Andreas Capellanus’s Latin treatise About Love {De amore}, probably written in the 1180s, includes eight dialogues between a man and a woman of various class pairings. Whether man or woman, commoner, noble, or higher noble, all speak the same rhetorical-scholastic discourse. The Archpriest of Talavera, a Spanish text completed in 1438, drew heavily on the third book of De amore.[1] But the Archpriest of Talavera’s treatment of speech differs fundamentally from that of De amore. The Archpriest of Talavera includes scintillating medieval mimesis of woman’s speech — realistic, in-character utterances of a wildly comic woman.
The Archpriest of Talavera’s mimesis of woman’s speech expands upon De amore’s rhetorical-scholastic characterization of women. The third book of De amore declares:
All women are also free with their tongues, for not one of them can restrain her tongue from reviling people, or from crying out all day long like a barking dog over the loss of a single egg, disturbing the whole neighborhood for a minor matter. A woman gossiping with other women would never willingly give another the change to speak. She always tried to dominate the conversation with her own opinions and to go on talking the longest. Her tongue or breath could never be exhausted by talking. We see, too, numerous women on many occasions who are so keen to talk that when they are alone they break into speech, and speak aloud to themselves.
{ Est et omnis femina virlingosa, quia nulla est quae suam noverit a maledictis compescere linguam, et quae pro unius ovi amissione die tota velut canis latrando non clamaret et totam pro re modica viciniam non turbaret. Immo mulier cum aliis commorando nunquam alicui ad loquendum vellet cedere locum, sed suis semper dictis nititur dicenda committere et in suo diutius sermone durare, nec unquam posset sua lingua vel spiritus fatigari loquendo. Saepe etiam mulieres videmus plurimas, quae propter aviditatem loquendi solitariae commorantes intra se ipsas ad verba moventur et expressa voce loquuntur. }[2]
The Archpriest of Talavera dilates mimetically on the simile-exemplum “crying out all day long like a barking dog over the loss of a single egg.” It also represents mimetically a woman speaking aloud to herself. The resulting text is completely unlike the rhetorical-scholastic discourse of De amore:
What became of that egg? Who took it? Who carried it off? Where is that egg? Although it’s white, it’s a dark and ill-starred egg today. Bitch, bastard. Tell me, who took that egg? Who ate that egg? I hope she gets bit by a mad dog or gets hit by the bloody squirts or bad flow; amen! Oh, my double-yoked egg; I was keeping you to set. With one or two I’d make an omelet so golden that it would make up for all my misfortunes. And I couldn’t bear to eat you and now the devil ate you up. Oh, my egg. Oh, egg. Oh, what a rooster and a hen would be hatched from you! Of the rooster I’d make a capon who’d bring me twenty dollars and the hen fourteen. Or perhaps I’d set her and get so many chicks and pullets so that I could increase my flock and get a leg up on things. Now I won’t have any luck, I’ll be poor like I was. Oh, my egg, with the round yolk, with such a thick shell. Who ate you up? Oh, Marica, you whore, — Fatface — you’ve made me poor forever. I swear that I’ll punch you in the snout, Miss Low-Dirty-Greedy-Slut. Oh, my egg. And what will become of me? Oh, poor sad me. Lord Jesus, honey, why don’t I just go on and croak! By the Virgin Mary, wouldn’t you just pop with rage to see such a thing? Woe is me, I don’t even own an egg in my own house. Damn my luck and my life if I’m not on the point of scratching out my own eyes or pulling out all my hair, by God. How unhappy the woman who every morning gets the bran and lights a fire and works her fingers to the bone to light it and when the fire’s lit puts on the pot and heats the water and makes the chicken-feed to make layers, and as soon as the egg is laid it’s immediately snatched away. I hope the Lord gives them rabies and a heart attack. I put up with them, woe is me, and I get along as best I can, and the devil swipes them. Oh Lord, take me from this world, so that my body won’t have to taste more sorrows and my soul experience so much bitterness. Oh Lord, because you can, ease my heart of all the pain that I have to suffer every day. I’d rather die just once than be dying constantly.
{ ¿Qué se hizo este huevo? ¿quién lo tomó? ¿quién lo llevó? ¿A dó le este huevo? Aunque vieres que es blanco, quizá negro será hoy este huevo. Puta, hija de puta, dime: ¿quién tomó este huevo? ¡Quién comió este huevo comida sea de mala rabia: cámaras de sangre, correncia mala le venga, amén! ¡Ay huevo mío de dos yemas, que para echar vos guardaba yo! ¡Que de uno o de dos haría yo una tortilla tan dorada que cumplía mis vergüenzas. Y no vos enduraba yo comer, y comiovos ahora el diablo! ¡Ay huevo mío, qué gallo y qué gallina salieran de vos! Del gallo hiciera capón que me valiera veinte maravedises, y la gallina catorce; o quizá la echara y me sacara tantos pollos y pollas con que pudiera tanto multiplicar, que fuera causa de sacarme el pie del lodo. Ahora estarme he como desaventurada, pobre como solía. ¡Ay huevo mío, de la meajuela redonda, de la cáscara tan gruesa! ¿Quién me vos comió? ¡Ay, puta Marica, rostros de golosa, que tú me has lanzado por puertas! ¡Yo te juro que los rostros te queme, doña vil, sucia, golosa! ¡Ay huevo mío! Y ¿qué será de mí? ¡Ay, triste, desconsolada! ¡Jesús, amiga! ¿cómo no me fino ahora? ¡Ay, Virgen María! ¿cómo no revienta quien ve tal sobrevienta? ¡No ser en mi casa mezquina señora de un huevo! ¡Maldita sea mi ventura y mi vida sino estoy en punto de rascarme o de mesarme toda! ¡Ya, por Dios! ¡Guay de la que trae por la mañana el salvado, la lumbre, y sus rostros quema soplando por encenderla, y fuego hecho pone su caldera y calienta su agua, y hace sus salvados por hacer gallinas ponedoras, y que, puesto el huevo, luego sea arrebatado! ¡Rabia, Señor, y dolor de corazón! Endúrolos yo, cuitada, y paso como a Dios place y llévamelos al huerco. ¡Ya, Señor, y llévame de este mundo; que mi cuerpo no guste más pesares ni mi ánima sienta tantas amarguras! ¡Ya, Señor, por el que tú eres, da espacio a mi corazón con tantas angosturas como de cada día gusto! ¡Una muerte me valdría más que tantas, ya por Dios! }[3]
The mimesis of woman’s speech concerning loss of an egg is immediately followed by similar mimesis of woman’s speech concerning loss of a hen.[4] Psychological realism tends to be associated with the growth of novel writing beginning in mid-eighteenth-century Europe. Yet brilliant mimesis of woman’s speech can be found in the early fourteenth-century Archpriest of Talavera.[5]
In dilating upon De amore, the Archpriest of Talavera combined factual mistakes, fiction, and real experience. It attributed De amore to Jean Gearson. He lived from 1363 to 1429.[6] De amore was written more than a century before Jean Gearson was born. The Archpriest of Talavera describes the third book of De amore as “about God’s love and about the condemnation of the lascivious love for women {del amor de Dios y de reprobación del amor mundano de las mujeres}.” That’s an ideological, rather than realistic, assessment of Andreas Capellanus’s intention in De amore. The speeches of women in the Archpriest of Talavera almost surely are fabrications. Moreover, not all women speak like that. In the sentence before the mimesis of woman’s speech about the lost egg, the Archpriest of Talavera declares, “So by experience you’ll see {Donde por experiencia verás}….” The woman’s speech about her lost egg imaginatively, realistically evokes ordinary speech. That’s mimesis of woman’s speech. That’s a fundamentally important idea in fiction.
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Read more:
- Archpriest of Talavera instructs men in guile
- mimesis of speech in the medieval 15 Joys of Marriage
- sexual innuendo: rising for marriage in Libro de buen amor
Notes:
[1] Naylor & Rank (2013) notes about 80 implicit references to De amore. Those references occur only in Part 1, Section 1, and Part 2. The over-all structure of the Archpriest of Talavera:
- Part 1, Section 1: condemning carnal love
- Part 1, Section 2: how fornicators transgress the ten commandments
- Part 1, Section 3: how fornicators transgress the seven deadly sins
- Part 1, Section 4: how the person engaged in carnal love loses all the cardinal virtues
- Part 2: vices and faults of wicked women
- Part 3: dispositions of men and planets and signs
- Part 4: destiny, fortunes, signs, and planets
Id. pp. v-ix.
[2] De amore 3.100-1, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from Walsh (1982) pp. 316-7.
A thirteenth-century romance tells of the noble lady Gente’s failing:
Her tongue ran like a horse
and nothing could restrain it
when she was in full breath.
For that she was regarded as base.{ Le cheval de sa langue e courre,
Que nulz ne lui povoit rescourre
Quant elle estoit en haulte alaine:
S’en est tenue pour villaine. }
Jean Renaut, Galeran of Brittany {Galeran de Bretagne} vv. 37-40, Old French text from Foulet (1925), my English translation, benefiting from that Beston (2008). Then the narrator provides general wisdom about talkativeness:
Too much talking damages and degrade
those who wish to live in honor.
Too much talking makes one seem drunk
and often makes one hated.
Much harm and even ruin
comes to the slanderous before they die.{ Trop parler destruit et aville
Ceulx qui veulent a hounour vivre;
Par trop parler semble l’en yvre
Et acquiert l’en souvent haÿne;
Maint ennuy et mainte ruÿne
Vient au mesdisant ains qu’il muyre. }
Galeron de Bretagne, vv. 42-7, sourced as previously. Similarly, id. vv. 192-5. Lady Gente’s malicious words set in motion the plot of Galeron de Bretagne.
[3] Archpriest of Talavera, Part 2, Ch. 1, Spanish text from the online presentation by Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes of the edition of Gerli (1979), English translation from Naylor & Rank (2013) pp. 102-3. Subsequent quotes from Archpriest of Talavera are similarly sourced, and cited to id.
The relevant Archpriest of Talavera was Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. His book, written about 1438, is also known as Corbacho, or Repudiation of Worldly Love {Corbacho o Reprobación del amor mundano}.
[4] That speech includes a reference to becoming a Muslim:
Oh Lord, how much suffering and how much wickedness You put up with still! Because of who You are, console my vexations, help me in my sorrow; if not, I’ll burst with anger, or I’ll kill myself, or I’ll become a Muslim!
{ ¡Oh, Señor, tanta paciencia y tantos males sufres, ya, por aquel que Tú eres, consuela mis enojos, da lugar a mis angustias: si no, rabiaré o me mataré o me tornaré mora! }
Id. pp. 103-4. In Part 3, Ch. 8, a woman threatens to “run off with a Moor from across the sea {me fuese con un moro de allén la mar}.” Id. p. 157. Islamic armies conquered nearly all of the Iberian peninsula by the early eighth century. By 1248, Christian forces had reconquered the peninsula.
In addressing violence against men, the Archpriest of Talavera includes considerable mimesis of woman’s speech.
[5] Somewhat less developed mimesis of woman’s speech exists in the Latin masterpiece of men’s sexed protest, Lamentationes Matheoluli, written about 1290.
[6] Archpriest of Talavera, Prologue, referring to “a scholar of Paris, John of Ausim {un doctor de París, por nombre Juan de Ausim}.” Naylor & Rank (2013) p. 26. The subsequent quote is from id.
[image] Chicken egg. Thanks to Sun Ladder and Wikimedia Commons.
References:
Beston, John, trans. 2008. An English Translation of Jean Renaut’s Galeran de Bretagne, a Thirteenth-Century French Romance. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Foulet, Lucien, ed. 1925. Jean Renaut. Galeran de Bretagne: Roman du XIIIe Siècle. Paris: É. Champion. Alternate source.
Gerli, Michael, ed. 1979. Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho. Madrid: Cátedra.
Naylor, Eric W., and Jerry Rank. 2013. The Archpriest of Talavera by Alonso Martínez de Toledo: dealing with the vices of wicked women and the complexions of men. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Walsh, P.G., trans. 1982. Andreas Capellanus on love {De amore}. London: Duckworth.