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The seven best doctors of Granada look after him. They can do nothing for him. The "most famous doctor" or "the one with the woolly beard" has not yet come; he arrives, riding a black mule and wearing a golden chain scarf at his throat; he has left seven mules and horses dead along the way; he has made a journey of fifteen days in seven or seven in four ; as he arrives at the door, the mule drops dead; he goes in to see the sick man.
When the latter sees the doctor, he turns pale. The doctor examines him and states that he has but three hours to live and an hour and a half has already gone by. Father and mother come in and mourn for their son. The king's wife enters. Death el Huerco appears to claim his soul. Bells are heard tolling. The king's unborn child will be queen or king of Granada.
The king dies at daybreak; the doctor, at dawn. Hispanic Society of America, , pp. King Nimrod goes out into the fields and sees omens foreshadowing the birth of Abraham. He orders the midwives to kill all newborn male children. Terah's wife flees through the fields and takes refuge in a cave, where Abraham is born. The child speaks at birth. He urges his mother to leave him alone in the cave; angels from heaven will care for him.
His mother visits him after eight days and finds him bathing himself. She visits him again in two weeks; he is absorbed in pious studies. After twenty days, she finds a grown young man, looking at the heavens, anxious to know the "God of truth. The young man tells her some wild beast must have devoured Abraham.
The mother faints or weeps. The young man identifies himself as Abraham. He charges his mother to inform Nimrod. The king sends for him. Abraham reproaches him for his lack of faith. Nimrod has a furnace lit and Abraham is thrown in. Angels protect him, fruits grow from the firewood, and Abraham emerges unharmed. Verses in praise of Abraham conclude the poem. God has tested Abraham nine times. As the tenth test, He asks for his son Isaac as a sacrifice.
Abraham takes leave of Sarah and asks for her blessing. She blesses them and tells Abraham to take special care of Isaac, who is still a child. Isaac carries firewood for the sacrifice. He asks Abraham about the ram. It is God's will that you be the ram. Isaac agrees to be sacrificed, begging his father to bind his hands and feet and cover his eyes.
Abraham lifts his knife, but a voice from heaven stays his hand: God has tested his faith. The same informer or angel tells Abraham of Sarah's death. Father and son mourn for her, buy a shroud and a grave for Sarah, and bury her in the fields of Hebron or on Mount Horeb. Note also the Eastern incipit dating from and , "Ya se partea Abraham" Avenary, "Cantos," no. On the late seventeenth-century Dutch Sephardic version, see also J.
Because of her twelve brothers, she fears nothing. She approaches a tent, thinking there is no one there. Shechem, the king's son, sees her and speaks to her, praising her beauty. Dinah, indifferent to his advances, answers him by invoking God's protection for her brothers.
Shechem approaches her and does "what is not right. Jacob or her twelve brothers ask s her why she is pale.
She tells him them what has happened. The twelve brothers go off to destroy Shechem's city. Judah demolishes the walls with a stentorian shout. The king delivers his son to them so they can take vengeance upon him. Except for a minor variation in v. He becomes ill and stays in bed. His father goes to see him, asks about his health, and suggests he eat a turkey breast.
Amnon answers that he will only eat it if Thamar cooks and serves it to him. Thamar appears and Amnon confesses his love for her.
She rejects his advances. She leaves, sad and furious, and meets Absalom. He asks her what has happened and promises to avenge her by shedding Amnon's blood. See Alvar's study in El Romancero: Armistead and Joseph H. On returning, he stops at his mother-in-law's house and tells her that her daughter is to have a child. He begs her to accompany him, so that she can be with her daughter; but if the mother-in-law herself cannot go, he asks that Felismena go in her stead, promising swearing on his sword to care for her and treat her with courtesy.
He puts her on his horse and, along the way, attempts to make love to her. He throws her off the horse, rapes her, and cuts out her tongue. With her own blood, Felismena writes a letter to her father and mother and gives it to a page a young man; an old man; a count , who happens to be passing by. The old man takes her to her parents. As soon as she arrives at home, she [ read Miraibella] gives birth to a child. She makes a stew of the child's body and serves it to "the father"[i.
He exclaims that the meal is delicious. Of three sisters, two are married and the youngest is "in perdition. Her lover finds out and throws himself into the sea, swimming he made oars of his arms and of his body a ship and calling to her by name Cara-de-flor; Blancaflor. She is asleep, but recognizes his voice and throws down her tresses so he can climb up into the castle. She washes his hands and feet, seats him in a golden chair, gives him a change of clothes and a dinner, including fish, with lemon, meat, and prunes with rice, almonds, love apples, and wine.
She makes up a fine bed for him and they go to bed together. A young girl, the only or spoiled daughter of parents from France Brusa and Aragon Istanbul, Anatolia , is married to the best among all the shepherds or a rich lord; a young man; a European; a count. He eats meat, fish, hazel nuts, and fine fresh bread, drinks wine, and sleeps on a high bed; she is given bones, nut shells, black bread crusts or crumbs , water, and a mat boards, the floor, a low bed to sleep on. To test her fidelity, he sends her at midnight at dawn on a tiring walk to a distant fountain to the river to fetch water.
Her jug breaks along the way. The running water lulls her to sleep beside the fountain. A knight young man; traveler; three young men; three knights pass es by, praise s her beauty, touch es her face, and give s her three seven kisses pinch es her three times.
She wakes up and exclaims: The knight identifies himself as her husband or her "beloved" , tells her not to be frightened, and says that he wanted to test her. Below we list only "autonomous" versions, uncontaminated with Hero y Leandro. Sephardic versions from both traditions, including the exten-. Queen Izelda Izela is embroidering a love banner; her scissors, thread, thimble, and needle fall to the ground and she goes down to retrieve them. Parizi Parizis, Paricia, Pariste , her lover, passes by. He greets her and she asks him who he is and what his trade is. He answers that he is a merchant and notary or corsair.
He has three one, two, six, seven ship s in port in the gulf , with golden crystal rudders, silk rigging, and silver silken, golden sails; they are loaded with precious materials. In one of them there is an apple tree lemon tree which yields apples of love golden apples in winter and summer. Izelda is anxious to see the tree. Parizi invites her to his ship.
She dresses in finery and arrives at the boat. As soon as she steps on board, Parizi hoists the sails, raises the anchor, and sails away with her to France. Izelda wonders why the boat is moving; she evokes the husband and child she has left behind; she asks about the apple tree. He disguises himself as a traveler and passes by her door. Lucrecia receives him like a king. She washes his hands and feet, seats him in a golden chair, serves him dinner, and makes up a golden bed, with an embroidered blanket, for him to sleep in.
Tarquino awakes at midnight and goes to Lucrecia's bed or room. He puts a dagger to her breast. He tells her that, if she grants him her love, she will be queen of Granada ; if not, he will kill her and will also kill one of her black slaves an old man , place the body in her bed, and see to it that the scandal is known throughout Rome. Lucrecia answers that she would rather die honorably than live in dishonor.
She does not want "her people" to say that she was married to a Christian. Tarquino kills her with his sword knife. Note also the Eastern incipit: The king has him put into a deep dungeon, to which the king himself carries the keys. Time passes and no one remembers Virgil, except his mother, who visits him every day and brings him food. One day, on his way to mass or at mass; at the window , the king sees a woman pass by dressed in mourning. He is informed that it is Virgil's mother or wife [! He orders all of his knights his slaves to finish saying mass quickly, to prepare tables dinner , and to sit down to dinner, after which or in the meantime , they will go to see Virgil.
The queen refuses to eat or to say mass without him. They all go to visit Virgil in prison. The king inquires as to his condition and is told that he is combing his hair and his beard, which had just begun to grow when he entered prison and are now turning grey or his beard has reached his feet ; his fingernails have grown to three palms' lengths; his eyelashes are so long that he cannot see; Virgil has been in prison seven fifteen years, yet he patiently offers to stay for ten or sixteen years more. The king summons his knights and they take Virgil off to the baths or to dinner and shave him, after which he is given the royal crown, the king's clothes, and the king's horses.
He is married to the king's niece. The Moslem queen, Xerifa Sefira, Jalifiana , who lives. They present her to the queen. The countess is sent to work in the pantry and the kitchen. The queen and the captive are both with child and give birth on the same day. The queen bears a daughter; the captive, a son.
The midwives, to earn money, switch the children. One day the queen overhears the captive singing to the infant girl: She answers that she had a mole below her breast on her left shoulder; on her side. The sisters recognize each other, embrace, exchange children, and return by boat to their homeland. The queen sends her sister home; marries her sister to the greatest noble of Seville; both sisters die of emotion. The reading "por la gran desdicha suya" '. This might be termed the "euphemistic third person" used instead of the first person to avoid connecting the speaker with some unpleasant or unfortunate feature of the narrative.
This may also be the case in For various Eastern examples, see TCR, no. Child 62 Fair Annie ; DgF, no.
See JVF , 19 , concerning p. The connection with the medieval romance, Flore et Blanchefleur , remains to be studied in detail. She is wearing a sapphire that shines like the sun at midday. The Moor who has carried her off is happy; her mother, the queen, is sad.
The girl is taken before the Moorish queen the King of France; of Alexandra; King Nelmoro , who claims she does not want the captive, fearing the young king will be attracted by her beauty. The girl is deprived of wine and given menial tasks, in the hope that her beauty will fade, but she only becomes more beautiful under harsh treatment.
She is sent to the river to wash clothes early in the morning. He is returning from the war and his weapons are stained with blood. He notes the similarity between the girl's white hands and beautiful feet and those of his sister. He asks her to go away with him. She agrees and says that, if he is her brother, she expects him to take her to Franquia. He asks her if she wishes to ride behind the saddle or on it. She answers that, because of her lineage, she should ride on the saddle.
She asks what she should do with the clothes she is washing. He tells her to take along the valuable clothes, but leave those of little value in the river. As they ride along, she recognizes the fields of olive trees belonging to her father, King Alegsandra , which she knew as a child. The knight realizes she is his sister Zafira. Their mother joyfully welcomes her long-lost daughter. The mother, or both mother and daughter, die s of joy. They give her to the Moorish queen, who claims she does not want the captive, fearing the young king will be attracted by her beauty.
She is given menial tasks, in the hope that her beauty will fade, but she only becomes more beautiful under harsh treatment. She is sent to the river to wash clothes. As they ride along, she recognizes the fields of olive trees she knew as a child. The knight realizes she is his sister. Their mother joyfully welcomes her long-lost daughter and offers her son the fields of Oliva and Holanda as a reward for bringing the good news. The reference to "la reina Izela" 20 A. They have not been taken into account in our summary. Austral, , pp. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, ], pp.
The knight says he knows him well and is bringing a letter from him. The lady makes a series of offers. He will only settle for possessing her. He then identifies himself as her husband. She asks for a sign.
He or she has a mole three golden hairs below his or her left breast armpit. She throws down her tresses for a ladder, so he can climb up to her. They embrace, go home together, and go to bed. See also NSR, p. See TCR B6, n. The wife tells a passing soldier to stop his horse and thrust his lance into the ground. She asks him if he is returning from the wars. He says he is returning from the wars with the English or: The soldier is leaving for France and offers to do whatever errand the lady may wish.
The lady asks him if he has seen her husband. The soldier says he does not know him and asks for a description. The wife says that her husband is blond and tall as a cypress tree, he rides a white horse and bears the king's insignia on his lance or sword. According to the soldier, the husband died a month before, stating in his will that the soldier should marry his wife. She will wait for seven or fourteen years and then she and her three two daughters will become nuns.
The soldier walks three times around the palace without being recognized and then identifies himself as her husband. He throws himself at her feet. Hand in hand they go up into their "arbor. On the magical circumambulation in v. Firmin—Didot, , pp. A nightingale sings a glorious song on a rose bush, with golden roots and a crystal base or leaves, growing in the queen's garden.
The queen is embroidering and the princess is sleeping. The queen tells her daughter to wake up and come to her chamber at night to hear the beautiful singing of the mermaid of the sea. He can court me or sing night and day, but he shall not win me. The daughter protests that, if he is to be killed, she also wishes to die. The queen orders them both or only the young man killed.
They are transformed consecutively into plants carnation and rose bush or carnation plant; citron and citron tree ; a dove and a hawk; fishes perch, flounder, spiny fish, "black fish"; and black carp, grey mullet in the sea or pearls and coral. Each time, the wicked queen pulls them up or kills them. They turn into a serpent and a scorpion, which kill the queen or the fish bones stick in her throat and she chokes; or they become flowers, whose smell kills her.
He sings a marvelous song, which produces supernatural effects: The queen tells her daughter, the princess, to wake up and hear the beautiful singing of the mermaid of the sea. The daughter protests that, if he is to be killed, she wishes to be buried together with him. The queen orders them killed.
The queen has them cut down. Blood and milk flow from her and royal blood from him. They then become a dove and a hawk, which fly up to heaven. The wicked queen has them killed. But the next day, the queen does not appear in her usual place or she dies within three days. Here three youths undergo consecutive transformations to citrons, apples, flatfish chapuras or doves, fish, carnations. Such presumably older variations have been largely replaced in most Eastern sub-traditions by a radically abbreviated and contaminated with Hero y Leandro fragment, diffused, at least in part, by means of popular phonograph recordings.
In the Moroccan tradition, the ballad's local Sephardic form is often joined to details taken from Peninsular versions, which are also sung in their entirety in the local tradition, as in the case of Alvar, Larrea 67, and Librowicz. Bininger and Ricardo L. He hires four thugs to kill the young man, but the latter kills three of them and wounds the other or: He kills some, wounds others, and throws others into the water. He throws three pebbles up at her window. She does not answer immediately and he begins to doubt she still loves him, but she rushes down stairs "like a wild lioness" and into his arms.
They are married the next day. It is a contamination from a rare romance vulgar: La amante abandonada polyas. The Abandoned Mistress K2 Salonika: This tantalizingly ambiguous ballad is open to a variety of interpretations. We are faced immediately with an unidentified individual who is intensely enamored of a woman he cannot forget and whom he visits in the early mornings and afternoons. On the occasions he finds her still asleep, he covers her and leaves.
But when she is awake, he kisses and embraces her and chats with her. She begins to weep. He asks her why: Is she afraid of something, is she newly with child or suffering the pain of unrequited love? She explains to her interlocutor—now identified as a king—that she was brought up in Seville among honorable people. A knight named Andarleto Andarneto fell in love with her. He slept with her for three nights, nights that to her to him? But, after those three nights, he left her for another love.
Perhaps it is the king himself who visits her with such tender love, so solicitous of her well-being. He does call her cativada, thus suggesting that she may be a prisoner in his care. Elsewhere we have written: The text includes an interesting use of the "euphemistic third person" v. Amiras MS 31 vo. A beautiful young lady grows up in Madrid. Her family wants to arrange a marriage of financial convenience with her uncle, even though she is in love with her young neighbor. The two lovers plan to elope, but her relatives find the young man working in the fields and stab him to death.
When the girl hears death bells tolling, she goes to her room, tearing her hair with grief. Before the confessor arrives, she dies of a broken heart or she wraps herself in a white sheet and stabs herself to death. They open the door and find only a "green bird singing to the sound of the water.
The unhappy princess complains to the king that he has not yet found a husband for her: Fifteen-year-old girls already have husbands and children and she, who is twenty-four, is still unmarried. Yet she is not without a rich dowry and good fortune. Her father replies that it is her own fault. She could have been the wife of the Count of Seville, who is now married and has children.
Most published texts, both from the East and from Morocco, are fragmentary. The Eastern form is exclusively Salonikan or from nearby towns: Most versions are very short and are contaminated, after Benardete's v. Benardete's version is an exception in that it is uncontaminated and in v. Del Romancero a Jacinto Grau Madrid: See also Samuel G. The queen Miraibella, Mirabella, Amiralibelya, Amiralbelya , feeling birth pangs, wishes she could give birth at her parents' palace. Her mother-in-law overhears what she is saying and affectionately tells her to go, promising to prepare food for her husband and for his horse mule and hawk during her absence and to give bones to the dog so it will not follow her.
The queen departs and, as she arrives at her parents' house, gives birth to a beautiful baby boy with a golden arrow in his hand and a diamond star. Her husband returns and, when he asks for his wife, is informed by the mother-inlaw that she has gone off, after cursing them both, threatening her with a stick, and calling her an old whore and him the son of an evil father. Furious, the king rushes off, swearing on his sword to kill his wife. Along the way, he meets messengers, who tell him his son has been born. The king curses mother and son. He arrives at the house of his parents-in-law and accuses and threatens his wife.
She swears it is not true and convinces him of her innocence or the newborn child speaks miraculously to prove his mother's innocence. The king swears on his crown, his sword to return home and kill his mother. Text 28 A consists of an assemblage of proverbial expressions. According to Benardete, the informant knew a full version of the ballad identical to Coello 12, but added these proverbial verses at the end. Verse 1 is a traditional formula, used for introducing proverbs or set phrases, which occurs in other romances as well: For other literary examples, compare: This same phrase occurs at the end of Moroccan versions of La mala suegra: Spanish refraneros offer various similar sayings:.
It occurs in both Sephardic and Peninsular versions of La mala suegra and is, of course, essential to the ballad:. Adatto's version of La mala suegra 15 a includes what would seem to be an authentic proverb, which, however, we have not found in any of the Sephardic. A similar saying is applied to the mother-in-law Saporta, p. The Moroccan form of La malcasada del pastor embodies the following narrative: A young girl, whose father is from France, but whose mother is not, is married by her parents father, mother to the best the worst; the greatest among all the shepherds to a gentleman.
He beats and mistreats her. He sits at table and eats meat, fish, and white bread, drinks soup and wine, and sleeps on a pillow in a bed; she sits on the floor and is given bones, black brown, bran bread, broth, and water, and sleeps on the floor with her own arm as a pillow. The running water lulls her to sleep beside the fountain or: As she is filling the jug, she falls asleep.
A knight or page passes by and gives her one three, four, five, seven kiss es. The girl wakes up and tells the knight or page that she is married. If her husband finds out, he will leave kill her. The man tells her that he is her husband and carries her home: We find no documentation for the proverbial ending: For the Bibliography of La malcasada del pastor, see no.
The Moroccan versions of Juan Lorenzo tell the following story: A marvelous white ship, with deck boards of coral fine walnut , sails of rich cloth silk , and rigging of gold twisted silk thread , is seen approaching over the sea; all its passengers are of royal blood and the King of Portugal and all his followers and Juan Lorenzo are on board. Some say it is coming for war and others that it is coming in peace. During the banquet, the king proclaims that all his subjects' beautiful wives must parade before him; anyone whose wife does not appear will be called a cuckold or coward; or: Only Juan Lorenzo's wife appears.
The king takes her by the hand and leads her into a garden, praising her beauty above that of all other women. He plucks a rose and gives it to her. He threatens to have Juan Lorenzo killed; the wife asks that he be exiled instead. The king lies down in her lap so she can delouse him. She slits his throat and after three days the next morning , Juan Lorenzo reigns in his stead. A young man marries a girl from a rich family. After nine months, she bears him a child.
After ten months, he falls in love with someone else. He leaves his wife at home and goes to work in the fields, but the wife follows him and sees him go into the house of a beautiful girl. The abandoned wife enters and sees fine food and her husband flirting with the girl. The husband is toasting the girl with a glass of wine and expressing the wish that they have a child.
The wife goes further into the house and sees beds with fine curtains prepared and the pair in their underclothes. The girl is wearing the wife's jewels. She sadly returns home, locks her door with seven bolts and consoles herself by singing a lullaby to her infant daughter concerning what she has seen. Her husband returns at midnight and asks to be admitted, saying he is tired from working in his vineyards. She tells him he has been with the other girl. The husband offers her bracelets, but she tells him to return to where he came from and remain there until the next day; and that the girl is not more beautiful than she is.
Unwillingly, she goes to the rabbi the next morning and asks him to dissolve her marriage.
Note the eighteenth-century Moroccan incipit: The girl rejects him, saying that, if her father finds out, he will be furious, but the count seizes her in his arms and carries her off to the sea, where his boat awaits them. He is not carrying her off as a captive; she will be mistress of a hundred and twenty cities and as many palaces, and queen of Andalusia. He will remove her parents and brothers from their menial livelihoods and give them important positions.
The girl is comforted. The wedding is celebrated the next day. The grotesque "que en todas mis gansas" 1 b must originally have read "que en toda Vizcaya" as against "que en toda Vitoria" in Lope's text. The Castro MS conserves a distorted vestige of this reading: Other modern versions offer a lectio facilior: Compare, in Lope's text: Losada, , pp.
Ladies and maidens appear at a window. A richly dressed knight passes by and his horse stops, dazzled by the beauty of the maidens. The knight looks up and falls in love with the youngest. He promises her all his riches, but she rejects him, alleging the greater wealth of her father, the Count Duke, a grandee of Seville or threatening to have the knight dragged. On being rejected, the knight asks where the girl lives and she answers in the high towers of Seville. He determines to go there and completes a fifteen-day journey in seven eight days.
At midnight, he knocks at her door. He finds everything closed and forces his way in with his fist; with magic words. Once inside the house, he becomes confused and cannot find his way. He finds the girl asleep among flowers and puts his hand his fist, a knife on her breast or speaks words of love to her. The girl wakes up or does not wake up. She is frightened and asks who he is. She threatens to utter a scream that will bring all Seville to her aid.
She warns him she is betrothed to the duke of France. The knight flees, cursing all women or threatens to kill her parents and all Seville with his sword and she agrees to go with him; or he throws her over his shoulder and carries her off to Sicily on his horse. Armistead—Silverman, "Arabic Refrains," p. Silvana is strolling through her garden room; yard , playing a golden guitar a golden flute and singing. Her father, the king, hears her and falls in love with her, saying she is more beautiful in her everyday clothes than is the queen, her mother, dressed in fine clothing.
He asks her to be his mistress. Silvana asks who will suffer the torments of Hell for her. Her father says that he will suffer them. She protests that she must bathe first and goes off crying to heaven for justice. Her mother, the queen, hears her cries and asks what is troubling her. After the queen reassures her, they exchange dresses and the queen instructs Silvana to tell the king not to light candles that night.
The queen, in Silvana's stead, goes to sleep with the king, thus saving him from sin. Domingos Carneiro, , ed. O Mundo do Livro, , p.
The work was composed in The first extensive Judeo-Spanish text dates from the eighteenth century: A king of France has three beautiful daughters. One day, while they ar e seated at table or at mass , her father stares at her. The girl asks him why he is looking at her. He wants her to be his mistress. The girl rejects him.
The father calls his knights pages; Moors; servants and orders them to lock her in a tower hut; castle; high building; palaces; galleys; chains; prison; box and give her salted burnt; raw; ram's; donkey's meat and dry bread to eat and bitter orange or pomegranate juice bitter water to drink. After a certain time eight, fifteen days; three, four weeks; thirty days , the girl looks out the window her relatives visit her and she asks her brothers, sisters, mother, and father consecutively to give her a glass of water, for she is dying of.
Finally her father mother brings or orders the servants to bring her water and well-cooked meat. At that moment or: Her father orders the punishment to be repeated and the girl dies. Adatto 11; Adatto MS, pp. The princess queen calls to the king's queen's; princess' page valet; knight , Gerineldo: She would like him to spend three hours with her in her castle. Gerineldo answers that, since he is her servant, she must be joking with him. She answers that she is speaking seriously.
Gerineldo asks when he should come. He should come at midnight at Twelve and one o'clock comes and Gerineldo has not arrived. The princess cries out against him. At that moment, Gerineldo arrives. He knocks at the door of the castle. She asks who this daring thief is who is knocking at such an hour. It is Gerineldo, who is coming "for what has been promised. He finds a luxurious bed has been made up for him. After making love, they both fall asleep. The king wakes up, finds the ladder and climbs up. Not Enabled Screen Reader: Enabled Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Share your thoughts with other customers.
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