Abstract
In a passage of Castigos del rey don Sancho IV the author takes up from Flavius Josephus’ War of the Jews the story of Miriam, the mother who kills and eats her baby during the siege of Jerusalem. In Sancho IV the treatment of this story is part of a moral treatise concerning the Ten Commandments. That one of “honor thy parents” gives rise to a digression about the unconditional nature of paternal love that, significantly, is based on a comparison between the father/son and mother/son bonds using a physiological explanation. The physiological “rationalization” presented in this text “de-monsterizes” the cannibal mother, since her behavior ultimately moves away from the contra naturam.
Highlights
In a passage of Castigos del rey don Sancho IV the author takes up from Flavius Josephus’ War of the Jews the story of Miriam, the mother who kills and eats her baby during the siege of Jerusalem.
Sancho IV inscribe la cuestión del amor de los padres a los hijos en esta continuidad corporal (“ca es carrne de la su carne e huessos de los sus huessos”) que no se da en las madres.
El carácter extraordinario de la gestación virginal de Jesús que hace de María una madre única en la historia (por inexistencia de un esperma masculino, por el mantenimiento de su virginidad post partum, etc.), no altera el hecho de que la Virgen en Castigos se rige por el mismo principio que el resto del género humano, a saber, el dolerse más por lo que es propio que por lo ajeno, tal como lo explicita pleonásticamente el texto de Sancho IV: “todas las otras madres duélense de lo que non es suyo propia mente suyo mismo.
Summary
In a passage of Castigos del rey don Sancho IV the author takes up from Flavius Josephus’ War of the Jews the story of Miriam, the mother who kills and eats her baby during the siege of Jerusalem.
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