| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 97-119 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Speculum |
| Volume | 82 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:32 Castro, \ spana en su historic! (above, n. 4), p. 381, compares the description of Endrina's eyes to those described in Bayad wa-Riyad, an Arab narrative composed sometime before the thirteenth century and documented in Spain (see also n. 40, below). Damaso Alonso, "La bella de Juan Ruiz, toda problemas," ;n his De los sighs oscuros al de Oro, Biblioteca Romanica Hispanica 2/37 (Madrid, 1958), pp. 86-99, at pp. 93-94, suggests erotic treatises such as those of the twelfth-and late-thirteenth-centur/ Tunisian authors al-Tifashi and al-TishanT as the original inspiration for Juan Ruiz. 33 "De talla muy apuesta, de gestos amorosa, / donegil, muy loc.ana, plasentera e fermosa, / cones e mesurada, fal igera, donosa, / graciosa e rrisuefia, amor de toda cosa. // La mas noble figura de quantas yo aver pud: / biuda, rrica es mucho, e moc.a de juventud, / e bien acostunbrada, es de Calataut; / de mi era vesina. mi muerte e mi salut" (581-82). "Esta dueria me ferio de saeta enarbolada; / atraviesa me el cora^on, en el la tengo fincada; / con toda la mi grant fuerc.a non puede ser arrancada; / la llaga va creziendo, del dolor non mengua nada" (597). "jAy Dios, e quan fermosa viene dona Endrina por la placa! / jQue talle, que donaire, que alto cuello de garca! / iQue cabellos, que boquilla, que color, que buen andinc,a! / Con saetas de amor fiere quando los sus ojos alca" (653). i4 Lines 304-5: "Collum tarn planum quam plenum, non ibi nervi / Corda riget, non vena tumet. . ." (trans. Burkaid, Archpriest, p. 175). •vs Alonso, "La bella de Juan Ruiz," p. 98. Alonso's assertion is supported by Ibn Hazm's poem about men who ha\e a predilection for ugly women: Tawq al-hamama, ed. Tahir Ahmad MakkT (Cairo, 1975), p. 52. As an example he describes a man who fell in love with a short-necked woman—the short neck being used as an example of an ugly feature in contrast to the accepted beauty of the long-necked woman: "I know a youth that loved a lass / Whose neck was short and somewhat stout; / And now, when long-necked maidens pass, / He thinks them jinns, without a doubt. / He is content, to justify / His claim that he has chosen well, / Upon a logic to rely / That has some substance, truth to tell. / Thus he would argue: 'The wild cow / Is famed in proverb and in song, / And no man lives, but will allow / Beauty doth to the cow belong. / Now never was the wild cow born / Whose neck was long and angular; / And are not camels held in scorn / Because their necks stick out so far?'" (trans. A. J. Arberry, The Ring of the Dove [London, 1994], p. 63). 36 Line 522. 37 "El cuello de mi corzo fue creado como un cedro, mas bello que un cipres": Selomo ibn Gabirol, Poesia secular, ed. Dan Pagis and Elena Romero (Madrid, 1978), pp. 470-71. These comparisons are even more suggestive given the similarity between the Spanish translation of the Hebrew gazelle 'D2S ("corzo") and the hibro\ "garza," or heron.