The scholar's guide : a translation of the twelfth-century "Disciplina clericalis" of Pedro Alonso

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THE SCHOLAR~S GUIDE

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THE SCHOLAR S GUIDE A Translation of the Twelfth-Century DisciplinaClericalisof Pedro Alfonso

by Joseph Ramon JONES and John Esten KELLER University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky

THE PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES TORONTO,CANADA

1969

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To Paul C. Nagel

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword

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INTRODUCTION

I. Pedro Alfonso, the Man and the II. Pedro Alfonso and Literature . III. The Title of the Collection of Talcs IV. The Form and the Content V. Literary Quality . . . . .

Scholar . . . and the . . . . . .

. . . Aim . . . .

THE . SCHOLAR'S GUIDE

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. . .

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21 25 31

INDEX

115

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FOREWORD Perhaps no age beforc our own ever carried literary interpretation farther, setting apart, of course, the sempiternal ecclesiastical expositions of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Today literary interpretation by acholan in universities f 0C1Dcs primarily upon two genres - drama and novel with a much smaller amount of attention devoted to poetry, due no doubt, to poetry' ·s more modest role in twcntieth-century culture. And the short story or brief narrative, to use a more all-inclusive term, is seldom dealt with by literary critics whose principal interest is interpretation, even though we know that from brief narrative of very ancient vintage came some of the most important and longlived plots in dramatic and novelistic production. Shakespeare, although he probably thought he was drawing primarily upon an original Italian brief narrative for parts of the Merchan~ of Venice, nonetheless was using a reworking of an excmplum in the frame story of the medieval Barlaam and ]9set,hat which can be traced back to a very ancient Indian original; Calderon owed Yitai aspects of the over-all plot of Life is a Dream to an oriental tale; Prince Don Juan Manuel's corpus of talcs entitled El Conde Lucan.or stems almost entirely from eastern narrative; and the searcher docs not have to look far in medieval or renaissance brief fiction to find the origins of many plot-elements of modem literature. Death Takes a Holiday, On Borrowed Time, Undine and Kiss Me Kate (from Shakespeare's Shrew, of course, but traceable beyond the bard and his Italian sources to the tales of the Ancient East) and the various handlings of the Faust theme all go back ultimately to age-old narratives. One might ask why brief narrative is more neglected than novel and drama in today's literary criticism and interpretation. The question may be answered in several ways,. and yet it is quite likely that the explanation is very simple. Brief narra-

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tivcs, whether fables, novelle, exempla, or other types, were and are composed to entertain, teach a simple lesson, or to create a mood, indeed, in some cases, to carry out a combination of these functions. Therefore reason seldom exists for making interpretations, whether we are considering old brief narratives or modem short stories. Meaning - and we are speaking now of the brief narratives of the past - though often purportedly obscure, hidden, or allegorical as to interpretation, was actually not difficult to find. A parable, fable, or exemplum whose meaning was too far from the grasp of the reader or hearer failed in its purpose. The audience of ancient talcs and of folk talcs today, even of modem fiction, can be regarded by us as generally a not very sophisticated audience, and the talc that is unf athomablc did not and does not serve the usual purpose of tales. If a story is purely recreational in purpose, it needs no interpretation. If it is didactic or moralistic, its lesson must be understandable enough to be clear to its audience, obviating any need for interpretation. So the talc has not encouraged the kind of literary interpretation stimulated by novel and drama. Exceptions, naturally, exist, but by-and-large, literary interpretation today is not as actively pursued in brief narrative as it is in other branches of writing. This discussion, we assure our readers, has been gradually leading up to something more than an attack upon our colleagues who may possibly be more gifted and perceptive than we in mining great masterpieces for hidden gold. It has been intended to explain why we feel that important masterpieces in the field of brief fiction have dropped out of fashion among· scholars and literary critics and why certain veritable classics of the past, works which have directly influenced the very course of fiction's development, have not been translated into the English language or have been bypassed and often completely f orgottcn. We hope, therefore, to focus attention again upon an important literary collection of brief talcs and to make it available to the scholar who needs it in his research as well as to the general reader who enjoys the flavor of these ancient stories, many thousands of times told in the past but now relegated to depths of Lethe. Hence this

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new translation of the Disciplina Clencalis, which we have elected to call in English The Scholar's Guide. We believe that today it can be read for the same reasons it was when it was written some eight centuries ago - for recreation primarily, and, if the reader insists, also for moralistic guidance in a practical way of life, though this latter reason now, as in the past, may often be regarded as suspect and may lead the reader to feel that his literary leg is being pulled deliberately, but not admittedly.

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INTRODUCTION I. PEDRO ALFONSO, THE MAN AND TI1E SCHOLAR On June 29, 1106, when he was forty-four years of age, an Aragonese Jew named Moses Sefardi or Moshe Sefaradi received Christian baptism and became Petrus Alphons111or Alphonsi in Spanish, Pedro Alfonso. The event took place in the old episcopal sec of Hucsca. The importance and esteem in which this Jew was held is attested to in his baptismal records: no less a pcnonage than Huesca's Archbishop Stephen officiated at the ceremony, and the King of Aragon himself was sponsor and godfather. Pedro Alfonso, as we shall hereafter call him, was pcnonal physician to the monarch and was a man recognized by both Jews and Christians as a person of high erudition in the areas of literature, the sciences, and theology. His apostasy from Judaism to Christianity was considered by those of the Hebrew faith as a great loss, and they were quick to level against him bitter accusations, even going so far as to state that he had accepted convenion to gain fame and glory among Christians and the support of a powerful king. Whatever his reasons, he did indeed gain f amc and glory from king and laity and clergy. His works were copied and recopied countless times, and his repute in Christendom far outshone his former repute in Jewry. His very name - Pedro, because he received baptism on the Feast Day of Peter and Paul, Apostles, and Alf 01110, in honor of his godf athcr, the king - was a source of pride to him, and he worked hard to make himself worthy of his rewards. So famous did he become in medicine that he was sent to England to become the personal physician of Henry I (circa 1100). There, in addition to his duties in the palace, he taught astronomy to one Walchcr, Prior of Malvern, who had come some years earlier to Britain from Lorraine. In a manuscript still extant, written by the said Walcher and found today in the

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Bodlcian Library at Oxford, 1 one reads that the Prior's teacher was "Magister nostcr Petrus Anfulsus". The title of the book carrying this passage is Sententia Petri Ebrei, cognomento AnJ,hw de Dracone, quam Dominw Walcenu prior Malvernensis ecclesie in latinam transtulit linguam, as cited by Professor Millas of the University of Barcelona whose research and publication in the area of medieval science - especially Arabic science -has been outstanding. 2 From Pedro Alfonso, Walcher seems to have learned the Arabic system of astronomical gradation, although according to the manuscript the converted Jew was unable to satisfy all of the prior's queries, giving as an excuse, perfectly understandable today to scholars, just as it must have been then, that he had left most of his books at home. According to Millas, Pedro Alfonso discoursed in England on the demarkation of the true East and West, the point from which longitudes are to be calculated, the variation of the hour according to the longitude of the place where the hour is noted, the correspondence between the appearance of the zodiacal signs and the observation of eclipses, and on how, contrary to the beliefs of the age, the equatorial regions were habitable. 8 To ertum to Malvern, one reads in Walcher's tract that the prior no longer calculated the nodes, which were so indispensable for understanding solar eclipses, according to the Graeco-Roman method, but used the sexagesimal division of the zodiac, which was of Arabic transmission. W alcher also employed the Spanish Jew's system for locating the vernal point of the entrance of the sun into Aries, "making note of the divergency of chronological

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Bodleian Library Manuscript .Auct. F. 1, 9. Professor Jose Maria MillAs published the entire text of this manuscript together with a study of the text, in an article, "La aportaci6n astron6mica de Pedro Alfonso," S,jtlt"ad3 ( 1943) 65-105. In addition to this manuscript folios 96r-99r, he based the edition upon the Bibliotheca Amploniana of Erfurt, MS Amplon. Q351 folios 18r-23v.b. 2 "Nuevas aportaciones para el cstuclio de la transmision de la ciencia a. traves de Espana," Discursosth la .Academiath Bumas utras th Barcelona,1943, 26. 8 11,id., 40.

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systems among various peoples, since for the Egyptians September is the f.int month of the year, for the Jews it is the seventh, and for the Romans the ninth." 4 "It is enough for us to emphasize," Professor Millas continues - and we translate - "the direct teaching of Pedro Alfonso upon Walcher, especially the Arabic sources of the astronomical doctrine which he professed concerning the movement of the sun and of the moon, just as the theories then adopted for explaining the duration of the tropic year and the movement of the equinoxes ; it is interesting to call attention to the reaction which this new astronomical science, taught by Pedro Alfonso, provoked in his disciple, Walcher, as well as the difficulties which arose in the mind of the disciple, upon seeing the discrepancy between the abovementioned eastern science and the old system of chronology and cosmography of the Latino-ecclesiastical traditions which until then had been employed in the European W est."1 Millas reveals that other English scholars, besides Walcher, paid heed to the Spaniard's teachings, and that Pedro Alfonso seems to have written a book for such people. To Millas this lost book marks a high point of importance in the laying aside of the old traditional Latino-ecclesiastical scientific approach in favor of the "new" Arabic science which flourished abroad. Unfortunately, only the Prologue and four chapters have survived. It can be stated that Pedro Alfonso had based the work on his own translation of the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi, according to the rescension by Maslama al-Makhriti of Cordova. Later Pedro Alfonso's rendition of the tables was employed by the famous Adelard of Bath in 1126, revealing that the Spanish Jew's treatise was the bridge between Arabic science and Adelard and his followers. The importance of Pedro Alfonso in the history of science in the West is great. Among theologians his repute was possibly even higher. Scarcely had he accepted Christianity, when he produced his

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Ibid., 30. c, Ibid., 31-2.

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best-knowntreatise, the Dialogi contra ]IIIIMos,• which compares and contrasta Judaism and Christianity greatly to the diladvantage of the former. One is even led to wonder if that attack upon the faith of his foref athen and one-time coreligionists in Aragon might not have had something to do with his voyage to England, for it would have enabled him to eacape poasible retaliation from powerful Jewsat home. In any case the Dialogi were much copied and widely diueminatcd bothon the Continent and in Great Britain.

II. PEDRO ALFONSO AND LITERATIJRE Literature, the history of brief fiction in Europe, that is, was little affected by Pedro Alfonso's scientific and theological works, although medieval ecclesiastics often placed his Disciplina Clericalis among the latter. The Disciplina,a quite small collection of talcs, moralizations, maxims, and proverbs, had an astonishing vogue. Pedro Alfonso possessed a definite talent for choosing enjoyable tales and a flair for telling them in an eff ecti"YD fashion. He had within his reach, because he could read Arabic, Latin, Spanish and very probably Hebrew, French, Greek, Provencal, English, and Catalan, a very wide repertory of fiction upon which to draw. Even so, his own words would seem to indicate a strong preference for Arabic sources. In his Prologue he writes: • ... I have compiled this small volume taking it in part from the parables and counsels of the philosophers [for the most part eastern philosophers, apparently], in part from the parables and counsels of the Arabs, in part from tales and poems and finally, from animal and bird fables.• More will be said in subsequent paragraphs about his sources.

• The full tide is Dialogi lmu dignissimi, in (JUUIUS impuu iuda«man opinious ~ eum naturalis,tum co,/estispkilosopkitu argumenliseo,ifutanlu,,qua«lamlJll6p,op/llla,um o/Jstrusiora loca aplieantur (PL 157, 535-671).

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III. THE TITLE OF THE COLLECTION OF TALES AND THE AIM

Disciplina Clericalis means, of course, Clerical Discipline or Instruction. Much, we believe, depends upon the possible meanings or connotations of these two words. But before examining further this matter of meaning, let us look carefully at what Pedro Alfonso wrote a,s to his purpose in the Prologue to his book. "Nevertheless," he wrote, "I have taken pains to sec that my writing may offer the readers and listeners a stimulus and 1n occasion to learn, knowing that if I should write more than is necessary, it might be a burden rather than an aid. The knowledgeable will remember what they have for gotten by means of the things which are contained here." The title of the book. drawn from the subject itself, might be translated as The Cleric's Guide, because it makes the cleric disciplined. But clericus might have also the meaning of "scholar" or "educated man," that is, a lay clerk. In much of Europe, but particularly in Spain, where so many educated men, so many scribes and scholars could be Moors or Jews, clerk often had the connotation of "scholar" or "man of learning." 7 And, of course, disciplina could mean "discipline," or "rule of life," or even simply "guide." Therefore, in the interest of euphony, and because we believe that Pedro Alfonso aimed his tales rather at the educated layman than at the educated ecclesiastic, for the purpose of entertainment rather than of moralization, we have given his work the English title The Scholar's Guide. We believe that there is reason in this title. It had long been a custom among eastern literati, and for that matter among those

7

The meaning of clericushas long interested scholars. Leona C. Gabel, "Benefit

of Clergy in England ... " in Smith College Studies in History, vol. 14 (1929) chap. S, pp. 62-91, carries the heading 'The Term clericus.'See also R. Genestal, Le Privik,ium Fori en France,published in two volumes (Paris, 1921-24).

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of classical antiquity, to claim for a wide variety of works, even for facetious and jocose works, a serious, doctrinal, or moralistic raison d'etre. Some of Pedro Alfonso's best stories come from books written in Arabic which purported to have a didactic purpose, yet which, if one examines them closely, peeling away the shell of moralization, turn out to be primarily tales meant to amuse. One instinctively senses a pseudo-didactic overtone in these tales, a kind of tongue-in-cheek seriousness, especiaUy when he reflects upon their hilariously lewd content. T :tke. for example, No. XIII, the tale known as Exemplum de Canicula Lacrimante (Tale of the Weeping Bitch), or No. IX known as Exemplum de Vindemiatore (Parable of the Grape Harvester), or perhaps especially No. XIV called Exemplum de Puleo (The Tale of the Well). The serious or pseudo-serious words of the Prologue already cited can hardly conceal the intent of entertainment. Stories which relate the delightfully scandalous methods used by immoral wives to deceive their gullible husbands, no matter to what degree moralization may be stressed, cannot really be taken seriously. Chlistian ecclesiastics or clerics could have gained little discipline from them, and surely guidance was not a goal. The tales had served in the East, and among Pedro Alfonso's Moorish and Jewish contemporaries in Spain, as pleasant or merry tales, and most of them would live on to serve later ages in the same way. Of all the thirty-odd little stories, scarcely more than three (numbers I, II, and XXIX) deal with ethics which one can truly consider Christian in tone, and hardly more than four of the brief moral tracts interspersed among the tales spring from Christian ideology. And even these three tales and these four moral tracts harmonize equally well with the tenets of Jewry, Islam, and the religious faiths of Persia and India. The Scholar's Guide, we feel certain, was meant to be what it appears to be today, that is, a group of pleasant fictions and philosophical ideas cleverly wrapped in a mock-serious diclacticism. Nearly all the tales have moralizations that st·ress a purely practical wisdom or morality which purportedly teaches ways and means of living successfully and of escaping the dangers of the world. Nearly all belong to the age-old genre found in such

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books as the Panchatantra, 8 Barlaam and ]osephat, and the countless medieval compilations of exempla. The lessons in the stories are there for those who wish to find them, but the stories themselves are obviously what really count in the mind of the teller. Pedro Alfonso, once a Sefardic Jew, was always, even though a convert to western Christianity, a quasi-Semitic personality, and he certainly brought more of the East into his book than mere plots of the stories and oriental proverbial phrases. He lived at a time when adab was an important element of eastern culture and letters, and the Disciplina Clericalis certainly contains adab. This most difficult to explain element or literary philosophy of adab, contained, among other elements, the Arabic concept of belles lettres, which was not in general accord with the more primitive ideas of the Arabs of the desert. Adab, and all it meant in Islam perhaps developed in India first during the third and fourth centuries of our era, when civilization and letters there had attained a very high level, when ideas were of the most tolerant kind, when refinement in literary tastes had begun to deny the didactic aims of tales in favor of the recreational. Later these concepts were adopted in Persia. From there some two centuries later, at almost precisely the time when the Persian rendition of the Hindu Panchatantra was translated into Arabic under the title of Kalilah wa-Dimna (ca. 750),9 adab blossomed The most scholarly edition of this third-century Sanskrit classic is that of Theodor Benfey, Pantschatantra: Funf Bucher indischerFabeln, Marchen, und Erzah/,ungen(Leipzig, 1859). The only complete translation into English is that of Walter W. Ryder, The Panchatantra(University of Chicago Press, 1956). The ninth printing is identical to its predecessors, save that it is a paper back 8

book. 9 Kalila wa-Dimna was the Arabic version of the Panchatantra,derived not from the original Sanskrit, but from a lost Pehlevi rendition of the Sanskrit. A well-known erudite, best known in Islam under the name of 'Ab-dallah ben al-Muqaffa, prepared the Arabic text, a version of which was utilized by Pedro Alfonso in his DisciplinaClericalis. In 1251Kalila wa-Dimna was translated into Spanish as Calilae Digna at the behest of Prince Alfonso, in 1252 crowned Alfonso X of Castile.

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among the Arabs. Similarities, of course, are to be found in Hebrew books of the same period and later. Adah's philosophy permitted the erudite to enjoy the most unerudite and unmoralistic talcs and subject-matter under the guise of learned and didactic interest. Humor in these talcs lay even in the very claim to didacticism; the humor was definitely intentional and was, some believe, the particular genius of this particular inversion of the most venerated aims of art. This is often overlooked by scholars in the West when they examine oriental fiction. Moralizations were deliberately attached to some stories to give an excuse for the said stories' presence in books. In other words, erudite people, even kings, priests, and philosophers, can read books of wisdom without criticism, whereas the reading of light fiction, such as the tales found in Kalilah wa-Dimna might cause brows to rise. But if these scholarly minds read books that affected to be the wisdom of the ages, that offered profound views of Iife and purported to be serious and learned writings, .no blame could accrue. The same phenomenon can, of course, be seen in western writing, but it is more prevalent among orientals. Af tcr a while a kind of subtle casuistry developed as one of the underlying philosophies of f abulistic writing. It has been noted in Arabic tales as early as the translation of Kalilah waDimna from the Persian. Hence learned Moslem and also Jewish writers found very attractive the idea of the sophisticated philosophy of belles-lettres known as adab, of which the best description and definition can be found in the Encyclopedia of lslam. 10 Not only, then, did certain tales in the Disciplina Clericalis stem from the Arabic Kalilah wa-Dimna, but also from the philosophy of adab and what it involved. Pedro Alfonso was indeed adept at adab and therefore would have been regarded by his Moslem contemporaries as adib, that is, well-versed in the tenets of adab.

IO

Edition (Leiden-London, 1960) vol. I, 175-76.

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IV. THE FORM AND THE CONTENT The structure of the Disciplina Clericalis closely resembles that of many other books written in the Middle Ages and earlier, especially in the East. I ts framework is basically very simple. A father who is an Arab speaks to his son, who is his pupil and disciple, telling him of life's pecularities and admonishing him against the dangers and evils of the world. The son replies, often commenting upon his father's wisdom, and then asks a question which leads to another story. The entire body of the book is presented in this way. The short Prologue, in the tradition of prologues preceding didactic books and later pseudo-didactic works, states that the author is a good Christian and that he writes his book because he is filled with zeal to teach others what he knows "so that the light entrusted to me may not remain hidden under a bushel." He goes on to say that .. the human wit was intended, by order of its Creator, to occupy itself while it is in the world, in the study of holy philosophy, by means of which it acquires better and greater knowledge of its Creator; that man should strive to live virtuously, guided by continence; learn to guard himself against the ever-present adversities; and walk in the path, in this world, which leads him to the Kingdom of Heaven." Teaching, he believes, must come softly and gradually, even sweetly, and in a manner that can be remembered. He reveals, as stated earlier, that he wrote the book, taking it "in part from the parables and counsels of the philosophers, in part from the parables and counsels of the Arabs, from tales and poems, and finally, from anima·l and bird-fables." He asserts also that he has tried to avoid anything contrary to the Catholic Faith and lays possible errors and defects before the scrutiny of his superiors in religion. Following the Prologue comes a section, entitled by modem scholars: De Timore Dei. We describe it in detail as representative of the many similar passages scattered throughout the book all of which are unnumbered. Enoch, the philosopher, and other

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philosophers make sententious statements and quote proverbs dealing with the wisdom inherent in the fear of God. Next a section entitled De Y pocrisi is presented in which Socrates and certain nameless philosophers discuss hypocrisy with their disciples. A third section, De Formica - de Gayo - de Cane, exhorts the son not to permit the ant, the rooster, and the dog to surpass him in forethought, early rising, governance of a number of wives, or in gratitude. The last remarks on gratitude introduce the theme of the first exemplum, a tale entitled Exemplum de Dimidio Amico. It can be stated, therefore, that toward the end of the section made up of maxims, a statement is made which serves to introduce the story immediately following. Such maxims or admonitions seem to be, at first glance, quite in accord with the tenets of Christian doctrine. But studied care£ully they often reveal no more than a selfish practicality certainly not in harmony with Pedro Alfonso's newly accepted faith. Take, for example, story number V, Exemplum de Homine et Serpente. This tale is introduced by the following maxim: An Arab said to his son "If you see some one overwhelmed by his evil deeds, do not interfere, for harm comes to him who releases the trap" (actually, the wording is qui pendulum solverit, that is, 'who frees one who is hanging,' due to '.the fact that in the tale a snake is left hanging in a tree). The serpent freed, tries to squeeze his liberator to death. The wisdom taught is practical, but not Christian, for in it charity is punished, not rewarded. Another method of introducing stories is similar to that mentioned above. Toward the end of one story, a thought or an idea is presented leading the reader to seek its completion in the story that follows. In the denouement of Exemplum V, just treated, the father says, "Do not let happen to you what happened to a hunchback and the poet." The son then asks, "How was that?" And the father replies with the first s·entence of the next ta.Jc, entitled, Exemplum de Versificatore et Gibboso. The Disciplina Clericalis contains thirty-odd tales, and it is more fitting to give no definite number since not all extant manuscripts contain the same number of stories nor even all

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of the same stories. The edition employed as the basis of c,ur translation contains 34 numbered tales, but since two of these, numbers XII and XVIII actually are composites of two stories, the text we have followed is there£ore the repository of 36 brief narratives. There are, also, 26 sections, of maxims, scattered unevenly throughout the volume and none of these sections bears a number. The basis of our translation of the Disciplina Clericalis was prepared by Alfons Hilka and Werner Soderhjelm 11 who utilized as the basis of their edition Manuscript No. 86 of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Since these editors studied sixty-two additional manuscripts of the Disciplina so as to include all the materials from these manuscripts, their edition must be regarded as a monument of medieval Latin scholarship and definitive. The well-known text of Migne, Patrologia Latina 157, 671706, was not followed because it is based upon only seven manuscripts and omits some of the material supplied by Hilka and Soderhjelm. Migne utilized the combined efforts of several scholars. In 1824 the Societe des Bibliophiles Fran~ais sponsored the Disciplina Clericalis which was printed with a translation into French by the house of Fermin Didot. 12 Abbot J. Labouderie edited the work and M. Meon collated Labouderie's text with seven additional manuscripts, and Migne followed the text of Meon. An edition was prepared by Fr. Wilhelm Val. Schmidt, but this is by no means as satisfactory. Hilka and Soderhjelm divided the Disciplina Clericalis into

Alfons Hilka and Werner Soderhjelm, Petri Alfonsi Disciplina Ckricalis. I. LateiniscM Text in A.etaSocietatisScimtiarumFennicae,XXVIII, No. 4 (Helsinfors, 1911). Published also in Sammlung mittellateiniscMrTexte 1 (Heidelberg, 1911). 1t Disciplina Clericalisa,u;torePetro pars prima (Paris, 1914). A statement is given in the front matter as follows. Discipline de clergie. Traductionfranfaise. Part II is entitled Le Chastoiementd'un pire a sts fus. Traductionen vers franfais de l'ouvrage de Pierre Alphonse. 11

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a greater number of sections than did any of the copyists of the manuscript and, indeed, into a greater nu,mber than had Migne in his text prepared for the Patrologia, for Migne divided it only according to the fables themselves. The division according to Hilka and Soderhjelm is felicitous and has been followed in translatione into vernacular languages, notably by Angel Gonzalez Palencia, who published the full Latin text of Hilka and Soderhjclm together with the Spanish translation of the Disciplina made up of tales incorporated into the early fifteenthcentury Libra de los exenplos por a.b.c. of Archdeacon Clemente Sanchez de Vercial and into the Ysopete Historiado printed in 1489, which was the first printed collection of fables in the Spanish language. We, too, have followed the divisions of Hilka and Sodcrhjelm, translated, of course into English as our Table of Contents indicates quite clearly. We have taken as little liberty with the Latin as possible, but have in the interest of euphony and to avoid monotony translated 'philosophus' by 'philosopher,' 'wise man,' or 'sage.' We have dropped the word exemplum and have used 'parable' and occasionally 'fable' since these words hold greater meaning for modem readers. Insofar as seemed feasible, and at the same time reasonably correct, we have used modem English parlance, have broken down the long passages of the original, as well as of the edited text of Hilka and Soderhjelm, into shorter divisions, presenting the content in more or less dialo~ form. It has been our design as translators to make an important book of the past live in the present, keeping the historical perspective, but presented in words and in style meaningful and attractive to twentieth century readers. We have tried, therefore, to make Petrus Alfonsus speak as clearly and as naturally in our own times as he spoke in the twelfth century, presenting nothing in English that was not said in essence in Latin. '

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V. LITERARY QUALITY Little has ever been said about the style and presentation of the Disciplina Clericalis. Latinists, who often use the work of Pedro Alfonso in their classes in medieval Latin, consider its LaHnity of good quality for a twelfth-century work. The style. indeed, is generally clear and straight{ orward, and although far from Ciceronian, it reads well. Dialogue abounds, and the book's conciseness and ingenuous tum of phrase have a definite attraction. Occasional peculiarities of syntax may possibly be explained by the fact that Pedro Alfonso was translating from Arabic, a language he knew better than Latin. Even so, we can hardly agree with Menendez y Pelayo, Spain's greatest scholar in the area of medieval exempla, 18 when he writes that the syntax is "more Semitic than Latin." Nor do we opine that Pedro Alfonso "narrates naughty stories with little grace in his barbarous Latin ... nor docs he ever depart from his habitual insipid and laborious style." One permits himself to wonder how Menendez y Pelayo could also have regarded the Di,sciplina Clericalis as a work of inferior presentation. It is true, of course, that Boccaccio, when he drew a story from Pedro Alfonso's book and rewrote it with all his flair and excellence, gave us a far, far better story. But fcw writers have ever matched Boccaccio as a spinner of tales, and it should hardly surprise anyone that Pedro Alfonso's Exemplum de Puteo (number XIV) is greatly inferior to Boccaccio's handling of the theme in his T a/,e Four of the Seventh Day. And yet, the version of the eastern original of this talc, as told by the Aragonese Jewish convert, is a narrative of smooth and rapid unfolding; it is well-plotted and well developed; and it holds the reader's attention. Empathy, suspense, humor, and lively dialogue are all represented in it. Its lesson, as might be expected, is utterly facetious, for it merely shows that wives can 1a Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Orlgenesde la Novela, vol. I (Buenos Aires, 1946) 70.

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be ingenious in deceiving their spouses. Moreover, the comments of the father and son, who discuss the tale at its close, need not be considered as anticlimatic remarks. Instead they are rich in unmistakable humor, for the exclamations of shocked amazement at the wicked machinations of the feminine mind are extremely amusing. This special kind of humor, produced by coupling definitely funny talcs with mock-horror on the part of the narrator and his hearer can be eff ectivc, indeed, and certainly is effective in Pedro Alfonso's handling of it. Most of the stories in the Disciplina Clericalis are skilfully presented. A few, it is true, are almost too brief to be considered stories and are little more than protracted proverbial phrases or statements. An example would be number XVIII, Exemplum de Semita, which simply tells that travelers, who were tempted to take a dangerous shortcut to avoid the longer but safer highway, lost their way and suffered greatly. Stories of serious tone rank as high in quality as some of the more scurrilous tales. Two, numbers I and II, dealing with the virtues of f ricndship and the great and noble sacrifices made by friends, match tales of similar tone in other literatures. No wonder they survived the ages and passed from language to language and culture to culture almost unchanged. The noted orientalist and Hispanist, Angel Gonzalez Palencia, states in the Introduction to his translation into Spanish of the Disciplina Clericalis that all the maxims and all the stories fall into three categories. "Three principal divisions," he writes "can be noted in the maxims, and therefore in the exempla which illustrate them: one treats of the fear of God, of hypocrisy, of wisdom, of silence, and of nobility, in short, of the moral qualities of the human being; another refers to dealings with women and their menace; and the third with social and political relations among men with kings and of inevitable death." 14 To us this seems to be an over-simplification, but we offer no 14

Angel Gonzalez Palencia, Pedro Alfonso. Disciplina Clericalis (MadridGranada, 1948) p. xxiii.

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substitute for it, because in our opinion almost all of the stories belong to separate categories. Instead of a classification, we refer the reader to a list of motifs of the tales in the Disciplina Clericalis entitled Motif-Index of Medieval Spanish Exempla and made in accordance with the Motif-Index of Folk Literature of Stith Thompson and now incorporated into Thompson's lndex. 11 Pedro Alfonso, was a lover of good stories. Collecting, editing, and translating them from Arabic into Latin seems to have been regarded by him and his contemporaries as a worthy activity. In fact, in more sophisticated circles - and surely a king's personal physician, indeed the personal physicial to two diff crent kings in two different kingdoms, moved in sophisticated circles - his book must have been considered as a delightful manifestation of adab, the highly esteemed literary philosophy already alluded to earlier in this Introduction. The influence of the Disciplina Clericalis is incalculable. Its stories appeared in collections of tales destined for use in the pulpit as well as in doctrinal tracts. Among these can be mentioned, as pertinent examples, the Fabulae of Odo of Cheriton, Jacque de Vitry's Exempla, the Scala Coeli of Johannes Gobius and Archdeacon Clemente Sanchez de Vcrcial's Libro de los exenplos por a.b.c. Troubadours and professional story tellers spread the tales far and wide, if their presence in the Fablim,x, generally considered to stem from popular origins, and in the Lais of Marie de France can support folkloristic disscmination. 11·

16

Stith Thompson, Motif-Inda of Folk Literatun,N1UJEnlarg,dand &oiud Edition (Indiana U Diversity Press, 1955-58) in six volumes. The classification containing the motifs of tales in the DisciplinaCleritalisis that of John E. Keller, Motif-Index of MetlialoalSpanish&empla (UnivcrsityofTcnncacc Press, 1949). 11 The only edition of the Fabuuu, sometimes referred toaa the Narraliones, of Odo of Cheriton is that of Leopold Hcrvieux in vol. IV, 171-255 of Les f abulisteslatins (Paris, 1896). Volume IV bean the title Eudu d, Chnilon II su dlriols ; the moralized talcs of Jacques de Vi try can best be studied in Thomas F. Crane, TM &nnj,la of Jacqws de Vit,y (London, 1890); for the Seala Co,li aecthecditionofLubeck, 1476; the collections of annJ,la compiled in the early

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Adaptations of the tales into vernacular languages appeared: Prince Don Juan Manuel in the fourteenth century reworked tales from the Disciplina and inserted them in his El Conde Lucanor or Libro de Patronio, as did King Sancho of Castile in his Castigos y DocumenlJos.11 So did Queen Marguerite of Navarra in her Heptameron and John Gower in his Confessio Amantis. And the many composers of Italian novelle - Boccaccio, Bandello, Massucio, to name only three -, helped to disseminate Pedro Alfonso's tales.18 Raconteurs of later times also continued and still continue to perpetuate stories found in the Disciplina - Cervantes in Don Quixote, Rabelais, in his two great works, and in the realm of folklorc some live on to this day, a few having been collected in areas as far removed from medieval Spain as Texas and Missouri.19 The Disciplina Clericalis bas been called the first collection of oriental tales in a western tongue, in this case, of course, medieval Latin. Though this assertion is not completely true, it can be said that Pedro Alfonso, in this little anthology of stories, was the first to give sudden vogue to age-old talcs from the East and to make these quickly available in Latin, a language fifteenth century by Archdeacon Clemente Sanchez de Vercial contains most of the tales of the DisciplinaClericalis. The only edition which includes all the 500-odd exemplaof Sanchez is that of John Esten Keller, El libro de los exenplospo, a.b.c. (Madrid, 1961) which presents the text of both the extant manuscripts; Joseph Bedier, Les fabliaux (Paris, 1925), fourth edition is the best; sec the editions of K. Warnke, Marie de France, DuLais (Halle, 1925). 17 The best edition still of El CondeLucanoris that of Hermann Knust and A. Birch-Hirschfeld (Leipzig, 1900) ; Agapito Rey, Castigos, docummlospara el bienvivir (Indiana University Press, 1952) is the most scholarly and complete text. 18 For a listing of novell, with their motifs sec D. P. Rotunda, Motif-Inda of the Italian Novella (Indiana Univcnity Press, 1942). Rotunda often lists sourcea and many of these indicate the Disciplina Clericalisas source material for the novell,. 11 An article by John E. Keller, "Source of the 'Hard Luck Stories,'" North CarolinaFolkloreIII, No. 1 {1955) 11-12reveals modern vcnions of a talc from the DiseiplinaClm&alis.

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all western scholars could read. His contribution to the corpus of brief fiction in the West, to Europe's storehouse of plot, theme and motif, and even to the folklore of the East and the West, as his stories filtered down from literary strata into oral tradition, is a contribution of very great importance. Had he not written the Disciplina Clericalis, the writings of great authors, both past and even present, would have been poorer. We feel that a complete translation into modem English is long overdue.

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I

II

III IV

V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII

On the Fear of God On Hypocrisy The Ant, the Cock and the Dog The Parable of the Half Friend The Parable of the Whole Friend On Advice On Buffoons On Wisdom On Silence The Parable of the Three Poets The Fable of the Mule and the Fox On True Nobility The Seven Arts On Lies The Fable of the Man and the Snake The Parable of the Poet and the Hunchback The Parable of the Clergyman who entered the Drinkers' House The Parable of the Owl's Voice On Evil Women The Parable of the Grape Harvester The Parable of the Linen Sheet The Parable of the Sword The Parable of the King and His Story Teller The Parable of the Weeping Bitch The Parable of the Well On the Good Woman The Parable of the Ten Chests The Parable of the Barrels of Oil The Parable of the Golden Serpent On the Company of Strangers (a) The Parable of the Path (b) The Parable of the Ford

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XIX The Parable of the Two City Dwellers and the Country Man XX The Parable of Nedui, the King's Tailor's Apprentice XXI The Parable of the Two Jesters Concerning the Generous Man, the Miser, :1nd the Spendthrift On Riches XXII The Fable of the Farmer and the Little Bird On Believing What You Read XXIII The Fable of the Oxen Promised to the Wolf by the Villager, and of the Fox's Judgment On Receiving and Testing Advice XXIV The Parable of the Thief and the Moonbeam On Favors Received On the Good King and the Bad King XXV The Parable of Marianus XXVI The Parable of the Two Brothers and the King's Expenditures On Familiarity On Table Manners XXVII Anecdotes of Maimundus the Slave On the Instability of Worldly Things XXVIII The Parable of Socrates (Diogenes) and the King On the End of Life XXIX The Parable of the Royal Adviser's Prudent Son On the World to Come XXX The Parable of the Thief Who Wanted to Take Too Many Things XXXI The Parable of the Shepherd and the Sly Merchant On Death XXXII The Parable of the Philosopher Who Passed Through a Cemetery The Words of the Dead Man XXXIII The Parable of Alexander's Golden Tomb XXXIV The Parable of the Hermit Who Admonished His Soul The Sayings of Other Hermits On the Fear of God Epilogue

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Petrus Alfunsus, a servant of Jesus Christ and the author of th.is book, said: I give thanks to God, who is the first without beginning, the source of all good, the end without end, the fulfillment of all good, the all-knowing, who gives man knowledge and reason, who has favored us with His wisdom, enlightened us with the admirable clarity of His reason, and enriched us with the manifold grace of His Holy Spirit. And, because God has deigned to endow me, although a sinner, with wide learning, and so that the light entrusted to me may not remain hidden under a bushel, inspired by the same Spirit, I have been impelled to compose this book for the benefit of many, begging Him to give a good end to this beginning of my little book and to guard me, lest anything be said in it which may displease His will. Amen. May God, therefore, who inspired me to compose this book and translate it into Latin, assist me in this modest work. As I strove to know thoroughly the causes of the creation of man, frequently pondering them in my mind, I discovered that the human wit was intended, by order of its creator, to occupy itself, while it is in the world, in the study of holy philosophy, by means of which it acquires better and greater knowledge of its creator; that man should strive to live virtuously, guided by continence; learn to guard himself against the ever-present adversities; andwalk in the path, in this world, which leads him to the Kingdom of Heaven. For, if he lives according to the aforementioned rule of holy discipline, he has fuliilled the

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end for which he was created and ought therefore to be called perfect. I have also observed that the temperament of man is delicate; it ·must be instructed by being led, as it were, little by little, so that it will not become bored. I am mindful also of its hardness, which must to some extent be softened and sweetened, so that it may retain what it learns with greater facility, remembering that, as it is forgetful, it needs many things to help it remember what it tends to forget. For this reason I have compiled this small volume, takmng irt in part from the parables and counse1sof the philosophers, in part from the parables and counsels of the Arabs, from tales and poems, and finally, from animaland bird-fables. Nevertheless, I have taken pains to see that my writing may offer the readers and listeners a stimulus and an occasion to learn, knowing that if I should write more than is necessary, it might be a burden rather than an aid. The lmowledgeahle will remember what they have forgotten by means of the things whkh are contained here. The title given to the book, taken from the subject itself, is THE SCHOLAR'S GUIDE, because it makes the scholar disciplined. And I have decided to avoid, as far as I am able, that anything should creep into my treatise whi:h is contrary to our belief or repugnant to our faith. May God omnipotent, in whom I trust, help me in this task. Amen. If anyone examines this work with human and exterior eyes and finds in it something which human nature insufficiently guarded against, I advise him to read it again with sharper eye. And finally, I submit it for correction to him and to all those perfect in the Catholic faith. The philosopher believes that, in human writings, nothing is perfect.

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ON THE FEAR OF GOD

The philosopher Enoch (who in Arabic is called Edric), said to his son, "Let your concern be the fear of God, and wealth will come to you without toil." Another wise man said, "All things fear him who fears God; he who does not fear God fears all things. He who fears God loves Hilm; he who loves Him, obeys Him." An Arabic poet said, "You disobey God; you pretend, nevertheless, to love Him, which is incredible; for if you truly loved Him, you would obey Him; for he who loves, o beys." ON HYPOCRISY

Socrates said to his pupils, "Try not to be obedient and disobedient to God in the same matter." They replied, "Explain your words." And he answered them: "Avoid hypocrisy, which is pretending obedience to God in the sight of men and yet being disobedient in secret." One of his disciples asked him, "Is there some other kind of hypocrisy which one should avoid?" Socrates answered, "There is the man who makes a show of obeying God in public as well as in private, in order to be taken for a saint by others and to be more honored by them. There is another cleverer than this one, who abandons this kind of hypocrisy in order to cultivate another greater kind: when he fasts or gives alms and someone asks whether he has done so, he will answer, 'God knows!' or, 'No,' in order to be held in greater reverence and so that people wm say that he is not a hypocrite, since he does not want his good works known

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among men. I believe that there are very few who are not affected by some kind of hypocrisy. See to it that you are not seduced by it and deprived of the reward of your good works. To avoid this, do everything with pure intention, without seeking to acquire glory from your . " act1ons. Another wise man says, "If you lean firmly on Goel, all things will prosper for you wherever you go." THE

ANT, THE

COCK AND THE

DOG

Balaam, who is called Lucaman in Arabic, said to his son, "Son, do not let the ant, who gadiers in the summertime in order to have something to live on in winter, be wiser than you; do not let the cock, who wakes early in the morning whille you sleep, be more vtigmlant than you; do not let the cock, who satisfies his ten wives, whereas you cannot control one, be stronger than you; do not let the dog, who does not forget his benefactors, though you forget yours, have a nobler heart than you; do not think that to have one enemy is a small number or a thousand friends too many. I will tell you a story:" I. THE PARABLE OF THE HALF FRIEND

An Arab, on his deathbed, called his son and asked him, "How many friends have you acquired in your lifetime?" The son answered, "I believe that I have a hundred friends." The father said, "The wise man says, 'Do not praise

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your friend until you have tested him.' I was born before you, and I have scarcely acquired half a friend. How have you got a hundred? Go now and test them all, so ,that you may know whether any of them will turn out to be a whole friend." The son asked, "How do you advise me to do it?" The father said, "KiH a calf, cut it in pieces, and put it in a sack in such a way that the outside of the sack is bloodstained; and when you go to your friend, say, 'My good friend, I have killed a man by accident; I beg you to suspect you, and thus you bury him secretly; no one wOOll will be able to save me.'" The son did as his father commanded. The first friend to whom he went said to him. "Carry the dead man away on your own back. Since you did wrong, take your punishment. You will not enter my house." And when he did this to all his other friends, one by one, all gave him that same answer. He went back to his father and told him what he had dbne, and his father said, "It has happened to you as 1:hewise man said: 'There are many who are called friends, but in time of necessity they are few.' And now go to my half friend and see what he says to you." The son went to him and told him what he had told the others. The half friend said, "Come inside! This secret should be kept from the neighbors." And then he sent his wife, wiirh al[ his household, away, and he dug a grave. When the boy saw everything made ready, he revealed the truth of the matter to the half friend and thanked him earnestly. Then he recounted to his father what he had done. , The father said to him, "Regarding such a friend, the

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philosopher says, 'He who hel~ you when the world fails you is a true friend.''' The son asked his father, "Have you ever seen a man who had a whole friend?" The father: "I have not seen such a thing, but I have heard of it." The son: "Tell me about it, in case I should acquite such a friend." II. THE PARABLE OF THE WHOLE FRIEND

The father: Once there were two merchants, one in Egypt and another in Baldach. They knew each other only by reputation, and they sent to each other by messenger for the things that they needed. It happened that the merchant from Baldach had to go to Egypt on business, and when the Egyptian merchant heard of his arrival, he ran out to meet him and received him into his house with great joy and served him in all things, as friends do, for eight days and entertained him with all sorts of music, which he maintained in his house. At the end of the eight days, the merchant from Baldach fell sick. Themaster of the house, gravely worried about his friend, admitted all the doctors of Egypt to examine his guest. The doctruistook his pulse and examined his urine again and again, but they could recognize no illness in him. And since they could find no bcxlily sickness in him, they knew that his suffering was due to love. When the Egyptian merchant learned this, he went to his friend and asked him if he were in love with some woman in the household. The sick man said, "Show me all the women in your

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hOUJSe,and if by chance I see her among them, I will point her out to you." When the Egyptian heard this, he brought out all the singers and serving women, but none pleased the friend. Then the Egyptian showed him all his daughters, but the friend rejected and ignored them completely, as he had the other women. The master, however, had in his house a young noblewoman whom he had been educating for some time, because he was planning to marry her. And he showed her to his sick friend. The ,,sick man, seeing her, said, "My death or life depends on her . When he heard this, the Egyptian gave the young noblewoman to his friend for a wife, together with all the property which he himself would have received with her and witth aJllthe things which he would have girvento the young woman if he had married her. When all these things had been accomplished, when the friend had married the girl and received all the things which came with her, and when he had finished his business, he returned to his own country. Later, it happened that the Egyptian lost all that he had, and in great poverty, he decided to go to Baldach, so that his friend might have pity on him. Therefore naked and hungry, he made the journey to Baldach and arrived very late at night. Shame prevented his going to his friend's house, becaU1Se he was afraid that if he were not recognized, he might perchance be driven out of the house. He therefore entered an ancient temple in order to pass the night there. A.nd while he was there, unhappy and thinking many things to himself, near the temple in the city two men met •and one killed the other and stealthily fled. Many citizens, hearing the .noise, came running and

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found the dead man. Seeking the person who had committed the murder, they entered the temple, expecting to find the murderer. There they found the Egyptian, and when they asked him who had ikH)edthe man, ,they heard from his own lips, "I killed him." (For he longed desperately to end his poverty at once by death.) They seized him and took him to jail. When morning came, he was taken before the judges, and after he was condemmed to death, he was led away ito the cross. Many, as usual, had come to see the execution, and among them was 'cl1eEgyptian's friend, the merchant on whose account he had come to Baldach. The merchant, ilbolciingat the condenmed man closely, disc~vered that he was the friend whom he had left in Egypt. Realiang that if the Egyptian were to die, he woula not be able to repay him, the merchant of Baldach determined to die in his place. He therefore exclaimed in a loud voice: "Why do you condemn this innocent man? Where are you taking him? He does not deserve to die. I killed that man!" And they seized him and led -him,bound, rto the cross ·and. absolved the other from death. But the murderer was in the crowd, observing these things ,and thinking to himself, "I killed that man and a guiltless man is condemned to death. This innocent man is sentenced to be punished, and I, a wicked man, enjoy freedom. What is the cause of this injustice? I do not know, unless it is God's patience. For God, tthe just judge, leaves no crime without punishment. I shall reveal myself as the perpetrator of this crime so that God will not punish me more severely at some later time. And thus, by freeing

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them from dea;th, I shall atone for the sin which I committed." He therefore exposed himself to danger, saying, "I did it, I did it! Free this innocent man!" The judges, not a little amazed, bound the one and released the other. In doubt concerning the sentence, they brought .the mw-derer an