‘ (A)guisado’ in thePoema de Mio Cid: the Ghost of a Pun in Arabic?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: HISPANO-ARABIC HISTORY, LITERATURE, CULTURE & INFLUENCEHISPANO-SEMITIC LANGUAGES & THEIR INFLUENCESJEWS — LANGUAGE, HISTORY, LITERATURE, CULTURE & INFLUENCEPOEMA DE MIO CID/CANTAR DE MIO CID Notes 1. Quotations are from a simplified adaptation of R. Menéndez Pidal's paleographic edition (Cantar de Mio Cid, tercera edición corregida, [Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1956]). No indications are given where abbreviations have been expanded, & is rendered by e, and only one symbol is used for s. Pidal's capitals are maintained, but his other marks of punctuation are omitted. 2. There might well be undertaken a full study of the etymology and semantic range of ‘(a)guisado’, but this is not the place to do so. Modern and medieval senses will be found in María Moliner, Diccionario de uso del español (Madrid: Gredos, 1966), but, quite uncharacteristically, material is divided between the three alphabetic locations: ‘aguisado’, ‘guisado’ and ‘desaguisado’. It is curious to note that whereas ‘aguisado’ is identified as exclusively archaic (ant.) and ‘guisado’ is virtually restricted to culinary senses in modern times, ‘desaguisado’ is very much alive and productive in twentieth-century Spanish. For medieval usage see also Real Academia Española, Diccionario histórico de la lengua española, fascículo noveno [Madrid: RAE, 1970], s.vv. ‘aguisado’ and ‘aguisar’. 3. Repetition in the PMC has been extensively studied by John S. Miletich, See ‘Repetition and Aesthetic Function in the Poema de Mio Cid and South-Slavic Oral and Literary Epic’, BHS, LVIII (1981) 189–96 and even specifically with reference to the two Jews (p. 192 third para.) but ‘ (a)guisado’ is not mentioned. We must conclude that for Miletich the degree of repetition must be so slight as not to warrant attention. 4. Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1863–1893); R. Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, 12th edition (Leiden and Paris: Brill and Maisonneuve Frères, 1927); J. G. Hava, Arabic-English Dictionary for the Use of Students (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1899) ; Maan Z. Medina, Arabic-English Dictionary of the Modern Literary Language, (New York: Pocket Books, 1973). 5. See L. P. Harvey, ‘The Arabic Dialect of Valencia in 1595’ in Al-Andalus, XXXVI (1971), 81–115, especially p. 92. 6. A. D. Deyermond and Margaret Chaplin in ‘Folk-motifs in the Medieval Spanish Epic’ Philological Quarterly, LI (1972), 36–53 identify it with Stith-Thompson's categories K 455.9 and 476.2.2. 7. RFE, LIX (1977), 183–224; for the section in question see pp. 183–86. 8. A. Galmés de Fuentes, ‘Épica árabe y épica castellana (problema crítico de sus posibles relaciones)’ in La poesia epica e la sua formazione (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1970). 9. Francisco Marcos Marín, Poesía narrativa árabe y épica hispánica (Madrid, 1971). 10. Mikel de Epalza, ‘El Cid—el León: epíteto árabe del campeador?’ HR, XLV (1977), 67–75. Amongst other work going on at the moment is an investigation into parallels between Arabic heroic narratives and the Cid epic conducted by my research student Miss Brenda Fish. 11. Thus for example Abū'l-Laith al-Samarqandī, Tanbīh al-gāfilīm (I consulted the edition printed in Cairo: Maība'a al-Khairiyya, A. H. 1309) has as heading to Chapter LXXII ‘Faīd˙l al-ribāt˙’ (ed. cit. p. 164) where the aljamiado translation (MS. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, 4871) has as heading to Chapter LXXII ‘en la ibantalla de mantener frontera’ (see table of contents of the MS.). In this connection the occurrence of the expression ‘tenerle la frontera al diablo’ in Berceo may be of some significance. Commentators have not felt the need to provide any gloss, but I cannot help feeling the presence of the Islamic concept of ribat/jihād here. See Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, ed. A. Andrés (Madrid: Padres Benedictinos, 1958), 7, copla 48 ‘Bien sabie al diablo tenerle la frontera’, and in the Vida de San Millán 1. 536 (an example which Professor Brian Dutton drew to my attention) ‘teniel las fronteras (al diablo)’. I am grateful to Professor Alan Deyermond and to Dr David Hook for looking at earlier drafts of this little article and making useful suggestions with regard to presentation. Neither is to be held as in any way accountable for the thesis I propose.