Esopete ystoriado (Toulouse 1488)

309 Pages·1990·72.658 MB·Spanish

by  Harriet Goldberg, Victoria Burrus

Esopete ystoriado
(Toulouse 1488)
Edition, Study and Notes by
Victoria A. Burros
and
Harriet Goldberg
Madison, 1990
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3~55
.'57
13 & 1 Advisory Board of the Hispanic
1 ~ ~ o Seminary of Medieval Studies, Ltd.
Samuel Armistead
Theodore S. Beardsley, Jr.
DiegoCalalán
Jerry Craddock
Alan D. Deyermond
Brian Dutton
Charles B. Faulhaber
Regina af Geijerstam
Ian Macpherson
Hans-J. Niederehe
Harvey Sharrer
Joseph T. Snow
Copyright @1990 by
The Hispanic Seminary of
Medieval Sbldies, Ltd.
Spanish Series No. 61
ISBN 0-940639-56-4
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Acknowledgments
We would like to extend our sincere thanks the John Rylands University Library of
Manchester for their kind permission to study their unique copy of the 1488 Toulouse edition
and to produce this edition. The efforts of Alan Deyermond in this regard were especially
helpful. We would also like to acknowledge the support and assistance of the Seminary of
Medieval Spanish Studies, especially John Nitti, Lloyd Kasten, and Jean Lentz, in the various
phases of preparation of this text.
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TABLEO F CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . vil
La vida del Esopo . 1
Libro Primero . . 33
Ubro Segundo . 49
UbroTercero . 61
Ubro Quarto . 75
Las fabulas extravagantes . 85
Las fabulas nuevas de Remicio 109
Las fabulas de Aviano 119
Las fabulas coletas . 137
Las fabulas añadidas 165
Tabula . . . . . . 173
Variants and Emendations 177
Glossary . . . . . . . 201
Appendix A - Tables 1-4 217
Appendix B - Motif-lndex . 223
Appendix C - Narrative Hinge/Tale Role Classification 243
Appendix D - Fable Index . . . . . . 255
Abbreviations and Frequently Cited Works 267
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
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In the Vida del Esopo tales have a triple
INTRODUCTION function: they occur situationally, they are
descriptive, and they are persuasive. Situationally
Studies of Aesopic collections generally follow a the author uses them as sequential, causative
set pattern. First, they define the Aesopian fable. narrative units and as such they are a part of
Second, they examine the history of the man Aesop, the central narrative and advance the action (Propp
as opposed to the semi-legendary picaresque figure 20). Toey are descriptive when they revea! the
who appears in the Lije o/ Aesop. Third, the nature of a character in a tale; Aesop's impudent
sources, the dispersion, and the influence of his wit, independent spirit, wisdom, and probity are
tales are considered. In addition to exploring these demonstrated indirectly in the Vida. In the narrative
tapies, this study will add two folkloristic topics: the context, Aesop uses fables as persuasive tools in
relationship between folklore and literature and the incidents that mirror real events.2 Of course, at
question of fable structure and classification. times, sorne follctales peñorm a double function;
they describe the hero's goodness, and also advance
the action in a longer narrative. Por example, Aesop
THE FABLE DEFINED
feeds the mysterious stranger Ysidis and is rewarded
Most definitions of 'fable' stress its with the gift of speech and of understanding animal
observational character. In the prologue to his speech.
edition of Aesop (1476-77) Heinrich SteinhOwel In the collected tales, the function of the
appropriated the definition offered by St Isidore fable is for the most part interna!, i.e., it is
of Seville in his disquisition on the fable rarely situational, although sometimes the compilers
(Etymologiae I.xl). When an anonymous translator mimic a storyteller's normal discourse style, as in
rendered Steinhc>wel's work into Spanish as Esopete a tale-telling session in which a story about an
ystoriado, he in turn included the classic definition: eagle brings to mind another or a tale condemning
"las fabulas son cosas non fechas, mas fingidas, & tyranny prompts the telling of another. Among the
fueron falladas porque por las palabras fingidas delas collected fables, situational context is only rarely
animalias irracionales de vnas a otras la ymagen & given, for example in Ubro 1.7 a sage warns a
costumbres delos ombres fuessen conoscidas" (2v ). thiers neighbors against encouraging his marriage
Toe emphasis is on their observational and practical by telling them how the nations of the world went
character rather than on their ethical nature. As to Jupiter to prevent the Sun from marrying because
H. J. Blackham puts ic "Fable is heuristic, rather his offspring-many suns-would scorch the world.
than positively didactic" (176).l In the Esopete ystoriado most tales begin with
All definitions agree that narrative purpose is an a promythium, a brief declaration of topic and
essential feature of a fable, be it Aesopic or not. purpose, and end with a more formal statement in
However, this purpose can be either internal-the the epimythium, e.g., "Esta fabula amonesta . . .;
narrative and moral points are independent of the Es assi segund el prouerbio ... ; Quiere dezir este
situational context in which the fable is told, or exemplo ... ; Ensena esta fabula .... " According
external-the tale ftows from a previous action in a to the eminent Aesopian, Ben Edwin Perry, these
larger narrative or from an utterance in discourse. explicit expressions of purpose originally had a
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett shows how a tale is practical purpose: "Toe function of the promythium
used in a particular social context to resolve a was to index the fable under the heading of
conflict. She writes: ''The significance of a parable its moral application for the convenience of the
or proverb is not in the parable or proverb itself but writer or speaker" (Babrius xv). After a time,
in the meaning which particular participants give it the promythium became a brief summary and was
in a specific context. Parables, lilce proverbs, are added at the end as an explanation-an epimythium
statements of group norms" (127). Toe principal (Babrius xv ). At this point, when headings
representatives of the contextual school which "aims had ceased to be thought of as indexing devices,
at making the situational context of a storytelling compilations began to be designed to be read
event the only legitimare object of study" are Dan consecutively, and, in their new literary existence,
Ben-Amos, Richard Bauman and Robert Georges promythia and epimythia were integrated into the
(Wehse 251). body of the tale.3
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According to Blackham, however, these moral Phrygian; he lived in the early sixth century B.C.;
indexing devices are never really integral to the text was a slave on the island of Samos, and was later
(251). For him the story exists as an independent freed by bis master Iadmon. He is mentioned as
narrative unit that illuminates certain behavior but a teller of tales by Aristolle, Herodotus, Eugeon of
is innocent of any instructive intent. A storyteller Samos, Callimachus, Alexis, Poseidippus, and much
can then append one of several didactic messages later by Plutarch (Babrius xxxv-xlvi).
within the natural constraints of the narrative itself. Toe Vida ckl Esopo is based on a Greek U/e o/
Arnold Clayton Henderson describes the process Aesop composed in Egypt in the first century before
of appending didactic messages. He notes that ChrisL There are two extant MSS, W (eleventh
each tale has an "inherent paUern" within the century, edited by A. Westermann [ Braunschweig,
limitations of which the teller is free to select a 18451) and G (tenth century) housed in the
morali7.ation, as long as he does not violate the Pierpont Margan Library. According to Perry,
pattern ( 40-41 ). lf we use a linguistic model, W is an "editio scholastica expurgara et amputara"
this "inherent pattern" is the deep structure while (Aesopica 22) whose archetype is not older than
the details-the identity of the principal figures the eleventh century (Studies 2). Perry has edited
and many of the circumstances, and even the G, the older and more complete version, with
moral point-are merely the surface structure or variants from W (Aesopica 35-107). Maximus
realizations (Pearcy 105).4 Jan Michael's concept Planudes (1260-1330), a Byzantine monk, relied on
of narrative and moral points and Walter Wienen's W to write a thirteenth-century Greek version that
ErziJhlungstypen, 'Narrative Types,' and Sinntypen, was later translated into Latin (ca. 1448) by the
'Sense Types,' also express this distinction. Italian humanist Rinuccio d' Arezw da Castiglione
Therefore, it is possible to posit two parallel (b. 1395?), also known as Remicio Aretino and
cultural inventories-one made up of universal referred to as Remicio, Remisio, or Remigio in
didactic units and another of narrative units. Both the Spanish editions. lt is Rinuccio's version that
tales and messages are two distinct pans of a Heinrich SteinMwel used for the U/e o/ Aesop
cultural repenory shared by the members of a which begins bis compilation of fables.
given social community. Funher, by extending Carl Because most modem critics insist opon treating
Wilhelm von Sydow's concept of the oicotype (a Aesop with the kind of reverence due a classical
tale variant which talces root and ftourishes in a authority, they tend to react with dismay at the
new culture under determined favorable conditions) U/e's earthy content. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, editor
we can also suppose a ftow of both kinds of units of a facsimile edition of the 1489 Vida y fabulas
across cultural boundaries.s ck Ysopo, dismisses it as a work "formada por un
Thus, tale types, folle motifs, and moral points tejido de patrallas ridículas" (Fdbulas de Esopo x).
circulate widely, collide and then re-combine in R. T. Lenaghan in bis edition of Caxton's English
the popular imagination either in space or time. translation calls it a "crude episodic 'biography' ,"
Sorne of the products of these collisions are called putting the word in pejorative quotation marks (5).
fables. There is HUie point in distinguishing among Guthrie Vine calls it ''this fatuous life of Aesop"
uempla, anecdotes, animal tales, etiological tales, ( 114 ). E ven Perry characterizes it as "a naive,
jokes, and parables for a definition. It is sufficient popular and anonymous book composed for the
to say that Aesopic fables are shon illuslrative entertainment and edification of the common people
narratives that illuminate sorne aspect of human rather than for educated meo" (Studies 2). Kenneth
behavior. In their literary realii.ations they are Jackson characterizes this kind of condescension
compiled with promythia or epimythia, or they are about folk literature: ''Those who are not conversant
incorporated into a larger narrative where they either with this form of literature and its history often tend
advance the action, describe the auributes of a to regard it as something necessarily very childish,
character, or act as persuasive tools in discourse. very inartistic and crude, and as the almost exclusive
propeny of mentally backward, ignorant and boorish
yokels, apart from the very occasional patronizing
THE HIS10RICAL ANO THE FICTIONAL AESOP
use of folktale plots by the literary classes when it
LiUle is known about the identity of the happens to suit them" (3). Perhaps because the Life
real Aesop. Perry tells us he was Thracian, not o/ Aesop was considered to be a folkbook or a piece
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of ephemera. it was, according to Perry, a rare book Aesop's status as a folk figure-tale teller and
until the thirteenth century. Copyists eithe.r left it wise man-seems ro have been already established
out of their editions or substituted a short preface al the time of a presumed fourth-century B.C.
ascribed to Aphthonius, a fourth-century A.O. authm biography wbich is thought ro be the source
of a collection of forty Cables in Greek (Perry of the first-century Egyptian biography. Lloyd
Studies 174). Perry supposes a shift from G ro W Daly speculates that the <Xiginal Life reftected
sometime before the thirteenth century; however, a "an anti-intellectual, anti-Hellenic bias consonant
fourteenth-century Latin translation of the Vatican with the New Greek Comedy . . . in wbich clevei
1192 U/e does include sorne episodes frorn G .6 slaves repeatedly showed their supel'iority ro their
It see.rns fair ro conjecture that, at least parts of doltish masters" (20-21). Four centuries later,
the U/e we.re gene.rally known by the fourteenth in the first century of the Christian ei-a, its
century. Its inclusion in ali the fifteenth-century Hellenized Egyptian adapter must have responded
compilations speaks ro its new appea1 to the public ro sorne of the same values, and, al the same
laste. time, must have read new meanings inro the
st<l"y. Perhaps Aesop's defiance of bis executioners
Implicit in the criticism of the Vida is
recalled similar behavior in accounts of the virgin
the notion that such scholars as Planudes,
Rinuccio, SteinhOwel, Julien Macho, and the martyrs. Sorne correspondences with Toe.cesa
Hyun's outline of saintly martyrdorn come ro mind:
anonymous Spanish aranslaror were naive fools who
a) the martyr refuses to accept the values of the
unknowingly offered their readersbip a U/e o/ Aesop
group; b) he suff ers for bis opposition; e) ordel'
that was a hodgepodge of ridiculous tasteless srories
is resrored; d) the persecurors later honor their
simply becauseo f its association with the collected
victim. Toe account of Aesop's persecution in
tales. Francisco R. Adrados ("El Ubro" and "La
the Vida which follows these steps might even be
Vida"), on the other hand, argues convincingly that
parodie, considel'ing bis inappropriate use of defiant,
the Vida de Esopo is a part of the literary tradition
insulting, anger-provoking Cables in bis pleas to bis
of ••ta novela realista antigua," in which he includes
Delphian judges. 8
Pearonius's Satyricon and TM Golden Ass. In
Moving ahead in time, one wonde.rs
these works as in the Vida the protagonist is of
what Maximus Planudes, Rinuccio d'Arezzo da
humble origin and is resentful of the upper classes.
Castiglione, and the fifteenth-century translators
He succeeds, although he suffers humiliation and
made of the central narrative point-Aesop, a
blows and bis erotic experiences are anti-romantic.
deformed, ugly, tongue-tied slave rises ro a position
Fables, proverbs, and othe.r folkloric materials are
of powei- and fame as a srorytelle.r, only ro fall,
incorporated into a plot slJ'Uctured on travel.
both literally and figuratively from this pinnacle
Sorne critics see.rn ro have igoored the fact that
through bis own injudicious behavior. While
by the first century before Christ, Aesop the tale
in the pre-Christian version Aesop was punished
teller had become a folk culture hero with whom
becauseh e had offended Apollo (Daly 20), an early
certain narratives, many of them comic, sorne ribald,
Christian-era interpretation probably rested upon the
but ali entertaining, had by then becorne associated. sins of pride and presumption. In fifteenth-century
These include bits of the life and lore of the Castile, a public altuned ro the theme of the fall
Assyrian sage, Ahikar (mentioned in the Bible as of the mighty (Peter the Cruel's unfortunate fate
either Asaph or Akyrios), and episodes in the life and the dramatic finish of Don Alvaro de Luna's
of Loqman, a legendary pre-Islamic sage alluded ro career are two examples) might have found the
in the Koran. Babrius, a Hellenized Rornan living sage's figurative and literal fall ro be particularly
in Syria in the second half of the first century, had meaningf ul.
already recognized him as the prototypical Greek As in othe.r folk narratives, this story teems with
fabulisL He explained: •"Fable . . . is the invention comic episodes. Although it is IJ'Ue that much
of the Syrians of old, who lived in the days of humor is culture specific, there are certain kinds of
Ninus and Belus. Toe first ro tell Cables 10 the jokes that do travel well across time and space,
sons of Hellenes, they say, was Aesop the wise; given sorne similarity in the world view of the
and ro the Lybians Cybisses also told fables" (Pei-ry affected communities. In fact, because our culture
Babrius 139).7 has been shaped by its Graeco-Roman roots, it is
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X Esopete ystoriado
not surpnsmg that we too find humor in what culture requires us to repress" (16). His triumphs
was risible at the time of the composition of the over his social superiors relieve vicariously the
first-century fictional biography. audience's societally imposed tension. Powerless to
How else are we to explain Aesop's ugliness change its own circumstances, it laughs at a comic
if not as humor? He is described as ''vn m~ narrative and enjoys meting out punishment to the
difforme et feo de cara & de cuerpo mas que overproud and to the deceitful. Most satisfying of
njnguno que se fallasse en aquel tiempo, ca era de ali, of course, is the overwhelming victory of the
grand ~. de ojos agudos, de negro color, de down-trodden slave. lt is not mere chance that so
maxillas luengas & cuello corto, & de pantorillas many of the fables in the U/e o/ Aesop, and also
gruessas & de pies grandes, bocudo, giboso & in the collected tales, deal with the individual in
barrigudo, & de lengua tartamuda et ~~bilioso" conflict with authority.
(3v ). Punctuating the passage one way suggests that Thus we can conclude that the Life o/ Aesop
he might have been a black man, a possible memory created an Aesop who suited the fancy of at
of Loqman who was said to have been a Nubian least three different audiences-those of the fourth
slave with thick lips and flat feet (''Ce Nubien aux century B.C. in Greece, the first century of the
l~vres épaisses aux pieds plats" Basset xlii-xliv; see Christian era in Egypt, and the fourteenth to
Harris lxxvüi). fifteenth century in Europe.
Even though his strange appearance may have
been an accidental accretion to the legend, such
LITERARY DISPERSION OF AESOP'S FABLES
details in a folktale only persist because of an
inherent, logical connection to the narrative that was Just as biographical material had accumulated
attractive to its audience. Since ugliness and wisdom around the folk figure of Aesop, so too had a
are not normally related, the logical connection must repertoire of fables whose preservation in written
lie in a deliberate incongruity which emphasizes his form began in the fourth century B.C. It was
strangeness, and, at the same time, frees Aesop, the then that an Aesopic canon began to develop. Toe
comic figure, from many of society's constraints. first collection of Aesopic fables in Greek prose
Another feature not usually associated with compiled by Demetrius of Phalerum {ca. 345-283
either sages or with storytellers is a speech defecL B.C.) has not survived, although it was still extant
Aesop's speech handicap might be the result of in the tenth century A.O. (Perry "Demetrius of
contamination by the Life o/ Ahikar. Toe Assyrian Phalerum" 287-346).
hero, when falsely accused of treason by his Toe earliest compilations designed to be read
adopted son, reacts: "And when Haiqar saw this, as literature, i.e., in verse and with sorne thought
his limbs trembled and his tongue was tied at given to the order of their telling, were produced
once, and he was unable to speak from fear, in the first century after ChrisL Before this time
and he hung his head towards the earth and was fable collections were principally reference volumes
dumb" (Harris 98). Subsequent narrators may have for rhetoricians. Phaedrus (ca. 18 B.C.-A.D. 54), by
transformed this momentary speechlessness into a setting his fables in Latin senarian verse, created a
personal characteristic. It too adhered because of the new kind of work that fulfilled the double purpose
satisfying way in which the worthy slave's speech is of entertaining and instructing. Toe most complete
miraculously restored as a reward for kindness to a codex of Phaedrus's work is clearly defective,
mysterious traveler. Not only is he granted normal containing only ninety-four of the nearly one
speech, but he is also gifted with the ability to hundred fifty fables he composed {Perry Babrius
understand the speech of animals and birds, a talent lxxxii-lxxxiii). Another thirty fables in their metrical
especially suited to a fabulisL form were compiled by the Italian humanist Niccolo
Aesop, the ill-favored slave, the least puissant Perotti { 1430-80) from a manuscript which is now
figure imaginable, repeatedly secures justice for lost.9
himself through the exercise of his wits, his only Other Phaedrian fables are extant only in
weapon. Why we laugh at this kind of reversal of prose paraphrases. Sixty-two of them are found
power can be explained partly by Martin Grotjahn's in the Aesopus ad Rufum {tenth century). A
summary of the aggressive nature of humor: "Wit collection compiled by Ademar de Charbannes
begins with an intention to injure, which our (A.O. 988-1030) contains sixty-seven, severa) of
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whicb are not found in other sources. After whicb deviale from Babrius. Phaedrus or Avianus
Frederick Nilant publisbed the Codex Ademari in (Babrius I: 422-66; la: 466-70).
F abuku anli([UIU ( 1700; ed. Léopold Hervieux The Latin fable tradition continued with Flavius
2: 131-45). this collection was often referred to Avianus. wbo wrote Corty-two Cables in Latin elegiac
among critics as Anonymus Nilanti )O The most verse around the beginning oC the fiCth century
widely circulated of the prose paraphrases. bowever. (Hervieux 3: 48).12 While the Romulus compilations
are the eigbty-odd fables wbicb appear in various are basedo n Phaedrus. Avianus relied most probably
medieval collections known as Romulus because they on a Latin prose version of the Greek verse Cables
begin with a prefatory epistle of "Romulus" to oC Babrius (McKenzie and Oldfather 10). It had
bis son ''Tybel'inus." Although Hermano Oesterley become customary to append tales from Avianus
thougbt that there migbt have been a real Romulus, to the Romulus compilations in the Middle Ages
both Hervieux and Perry consider the epistle to be a and they carne to be regarded as a part of the
fiction. Perry says the collection "falsely pmports canon (Keidel Elliott 295). Walter oC England
to be the translation of a Greek Aesop made by (ft. lln) versified fables from the first three books
one Romulus and addressed to bis son Tyberinus. of Romulus. sorne fifty-eight of them. After
both of whom are p1ainly pseudonymous" (Babrius morali7.ations were later auached to these fables. the
xcix).11 work carne to be known as Esopus Moralisatus
Soon after Phaedrus. Babrius composed fables (Hervieux edits these moralizations as an appendix
in Greelc cboliambic verse. a collection thought to to bis edition of Walter. 2: 316-51; 352-65). This
have consisted of about 200 fables. Of these. one collection was often referred to by critics as
bundred forty-three have been preserved intact and Anonymus Neveleti because of its publication by
are publisbed by Perry in Aesopica and in Babrius. Isaac Nevelet in Mythologia Aesopica (Frankfort.
Fifty-seven more have survived in prose paraphrases 1610) until Hervieux at the end of the nineteenth
(edited by Otto Crusius). century identified Walter of England as its author.
The oldest and largest collection of Aesopian McKenzie and Oldfather edit them as they appear
prose fables in Greek is the Augustana Recension in a fourteenth-century manuscript accompanied by
I. whose name derives from the manuscript. now a verse translation in French; the manuscript also
codex Monacensis 564. once having been housed at contains nineteen fables from Avianus with Frencb
Augsburg. It is the parent stock of three subsequent verse translation (Ysopet-Avionnet ). They have also
recensions: Recension la; Recension II. known also been edited by Wendelin Foerster in conjunction
as the Vindobonensis; Recension III, the Accursiana with bis edition of a thirteenth-century Frencb
(named for Bonus Accursius wbo printed it in Milan translation (Lyoner Yzopet ).
in 1474; see Keidel Manual 11 ). The Accursiana As we have noted. collections of Aesop's fables
was also called the Planudean Recension because based on Phaedrus circulated in the Middle Ages
Bonus Accursius had used Maximus Planudes•s early under the name of Romulus. These eigbty-odd
fourteenth-century manuscript (Babrius xvi-xvii). fables. divided into four books and arranged in
The Augustana collection, unlike the self a relatively fixed order, form the core of the
consciously literary verse versions of Phaedrus fifteenth-century vernacular translations wbich stem
and Babrius. was a repository of instructive from Heinrich Steinhowel's first bilingual edition
tales. compiled by an anonymous author for the printed in Ulm by Johann Zainer in 1476 or 14n.1 3
transmission of the fables themselves, with little For eacb of the Cables in the first three books
attention to elegance of style (Perry "Demetrius of Steinh0wel also included the corresponding verse
Phalerum" 156). It contains two bundred thirty-one paraphrase from Walter of England. and as R. T.
fables and according to Perry it "can be traced to Lenaghan points out. he thus "in effect appropriated
an arcbetype of the fourth or fifth century" (Babrius the major rival collection of the fifteenth century"
xvi). Supposing a series of re-formations of a ( 15). The four boolcs from the traditional Romulus
text that lasted until the ninth century, Francisco are preceded by Rinuccio d• Arezzo•s translation
Adrados identifies traces of cboliambic verse in its of the Life o/ Aesop and followed by seventeen
prose (''Tradición"). Perry edits the Greelc prose fables that are designated "Extravagantes" because
in Aesopica (321-411) and elsewhere lists ali the althougb they were traditional and considered to
fables, giving brief Englisb summaries of those be Aesopic. they lacked the authority of forming
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part of the standard collection.14 Oddly enough, 730), he ventured to conclude that "the Aesopic
there are a number of correspondences between Fable was never a favcrite fcrm of literature in
the contents of the first Reynard epic (Ysengrimus the Iberic peninsula" ("Notes" 722). Pricr to the
dated in 1148 cr 1149) and several of the tales fourteenth century he finds only SL Isidore of
in Extravagantes. 15 Seventeen fables were selected Seville's disquisition on the fable contained in the
by SteinhOwel from Rinuccio's translation (Latin Etymologioe (I.xl) and a ninth-century reference
prose ), 16 followed by twenty-seven fables in Latin to a copy of Avianus. In Spanish librarles
verse from Avianus (see Appendix A, Thble 2). The he was able to locate various fourteenth- and
Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi (1062-1110) fifteenth-century manuscripts of Walter of England's
and the Facetiae of Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) popular collection of Latin fables in verse and of
are the source for sorne twenty more tales, although the Specula Historiale et Doctrinale of Vincent de
the number and selection vary in SteinhOwel and Beauvais, which contain a collection of fables. In
the French, English, and Spanish editions ( see addition to references to other copies of those works
Appendix A, Table 4 ). In his original bilingual he cites a reference to a "quesopete" in Latin in
edition. SteinhOwel also included an index of the the inventcry of the library of Alvar García de
moral message of each fable with such headings as Santa María ( 1460), references to French lsopets
"Freedom, Obstinacy, Old Age, Wisdom," a clear in inventories in Navarre and Aragón, and an
sign that he intended the book to be a mcral Aesopus in Greek in the library of the University of
reference guide. The Aesopic fable collection had Salamanca. His final reference is to two copies of
thus returned to its initial form of publication, a "Isopete en romance" in the inventcry of the library
moral handbook or a guide to rhetoricians.17 of Isabel I of Castile.19
Eight years earlier than the first Spanish Although extant medieval collections are
translation, an Augustinian friar, Julien Macho, admiu.edly few, there is other equally important
ª
published his French edition in Lyon (1480).1 evidence that Aesopic literature was known and
Wadsworth explains that because early printers appreciated in Spain. The earliest appearance
were almost ali German, they had to call on of a reference to an ''ysopete" in Spain occurs
friars in local convents ''to help choose and in the fourteenth-centmy Libro de buen amor,
prepare manuscripts and to correct proof, to in which Juan Ruiz specifically refers to one of
supply introductions, annotations and commentaries" the Aesopic fables as "esta fabula conpuesta de
(16-17). A comparison of the French and Spanish Isopete sacada" (96d).20 In addition to Juan Ruiz,
texts shows conclusively that the Spanish translation fo urteenth-century Spain produced the figure of don
depends directly on SteinhOwel rather than on the Juan Manuel, who included several Aesopic fables
French, as has often been asserted. 0n the other in his Conde Lucanor. 21 El libro de los gatos is an
hand, William Caxton made close use of Macho adaptation of the tales of England •s Odo of Cheriton
to prepare his 1484 English translation (Lenaghan (ca. 1185-1247), sorne of which are Aesopic in
18). None of these other early editcrs prepared origin. Another thirteenth-century Anglo-Latin worlc,
a topical index like SteinhOwel's, which leads one the Speculum Laicorum, was rendered into Spanish
to think thal they intended their works to be read as the Espéculo de los legos in the fifteenth century.
consecutively rather than as a reference guide. Aesopic fables are also found among the hundreds
of uempla in the Libro de los exenplos por a.b.c.
compiled by Clemente Sánchez de Vercial in the
FABLE LITERATURE IN SPAIN
fifteenth century.
Léopold Hervieux's monumental Les Fabulistes Earlier Spanish interest in fable literature was
lcuins, while it included sorne documentation for focused on oriental tales, and Spain was an
the dispersion of Aesopic literature in medieval impcrtanl source fer their entry into Europe. In
Spain, seemed to Gecrge Keidel to show a lack the twelfth century Petrus Alfonsi, a converted
of acquaintance with Spanish libraries ("Notes" Spanish Jew, had collected a number of these tales
720). In 1901 he published an article in which in his Disciplina Clericalis, a book which became
he attempted to remedy the situation, but while enormously popular ali over Europe. SteinhOwel
admitting thal his findings could only be considered included a selection in the final section of his
"a starting point" for future investigation ("Notes" Aesop. The thirteenth century saw even greater
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