados’ may be translated as ‘news’; however, given the Infantes’ subsequent marking of the women’s bodies, the sense of ‘message’ better conveys the use of the bodies as a medium for the communication of vengeance and shame. In verse 1839, the word ‘mandado’ has the sense of ‘message.’ I have slightly modified the translation. According to Madero, Manos violentas, palabras vedadas, 106, the affronted woman’s body becomes a ‘mensaje entre los hombres’ (message between men). Colin Smith, in the glossary to his edition of the Poema de mio Cid, ascribes this meaning to it. See Corominas, Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana. See the article for ‘exemplum’ in the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Alfonso X, el Sabio, Primera crónica general de España, ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, vol. 2, ch. 936, p. 611. The full text reads as follows: ‘Et desque las

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duennas fueron en casa de aquel omne bueno fizieron una carta pora su padre el Cid Canpeador, la qual carta era de creencia, que creyesse a Ordonno su sobrino quel enbiara por las guardar; et aquell carta era escripta con sangre’ (And when the women were in the house of that good man they wrote a letter to their father, the Cid Campeador, which letter was one of credence, so that he would believe his nephew Ordoño whom he had sent to take care of them; and that letter was written in blood [my translation]). Serra Ruiz, Honor, Honra e injuria en el Derecho medieval español, 102–3. One of the charges directed against writing by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus is that written texts have no voice and thus, are unable to respond to queries. See Phaedrus, 275D, p. 158. The equation of a pen or other writing instrument with the phallus is one which can be traced back to ancient Greek metaphors of a woman’s body as both field and tablet. See DuBois, Sowing the Body, 130–1. For a modern perspective on the ‘model of the pen-penis writing on the virgin page,’ see Gubar, ‘“The Blank Page” and Female Creativity,’ 74–7. For the locus amoenus tradition, see Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 195–200. The idea of an enclosed garden representing the Virgin is also a traditional one. See Dictionary of the Middle Ages, under the entry ‘Gardens, European,’ 361. The permeation of Spanish epic by overt sexual themes has been studied by Alan Deyermond in ‘La sexualidad en la épica medieval española.’ Smith, ‘On the Distinctiveness of the Poema de Mio Cid,’ 168, note 13. Pavlovic and Walker lend support to Smith’s suggestion in ‘Money, Marriage and the Law in the Poema de mio Cid,’ 210, note 8. Lacarra, in ‘Representaciones de mujeres en la literatura española de la edad media (escrita en castellano),’ 44, views the Afrenta as the continuation of the carnal consummation of their marriages the night before. The fact that the Infantes undress their wives and take away their clothing confirms the ‘contenido sexual evidente’ (evident sexual content) of the attack since, according to the fueros, such actions were considered to be attacks on the chastity of a woman and could only be committed with impunity against prostitutes. Elvira and Sol do speak before the Afrenta, but they do so only to acquiesce to the will of their father. They consent to the marriages he arranges for them (ll. 2191–5), and to their being sent away to Carrión (ll. 2594–600). Edmund de Chasca has also noticed the ‘presencia muda’ (mute presence) of the daughters and he also discusses their unusual verbal presence during the Afrenta. See his Estructura y forma en ‘El Poema de Mio Cid,’ 46.

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42 Eugene Vance views the twelfth-century preoccupation with the ‘letter that kills’ as symptomatic of a culture that is undergoing transition from orality to literacy. See of Mervelous Signals, 84–5. 43 Read, ‘Of Words and Deeds: A Study of the Role of Language in the Poema de Mio Cid,’ in his The Birth and Death of Language, 1–21. 44 Friedman, ‘The Writerly Edge,’ 17. 45 Montgomery, ‘The Poema de Mio Cid.’ 46 Montgomery, ‘The Uses of Writing in the Spanish Epic.’ See especially 180–1. 47 On the opening lines of the Poema, see Pardo, ‘Los versos 1–9 del Poema de Mio Cid.’ 48 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 67–8. For more detail on the uses of gesture in the Poema de mio Cid, see Chatham, ‘Gestures, Facial Expressions and Signals in the Poema de Mio Cid’; West-Burdette, ‘Gesture, Concrete Imagery and Spatial Configuration in the Cantar de mio Cid’; and Smith and Morris, ‘On Physical Phrases in Old Spanish Epic and Other Texts.’ 49 Le Goff in ‘The Symbolic Ritual of Vassalage,’ in his collection of essays, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, 239, groups together the symbolic categories of speech, gesture, and objects in the early medieval ritual of vassalage. He views the symbolic use of objects as manifested in the giving of gifts during the investiture ceremony (see 252–5). 50 Duggan, The ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’ 35. See the full discussion of the role of giftgiving in the Poema in chapter 3 ‘Economy and Gift-Giving,’ 30–42. 51 Read, ‘Of Words and Deeds,’ 9. 52 Zumthor, La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale, 104. 53 For a good analysis of the language associated with the Infantes, see Read, ‘Of Words and Deeds,’ 13–15. I will be elaborating upon Read’s discussion of this. 54 The notion of writing which permeates Western metaphysics is elaborated most clearly in Plato’s Phaedrus, where it is consistently linked to falsehood and absence. See Jacques Derrida’s discussion of the opposition between ‘the cadaverous rigidity of writing’ and the ‘living, spoken word’ in Dissemination, 68, 79, 137. The uneasiness felt by the Greek world about the ambiguity and deceptiveness of writing is reflected in its literature. See Segal, ‘Tragédie, oralité, écriture.’ 55 Duggan, The ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’ 37. 56 Hart, ‘The Rhetoric of (Epic) Fiction,’ 32, considers the creation of physical space between the Infantes and others as a mirroring of the psychological distance between them and the Cid’s company. Thomas Montgomery also notes the way the secretiveness of language and action that characterizes

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the Infantes is contrary to the openness of expression that is at the heart of the solidarity and cohesion of the Cid’s group of fighting men. See his ‘The Rhetoric of Solidarity in the Poema del Cid,’ 202. Plato, in the Phaedrus, ‘denounced writing as the intrusion of an artful technique, a forced entry of a totally original sort, an archetypal violence: eruption of the outside within the inside, breaching into the interiority of the soul’ cited in Derrida, Of Grammatology, 34. The Infantes’ spoken language shares in the characteristics Plato associates with written discourse since it is characterized not only by violence, but also by death. Vance, Mervelous Signals, 79, cites John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon about the mortal consequences of severing meaning from intention. The lack of correspondence between intention and meaning in the Infantes’ discourse would indicate that their words are ‘dead’ if one follows the logic of John of Salisbury: ‘A word’s force consists in its meaning. Without the latter it is empty, useless, and (so to speak) dead. Just as the soul animates the body, so, in a way, meaning breathes life into a word’ (John of Salisbury, Metalogicon II. 4, as cited in Vance, Marvelous Signals, 79). For medieval Castilian notions of manliness, see Mirrer, ‘Representing “Other” Men.’ For a good study of masculinity and epic flyting, see Parks, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative. Mirrer, ‘Representing “Other” Men,’ 172, and 184, note 43. Harney, Kinship and Polity in the ‘Poema de mio Cid,’ 215. See 110–14 for a more detailed discussion of epiclerate marriage. According to Cadden, in Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages, displaced gender attributes provoked great discomfort. Feminine men or masculine women were open to the charge of fraud: ‘Their bodies are misleading and so are their mores – they are deceitful, they are liars’ (212–13). Montgomery, ‘The Poema del Cid and the Potentialities of Metonymy,’ 433. See especially 432–3. Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, describes it thus: ‘Since the creation of woman is synonymous with the creation of metaphor, the relation between Adam and Eve is the relation of the proper to the figural, which implies a derivation, deflection, denaturing, a tropological turning away. The perversity of Eve … is that of the lateral: as the outgrowth of Adam’s flank, his latus, she retains the status of translatio, of translation, transfer, metaphor, trope’ (38). See Colish, ‘Cosmetic Theology’; and Bloch’s elaboration on Colish, Medieval Misogyny, 39–47. See the excellent book by Eric Jager, The Tempter’s Voice, especially the section ‘Writing and the Fall,’ 61–75, and chapter 3, ‘The Garden of Eloquence,’

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where he delineates the patristic view of rhetorical artifice as a function and product of the Fall. As Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, points out, ‘One of the governing assumptions of the verbal epistemology of the medieval West is the assimilation of the verbal and the social. The orders of language and society were considered to be connatural’ (32–3). Deyermond and Hook, ‘Doors and Cloaks,’ trace the imagery of doors and clothing as emblematic of the adversity and later of the success of the Cid. Burke, Srtuctures From the Trivium, 98, points out that the Cid’s exile from his home would certainly have resonated with the themes of loss and exile that were central to the Easter liturgy. While agreeing with Montaner Frutos, who denies any direct messianic meaning to the Cid’s life, Burke is surely correct in his view that medieval people would have understood ‘that the pattern of his life was … similar to or assimilated to the pattern of the life of the Saviour’ (98). Joël Saugnieux views the biblical story of King Saul’s banishment of David as a possible model for the Cid’s exile. While Saugnieux argues that the Cid’s exile and subsequent reinstatement are politically rather than spiritually motivated, it seems to me that what is most important is the presence of biblical imagery as a framework for the plot. The Christian subtext serves to glorify the hero in all endeavours, be they spiritually, politically, or socially motivated. See Saugnieux, ‘Messianisme religieux et messianisme politique dans la Poema de Mio Cid.’ Burke views the significance of the Cid’s death on Pentecost as a symbol of his final ascent to political glory. See Structures from the Trivium, 123. Leo, ‘La “Afrenta de Corpes,” novela psicológica,’ 300–3. My argument is greatly indebted to Leo’s article. Ibid., 297–8; 300–1. A number of critics have viewed the Infantes’ performance in the final duels as a valiant display of strength and heroism. Walsh, ‘Epic Flaw and Final Combat in the Poema de mio Cid,’ reads the Infantes’ brave determination to face the Cid’s champions as a sudden transformation from cowards into heroic adversaries, and attributes such an abrupt transfiguration to the structural and narrative exigencies of the epic genre. Walker, ‘The Infantes de Carrión and the Final Duels in the Poema de mio Cid,’ agrees with the view of the Infantes as valiant fighters in the duels, but finds no inconsistency with their earlier behaviour, interpreting their conduct as motivated by pride and vanity, rather than by fear and cowardice. Similarly, Pavlovic and Walker, ‘A Reappraisal of the Closing Scenes of the Poema de Mio Cid, II: The Duels,’ acknowledge the cruelty and duplicity of the Infantes, but

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attribute their lack of enthusiasm for risking their safety in battle or in the lion incident to their excessive vanity and pride, the very same characteristics that force them to confront their adversaries in the final duels. Pavlovic and Walker point out that the Infantes decline to take advantage of the legal recourses available to them that would have enabled them to avoid facing the Cid’s champions in the duels (195). I would argue that the Infantes’ avoidance of risk in the lion incident and their cowardly fear on the battlefield would have certainly made them appear effeminate to any audience familiar with the conventional importance of the proving of one’s manhood in heroic narrative (see Parks, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative, 11–13). A refusal to fight by the Infantes would have meant a public confirmation of their lack of male prowess and a certain ‘forfeiture of honor’ (Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative, 52) on their part. See Burns, Bodytalk, 1–18. By ‘bodytalk,’ Burns means ‘how female voices, fashioned by a male author to represent misogynous fantasies of female corporeality, can also be heard to rewrite the tales in which they appear’ (7). Burns, Kay, Krueger, and Solterer, ‘Feminism and the Discipline of Old French Studies,’ point out that it is very common in late medieval epic for women characters to ‘found a critique of violence and abuse through their roles as victims’ (237). Ovid, Metamorphoses VI.532–48. Joplin, ‘The Voice of the Shuttle Is Ours,’ 41. See Brose, ‘Petrarch’s Beloved Body,’ 15–16. These textual and situational parallels are described by Deyermond and Hook, in ‘The “Afrenta de Corpes” and Other Stories,’ 21–6. Ibid., 26. I take this term from Burns et al, ‘Feminism and the Discipline of Old French Studies,’ where it is used to refer to women’s stories in the chansons de geste that ‘conduce to the undermining of a univocal, masculine ideology’ (236). Lacarra describes Elvira and Sol as objects in the marketplace of marriage: ‘Es evidente que son objetos de intercambio entre los varones que intervienen en la transacción matrimonial para satisfacer sus intereses económicos, políticos y sociales’ (It is evident that they are objects of exchange among the men who are involved in the matrimonial transaction in order to satisfy their economic, political and social interests). See her ‘Representaciones de mujeres en la literatura española de la edad media (escrita en castellano),’ 43. Burns et al, ‘Feminism and the Discipline of Old French Studies,’ 242. Ibid., 237.

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4 The Metaphorics of Mary: Language and Embodiment in Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora 1 Weiss, ‘Writing, Sanctity, and Gender in Berceo’s Poema de Santa Oria,’ has analysed Berceo’s struggle to master female sanctity and its close association with materiality, both corporeal and linguistic in the Poema de Santa Oria. Here, Berceo’s male narrator is the one to rescue Oria’s vision ‘from the feminine realm of confusion and superstition’ by transforming it into writing (461). Weiss also astutely points out that this subjection of feminine language to the rule of the pen represents ‘the male cleric’s desire to control language and return to the plentitude of the originary Word’ (450). A similar dynamic of male desire to exert control over both feminine bodies and language is also at the heart of the Milagros; however, here the source of this language is Mary’s perfect body rather than the ascetically disciplined body of Oria. 2 Robin Hass Birky has shown that what she calls ‘Marian rhetoric’ manifests itself in the case of the Virgin since Mary’s beauty and chastity are not at odds with such outer adornments. See her ‘The Word Was Made Flesh,’ 184–6. 3 The presentation of the metaphorical process in terms of ‘focus’ (the metaphorical term) and ‘frame’ (the literal terms of a sentence which set off the focus) was first articulated by Max Black in an essay entitled ‘Metaphor.’ 4 Alfonso X, el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa María, 2–35. My translation. 5 Richard de St Laurent, De laudibus B. Mariae Virginis, ed. Borgnet, Bk. X.28, p. 512. My translation. This edition of the De laudibus is the only one that exists and was incorrectly attributed to Albert the Great by its editor. Very little is known about Richard. He is documented as having been a master of theology at the University of Paris in 1239, and there is a good possibility that he was a member of the Cistercian order at some point in his life. It is known that he sent a copy of his enormous Mariale to Hugh of St Cher, and this copy is presently in the Bibliothèque National in Paris. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the manuscript circulation of his work. For more information on Richard, see Glorieux, La Faculté des arts et ses maîtres au XIIIe s., 397, item #644; and Glorieux, Répertoire des Maîtres en théologie de Paris au XIIIe s., 330–1, item #148. 6 The locus amoenus has been skilfully set forth in Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 195–200. 7 The paradisiacal garden is, of course, reminiscent of Eden, the archetypal garden. Elements of Berceo’s garden share in the long tradition of symbolism

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Notes to page 111

associated with Paradise, but they also acquire new meanings in the context of the Milagros. The allegorical introduction to the Milagros has been the object of much critical attention since it seems to be original to Berceo. Unlike all of the other miracles in the collection (with the exception of Miracle 25 ‘La Iglesia robada’) it has no analogue in the source that Berceo was thought to have used. This source, which is known as Ms. Thott 128 in the Royal Library of Copenhagen, is extremely close to Berceo’s work in the content and order of the miracles. Although Berceo did not use this very manuscript, he must have depended on a collection very similar to it. The Thott manuscript lacks an introduction like the one found in Berceo’s Milagros, but Brian Dutton, in his edition of the Milagros, suspects that the actual MS used as a direct source would have contained a similar introduction (36–7). The search for the sources of the introduction has generated numerous articles, which all adduce plausible evidence for various classical, patristic, and medieval antecedents. Foresti, ‘Sobre la Introducción en los Milagros de Nuestra Señora,’ views the introduction as a composite of classical and medieval elements ranging from the rhetorical tradition to Eucherius and St Bernard of Clairvaux. Uli Ballaz, ‘¿Es original de Berceo la introducción a los Milagros de Nuestra Señora?’ sees strong influence by St Bernard, but considers that Berceo manipulated his material in an original way so as to compose a prologue which is tailored and integral to the work as a whole. Drayson, ‘Some Possible Sources for the Introduction to Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora,’ concludes that Berceo used no single source, but that he drew on the currents of Latin theological writing exemplified by St Bernard and St Peter Damian. This brief and only partial summary of criticism on the Milagros shows that it is clear that Berceo was writing in the Marian tradition as it was articulated and defined primarily by St Bernard, but that no single source can be adduced for the Milagros. For a good study of the ancient associations of gardens with female fertility, see Ferriolo, Nel grembo della vita. The point is made especially clear on p. 19. Ferriolo points out (ibid., 149) that the Mediterranean tradition of associating a woman’s sexual organs with a garden or flowering field is evident in the Song of Songs. For the Marian interpretation of the Song of Songs in the medieval period, see Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, 42–72. The reference to Honorius is on p. 46. Another recent study on this subject is Matter, The Voice of My Beloved, which also deals with Marian interpretation on pp. 151–77. As Matter points out, the image of the Virgin in the commentaries on the Song

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of Songs is multiple: ‘Mary is seen as at once the Church and the soul, the Bride, mother, and child of God’ (168). Berceo was surely aware of this rich tradition, and this kind of symbolism runs through the Milagros. 12 Richard de St. Laurent, De laudibus B. Mariae Virginis, Bk. XII: ‘De horto concluso, cui sponsus comparat Mariam, in Canticis’ (cap. I, p. 605; my translation). It is my view that Richard’s Mariale or one very much like it is a likely source for the introduction to Berceo’s Milagros, since virtually all of the elements in Berceo’s garden are found in Richard’s exegesis of Mary as hortus. I will summarize briefly some of the correspondences which will be dealt with in more detail as this chapter progresses. In addition to the rather stock references to the allegorical significance of field, trees, and flowers, Richard describes the fruit growing on the trees of the hortus as: ‘De quo etiam fructu canit Ecclesia: “Non erit Adam seductus si de hoc gustaverit”’ (Concerning which fruit the Church sings: ‘Adam would not have been seduced if he were to have eaten this [fruit],’ XII.1.2, p. 602). Compare stanza 15 of the introduction: El fructo de los árbores era dulz e sabrido, si don Adam oviesse de tal fructo comido de tan mala manera non serié decibido.

(15 abc)

(The fruit of the trees was sweet and delicious; if Adam had eaten such fruit, he would not have fallen in such a bad manner [my translation].) Richard, like Berceo (st. 26–30) explains the birds who sing harmoniously in the garden as the Apostles and Prophets who spoke in unison about her (De laud. XII.2.14, p. 644). The fountains which flow out of the garden are ‘sacrarum fluenta Scripturarum’ (De laud. XII.2.12, p. 643) for Richard, and in Berceo: Las quatro fuentes claras qe del prado manavan, los quatro evangelios, esso significavan.

(21 ab)

(The four clear fountains emanating from the meadow signified the four Gospels.) Like Berceo, Richard talks about the removal of garments in this garden (it is shoes in this instance; see De laud. XII.2.18, p. 645), and the lying down in the green grass of Mary (XII.2.19, p. 645). Until more is discovered about the life and chronology of Richard, it is impossible to speculate about a possible connection between Berceo and the Marian opus of Richard. 13 See Pearsall, ‘Garden as Symbol and Setting in Late Medieval Poetry,’ 239–40.

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Notes to pages 112–17

14 Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima IX.2, p. 283. My translation. 15 Gonzalo de Berceo, Brian Dutton; Milagros de Nuestra Señora, ed. My emphasis. All further citations will be from this edition, and will follow Dutton’s numbering of the stanzas. All of the translations are my own. 16 See Roberts, The Jeweled Style, 47–52, for a discussion of the history of the term ‘flowers of rhetoric’ in the rhetorical tradition of classical and late antique poetry. As Roberts points out, Cicero viewed metaphor as a particularly flowery manner of speech (Cicero, De oratore 3.41.166; cited by Roberts, 48). 17 Rabanus Maurus, Allegoriae in sacram Scripturam, PL 112, col. 929; and Rabanus Maurus, De universo, PL 111, col. 509. My translation. 18 Peter Dronke, ‘Arbor Caritatis,’ 216. This article is very informative as to various kinds of tree allegories in the Middle Ages. 19 Matthew of Vendôme, Ars versificatoria, 110: ‘et versum panniculosum subvertentes, qui trunco, non frondibus efficit umbram’ ([bad poets] subversively turn out ragged poetry which casts shade by its trunk and not by its leaves). 20 These trees are, of course, reminiscent of the Edenic Tree of Life. The shade of such trees is a fitting reward for the pilgrim who has removed his garment of sin so that he may approach eternal life. Burke, ‘The Ideal of Perfection,’ 33–5, interprets the pilgrim’s removal of his clothing as the exchange of the garment of sin for that of salvation. Berceo’s allusive imagistic system incorporates all of these traditional meanings, while at the same time allowing him to comment on the relationship between Mary and poetic language. 21 Honorius of Autun, Gemma animae, PL 172, col. 590. My translation. 22 For a good study on the literary relationship between Alfonso and Ildephonsus, see Joseph T. Snow, ‘Alfonso X y/en sus Cantigas.’ 23 Ildephonsus of Toledo, De virginitate perpetua Sanctae Mariae, p. 65, l. 19: ‘She is fertile in the Word, she is replete with the Word, she is most fruitful with the Word’ (my trans.). 24 The fact that Mary corrected (‘emendava’) the scribal versions of the Gospels implies that she is their ‘author.’ The evangelists seem to be the instruments or ‘pencils’ that record the Virgin’s words. For a good discussion of the process of composing and publishing in the Middle Ages, see Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 195–6. 25 Gonzalo de Berceo, El duelo de la Virgen, ed. Dutton, st. 10cd. My translation. 26 Gonzalo de Berceo, Los loores de Nuestra Señora, ed. Dutton, st. 3cd. My translation.

Notes to pages 118–19

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27 Boggs, Kasten, Keniston, and Richardson, in their Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, give ‘poetry’ as one of the meanings of ditado as documented by lines 7 and 10 of the prologue of the Libro de buen amor. Corominas, in the Diccionario crítico-etimológico de la lengua española, finds that the verb dictar is first documented in Berceo, and that its most usual meaning in the Middle Ages was that of ‘componer (versos)’ or ‘redactar (prosa).’ He also defines Berceo’s use of the noun dictado in Milagros 847d as referring to ‘the words as opposed to the music of a poem.’ Alonso, in his Diccionario medieval español, adduces the meaning of ‘composition in verse’ for a fifteenth-century usage of the word dictado. As for the Latin meanings of dicto and its derivative forms, Ducange, in the Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis, gives evidence that a dictatura was a poema and that a dictator was a poeta. Blaise, in his Lexicon latinitatis Medii Aevi, asserts that the verb dicto in Christian Latin means ‘to versify’ and that a dictor was a ‘poet.’ For a direct reference to Berceo, see Artiles, Los recursos literarios de Berceo, who points out that Berceo uses the word dictado to refer to his literary sources and to his own poems. Artiles also admits the possibility that dictado can mean ‘poem’ (14–15). 28 See Uli Ballaz’s ‘¿Es original de Berceo la introducción a los Milagros de Nuestra Señora?’ 115–16. 29 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, ll. 1225–8: Sic igitur cordis digitus discerpat in agro Rhetoricae flores ejus. Sed floreat illis Sparsim sermo tuus, variis, non creber eisdem. Floribus ex variis melior redolentia surgit; (In this way, then, let the mind’s finger pluck its blooms in the field of rhetoric. But see that your style blossoms sparingly with such figures, and with a variety, not a cluster of the same kind. From varied flowers a sweeter fragrance rises [trans. Nims, 60].) 30 See Simonin, ‘“Poésie est un pré,” “Poème est une fleur.”’ For the classical antecedents of this imagery, see 48–51. 31 Nepaulsingh, Towards a History of Literary Composition in Medieval Spain 15–40. See 18–21 for a history of the rosary and the relationship of flowers, prayer beads, and threads to books. 32 Alfonso X, el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa María, cantiga 121, ‘Esta é dun miragre do cavaleiro que fazia a guerlanda das rosas a Santa María’ (2: 65–7. My translation): E aquesto cada dia / podendo-as achar, e senon, por cada rosa / dissesse en seu logar

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Notes to pages 119–23 hua vez ‘Ave Maria,’ / e assi fosse cercar a guerlanda toda delas, / e que lla fezess’ atal.

(ll. 10–13, p. 65)

(And he would do this [continue the garland] every day provided he could find roses, and if not, in the place of each rose he would say an ‘Ave Maria’ once; and thus did he complete the entire garland with them; and this was the way in which he made it.) 33 Cantigas de Santa María, 1: 193–4. 34 As Birky has discussed, with reference to John of Garland’s depiction of the Virgin, Berceo’s Mary is ‘as much a metaphorization of language as she is a depiction of woman for the purposes of discussing language’ (‘“The Word Was Made Flesh,”’ 186). See Kelley, ‘Spinning Virgin Yarns,’ on Berceo’s authorial role as the disseminator of Mary’s miracles and heavenly favours, and as the generator of further miracles, believers, and divine rewards. 35 Devoto, ‘Tres notas sobre Berceo y la polifonía medieval,’ 307: the result of the ‘organum’ (or diaphonal song) should be a ‘materia ungada,’ i.e., a whole which is simultaneously single and multiple. Devoto provides a clear definition of the verb organar (312): Organar, entonces, no es simplemente ‘cantar’ sino – en una acepción difundidísima por toda la Europa medieval – ‘cantar organa,’ ‘cantar en Organum,’ ‘manera de diafonía,’ partiendo de una melodía predeterminada, escrita o tradicionalmente aprendida. (Organar, then, is not simply ‘to sing, ‘ but rather– in a definition widely disseminated throughout medieval Europe – ‘to sing organa,’ ‘to sing in organum,’ ‘a form of diaphony,’ is based on a predetermined melody that is written or learned more traditionally.) 36 Stevens, Words and Music, 409. 37 Guido of Arezzo, Micrologus, ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe, Guido de Arezzo: Micrologus. CSM 4 (Rome, 1955), ch. XVII, p. 186 ff. Cited by Stevens, Words and Music, 385. The following translation supplied by Stevens is taken from W. Babb, trans., and C.V. Palisca, ed., Hucbald, Guido and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 74. 38 See Schueller, The Idea of Music, 408. For an excellent discussion of the rhetorical aspects of musical troping, see Van Deusen, ‘Origins of a Significant Medieval Genre.’ 39 See Stevens, Words and Music, 21–2. 40 The anonymous poet of the Libro de Alexandre characterized ‘cuaderna vía’ as consisting of ‘counted syllables’ (stanza 2d).

Notes to pages 123–5

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41 Dutton, on p. 174 of his edition of the Milagros, considers the referent of ‘logar’ to be that of the sanctuary of San Millán in which pilgrims are gathered. While Dutton may be correct in this surmise, one must keep in mind the potential for allegorization and metaphorization of the theme of pilgrimage. In fact, Dutton’s interpretation of the context of this stanza as that of pilgrims pausing at a church to hear tell of Mary’s miracles would strengthen the symbolic link between the introduction and the rest of the book. In the introduction we were introduced to a pilgrim named ‘Verceo’ who happened upon Mary’s garden, and who paused to rest under the cool shade of one of the miracle-trees. The literal pilgrims (i.e., the readers) are merely following the example of the paradigmatic ‘romero’ or ‘everyman’ whom Berceo introduced at the outset of his book. 42 It should be noted that Berceo departs from his Latin source when he inserts such comments. 43 Gaudioso Giménez Resano is also of the opinion that the allegorical introduction to the Milagros structures the work as a whole, and that its elements reappear at different times in various miracles. See his El mester poético de Gonzalo de Berceo, 97–8. 44 Mary Carruthers, in an excellent analysis of the medieval reading process, describes the use of the metaphor of eating to refer to the intense, concentrated reading known as ‘meditatio’ which is vital for a true understanding or appropriation of the material. It is only by means of this kind of reading that the ‘domestication’ or ‘digestion’ of what one has read can occur. This ‘making one’s own’ of what one reads means that the material has become part of one’s memory apparatus which can be retrieved and acted upon in a context that relates to one’s individual experiences. See The Book of Memory, ch. 5, ‘Memory and the Ethics of Reading,’ 156–88. 45 Cf. the lines at the beginning of the introduction: ‘yendo en romería caecí en un prado, / verde e bien sencido … ’ (2bc) (while on a pilgrimage, I happened upon a green, untouched meadow …). This reference to a paradisiacal garden is absent from Berceo’s Latin source for miracle 12. 46 Manuscript F (Real Academia de la Lengua) places ‘La iglesia robada’ as miracle 24, and dates from the fourteenth century. It contains only a part of the Milagros. Manuscript I (located in Santo Domingo de Silos) contains the complete text, and is based on the lost thirteenth-century MS Q. See Dutton’s introduction to his edition of the Milagros, 15–17, for more information about the manuscript tradition. Grieve, in ‘The Spectacle of Memory/Mary in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora,’ 222–3, adduces some suggestive evidence for viewing the miracle of Teófilo as occupying the final position. She considers the linkage between the introduction and

248

Notes to pages 125–30

‘Teófilo’ as revolving around the spiritual fall and subsequent rebirth of Teófilo in the church as mirroring the Fall set in the garden of the introduction. Burke, Desire against the Law, also views the Teófilo miracle as framing the book along with the first miracle of the collection, ‘La casulla de San Ildefonso.’ The structuring principle for this subframe is, according to Burke (141–2), a temporal one in which the liturgically important week of 18–25 December of the Ildephonsus miracle is mirrored by the spiritual resurrection of Teófilo which occurs during Holy Week, the commemoration of Christ’s rising. However, I would maintain that ‘La iglesia robada,’ with its emphasis on garments as textual integumenta and on the integrity of both bodies and language, also seamlessly recalls and rejoins the introduction. It seems to me that this question is still open. 47 James Burke makes this point in ‘The Ideal of Perfection,’ 36. 48 Ibid., 29–38, has the entire argument about the significance and symbolism of garments in the Milagros. 49 McGerr, ‘Medieval Concepts of Literary Closure,’ 158. My whole discussion of closure is greatly indebted to this excellent article. 50 See Trens, María: Iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español, 619. 51. Kelley, ‘Ascendant Eloquence,’ explores how Berceo’s works ‘represent linguistic signs that reflect truth, model sanctioned behavior, and thus facilitate a pathway to the divine for both audience and author’ (69). 52 Diz, Historias de Certidumbre, views the components of the meadow as an integument whose underlying kernel of meaning is language itself: ‘la materia de este prado alegórica es el lenguaje mismo, invisible, mediador, incalculablemente poderoso’ (225, the material of this allegorical meadow is language itself, language that is invisible, mediating, and incalculably powerful). 53 For the removal of the garment as a prelude to the ‘putting on’ of the garment of perfection embodied by Mary, see Burke, ‘The Ideal of Perfection,’ 34–5; and see Gerli, ‘La tipología bíblica y la introducción a los Milagros de Nuestra Señora,’ 9–10, for the view of the taking off of the pilgrim’s clothing as a return to innocence and the defeat of sin by means of the Virgin. 54 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, ed. Faral: … Noli semper concedere verbo In proprio residere loco: residentia talis Dedecus est ipsi verbo; loca propria vitet Et peregrinetur alibi sedemque placente

(ll. 758–61. My emphasis)

(Do not let the word invariably reside on its native soil – such residence dishonours it. Let it avoid its natural location, go on a pilgrimage

Notes to pages 131–5

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elsewhere, and take up a pleasant abode on the estate of another [trans. Nims – slightly modified].) 55 Among the words which Mary addresses to Ildephonsus is an explicit expression of her pleasure in his act of authorship: ‘fecist de mí buen libro, / hasme bien alavada’ (16e, You have made a good book out of me, you have praised me well). 56 Kelley, ‘Ascendant Eloquence,’ 76–8, examines how Berceo uses linguistic abuse and incompetence as a means of underscoring the fallen nature of humanity. Kelley points out the ‘linguistic nature of Siagrio’s sins’ (77). 57 As we saw in chapter 1, the quality of seamlessness in a text is a symbol for its truth value. Textual garments which are seamless allow their underlying sententia to be rendered manifest, unlike the ragged clothes of falsehood which pervert the ideal of a transparent truth by deforming and hiding what they cover. 58 The Spanish liviandat and liviano derive from the Latin levis. According to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, levis was often used to designate words that are frivolous, and argumentation that is weak and unconvincing. Such arguments may also fall into the realm of the deceptive: ‘genus argumentationis vitiosum … si leve erit … leve est, quod aut post tempus dicitur … aut perspicue turpem rem levi tegere vult defensione’ (Cicero, De inventione 1.89–90, the nature of the argumentation is faulty … if it is trifling … A trifling argument is one which is offered too late or in which the pleader tries to cloak an obviously disgraceful matter by a trifling defence), trans. H.M. Hubbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949). In another passage, Cicero links the adjective levis with fallax to describe false friends who speak only to please, and not to tell the truth (De amicitia 25.91). In a late medieval Spanish dictionary, Alfonso de Palencia (Universal vocabulario en latín y en romance), defines leve as ‘ligero, sotil.’ These pejorative senses of Latin levis or Spanish leve as ‘mendacious’ of ‘fallacious’ fit in very well with the medieval characterization of rhetoric as deceptive and false. 59 For a fuller explanation of the fallacia accidentis, see Gilby, Barbara Celarent, 260–1. 60 See ibid., 262–5 for an explanation of this fallacy. 61 ‘Sed statim ulciscente Deo presumpcionem eius intactus eodem vestimento arcius constrictus mortuus cecidit’ (But God immediately punished his presumption, and he, untouched, was tightly squeezed by that garment and fell down dead, my trans). The text is on p. l51 of Dutton’s edition. Berceo must have been a keen reader of St Ildephonsus’s De

250

62

63

64 65

66 67

68

Notes to pages 136–42

perpetua virginitate, for he too had recommended a similar deprivation of language for those who verbally assault Mary’s virginity (with my translation): ‘Opto, opto sepulcrum illius oris dentius sera concludat, foueam oris eius immobilitas linguae percompleat, concaua palati aer subductus euacuet, extrema labiorum aeris crassedo conglutinet, ne talium uerborum foetor erumpat, ne prosecutionis huius odor aspiret, ne anhelitus loquelae susurret, ne vel exilis sonus tinniat, ne uerberatus aer vel infandissima uerba conformet’ (De perpetua virginitate, ed. Vicente Blanco García, De virginitate Beatae Mariae, p. 70, ll.10–16, and p. 71, ll.1–5.) (Oh how I wish that a bar of teeth would lock the tomb of his mouth, that a stiffness of tongue would overwhelm the snare of his mouth, that the withdrawal of air would empty out the hollows of his palate, that a thickness of air would glue together the ends of his lips lest the stench of his words burst forth, and the stink of the attendant words be breathed out, lest the bad breath of his discourse escape in a whisper, and the banished word ring forth shrilly, lest the reverberating air or his unspeakable words take form.) It is interesting that this miracle has no known source and appears to be an original creation of Berceo, which would facilitate his using it to drive home the main points of his book. See Keller, ‘The Enigma of Berceo’s Milagro XXV,’ 363–4. Keller, however, never indicated what this hidden meaning might be, nor why Berceo calls attention to it. Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima, IX.ii, p. 283. The attributes of whiteness and fineness were often applied to medieval descriptions of the female body. Juan Ruiz avers that a lady’s face should be ‘blanca, sin pelos, clara e lisa’ (white, without hair, clear and smooth) (stanza 435b.) in Libro de buen amor, ed. G.B. Gybbon-Monypenny. Willbern, ‘Freud and the Inter-Penetration of Dreams,’ 99. Diz, Historias de certidumbre, 231–2, views the naked pilgrim in the meadow of Mary as a naked fetus in the womb of Mary, in the protected, sacred space of the Church. Berceo’s use of Castilian, his maternal language, instead of Latin, the language of masculine institutional power, is also significant in this regard. There are good reasons for viewing Berceo’s linguistic choice of Castilian as a practical one, intended to make the miracle stories accessible to either a wider cross-section of pilgrims passing through his monastery of San Millán or to a more diverse membership in religious orders, some of whom may have lacked formal training in Latin. See Los milagros de Nuestra Señora, ed. Dutton, 12, for the view of Berceo’s use of the vernacular as a mechanism

Notes to pages 143–4

69

70

71

72

73

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of popularization; and see Flory, Marian Representations in the Miracle Tales of Thirteenth-Century Spain and France, 24–46 for Berceo as addressing an audience of clerics. However, aside from appealing to Berceo’s intended audience, the use of the maternal tongue, Castilian, to embody his Marian text resonates with and underscores his self-representation as a poet taking his words directly from the maternal body of Mary. Diz, in Historias de certidumbre, considers Berceo’s text as an expression of the power and efficacy of the word as it is embodied in clerical writing and prayer. The book of the Milagros not only proclaims the power of the clerical word but also praises the whole class of men who are empowered through their priestly promotion of the Virgin (241). Diz, in a sense, reinforces Berceo’s suppression of Mary’s literal body through her interpretation of Mary as a figure representing the ‘quasi’ identity of Mary and the Church: ‘si el prado es alegoría de la Virgen, la figura de María es, a su vez, cifra de un significado que el lector debe construir’ (If the meadow is an allegory of the Virgin, the figure of Mary, is at the same time, a cipher of a meaning that the reader must construct). Diz goes on to substitute her own meaning for the cipher that Mary is: ‘Creo que el prado mariano, y en general, los Milagros proponen la quasi identidad de María y de la Iglesia que la entroniza como madre y señora de la humanidad’ (ibid., 207, I believe that the Marian meadow, and the Milagros in general, propose the quasi identity of Mary and the Church which enthrones her like a mother and mistress of all humanity). See Homans, Bearing the Word, 160: ‘If in the symbolic order language is constituted as desire for a chain of substitutes for the mother, a translation of her literal body into figures, then we can see this law at work in the denial of her material priority and the replacement of it by powerless figurative substitutes.’ The phallus, in Lacan, is ‘simultaneously and indissolubly the mark of sexual difference (and identity), the signifier of the speaking position in language, and the order governing exchange relations.’ See Grosz, Jacques Lacan, 126. For a fuller explanation, see 116–26. Lacan, in his explanation of the phallic nature of language and culture maintains Freud’s hierarchical distinction between the preoedipal and oedipal periods of human development: ‘For Freud, the incest taboo is upheld by the father and his threat of castration, while the son’s renunciation of his mother prepares him for the sacrifices and sublimations that civilization requires’ (Sprengnether, The Spectral Mother, 4). Grieve describes Mary as ‘Author and Book’ in ‘The Spectacle of Memory / Mary in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora,’ 227.

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Notes to pages 146–50

5 Undressing the Libro de buen amor 1 See above, pages 34–45, for the description of ragged poetic texts as sexually ‘dishonest’ women, and of seamless texts as chaste embodiments of truth. 2. By ‘Juan Ruiz’ I do not intend to refer to a precise historical ‘author.’ Rather, by the name ‘Juan Ruiz’ I mean to suggest a persona constructed by the text who is cast in the role of author. My reading of the text leads me to postulate that the persona known as ‘Juan Ruiz’ takes the form of a playfully subversive author who calls into question many conventional assumptions about textual interpretation and transmission. 3 For a history of the development of the alcahueta in medieval Spanish literature, see Ruggerio, The Evolution of the Go-Between in Spanish Literature. 4 Stanza 443. Citations from Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor, are from the edition by G.B. Gybbon-Monypenny, which uses Manuscript S as its base text. For a full evaluation of all three MSS and their filiation, see the excellent summary by Alberto Blecua in his edition of the Libro. 5 The translation is from Raymond S. Willis’s edition of the Libro unless otherwise indicated. 6 St Augustine, City of God, bk XIV, ch. XVII, in Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, ed. and trans. Whitney J. Oates, 2:263. 7 Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima, II.4 (p. 255): ‘Secunda persuasionis origo fuit in paradiso deliciarum, videlicet quando serpens vetitum pomum exhibuit protoplaustis, dolosius persuadens ut ipsum continuo degustarent, quia fierent sicut dii, et boni et mali scientiam obtinerent’ (The second origin of persuasion was in the garden of delights when the serpent displayed the forbidden apple to the first humans, deceitfully persuading them to taste it at once so that they would become like gods, and obtain the knowledge of good and evil [my trans.]). 8 See Ambrose’s account of the Fall in which fallacious talk is likened to the covering of Adam’s and Eve’s nakedness by means of fig leaves. See De paradiso 13.65. 9 Compare the seduction of Melibea by Calisto in Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina: ‘CALISTO: – Señora, el que quiere comer el ave, quita primero las plumas’ (2:248, CALISTO: – My lady, the man who wants to eat the bird must first take off its feathers’ [my trans.]). 10 Corominas is quoted in the note to line 925a in Jacques Joset’s edition of the Libro de buen amor. 11 Ragged garments may be considered as false and deceptive for several reasons. In the first place, the quality of raggedness embodies the idea of discord or dissonance. It suggests lack: lack of both unity and harmony.

Notes to page 151

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Augustine’s definition of evil as a lack or absence of the good subtends the clearly negative connotations of raggedness. The jagged edges of a faulty garment imply an absence of harmony that is a means of actualizing and concretizing a lack of congruence between language and truth. Verbal garments, as the rhetoricians have pointed out, are liable to be used for purposes of deception. As Augustine notes in De doctrina christiana III.25.36, verbal similitudes may signify in a positive sense (‘in bono’) and in a negative sense (‘in malo’). Garments considered in malo are viewed as a kind of disguise that may conceal something base under their beautiful exterior, and as a false, alluring surface that incites desire for what should not be desirable. Raggedness not only exemplifies the sense of garments in malo, but also represents the results of a turning away or deformation of covering in its good sense. Garments do have the positive function of protecting something valuable (the integumenta of allegory fulfil this role) or of hiding what should be kept from view (e.g., man’s naked body, emblematic of his fallen sexuality). If a garment is full of holes, it is deceitful since it only appears to be performing its positive role. Rather than shielding a woman’s virtue, a ragged garment provides revealing glimpses of her body, in the same way that Trotaconventos provides men with a means of access to women’s bodies, instead of functioning like a true duenna who protects the chastity of her female charges. 12 The translation of this passage is taken from Book of Good Love, trans. Saralyn R. Daly. 13 One late medieval linguist, Alfonso de Palencia, in his Universal vocabulario en latín y en romance, defined the activity of tailoring (sarcire, from which derives the current Spanish sastre) as ‘remendare, redintegare, iungere,’ or in Spanish as ‘surzir, remendar, fazer entero, iuntar.’ This mending or patching together that characterizes the tailor’s work gives rise to a figurative meaning for sastre in both Castilian and Catalan that links it to deception. There are many proverbs in both languages that attribute qualities of trickery and dishonesty to tailors, because they are viewed as likely to cheat the customer by keeping some of the patches for themselves. See the fifth meaning of sastre in Alcover Sureda, Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear. See also the twenty-one entries in the Refranero general ideológico español, which all characterize tailors as thieves. Entry #57, p. 659, is especially interesting because it links the acts of writing and tailoring: ‘Para los buenos se hizo el reino de los cielos; y para sastres y escribanos, el de los condenados’ (Heaven was made for good people, and hell for tailors and scribes, my trans.). Alcover Sureda also documents an interesting analogue for Juan Ruiz’s claim of being an inexperienced tailor: ‘Sastre nou, surt lo que surt; i

254

14

15

16

17

18 19 20

21

22

Notes to pages 153–6

sortiren unes bonetes’ (With a new tailor, you never know how things will turn out, and here, temporary patchwork sails were the result, my trans.). Thus, Juan Ruiz’s characterization of himself as an inexperienced tailor may imply a lack of both skill and scrupulousness on his part. See Richardson, An Etymological Vocabulary to the ‘Libro de Buen Amor’; Boggs et al, Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish; and Chiarini’s edition of the Libro. Brown, Contrary Things, 117, points out that both the good love of God and the love of the flesh are so enmeshed that it is almost impossible to separate them, and thus to define them as logic demands. See other references to the simultaneity of the Fall and the use of rhetorical language. The introduction of ‘tropes’ (i.e., words ‘turned away’ from their proper referents) occurs for Boncompagno da Signa when the lying serpent persuades Eve to taste the forbidden fruit, and for Ambrose, when Adam and Eve use words to cover up the shameful consequences and guilt of their act of disobedience (see above, pages 33–4). That the language of the devil was turned away from truth was a traditional locus classicus stemming from the Gospel of John 8:44: Ille [i.e., devil]] homicida erat ab initio, et in veritate non stetit’ (The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and he did not stand in truth). Augustine, in his De genesi ad litteram views the serpent in Eden as the devil’s instrument of deception: ‘et iste serpens mendax diceretur, quod eo diabolus tanquam stylo mendaciter uteretur’ (XI.xxix.36, and this serpent is said to be a liar, because the devil used that mendacious manner of speaking, my translation). Burke, Desire Against the Law, describes the text of MS S as follows: ‘What is regular and correct is located on the outside and must be supplied from the intertext or supertext’ (181). See, for example, the studies by Brian Dutton, ‘Con Dios en Buen Amor’; and ‘Buen amor.’ Dutton, ‘Buen amor,’ 112. Boncompagno da Signa, Rota Veneris, ed. and trans. Josef Purkart, p. 54, ll. 21–4. I have modernized the orthography and expanded the abbreviations of the Latin. The translation is found on p. 80 of the same volume. Olson, Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages, studies the way in which medieval literature was appreciated as a form of pure relaxation and pleasure. Juan Ruiz also perceives that literary texts may engender pleasure, but his text encourages a more unsettling kind of pleasure since its aim is to arouse desire. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship. See also the excellent review article of

Notes to pages 159–60

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Minnis’s book by Rita Copeland, ‘Literary Theory in the Later Middle Ages.’ 23 For the reference to the goliardic poem, see Alvarez, ‘“Loco amor,” goliardismo, amor cortés y “buen amor,”’ 112. Alvarez cites and translates the relevant passage from Frederick J.E. Raby’s A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 1–354:

monja

nun

No me gusta tu atavío: que otros se enamoren de tu hábito negro. Yo huyo de lo negro y siempre me atrae lo blanco. Si huyes del hábito, fíjate, sin embargo, en la nívea carne, Y busca las blancas piernas bajo la negra saya. (I don’t like your outfit: let others fall in love with your black habit. I flee from black and white always attracts me. If you flee from my nun’s habit, pay attention, nevertheless, to my snow white flesh, and look for the white limbs under the black cloak.)

Boncompagno da Signa, in his Rota Veneris, describes the nun as follows: ‘et licet velum sit nigrum. sub eo tua membra lacte candidiora intueor’ (p. 60, ll.13–14; Let the veil be black; I still suspect that underneath it, the limbs are whiter than milk, p. 86). 24 Burke, ‘Again Cruz, the Baker Girl,’ 260. See 259–60 for the idea of bread as a symbol of fertility. 25 Luis Beltrán, in his Razones de buen amor, 16, makes a similar point, and points out that the picking of the rose in this stanza is akin to the breaking of the hymen, given the equivalence of the rose with the hymen in the Roman de la rose. 26 For a survey of the use of the topic of ‘fruyt and chaf’ from Augustine through Chaucer, see Huppé and Robertson, Fruyt and Chaf, 3–31. See also 316–17 of Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer, for the exegetical origins of this expression. 27 For more information on Juan Ruiz’s adaptation of the twelfth-century Pamphilus de amore, see Gybbon-Monypenny, ‘Dixe la por te dar ensienpro’; and Seidenspinner-Núñez, The Allegory of Good Love, 38–58. 28 Gybbon-Monypenny points this out in the introduction to his edition of the Libro de buen amor, 51. 29 Seidenspinner-Núñez, Allegory of Good Love, 42–3, follows Coromines in her identification of ‘melón’ with ‘tejón.’

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Notes to page 161

30 The interpretation of this stanza has been the object of recent debate. Two critics in particular have taken issue with the understanding of ‘instrumentos’ as ‘musical instruments’. MacLennan, ‘Nuevas notas al Libro de buen amor,’ posits a relationship between the word instrumento and the Latin term instrumentum, which, in the terminology of canon law, meant ‘written document’ and could be extended to refer to ‘writing’ in general (177–8). MacLennan also rejects a musical meaning for puntar, preferring to understand it as the pointing or punctuating of a written text (178). I see no reason to reject MacLennan’s interpretation of these terms, since the book can be both a written text and a musical instrument. Burke, Desire Against the Law, 175–6, also acknowledges that Juan Ruiz sees his poem as both text and musical instrument. Juan Ruiz’s penchant for polysemy would admit both meanings simultaneously. The second critic who has challenged the traditional interpretation of this verse is Di Camillo, ‘Libro de buen amor 70A,’ who postulates that instrumentos is a term related to poetry, as he gathers from the writings of Dominicus Gundisalvo, who gives the meaning of ‘poems’ to the instrumenta of the art of poetry (266–7). Di Camillo does adduce some very interesting evidence for his assertions; however, the grounds for some of his objections are somewhat shaky. For example, he rejects any metaphorical association of poetry with music based on the ‘fact’ that the two arts were studied as different parts of the medieval university curriculum (242–3). For him, since music and poetry were viewed as two distinct intellectual activities, there can be no possible connection between them. However, poetry and music were very closely intertwined in a nexus of traditional religious imagery which viewed the singing and composing of psalms as inseparable. Indeed, there was much crossfertilization between the two disciplines as theoreticians of music used poetic and rhetorical concepts (e.g., tropes) while referring to musical composition. Even within the Peninsular poetic tradition, as exemplified by Gonzalo de Berceo and Alfonso X, music is a powerful metaphor for talking about the creation of poetic texts: in Berceo, a perfect text is woven out of filaments of sound, and in Alfonso, poetry and music meld together to form a vehicle for the praise of Mary (see ch. 3). Di Camillo, also neglects to mention the other places in the Libro de buen amor itself where instrumento clearly has a musical meaning (384ab, 1263b). For a good discussion of the relation of musical ideas to written texts, see Burke, Desire Against the Law, 38–53. 31 Hugh’s text runs as follows: ‘all of sacred Scripture is so suitably adjusted and arranged in all its parts through the wisdom of God that whatever is contained in it either resounds with the sweetness of spiritual understanding

Notes to pages 161–4

32

33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

41

42 43

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in the manner of strings; or, containing utterances of mysteries set here and there in the course of a historical narrative or in the substance of a literal context, and, as it were, connecting these up into one object, it binds them together all at once as the wood does which curves under the taut strings; and, receiving their sound into itself, it reflects it more sweetly to our ears – a sound which the string alone has not yielded, but which the wood too has formed by the shape of its body’ (Didascalicon V.2, trans. Jerome Taylor, 121). Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion XXV.4; PG XLI cols. 325–8. Cited and translated in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 78. For more information on the relationship of music to the concupiscence of the flesh, see Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer, 126–34. For an excellent study of ‘infernal’ music in the Middle Ages, see Hammerstein, Diabolus in Musica. Lanoue, ‘Divine and Carnal Music in the Libro de buen amor.’ These examples are given by Lanoue, ‘Divine and Carnal Music,’ 95–6. The verb tañer was clearly used in a musical sense in 384a. It is also interesting to note that this stanza was not in the original Pamphilus, and so it is original to Juan Ruiz. The translation of this passage is taken from The Book of Good Love, trans. Rigo Mignani and Mario A. Di Cesare. For Luis Beltrán, the playing of instruments is a metaphor for masturbation. See Razones, 114. Gagné, ‘L’Erotisme dans la musique médiévale,’ 90. Emile Mâle mentions this ‘Oriental metaphor’ in connection with the description of a capital on the church of Vézelay which depicts the devil caressing a naked woman as he dances to the music of jongleurs. However, Mâle does not give any specific source for the image of a woman’s body as lyre. See Religious Art in France, I have been unable to locate the source of Mâle’s statement, but the writings of Ephrem of Syria might be a good place to start. Yarza Luaces, ‘De “casadas, estad sujetas a vuestros maridos, como conviene en el Señor” a “señora, soy vuestro vasallo, por juramiento y compromiso,”’ 62. I am citing Libro de Apolonio, ed. Manuel Alvar. My translation. The critical edition of the text is in volume 2. Alvar, in his modernization of this stanza of the Apolonio (2:336) interprets ‘palabras afirmadas’ as ‘palabras escritas.’ I think his intuition is correct in the sense that the sounds of the fiddle cannot be literally ‘affirmed,’ but, rather, they are so clearly articulated that they become firmly fixed in the hearer’s senses and memory.

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Notes to pages 164–7

44 See Impey, ‘Parvitas y brevitas en el Libro de buen amor.’ My argument here will follow the main points of this excellent article. 45 Ibid., 202. 46 Williams, ‘The Burden of Responsibility,’ 63. See her note 14 for a comparison of the way in which both the sounds emitted by musical instruments and words are necessarily bound by convention. 47 Brownlee, The Status of the Reading Subject in the ‘Libro de buen amor,’ views the Libro de buen amor as an allegorization of a reading process where multiple interpretations are presented to the reader (105). Brownlee develops this argument by demonstrating that Juan Ruiz extends the Augustinian model of reading that views Christian texts as capable of bringing about conversion and salvation. Juan Ruiz, aware that readers may approach texts with varying motivations, gives the reader ‘a representative text in place of the imitative one,’ which depicts man in his fallen state instead of only showing him what he ought to become (32). However, although Brownlee argues that Juan Ruiz does not limit the interpretation of his book to only one correct reading (77), she ultimately attributes a didactic intentionality to the text of the Libro because readers whose moral status is upright will perceive its didacticism and will recognize the parodic treatment of a human carnality that blinds men to spiritual truths (73). I agree with Brownlee’s theory that Juan Ruiz’s claim to polysemy may stem from an Augustinian hermeneutic practice that allows the reader to choose an interpretation, provided it accords with the law of charity, but I think Juan Ruiz is manipulating this convention for reasons that are far from didactic. Despite Brownlee’s claim that Juan Ruiz does not limit the interpretation of his text, she views him as imposing a didactic structure on his work, thereby undermining the reader’s role. My argument, on the other hand is that Juan Ruiz, through his subversive use of the language of allegory, does indeed undermine the reader’s role by tricking him into thinking that a didactic reading is possible. Juan Ruiz, in my opinion, has stood the Augustinian model of reading on its head, since he makes it impossible to gain salvation through the reading of his text, and he does this by an illusory appeal to the Augustinian convention of Christian interpretive freedom and responsibility. E. Michael Gerli also argues for an Augustinian hermeneutic as the template for the Libro’s polysemy. In ‘The Greeks, the Romans, and the Ambiguity of Signs,’ Gerli adduces a parallel in Augustine’s De doctrina to the misapprehension of signs in the Greeks and the Romans episode. Such a parallel ‘allows us also to trace the Libro’s ideological ancestry and its attention to memory, will, intellect, and the ambiguities of discourse back to this master trope of the Christian Middle Ages – the meta-narrative of Fall and Redemption,

Notes to page 167

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fraught with implications of transcendent choice, Original Sin, carnality, death, and the loss of divine grace and understanding’ (417). Gerli, in Robertsonian fashion, suppresses the playful subversiveness of the text in favour of Augustinian orthodoxy. 48 When the reader discovers how to solve and interpret the metaphors of the book and its meaning, he realizes that he has been tricked into believing that a hidden, valuable meaning lay waiting to be revealed. The exploitation of the reader’s interpretive expectations, which allowed Juan Ruiz to make the reader into the agent of his own demise, resembles the process that accompanies the resolution of a metaphor. Metaphors too may function as jokes that take advantage of an interpreter’s assumptions. Since Juan Ruiz has described his text with a series of metaphors that involve the ‘veils’ of the trope of metaphor, one could see his book as a metaphorical joke. On the relationship of metaphors to jokes, see Cohen, ‘Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy,’ especially 8–10. 49 For Luis Beltrán (Razones, 344, 363), corteza and meollo are two opposites that resemble each other, and so are easily confused. The corteza may cover only emptiness, or may serve as a veil for constantly shifting meollos, therefore, destabilizing any ‘meaning’ the Libro de buen amor may have. For Bandera Gómez, ‘La ficción de Juan Ruiz,’ 497, the corteza is not merely a shell that one discards, but rather, its meaning is the antithesis of the meollo, and so it must be renounced in favour of an appreciation of the book’s artistic power. Urbina, in his provocative article ‘Now You See It, Now You Don’t,’ views the meollo of the book as consisting of the corteza of songs and jokes (142). The incongruity in the use of this antithesis is part of a system of reversals and transformations that ultimately only result in deception. For Urbina, the deceptive nature of the topsy turvy values in this opposition constitutes the meaning of the book, which is intended to teach the reader how to conquer the deception of a fallen world while on one’s journey to salvation (144–5). Thus he views the warnings about the book’s interpretation as a parody of the exegetical mode of interpretation since Juan Ruiz’s intimations about a stable, fixed meaning (like the meaning derived from didactic allegory) are only illusory (147). Dagenais, in ‘Se Usa e Se Faz,’ sees the corteza or integument as the source of truth in the Libro (417–18). The surface of the book represents the naturalist truth of the world by portraying both good deeds and bad, which have the exemplary ethical function of moving the will of the reader to do good. Burke, in Desire against the Law, construes the book’s structure as a sacred exterior juxtaposed against a profane inner core. Both contraries penetrate into the realm of the other in a balancing act that requires the complementary presence of both elements (see chapters 9–11).

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Notes to pages 167–70

50 See Anthony N. Zahareas, The Art of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, 43. 51 For a good summary of the differing critical views on this episode, see Parker, ‘The Parable of the Greeks and the Romans in the Libro de Buen Amor.’ 52 Luis Beltrán, Razones, 79–83, views the Roman ‘bellaco’s’ clothing as a reminder of the distance between the outer surface of the Roman and what lies underneath. This gap between corteza and meollo emphasizes the interpretive gap between reason and revelation being played out in the debate. Deyermond, in ‘Some Aspects of Parody in the “Libro de buen amor,”’ views the dressing up of the Roman as the imposition of a learned corteza over a rustic, ignorant meollo. The Greek, who wears the same learned garment as the posturing Roman, is fooled by the similarity of the Roman’s corteza to his own. This leads Deyermond to conclude: ‘And most subversive of all, we are left with the feeling that meollo as well as corteza is very similar, since the Greek proves to be as foolish as the Roman’ (58). For Williams, in ‘The Burden of Responsibility,’ 62–3, the disguising of the Roman in order to fool the expectations of the Greek suggests that Juan Ruiz was aware that the interpretation of signs involves both conventions and arbitrariness. 53 The interpretation of this verse is far from clear. Sturm, ‘The Greeks and the Romans,’ equates the reader with the Greek, although Parker, ‘The Parable of the Greeks and the Romans,’ 143, accuses her of misunderstanding the verse. Deyermond, ‘The Greeks, the Romans, the Astrologers and the Meaning of the Libro de buen amor,’ also associates the reader of the Libro with the Greek, since, for him, the Greek has committed the graver interpretive error, which results in the loss of the laws. Thus, Juan Ruiz warns the reader not to be like the Greek. I agree with both Deyermond and Sturm that the reader and the Greek are placed on equivalent footing. The variant in MS G, as Gybbon-Monypenny points out in a note to 46b, seems to equate the Greek and the reader: ‘non acaesca con tigo commo al dotor de Greçia’ (The logic of the episode demands that the reader avoid the Greek’s mistake). 54 Vasvári, ‘Festive Phallic Discourse in the Libro del Arcipreste,’ 97. 55 Vasvári details the obscene connotations of the Roman’s gestures in ibid., 98–9. 56 Nepaulsingh, Towards a History of Literary Composition in Medieval Spain, 124. Nepaulsingh also views the preponderance of ‘loco amor’ in the Libro as an example of the rhetorical device of exsuperatio, which reduces the impact of the erotic content to a level of absurdity (142). However, given the associative nature of words, books, and garments as erotic intermediaries, and the explicit equation of the hidden meaning of the book with the sexual, this

Notes to pages 170–2

57 58 59

60

61

62 63 64 65

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assumption does not seem tenable. Juan Ruiz is much more subversive than Nepaulsingh gives him credit for. Beltrán makes this point in Razones, 22. See Orduna, ‘El Libro de buen amor y el textus receptus.’ Other critics have also noted Juan Ruiz’s subversion of traditional models of interpretation. See Torres Alcalá, ‘La cazurra dialéctica de Juan Ruiz,’ 345; and Brown, ‘The Meretricious Letter of the Libro de Buen Amor,’ 67. Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 21–2, describes the transgressive properties of metaphor. In medieval sources, too, metaphor is already characterized as deviant. Isidore of Seville, following St Augustine, defined metaphor as ‘verbi alicuius usurpata translatio’ (Etym. I.37.2, Metaphor is a transgressive transfer of a word, my trans.), and Donatus also viewed figural expressions as ‘alien’ transfers: ‘Tropus est dictio translata a propria significatione ad non propriam similitudinem’ (Ars Maior III.6, A trope is a word transferred from its own meaning to a likeness which is not its own, my trans.). A similar reversal of the typological model of reading was accomplished by the rhetorician Boncompagno da Signa. Purkart, ‘Boncompagno of Signa and the Rhetoric of Love,’ details the way Boncompagno uses the rhetoric of religion to argue for sexual licence instead of chastity. Boncompagno ‘turns Holy Writ into horny wit’ (325) by using scriptural authority and imagery to argue the devil’s case, and by recontextualizing spiritual meaning in inappropriate ways. Instead of reading pagan texts with a view to discovering hidden Christian meanings, he reverses this interpretive technique by reading sacred texts in order to discover a base meaning. Brown, in Contrary Things, notes the author’s duplicitous use of the ‘exegetics of the integument’ (129), but in her view the duplicity consists of multiple inversions of surface sound and inner meaning, ultimately emptying both positions of any meaning and whose end result is necessarily some form of misreading (128–35). Mazzotta, The World at Play in Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’ 119. Ibid., 120. Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 14. Girón Alconchel, ‘“Remendar” y “centón,”’ relates the image of the Libro de buen amor as a patched garment to the late antique tradition of the cento as exemplified by the works of Ausonius. He details both the literary and vestimentary semantic fields of the words centón and remendar in medieval and Renaissance Castilian texts, concluding that the Libro is following the generic model of the Ausonian cento. He postulates (65) that Juan Ruiz may have learned of the existence of the genre of the cento from the grammatical and rhetorical traditions of medieval schools. I think Girón is right to say

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74

Notes to pages 172–6

that Juan Ruiz would have been aware of the common metaphor of a poem as a garment, since the medieval artes poetriae are full of such imagery. It is, therefore, unnecessary to argue for the direct influence of Ausonius, since rhetorical texts had already assimilated late antique ideas of poems as weavings. The patchwork quality that he attributes to Ausonian influence was of concern to the authors of these rhetorical treatises. In fact, a Spanish rhetorician, M. de Córdoba, writing in the fourteenth century (i.e., contemporary with Juan Ruiz) calls rhetoricians sartores (tailors) who ought to know how to cut fashionable clothes for their materia. See M. de Córdoba, Breve Compendium Artis Rethorice, in Faulhaber Latin Rhetorical Theory in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Castile, Appendix (p. 149, f. 107r, ll. 7–15). Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 7–10, describes the edges of a text as a subversive source of pleasure. Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, in E. Faral, ll. 751–5. See Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ Bandera Gómez, ‘La ficción de Juan Ruiz,’ 504. See also DeLooze, PseudoAutobiography in the Fourteenth Century, 58. Cantarino. ‘La lógica falaz de don Juan Ruiz.’ Ibid., 452. Robertson describes the opposition between these contrasting types of music in A Preface to Chaucer, 126–9. See Sevilla Arroyo, ‘El cancionero de Juan Ruiz,’ 178–9: ‘Si hacemos inventario ya de las técnicas de ensamblaje entre los diversos bloques, la cosecha obtenida en este breve rastreo es tan parca como desconcertante. Los procedimientos utilizados para unir las diversas piezas son un tanto caprichosos y no menos hetero-géneos: sentencias, dichos o máximas; cortes cronológicos, practicados sobre un [sic] secuencia cronológica indeterminada y nunca lineal; cambios de escenario geográfico, sin que el vaivén cree itinerario alguno; asociaciones afectivas ocasionales y fortuitas; relaciones semánticas tan subjetivas como incoherentes … ’ (If we make an inventory now of the techniques of assembly among the different sections, the result obtained in this brief search is as minimal as it is disconcerting. The procedures used to unite the different parts are somewhat capricious and no less heterogeneous: refrains, sayings, or maxims; chronological breaks in an indeterminate and never linear timeline; changes of geographical location without the shifts creating any itinerary; occasional and fortuitous emotional associations; semantic relations as subjective as they are incoherent). For an extremely lucid account of the theory of suture and of possible literary applications, see Finney, ‘Suture in Literary Analysis.’ See also Lapsley and Westlake, Film Theory, 86–9; Lemaire, Jacques Lacan, 67–8; Oudart,

Notes to pages 178–80

75

76

77 78

79

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‘Cinema and Suture’; Stam, Burgoyne, and Flitterman-Lewis, New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics, 169. On this episode, see Vasvári, ‘Pitas Pajas’; McGrady, ‘The Story of the Painter and His Little Lamb’; and Geary, ‘The “Pitas Payas” Episode of the Libro de buen amor.’ It is, of course, quite conventional that medieval theories of authorship recognized that the composition of a text involved the rewriting or reusing of material derived from other auctores. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 94, cites St Bonaventure who defines four different ways of making a book, all of which require a reusing of the material of others. See also the excellent chapter on medieval textuality, entitled ‘Originality of Texts in a Manuscript Culture,’ in Bruns, Inventions, Writing, Textuality and Understanding in Literary History, 44–59. Bruns argues that originality in medieval texts derives from an act of rewriting, and for him, the medieval writer ‘dwells … among texts, not over and against them, and accordingly he is without anxiety, because his antecedents are great inventories that produce in him the copious mind, which is a mind capable of endless invention which is, however, textual rather than natural, insofar as its point of departure is always prior writing, not worldly or mental experience’ (56). What is new in Juan Ruiz’s awareness that his text will form the basis for the inventions of others is his description of this process in sexual terms. For an excellent study of the transitory nature of texts and their interpretation, see Noakes, Timely Reading. Brown, ‘The Meretricious Letter of the Libro de Buen Amor,’ 87–9, points out that exegetes such as Adelard of Bath and an anonymous twelfth-century French canon refer to the biblical text as ‘whorish’ in its ability to expose itself to differing (fourfold) interpretations. She views the Libro’s promiscuity as consisting in its teaching of all things to all people (89). A Bakhtinian approach to the Libro offers many potential insights into the text’s corporeal nature. Monique de Lope has demonstrated that the Libro emerges out of a carnivalesque, popular, cyclical substrate which conditions the text in fundamental ways, including the insistent presence of the material bodily lower stratum that Bakhtin privileges in his work on the grotesque. See her Traditions populaires et textualité dans le ‘Libro de Buen Amor.’ Vasvári has persuasively utilized Bakhtinian theory to demonstrate that ‘the polyphonic perverse corpus that is the Libro de Buen Amor, that results from this fusion of high and low, is like the open body of grotesque realism, transforming topsy-turvy all inherited genres and thus representing the regenerative victory of a novelistic Weltanschaung over inherited moribund genres and the ideals they embody’; see her ‘The Novelness of

264

Notes to pages 180–3

the Libro de Buen Amor,’ 181. On the relevance of Bakhtinian theory to medieval literature in general, see Lope, ‘M. Bakhtine et la littérature médiévale,’ and Farrell, Bakhtin and Medieval Voices. 80 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 62. 81 Derrida, Spurs, 71. 82 Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 10–11. 6 Configuring Culture: Writing the Hybrid in Shem Tov of Carrión 1 Lida de Malkiel, Dos obras maestras españolas, 31–43, argues for a close connection between the Libro de buen amor and Hispano-Hebrew maqamat. She considers the structure and tone of Juan Ruiz’s text to be an example of ‘arte mudéjar’ (43). 2 Díaz-Mas and Mota, editors of Shem Tov, of Proverbios morales, date this work to the years 1355–60, in their introduction, 28. 3 Ibid., 60. See also Colahan and Rodríguez, ‘Traditional Semitic Forms of Reversibility in Sem Tob’s Proverbios morales.’ 4 Jacques Joset, ‘Quelques modalités du yo dans les Proverbios morales de Santob de Carrión,’ 200. 5 See Nini and Fruchtman, editors of Shem Tov, Ma`aseh ha-Rav (The Battle between the Pen and the Scissors), 16–18. Henceforth reforred to as Nini and Fruchtman. 6 Ibid., 19–20. 7 Shem Tov, Ma`aseh ha-Rav, l. 590. Nini and Fruchtman view the ‘language of the people’ as referring to Shem Tov’s Castilian verses dedicated to the topic of the scissors’ writing as it appears in stanzas 40–4 of the Proverbios. The presence of this theme in the Proverbios and Shem Tov’s reference to it in the Hebrew Battle allows for a more precise dating of the Proverbios to a period prior to the year 1345 when the Battle was written. 8 Quoted in Brann, Sáenz-Badillos, and Targarona, ‘The Poetic Universe of Samuel Ibn Sasson,’ 81. This article provides an illuminating discussion of the circumscribed world of Hebrew poetry in the region of Carrión in the mid fourteenth century. 9 Writing with scissors was a literary conceit in Islamic Spain. See Gibert Fenech, ‘Sobre una extraña manera de escribir,’ ‘Cartas “de tijera” y cartas “emparajadas,”’ and ‘La “escritura de tijera” en unos versos de al-Rusafi’; Mehrez, ‘Todavía las “cartas de tijera”’; Kurz, ‘Libri cum characteribus ex nulla materia compositis.’ 10 The maqama genre has a long and complex history in Spain. See Pagis, Hebrew Poetry of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 55–60.

Notes to pages 183–5

265

11 See Dishon, ‘The Hebrew Maqama in Spain,’ 70–1. 12 Díaz Esteban, ‘El “Debate,” Santo de Carrión,’ 82. 13 See ibid., 84–9, and Granja, ‘Dos epístolas de Ahmad Ibn Burd al-Asgar.’ For an excellent survey of the literary history of the debate between pen and sword, see Van Gelder, ‘The Conceit of Pen and Sword.’ 14 See Van Bekkum, ‘Observations on the Hebrew Debate in Medieval Europe,’ 83–9. 15 Schirman, History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France, 565–9, views Shem Tov as a humourist, and his maqama as a farcical text whose originality of plot and diction, realistic descriptions, and lively personified ‘heroes’ made it a favourite among readers. Although editors Nini and Fruchtman consider the debate to be lacking originality in content, form, and imagery, they do recognize Shem Tov’s innovation with the confining parameters of convention and his talent for following gracefully in the footsteps of his predecessors (30). Díaz Esteban, ‘El “Debate,”’ 89–90, notes Shem Tov’s reliance on many of the stock images and metaphors employed by Ibn Burd in his debate between the pen and the sword. 16 See Shepard, Shem Tov, 31–8. 17 See Colahan, ‘Santob’s Debate,’ 98–106. 18 Nini and Fruchtman, 35–6. 19 Einbinder, ‘Pen and Scissors,’ 274. 20 Ross Brann’s excellent work, Compunctious Poet, 59–83, has a detailed chapter on Ibn Ezra’s conflicted attitudes towards the writing of poetry. 21 Dana, Poetics of Mediaeval Hebrew Literature, 54. He quotes (58) Ibn Ezra, who writes: ‘Ha-‘inyan rua h. , ve-ha-milah guf le-‘inyan’ (The matter is spirit, and the word is a body for the matter). 22 See Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory, 43. Tova Rosen also addresses the gendered nature of the ornamentation of poetry by beautiful rhetorical adornment. See her Unveiling Eve, 66–8. 23 Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory, 41; and Brann, Compunctious Poet, 72. 24 Fenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans ‘Le jardin de la métaphore’ de Moïse Ibn ‘Ezra, philosophe et poète andalou du XIIe siècle,’ 302. 25 Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory, 41, 55. 26 Dana, Poetics of Mediaeval Hebrew Literature, 47. 27 Brann, Compunctious Poet, 73–5. 28 Dana, Poetics of Mediaeval Hebrew Literature, 74–5. 29 Brann, Compunctious Poet, 79. Dana, Poetics of Mediaeval Hebrew Literature, 60. See also Rosen, Unveiling Eve, 71–2, who also discusses Ibn Ezra’s distinction between a regular lie and a ‘poetic lie,’ which is not only appropriate, but indeed desirable in poetry.

266

Notes to pages 186–7

30 Brann, Compunctious Poet, 140. 31 See Brann, Compunctious Poet, 137–41 on the adoption by maqama poets of the topos of the dissembling poet. 32 Cantarino, Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age, 50, provides several examples of the common usage of this metaphor in the writings of seminal poetic theorists. For al- ‘Askari (d. 1005) words are the clothes that cover the conceptual body of the speech, and al-Jurjani (d. 1078) condemns overblown language as a bride whose body is overloaded with trinkets which obscure rather than enhance her beauty. Although the representation of literary meaning as a body in Arabic and Judeo-Arabic poetic texts seems to lack any sexual dimension, Jewish mystical texts in northern Spain in the late thirteenth century commonly eroticize the relationship between the Torah and its interpreters. Zoharic kabbalah, in particular, figures the Torah as a maiden without eyes. The reader is the masculine principle whose eyes penetrate the text, conferring form and meaning upon it. See Wolfson, ‘Occultation of the Feminine and the Body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah,’ and ‘Beautiful Maiden without Eyes.’ Despite the presence of this metaphorics of interpretation in mystical literature, it is difficult to surmise whether Shem Tov would have read any of it. Zoharic mysticism was, by definition, esoteric and restricted to small groups of disciples who dissociated themselves from the rest of the Jewish community and who avoided contact with the world of the court. Shem Tov, who in the introduction to his Proverbios morales dedicates his work to the Castilian king Pedro, clearly viewed himself as participating in the larger world of court and society. See Nini and Fruchtman, 18–19, on the question of whether Shem Tov could have been the author of a kabbalistic text spuriously attributed to him. 33 Shem Tov’s exploitation of the phallic implications of the pen departs from established Arabic literary conventions. Van Gelder, ‘The Conceit of Pen and Sword,’ 354, points out that erotic imagery in Arabic debates between sword and pen is absent despite the obviously phallic connotations of both implements. However, this motif, as Rosen shows, certainly had currency in medieval Hebrew literature. See Unveiling Eve, 73–4, 142–3. 34 This line contains a complex play on words that works on more than one level. Literally, the frozen inkwell is called ‘shalmah mimasreqah,’ a pun that turns on the name of an Edomite king in Genesis 36:36, ‘Shamlah mimasreqah.’ Shem Tov transposes two letters of the king’s first name to ‘shalmah,’ which means ‘intact,’ ‘virginal,’ ‘unbroken.’ The word ‘masreqah’ also is subject to a double entendre. The word masreq when written with a sameh instead of a sin means ‘comb.’ Shepard, Shem Tov: His World

Notes to pages 187–200

35

36 37 38

39

40 41

42

43

267

and His Words, 115, note 15, points out that this homonymy allows Shem Tov to suggest that the inkwell is like a bride who is combed and ready for her wedding night, but who is destined to remain intact. Elliot Wolfson points out that in zoharic literature the engraving of letters ‘is a decidedly erotic activity.’ See his ‘Erasing the Erasure, Gender and the Writing of God’s Body in Kabbalistic Symbolism,’ Circle in the Square, 68, 77. Shepard, Shem Tov, 37. See Shapiro, ‘A Matter of Discipline, 161–5. For Maimonides’ animosity towards poetry, see Rosen, Unveiling Eve, 77–82. Hamilton, ‘Poetry and Desire,’ explores how Hebrew maqamat written in northern Castile in the twelfth century stage the cultural competition and tension between Arabic and Hebrew poetry and linguistic prestige as a sexualized contest between the poet and two rival female lovers, one representing the alluring eroticism of Arabic poetry and the other embodying the chaste beauty of the Hebrew poetic tradition. The eroticized figure of Arabic poetry who attempts to seduce the Jewish poet with her beauty is a sign of an earlier cultural tension conditioning the production of Hebrew poetry, one which undergirds the sexualized textual debate between the pen and the scissors and locates it in a new arena of cultural ambiguity, that of Christian Castile in oppositional dialogue with the mores of Jewish and Semitic literary culture. For a summary of the imagery associated with tevel, see Rosen, ‘Representaciones de mujeres en la poesía hispano-hebrea,’ 135–6; and Unveiling Eve, 14–16. For the association of the so t.ah with tropism, see Haberman, ‘The Suspected Adultress.’ The citation is from p. 35. The Proverbios morales (st. 40–4) also clearly links the text written by the scissors with the excision of deeper meaning. The narrator describes a ruse in which he sends a letter written with scissors to an ‘astroso’ (a poor wretch) in order to show his high opinion of the astroso’s intelligence. The fool, believing the letter to contain much of import, is made to look even more foolish since the text he receives is devoid of meaning (‘rrazon’), consisting only of ‘caxcas vanas’ (empty shells) instead of meaty hazelnuts. Rosen, Unveiling Eve, in a fascinating chapter on cross-dressing in the Hebrew maqama tradition, argues that transvestism is essential to the genre, accounting for ‘its all-inclusive nature, its changing apparels, its stylistic variety, and its emergence in a climate of historical transitions’ (167). The Hebrew reads as follows: ‘ki lo’ le h. inam ha-me saper h. ibram we tiqnam we qarav ’otam ’e h. ad ’el ’e h. ad’ (for it is not in vain that the writer

268

44

45 46 47

Notes to pages 200–10

of fiction joins/composes them, and arranges them and brings them close to each other, ll. 595–6). Shem Tov is adhering here to the traditional surprise ending found in many maqamas. The reversal of winner and loser in Shem Tov’s text parallels that in the debate between the pen and the sword, the fortieth gate of Judah Al-Harizi’s The Tahkemoni. In Al-Harizi’s debate, despite the pen’s having the last words, which enable him apparently to emerge victorious over the sword, the narrator then states, ‘I wrote his [the pen’s] words upon my heart. I inscribed his utterance with an iron pen’ (Tahkemoni, 2:254). The iron pen, or sword, prevails in the end and entirely deflates the pen’s victory since the reader discovers that the narrator chose to write his own text with the sword rather than with the pen. In addition to this similarity with Shem Tov’s text, there are other elements of imagery and argumentation that make Al-Harizi’s maqama a possible source for Shem Tov’s debate. Both debates begin with the dysfunction of the pen and the need of the writer for an effective substitute. The sword in Al-Harizi’s debate levels some of the same accusations of weakness and fragility against the pen, and the sword is characterized as an instrument of speech (2:247–54). Garber, Vested Interests, 16. See Raden, ‘The Power of Discourse and the Discourse of Power,’ 449. Perry, The ‘Moral Proverbs’ of Santob de Carrión, 86, aptly points out that this is another example of Shem Tov exploiting ‘the language of one cultural tradition while using the thought patterns of another.’

Conclusion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Patterson, ‘On the Margin,’ 107. See ibid., 106–7, for Patterson’s discussion of feminist theory and Marxism. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. Robertson, I.iii, p. 9. See Feder and Zakin, ‘Flirting with the Truth,’ 41. Grosz, ‘Ontology and Equivocation,’ 77. See Di Camillo, El Humanismo castellano del siglo XV, 49–66. Parker, Literary Fat Ladies. Weissberger, Isabel Rules, examines how the construct of gender is used in late-fifteenth-century Castilian writing.

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Index

Abner of Burgos, 183–4 absence, in speech of Infantes de Carrión, 95–6 Abu Girge, fresco at, 65 adultery, and writing process, 178–80 Afrenta de Corpes, in Poema de mio Cid, 84–93, 96–7, 100–2, 104–5, 206, 233n18 Agnes (martyr), 66–7, 79–80, 91, 228n66 Aguado, José María, 152–3 Ajax (mythological figure), 72 Alan of Lille, De planctu naturae, 34, 219n84 Alberic of Montecassino, 26, 35–6, 39, 192, 196 Alfonso de Palencia, Universal vocabulario, 253n13 Alfonso VIII, 83 Alfonso X, 256n30; Cantigas de Santa María, 110, 119, 127, 245n32 Alhariri of Basra, 183 Al-Harizi, Judah, 268n44 allegory, and metaphor, 24–5 ambiguity: in Libro de buen amor, 153– 5; in Shem Tov’s Battle between Pen and Scissors, 200–3

Ambrose, Saint, 33–4, 60, 252n8 Arabic language, 182 Arabic literary culture, 183–6 Aristotle, 22–3, 25, 215n31 art, Christian: representations of martyrs, 55–6, 65; Spanish Romanesque statues of Mary, 126 artes poetriae, 36, 38–45, 145, 186. See also Geoffrey of Vinsauf; Matthew of Vendôme ascetic discipline, textualization as, 56 auctor, Berceo as, 108–9, 139–40, 142– 4 Auerbach, Erich, 21 Augustine, Saint, 25, 28–35, 61, 73, 147, 230n89; De doctrina christiana, 28–33, 217n63, 218n64, 253n11; De genesi ad litteram, 254n16; De trinitate, 26, 30–1; Enarrationes in Psalmos, 229n82 Aulius Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 229n74 Ausonius, 261n65 authorship: divine, 205–6; medieval theories of, 263n76. See also auctor, Berceo as

296 Index Bakhtin, Mikhail, 180, 263n79 Bandera Gómez, Cesáreo, 234n23, 235n29, 259n49 Barthes, Roland, 41, 172 Beardsley, Monroe, 24 Beltrán, Luis, 255n25, 259n49, 260n52 Berceo, Gonzalo de, 220n84, 256n30; as auctor, 108–9, 139–40, 142–4; Loores de Nuestra Señora, 117; Poema de Santa Oria, 241n1 Berceo, Gonzalo de: Milagros de Nuesta Señora, 108–44, 205–6, 209; introduction, 111–24, 128–30; miracle 1, 125; miracle 2, 134–5; miracle 12, 124; miracle 21, 123; miracle 25, 120, 125, 135–40 Bible, books of: Apocalypse of John, 58; First Corinthians, 74, 109; Genesis, 192; Isaiah, 191; John, 109, 220n84, 254n16; Judges, 189; Luke, 224n26; Matthew, 67; Song of Songs, 111–12, 187–8, 242n10 binarism, 97, 102–6, 158–9 birdsong, textualization of, 121 Birky, Robin Hass, 241n2, 246n34 Black, Max, 217n53, 241n3 black/white, in Libro de buen amor, 158–9 Bloch, R. Howard, 222n100, 238n63, 239n66 Bluestine, Carolyn, 235n26 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Decameron, 171 body, female: as fertile field, 111–13; ideal, 173; and language, 3–9; poem as, 172; as stringed instrument, 163; text as, 187–9; textualized, 10–11, 44, 87–90, 97, 204–10; transference of shame to, 86–7. See also body, martyr’s; feminine, the; resistance, female; woman

body, human: associated with earth, 62–3; poem as, 172; rhetoric and, 18–21 body, martyr’s, 52–5; associated with earth, 68–71; as commodity, 59–60; and fertility, 60–74; as instrument of salvation, 59; and law, 226n35; and sexual violence, 67–8; as text, 55–60, 74, 104–5 body, of Mary, 209; and clothing imagery, 127–41; textualization of, 139–40 body, of orator, 51–2 bodytalk, 103–6 Boggs, R.S., 152 Boncompagno da Signa, 23, 33, 156, 159, 219n69, 261n61; Rhetorica novissima, 112, 252n7; Rota veneris, 255n23 bread, in Libro de buen amor, 159 brevity in speech, and smallness in women, 164–5 Brody, Miriam, 215n21 Brown, Catherine, 10, 254n15, 261n61, 263n78 Brown, Peter, 60, 81 Brownlee, Marina, 258n47 Brunetto Latini, 37 Bruns, Gerald, 217n54, 263n76 buen amor, in Libro de buen amor, 154– 5, 157 Burke, James, 10, 85, 125, 159, 232n14, 234n21, 239n68, 248nn46, 47, 256n30, 259n49 Burns, E. Jane, 9, 46–7, 103, 240nn74, 75 Burrus, Virginia, 228n66, 229n79 Burt, John, 235n26 Butler, Judith, 4–6, 211n2 Bynum, Caroline, 6–7

Index 297 Cadden, Joan, 238n61 Cameron, Averil, 52 Cantarino, Vicente, 175, 266n32 Carruthers, Mary, 247n44 Cartesianism, 3, 7 Cassian (martyr), 56, 62, 74 Castilian language, 182, 250n68 Chanson de Roland, 84 character, 58 charaxare, 58 Chasca, Edmund de, 236n41 Christ: associated with wine press (torcular), 234n23; as fertile seed, 60–1; as incarnate Word, 109–10; Sermon on the Mount, 225n35; as ultimate metaphor, 27, 31, 109–10 Christianity, and textualized body, 51–2 Cicero, 23, 25–6, 244n16; De inventione, 249n58; De oratore, 216nn36, 46 Cid, the, in Poema de mio Cid: clothing of, 106; and ‘fall,’ 100; speech of, 94–5, 97; and ‘undoing’ of Afrenta de Corpes, 100–2 closure: in Berceo’s Milagros, 123; and Libro de buen amor, 175; of text, 125–6 clothing: of Cid, 106; introduced after Fall, 147; of Mary, 126–7; of metaphor, 34–5, 219n70; stained, 84–7; as writing, 99. See also dressing; garment; undressing; veiling clothing imagery: in Berceo’s Milagros, 125–41; in Libro de buen amor, 146–55, 167–71 Cohen, Ted, 24 Colahan, Clark, 184 Colina de Losa, church at, 163

collatio occulta (hidden comparison), 37, 118 commodification: of Infantes de Carrión, 98; of martyr’s body, 59–60 cookery, art of, 19–20, 214n10 Copeland, Rita, 221n96 Copenhagen, Royal Library, Ms. Thott 128, 242n8 Córdoba, martyrs of, 82 Corominas, Joan, 88, 150 corpus, 92 Corrington, Gail Paterson, 231n92 corteza, in Libro de buen amor, 156 cosmetic art, 19–20, 214n15 criticism, and act of reading, 145–6 cross-dressing, 198, 200–1, 267n42 cults, of martyrs, 60 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 54 Cyprian (martyr), 76, 230n86 Dagenais, John, 259n49 Dangler, Jean, 9–10 Dante, Divine Comedy, 153 death, of textualized body, 89–91 debate poems. See Shem Tov (Santob): Battle between Pen and Scissors deception: and intermediary, 146–50; and music, 161–2; and poetry, 185; and rhetoric, 18–21, 132–5 deconstruction, 207–8 defloration, interpretation as, 160 democratization of the holy, Prudentius and, 60 Derrida, Jacques, 18, 45–8, 214n9 De septem septenis, 26–7 desire: and language, 171–80; unfulfilled, 176–7; veiling of, 27–34; in writing process, 177–80. See also eroticism deus, 28–9

298 Index Devoto, Daniel, 246n35 Deyermond, Alan, 104–5, 234n18, 260nn52, 53 Di Camillo, Ottavio, 256n30 dictado, 118 dictio sumissa, 32 Dinshaw, Carolyn, 9 ditado, 245n27 divinity, and veiling, 25 Diz, Marta Ana, 248n52, 250n67, 251nn69, 70 Doane, Mary Ann, 46–7 Dominicus Gundissalinus, 24 Donatus, 219n76, 261n60 doxa, 19 Drayson, Elizabeth, 242n8 dressing, in Marian garment, 131–5. See also undressing Dronke, Peter, 114 Dubois, Page, 70 dueling, verbal, 97 Duggan, Joseph J., 232n10 Dutton, Brian, 125, 242n8 earth: and human body, 62–3; and martyr’s body, 68–71 Eco, Umberto, 215n27 effeminacy: of Infantes de Carrión, 97–8, 240n73; marked by stain, 84–7; and rhetoric, 20–1 Einbinder, Susan, 184 Emeritus (martyr), 226n36 Epiphanius of Salamis, 161 episteme, 19 eroticism: in hortus conclusus, 112; of metaphor, 156; and rhetoric, 41 erotics of reading, in Libro de buen amor, 155–67 Eulalia (martyr), 56–8, 63–8, 71–2, 75, 79–81, 91, 105, 113, 228nn61, 67, 69

Eulogius, 82 evangelists, 244n24 exempla, deceitful use of, 148–50 exemplum, 88 exile, Cid and, 100, 239n68 facial expression, in Poema de mio Cid, 94 Fall, the, 98–100, 129, 147; as ‘felix culpa,’ 100; and music, 161–2; and rhetoric, 33–4, 254n16; and writing, 99–100 falsehood, and metaphor, 34–5. See also deception feminine, the: associated with rhetoric, 18–21; as corrupting force, 192–3; and the Fall, 98–100; instrumental use of, 207–8; intrusion into creative process, 16; Nietzsche and, 17–18; and rhetorical garment, 41–5; as threat, 98–9; truth as, 45–6 feminist theory, 4–6, 18, 46–8, 104, 207–8 Ferriolo, Massimo, 242n10 fertility: of female body, 111–13; of martyr’s body, 60–74; of Mary, 128–30 fig leaves, 147, 252n8; as ‘writing,’ 99, 219n70 figura, use of term, 21–2, 215n22 figurae, rhetorical, 21–7 Filios, Denise, 10 fingere, 215n22 flowers, 242n10; blossoming from Old Testament, 115; Libro de buen amor as, 159–60; from martyred body, 63–5, 72, 113, 228n61; and names of Mary, 117–18; poems and prose as, 119

Index 299 Foresti, Carlos, 242n8 fountain imagery, 115–16, 136 Freud, Sigmund, 142 Friedman, Edward H., 93 Fruchtman, Maya, 264n7, 265n15 fruit, in Libro de buen amor, 160–1 Fuero de Logroño, 89 Fuss, Diana, 211n4 galeote, 152–3 Garber, Marjorie, 201 García de Cortázar, José Angel, 83 garden: in Berceo’s Milagros, 111–13; of monastic cloister, 115; paradisiacal, 241n7. See also flowers; hortus conclusus; locus amoenus garment: deceptive, 167–71; language as, 148; of piety, 170–1; poem as, 262n65; ragged, 41–3, 150, 172–6, 192, 249n57, 252n11; seamless, 38–41, 132, 134–5, 137, 249n57. See also dressing; undressing; veiling garment imagery: in Berceo’s Milagros, 125–41; in Libro de buen amor, 146–55 gender: distinguished from sex, 3–7; and textuality, 205. See also body, female; feminine, the; resistance, female; transgression; woman gender attributes, displaced, 238n61 gender imagery, in Shem Tov’s Battle between Pen and Scissors, 186–9, 202 General estoria, 104 Genette, Gérard, 217n60 Geoffrey of Vinsauf, 36–7, 42, 125, 130, 145, 196, 221n97; Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi, 23–4; Poetria nova, 36–8, 42– 4, 118, 172, 245n29, 248n54

Gerli, Michael, 82, 258n47 Gervasius of Melkley, 24 gesture, in Poema de mio Cid, 94, 97 Gifford, Douglas, 233n18 gift, in Poema de mio Cid, 94–5 Giménez Resano, Gaudioso, 247n43 Girón Alconchel, José Luis, 261n65 Gleason, Maud, 51 Gorgias of Leontini, 11–12, 48, 213n40 Greeks and Romans, episode of, in Libro de buen amor, 167–71 Gregory the Great, Saint, 227n58 Grieve, Patricia, 247n46 Grosz, Elizabeth, 208 guf me s. uyyar, 184 Guido of Arezzo, 122 Gunderson, Erik, 51 hagiography, Spanish, 50, 81–2. See also names of saints and martyrs Hamilton, Michelle, 267n38 h. aqiqah, 185 Harpham, Geoffrey Galt, 223n10 Hart, Thomas R., 237n56 Hekman, Susan, 211n8 hidden comparison, 37, 118 Hippolytus (martyr), 69–71, 74, 229n70 Hispania, as text, 68–9 Homans, Margaret, 251n71 homosexuality, 20–1 honestas, 217n49 Honorius of Autun, 111, 115 Hook, David, 104–5, 234n18 Horace, Ars poetica, 40 hortus conclusus, 92, 111–23, 128–30, 243n12 Hugh of St Victor, Didascalion, 161

300 Index hybridity, cultural, in work of Shem Tov, 181–203 Ibn Burd the Younger, A h. mad, 183 Ibn Ezra, Moses, 184–5, 265n21 Ibn Sasson, Samuel, 182 Ignatius of Antioch, Saint, 56, 225nn29, 30 Ildephonsus of Toledo, Saint, 130–2, 141; De virginitate perpetua Sanctae Mariae, 116 imagines agentes, in rhetoric, 70 Impey, Olga Tudorica, 164–5 Infantes de Carrión: in Poema de mio Cid, 84–93, 206; speech of, 95–8 integrity, of Mary, 113 integumentum, 25, 126, 128–30. See also clothing imagery; garment; veiling intermediary, 146–7; as deceptive garment, 150; in Libro de buen amor, 152–3, 174; as text, 151–2; undressing of, 166–7; and verbal deception, 148–50 Irigaray, Luce, 4 Isidore of Seville, 22, 35, 261n60 Jesus Christ. See Christ ‘jeweled style,’ 40, 53, 220n94 John of Garland, 38 John of Salisbury, 221n98; Metalogicon, 238n57 John the Monk, 225n30 Joset, Jacques, 182 Kadmos, myth of, 70–1 kairos, 11–12, 48–9 Kay, Sarah, 240n75 Kelley, Theresa M., 24 Kofman, Sarah, 17 Krueger, Roberta, 240n75

Lacan, Jacques, 171, 251n72 Lacarra Lanz, María E., 235n28, 236n40, 240n82 Lactantius, 56 language: artificial, 95–6; deceptive, 132–5, 147–8; and desire, 171–80; as garment, 148; human, 31–3; prelapsarian, 94; women’s, 4 language issues, in Poema de mio Cid, 93–107 Lanoue, David G., 162 Laurence (martyr), 75 law, and martyr’s body, 226n35 Le Goff, Jacques, 237n49 Leo, Ulrich, 101 levis, 249n58 Libro de Alexandre, 246n40 Libro de Apolonio, 163–4 light, and metaphor, 25–6 Lightfoot, J.B., 225n29 Lille, Alain de, 109 loco amor, 260n56 locus amoenus, 92, 111 Lomperis, Linda, 49, 231n8 Lope, Monique de, 263n79 MacLennan, L. Jenaro, 256n30 Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 216n41 Madero, Marta, 235n31 Maimonides, 192 majaz, 185 Malamud, Martha, 224n18, 228n67, 230n85 Mâle, Emile, 257n40 Malkiel, Lida de, 264n1 mandados, 235n30 maqama genre, 183, 186, 267n38, 268n44 marriage, chaste, 65–6

Index 301 Martínez, Gonzalo, 184 martyrdom: and Afrenta de Corpes, 91–2, 104–5; divine writing of, 71– 80; and masculinity, 63; textualization of, 55–60 martyrs, 50–80; artistic representations of, 55–6, 65; female, 63–7, 79– 80; male, 63, 79, 91. See also names of martyrs Mary: as book, 125–6; clothing of, 126–7; as fertile field, 128–30; as hortus conclusus, 111–13, 243n12; as materia, 113, 116–18; metaphorical function of, 109–11; relationship to Christ, 109–10; textualization of, 108–10, 113–23 masculine/feminine, and speech/ writing, 97, 102–6 masculine ideal, Cid as, 97 masculinity, 51–2, 63, 97 mater, Mary as, 113 materia, Mary as, 113, 116–18 materiality, 3–8 Matter, E. Ann, 242n11 Matthew of Vendôme, 39–44, 145, 192, 215n24, 220n90; Ars versificatoria, 38, 114 Mazzotta, Giuseppe, 171 McGerr, Rosemarie P., 125 McNally, David, 6 mediation: of martyrs and martyrpoems, 78–9; and virgin body, 224n21 medieval poetics, embodied, 9–10 medieval Spanish literature, 9–10, 48–9 meditatio, 247n44 memorization, in rhetoric, 70 Menéndez Pidal, Ramón, 233n18 meollo, in Libro de buen amor, 156

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 7–8 metaphor, 21–7, 98, 109–10, 215nn27, 31, 217n53, 241n3, 259n48, 261n60. See also garment; rhetoric; veiling metaphoricity, 17–18 Methodius, Symposium, 224n21 metonym, 98 Milan, Church of St Ambrose, 56 mind-body split, 3–8, 32–4. See also binarism Minnis, A.J., 156 Mirrer, Louise, 97 misogyny, 214n16 modesty topos, Ruiz’s use of, 156 Moi, Toril, 5–6, 8, 212n15 money, in Libro de buen amor, 157–8, 165 Montgomery, Thomas, 93, 98, 232n14, 237n56 mother, disembodying of, 143–4. See also Mary mother-child dyad, 143 Mozarabic Sacramentary, 81–2 music: and deception, 161–2; and desire, 175; and poetry, 122–3, 256n30 musical instrument, text as, 161–4, 167 names of martyrs, recitation of, 77 narrative levels, in poems of Prudentius, 74 narrative structure, of Berceo’s Milagros, 124–42 Nepaulsingh, Colbert, 84, 91, 119, 170, 260n56 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 17–18, 45–8, 214n9 Nini, Yehuda, 264n7, 265n15

302 Index Olson, Glending, 156 Ong, Walter, 83, 232n11, 233nn15, 16 oral composition, and Poema de mio Cid, 82–4 oral reading, 224n20. See also reading aloud oratory, classical, 51 Orduna, Germán, 170 organar, 246n35 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 62, 68, 72, 234n18 Pagis, Dan, 183 Palencia, Alfonso de, 249n58 Palmer, Anne Marie, 71 Parable of the Sower, 224n26 Parker, A.A., 260n53 Parker, Patricia, 210 Passio Saturnini, 226n36, 227n52 Patterson, Lee, 204 Pavlovic, Milija, 239n73 pen, as phallus, 186–7, 236n38 pen and scissors, debate between. See Shem Tov (Santob): Battle between Pen and Scissors pen and sword, debates between, 183, 266n33, 268n44 personification, of rhetoric, 34 phallus, 251n72; pen as, 186–7, 236n38 Philomela (mythological figure), 103–4 pilgrimage, 69, 247n41. See also ‘Verceo, Gonçalvo de’ Plato, 214n10; Gorgias, 19; Phaedrus, 19, 214n14, 236n37, 237n54, 238n57 Platonism, 3, 11–12, 19–20 pleasure: of interpretation, 29–31, 44–5; literary, 156. See also erotics of reading

poem: as body, 16, 172; as garment, 262n65; as metaphorical martyrtext, 75–6; redemptive power of, 53–4 Poema de mio Cid, 81–107, 206, 208–9; origin of, 82–4; speech and writing in, 93–107; and writing the body, 84–93 pornography, 171 preacher, and figural language, 32 Procne (mythological figure), 68, 234n18 promiscuity, textual, 178–80 Prudentius, Peristephanon, 50–80, 113, 205–6, 208; and divine writing of martyrdom, 71–80; and fertility of martyr’s body, 60–71; influence of, 81–2, 84, 91; literary aesthetic, 52–4; and textualization of martyrdom, 55–60 Pseudo-Ambrosius, 227n58 Pseudo-Ovid, Pamphilus, 160 Purcell, William, 23 Purkart, Josef, 261n61 Quintilian, 20–2, 24, 26, 43 Rabanus Maurus, 114 Raden, Matthew, 201 radius, metaphor as, 26 raggedness, 41–3, 48 rape, and female martyr, 67–8. See also sexual violence Read, Malcolm, 93 reader, and freedom of interpretation, 166–7 reading: Augustinian model of, 258n47; erotics of, 155–67 reading aloud, of acts of saints, 230n84, 231n1

Index 303 redemptive power: of Libro de buen amor, 153–4; of martyr’s body, 59; of poetic text, 53–4 relics, saints’, 59–60 res, and verba, 20 resistance, female, 90–1, 208–10 rhetoric: and the body, 18–21; as deception, 18–21, 132–5; and the Fall, 33–4; as feminine, 98–9; personification of, 34. See also garment; metaphor; veiling Rhetorica ad Herennium, 70, 216nn36, 45, 229n73 ribaldo, 169 Richard de St Laurent, 113–16, 125–6, 241n5; Mariale, 110–11, 243n12 Ricoeur, Paul, 24, 216nn33, 39, 217n52, 261n60 rimor, 70, 229n74 Roberts, Michael, 40, 53–4, 224n25, 226nn40, 45, 228nn61, 70, 230n86 Rojas, Fernando de, Celestina, 252n9 Romanus (martyr), 57–8, 73–5, 230n83 rosarium, 119 rose: Libro de buen amor as, 159–60, 165 Rosen, Tova, 265nn22, 29, 267n42 Ruiz, Juan: Libro de buen amor, 118, 145–80, 206–7, 209, 250n65; episode of Greeks and Romans, 167– 71; garment imagery in, 146–55; language and desire in, 171–80; and pleasure of interpretation, 155–67 ‘Ruiz, Juan’: as persona, 146, 172, 174–5, 179–80, 252n2 Saugnieux, Joël, 239n69 Schirman, J., 265n15

scriptural interpretation, and veiling, 28–34 Sears, Teresa Ann, 234n19 Sermon on the Mount, 225n35 Sevilla Arroyo, Florencia, 262n73 sex, and gender, 3–7 sexuality, after Fall, 147 sexual violence, 67–8, 103; in Berceo’s Milagros, 136–40; in Poema de mio Cid, 91–2; in Shem Tov’s Battle between Pen and Scissors, 189 shade (of trees), as mediatory prayers, 114 Shaw, Brent, 230n91 Shem Tov Falaqera, 185–6 Shem Tov (Santob): Battle between Pen and Scissors, 181–203, 206, 209; Proverbios morales, 181–2, 189–90, 201, 264n7, 267n41; Yam Qohelet, 182 Shepard, Sanford, 183, 190 Siete Infantes de Lara, 85–7 signa translata, in scripture, 28–9 silence, female, in Poema de mio Cid, 103, 106 Smith, Colin, 92, 235n32 Solomon, Michael, 9 Solterer, Helen, 240n75 sowing, image of, 61–3, 113, 224n26, 227n52 speech/writing: and masculine/ feminine, 97, 102–6; in Poema de mio Cid, 93–107 Spiegel, Gabrielle, 233n17 Spivak, Gayatri, 46 spoken word, displaced by written text, 51–2 stain, as mark of humiliation, 84–7 Stanbury, Sarah, 49, 231n8 Stock, Brian, 233n16 Strabo, 25

304 Index Sturm, Sara, 260n53 suavitas, and figural language, 29–31 subjectivity, female, in Poema de mio Cid, 102–3, 105 sulcus, 63 suture theory, 175–6 tailor, image of, 151–2, 172–3, 253n13, 262n65 Tereus (mythological figure), 68, 103–4, 234n18 Tertullian, Apologeticum, 61 tevel (world), as woman, 192–3 text, written: and displacement of spoken word, 51–2; as woman, 164–5 textualization: as ascetic discipline, 56; of female body, 10–11, 44, 87– 90, 97, 204–10; of martyrdom, 55– 60; of oral compositions, 82–4 Thraede, Klaus, 54, 227n52 ‘timely reading,’ 179 Todorov, Tzvetan, 215n18 toga picta, 220n94 transference of shame, to female body, 86–7 transgression: and clothing of word, 41–5; of metaphor, 22, 170–1; of rhetoric, 221n96; in Shem Tov’s Battle between Pen and Scissors, 198–9 translatio, 22, 27, 30–1, 130 transparency, in Shem Tov’s Battle between Pen and Scissors, 193–7 transumptio, 23–5, 36, 118 transvestism, 198, 200–1, 267n42 Tree of Life, 244n21 trees: as Mary’s miracles, 120, 123; as poems, 114 tropes, 98, 196, 219n76, 254n16

truth: as nakedness, 17; and rhetoric, 21–7; and veiling, 27–34, 193; as woman, 16–18, 45–8 Uli Ballaz, Alejandro, 118, 242n8 undressing: in act of reading, 145–6, 155–67, 170–1; in Afrenta de Corpes, 236n40; of church, 137–8; of intermediary, 166–7; and interpretation of Libro de buen amor, 155–67; of Mary’s statue, 138–40; of pilgrim in garden, 111, 114, 128–30, 140; of text, 44–5; of textualized body, 88–9 unwriting, in Poema de mio Cid, 100–2 Urbina, Eduardo, 259n49 Vance, Eugene, 84, 233n16, 237n42 Van Gelder, Geert Jan, 266n33 Vasvári, Louise, 9, 169, 263n79 veil, of metaphor, 23, 25 veiling, 27–34, 46–7, 172, 193–7 vengar, 101–2 verba, and res, 20 ‘Verceo, Gonçalvo de’: in Berceo’s Milagros, 111, 140 Victorinus, 219n73 Vincent (martyr), 62–3 violence, in act of writing, 189–92 virginity: applied to book, 125–6; of female martyr, 65–7; of hortus conclusus, 111; of Mary, 112–13; as rhetorical construct, 52 Virgin Mary. See Mary visibility, of textualized body, 88–9 voice, female, in Poema de mio Cid, 102–3, 106, 236n41 Walker, Roger M., 234n18, 239n73 Walsh, John, 84, 91, 239n73 Weiss, Julian, 241n1

Index 305 Weissberger, Barbara, 10 Westra, Haijo, 230n89 White, Eric Charles, 12, 213n40 whiteness: of Cid’s clothing, 106; of desired body, 158–9; of female body, 250n65 Willbern, David, 142 William of Conches, 221n98 Williams, Lynn, 167, 260n52 witnesses, to textualized body, 89 Wolfson, Elliot, 267n35 woman: ideal, 173; Nietzsche on, 17– 18; tevel as, 192–3; truth as, 16–18,

45–8, 193; written text as, 164–5. See also body, female; feminine, the; gender wordplay, Prudentius and, 53 writing: as act of power, 205–7; as act of violence, 189–92; associated with Fall, 99–100; as clothing, 99 writing, divine, upon martyr’s body, 57–60 Zaderenko, Irene, 232n10 Zoharic kabbalah, 266n32