La voz alcándara en el Cantar de Mío Cid: cetrería hispanoárabe en la literatura española

Abstract

The Cantar de Mio Cid gathers in his beginning the word alcandara, defined by Ramon Menendez Pidal as “Hanger to hang the clothes or to put the birds of hunt”. This definition has been little discussed. The aim of this research, conceived as an etymological note, is to profound into the meaning and use of this Arabic root term related to the Spanish tradition of falconry and without parallel in other languages. From the methodological point of view have been examined various historical documentary sources that gather the word alcandara, attending principally to his antiquity nature and authority. The examined documentation allows to confirm the position of Nelson (1974) in opposite of Hook (1979) and the followers of Menendez Pidal, proposing that the meaning of alcandara in the Cantar refers to a specific element of the practice of falconry. Of the various arguments in favour of Nelson is enhanced the notably fidelity that has kept the Spanish literature to the falconry meaning of the word from the Cid Poem to the 19th century, as this prove El libro del Caballero Zifar or La Celestina and authors as Cervantes, Gongora, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Baltasar Gracian and Duque de Rivas, among others.