Evangelista, the author of my satiric hunting text, adopts a pose that reminds me somewhat of the burlesque sketches of Mark Twain. Twain wrote a piece called “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper” in which the narrative voice is that of a naïve urbanite who knows nothing of agriculture, but tries to brazen it out anyway (writing of shaking ripe turnips out of their trees, for example) and sparks a riot in the process.
Evangelista’s narrative voice is similar. He starts off confidently claiming “Pues que a Nuestro Señor plugo darme sabiduría y sciencia sobre todo hombre del mundo de los que hoy son nacidos, yerro sería en no dejar alguna obra provechosa a los que hoy son e adelante serán … acordé de ocupar la fantasía en componer esta poca y perfecta obra, la cual es la sustancia de toda la cetrería que hoy se podría pensar ni hablar en todo el mundo…”
And then he’s off and running with gems such as: “[los alfaneques] nunca tosen ni escupen, que no hay cosa más aborrecida para el cazador que halcón cosico o tosegoso.”
Fradejas Rueda, the editor, says that Evangelista’s humorous style is based on tautology or platitude, puns, and irony. By “platitude” he means the deadpan statement of the obvious in the guise of wisdom. Thus, “when you take them (alfaneques) hunting, make sure they have both wings, because they fly better with two than with one.”
Occasionally the wisdom reaches sublime levels of silliness, of the “shaking turnips” variety. In English, “you have to believe that these borníes are de carne, by the grace of God, because if they were de pescado, once you took them out of the water they would die, and you would have to make them perches under the water, and just think what that would be like in Segovia or Avila in the winter! And instead of jingle bells you would have to make them wear gourds, because otherwise they would drown, since they don’t know how to swim.”
Finally, we get this advice regarding miliones:
“If they ask you of what use is such an unusual bird, tell them it’s for stuffing up the asses of people who ask too many questions, with the tail sticking out so that if one wanted to ascend to heaven, one could do so using the tail instead of stairs.”
And people wonder why I love the Middle Ages.
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2 comments:
That's whimsical to say the least. The whole ascending to heaven thing puts an unexpected spin on it. What have you ended up saying about the humor? If you see the bird as phallic, what conclusion does that lead to with regard to medieval masculinities? Just kidding...
And a freudian reading of that text might be very interesting, too.
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