Abstract
The Libre dels tres reys d’Orient (Book of the Three Kings from the East) progresses from an account of the visitation of the Magi and the Massacre of the Innocents through to a description of the fate of the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt and the encounter between Christ, Dismas (the Good Thief), and Gestas (the Bad Thief) during the climactic stages of the Crucifixion. Focusing on the signifying potential of the human body, this chapter discusses how the sections of the poem are conceptually unified, and how they reflect in turn on broader questions of soteriology. It argues that although the structure of the poem is tripartite, it is saturated nonetheless by a marked impression of dualism, pitting characters who accept and embrace Christianity against those who refuse to do so. The Libre has implications in this respect not just for the two other poems of the manuscript—the Libro de Apolonio (Book of Apollonius) and the Vida de Santa María Egipciaca (Life of St. Mary of Egypt)—but for the art and literature of the Middle Ages more broadly.
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