Alfonso VI: An Answer to MacKay and Benaboud's Reply to Roth

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: ALFONSO VI, KING OF CASTILE & LEÓN (1030–1109)ISLAM — HISTORY, LITERATURE, CULTURE & INFLUENCECALDERÓN DE LA BARCA, PEDRO (1600–1681)KINGSHIP/MONARCHY/TYRANNY [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME]POETIC JUSTICETREACHERY/TREASON/BETRAYAL [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME]VIDA ES SUEÑO, LA [P. CALDERÓN] Notes 1. Let me cite the specific relevant pages in Menéndez Pidal's Historia y epopeya (Madrid: Hernando, 1934), 258–62 (indeed, the title of the essay, ‘Adefonsus Imperatoris Toletanus, Magnificus Triumphator’, serves as a clue as to what it is about). 2. It is, of course, no sin that the writers are unfamiliar with my work; however, previously published work has, I believe, sufficiently demonstrated my ability to deal with Arabic sources: cf., e.g., my ‘The Jews and the Muslim Conquest of Spain’, Jewish Social Studies, XXXVII (1976), 145–58 (recipient of the Eliott Prize of the Medieval Academy of America), and most recently ‘The Kahina: Legendary Material in the Accounts of the “Jewish Berber Queen” ‘, The Maghreb Review, VII (1982), 122–25 (the last named article, not unlike the present note, deals with legend in Muslim chronicles). 3. MacKay and Benaboud, 177–78. Incidentally, the Abu Ishaq Ibn al-Fakhkhar in González Palencia, which they cite, is none other than the Abrahm Ibn al-Fakhkhar whom I mentioned. He is quite well known, and his tombstone survived in Toledo to modern times and was copied and has been published. He was not a ‘mere potter’, by any means, but a wealthy aristocrat. González Palencia, as is well known, did not know Arabic and made many errors in transcribing and discussing these documents. The word fakhkhar in Arabic means ‘potter’, but in this case (as with many names) it is a family name. 1. First published London: Hispanic Council, 1957; we cite from the reprint in Drama Review, IV (1959), 59, n. 9. 2. ‘On La vida es sueño’, Critical Essays on the Theatre of Calderón, ed. Bruce W. Wardropper (New York: N.Y.U. Press, 1965), 88–89. This statement is lacking in the original version of the article, ‘La vida es sueño’, Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, 3a época, IV (1946), Nos. 3–4, 61–78. 3. ‘Segismundo and the Rebel Soldier’, BHS, XLV (1968), 189–200. 4. ‘Calderón's Rebel Soldier and Poetic Justice’, BHS, XLVI (1969), 120–27. 5. Quotations (with minor changes of punctuation and capitalization) are from the edition by Albert E. Sloman (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1965). 6. ‘Poetic Justice in La vida es sueño: A Further Comment’, BHS, XLVI (1969), 128–31. It could be added that the theologians’ requirement of a constitutional assembly of all the citizenry would be tantamount in most cases to an absolute prohibition. 7. ‘Segismundo y el soldado rebelde’, Hacia Calderón, Coloquio anglogermano, Exeter 1969, ed. Hans Flasche (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970), 71–75. 8. ‘The Monster, the Sepulchre and the Dark: Related Patterns of Imagery in La vida es sueño’, HR, XXXV (1967), 178. 9. El significado de ‘La vida es sueño’ (Valencia: Albatros, 1971), 138. 10. ‘The Tradition behind the Punishment of the Rebel Soldier in La vida es sueño’, BHS, L (1973), 1–17. 11. The murderer alleges that Saul wished to avoid falling into the hands of the Philistines. For our purposes it makes no difference that in the preceding chapter (I Samuel, 31) another account is given of Saul's death—that he committed suicide. 12. ‘Castigos y premios en La vida es sueño’, Hacia Calderón. Tercer coloquio anglogermano, Londres 1973, ed. Hans Flasche (Berlin: Walter dé Gruyter, 1976), 32–46. 13. Most recently, J. B. Hall (‘The Problem of Pride and the Interpretation of the Evidence in La vida es sueño’, MLR, LXXVII (1982), 344–45), elaborating upon an earlier interpretation by Cesáreo Bandera (Mimesis conflictiva: ficción literaria y violencia en Cervantes y Calderón [Madrid: Gredos, 1975], 256–57) has proposed a solution which in effect sweeps away the entire question at issue: the soldier who demands the reward at the end is not the same one who led the rebellion that liberated Segismundo. This explanation lacks textual authority, for as Hall himself recognizes, ‘Early editions of La vida es sueño identify the First and Second Soldiers by the numerals 1 and 2, and the man whom Segismundo jails by the numeral 1’ (p. 344). Of all the editors of the text, both ancient and modern, only the notoriously inaccurate Vera Tassis favours this distinction. Just as importantly, it makes no sense from a dramatic point of view for an unknown upstart to demand an undeserved reward, and then be punished by a sentence out of all proportion to his offence (i.e. life imprisonment for untruthfully claiming to have led the uprising). J. B. Hall, on the other hand, finds this punishment appropriate (pp. 341, 345).