Body and Soul: Jorge Manrique's "Coplas por la muerte de su padre" 13: 145-156

Author(s): Frank A. Domnguez

Source: Hispania, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 1-10
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
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Body and Soul: Jorge Manrique's Coplas por la

muerte de su padre 13:145-156
Frank A. Dominguez
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Abstract: In stanza 13 of the Coplas, Manrique describes the body as cativa and the soul as seiora, then decries the time spent adorning the former at the expense of the latter. The general condemnation of cosmetics
in ancient literature and the topic of the weakness of the Will contribute to this metaphor, but the stanza does
more. It alludes to the two different paths that are followed by the people described in the ubi sunt stanzas

(16-24) and in the panegyric of don Rodrigo Manrique (25-32). This essay then shows how stanza 13 only
acquires full meaning in light of information that was available to the poem's contemporaries but has since
been neglected.

Key Words: Manrique (Jorge), Manrique (Rodrigo), Palencia (Alonso de), Spanish Medieval poetry, cosmetics and medicine, cativa, sierva, setora, elegy, defunzion, Coplas

poem. This article seeks to show how the

de su padre, written as an elegy for his

J orge
Manrique's
Coplas porManrique,
la muerte
father,
don Rodrigo

textual tradition from which the metaphor

derives enriches our understanding of

these few lines of verse. The stanzas only

Maestre de Santiago, naturally divides into
three sections. The first is a general disqui- reveal their full evocative impact by studysition on the freedom of human beings toing the context in which they appear, parchoose how they will conduct their livesticularly in view of the condition that led to

(stanzas 1-13). The second (stanzas 14-24) don Rodrigo's death. Stanza 13 points to a
whole world of allusive signification only
provides concrete examples of bad choices,
barely perceived by modern readers.
and third section (stanzas 25-39) is devoted
The stanza in question appears towards
to the positive choices made by don

Rodrigo. These three sections are followedthe end of a cluster of stanzas about beauty
by a final stanza (40) that makes referenceand agility (8), lineage and honour (9), esto the grief and solace of the Manrique fam-tates and wealth (10), that are the deceitful

plazeres e dulCores and deleytes (11-12) of

ily.

Given the poem's structure, stanza 13

acquires particular significance as a transi-

tional stanza.' It concludes the first section

by summarizing what has been said and

serves to introduce the examples of bad
choices that follow. The poem moves from
general statements about the human condition, to statements about specific individu-

als whom death did not treat well and, finally, to one individual who, by living well,

vanquished death.
The importance of stanza 13 has not been
sufficiently recognized by critics, who have

generally concerned themselves with the

this world. Stanza 13 continues:

13 Si fuesse en nuestro poder
hazer la cara hermosa

corporal,

como podemos hazer

el alma tan gloriosa,
angelical,
ique diligencia tan viua

touj6ramos toda hora,

e tan presta,
en componer la catiua,
dexaindonos la sefiora

descompuesta!
(Cancionero de jorge Manrique 95)

Stanza 13 identifies the body as cativa

sources of the metaphor and have not (slave) and the soul as sefiora (mistress or

looked at how it relates to the rest of the

lady). If we could make the earthly face as

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2 HISPANIA 84 MARCH 2001

a woman. In this work, he characterizes

beautiful, says Manrique, as we canofmake
the angelical soul glorious, we would
body and soul as slave and mistress respectively.
quickly tend to the slave, leaving the
mis-Writing to Theodore, St. John states
tress unattended. How foolish, he insinuthat God gave those things which are of
little
value to death and made us artisans of
ates, for man to prefer body to soul,
slave

to mistress and-of course-death to eternal life.

those things that are truly beautiful. If cor-

poral beauty were eternal, we would have

wasted all our time seeking perfection of the

St. John Chrysostom and St.

Eucherius

body. In fact, we make every attempt to do

so through the use of cosmetics, colorings,

and tinctures. "What time," he remarks,

"would
Manrique's editors and critics have
fo-we dedicate to the soul and to imcused their attention primarily on theportant
place- concerns if we could make the body
ment of stanza 13 within the work and on
truly beautiful? Perhaps we would not labor

the poet's sources for the characterization at anything else if we could do that, and we
of the body as a slave of the soul. Stanza 13 would spend all our time decking out the
appears in a variety of places according to slave with every manner of adornments, althe print or manuscript one reads. Its ca- ways abandoning her mistress (domina) to
nonical placement, however, is as number greater ugliness and abandonment than any
13, and corresponds to its placement in the slave (servan)" (Ad Theodorum lapsum, PG
most reliable manuscripts and prints.2 Crit- 47: 295-96). St. John plays on the same
ics also debate the sources of the stanza.
chords as Manrique: we are permitted to

Menendez Pelayo, the first to comment make the soul beautiful but not the body.
on stanza 13, claimed that Manrique appro- Were we permitted to do otherwise, we
priated the comparisons in the stanza from would waste all our time pursuing the pera treatise entitled On the Contemplative Life fection of the ephemeral, to the neglect of
(De vita contemplativa) attributed to St. the eternal.

Prosper of Aquitaine. Maria Rosa Lida de

However, despite the similarities between
Manrique's stanza and St. John's text,
Malkiel took issue with Menendez Pelayo
Lida
thought
that another work stood bein an essay written in 1942 ("Una copla de
Jorge Manrique y la tradici6n de Fil6n en tween the two. Her candidate for that posila literatura espafiola" 145-78). Lida traced tion was the Parenetic Epistle to Valerian
the body/soul-slave/mistress topic to a pas-

(Epistola paraenetica ad Valerianum

sage in Philo of Alexandria's On the Cre- cognatum de contemptu mundi et saecularis

ation of the World where the senses are por- Philosophiae, PL 50: 711-26) written by St.
trayed as slaves who bring before their Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, ca. 432.
St. Eucherius's Parenetic Epistle is an
master-reason-the harmony of sound,
the sweetness of taste, and the aroma of the exhortation to the noble Valerianus to adopt

air. According to Lida, Philo was the origi- a Christian mode of life, perhaps even to
nator of the topic and was the first in a long become a monk. It seeks to attain its end by
line of authors to exploit its expressive pos- describing the deceitfulness of the world.
sibilities.3 She thought, however, that the Early in the exhortation, St Eucherius says:
portrayal of the soul as mistress of the body "For if some correctly called our flesh slave
only acquired its full Christian form in St. (famulam) and our soul mistress (domina)
John Chrysostom's Exhortation to Theodore we should not unjustly honor the slave be-

(Paraeneses ad Theodorum lapsum).4 It is fore the mistress" (Epistola Paraenetica

this work that she proposed as Manrique's 713).
Alone, this reference is not enough to
ultimate source (Lida de Malkiel 168).
St. John Chrysostom wrote the Exhorta- make St. Eucherius a more likely source of
tion to Theodore for a friend who had aban- Manrique's text than any other. What dedoned the monastic life to enjoy the favors cided Lida in favor of the French bishop was

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JORGE MANRIQUE'S COPLAS POR LA MUERTE DE SU PADRE 13:145-156 3

the fact that the context in which St.

give to their bodies when they are ill: "How

Eucherius uses the topic is comparable

much
to time and labor is employed in tendthe entire sequence of stanzas in which
it to their bodies and conserving their
ing
health!"
writes St. Eucherius, "Does the
is embedded in Manrique's poem. Not only
soul not merit the same care (medicinam) ?"
does St. Eucherius complain about those
St. John's condemnation of the use of coswho would care for the body instead of the
metics is absent in St. Eucherius's text, resoul but, like Manrique, he also deplores
the reckless pursuit of riches and mentions
placed instead by a medical metaphor in
ancient and modern kingdoms, which which
are
the care of the body is presented as
now forgotten. It is this marriage toathe
rationally positive event, discordant only
themes of the contemptu mundi that in
inthat similar care is not expended on the
soul.
clined Lida to see the Parenetic Epistle as The treatment of the body/soul-slave/
the probable immediate source of
mistress topic in the Parenetic Epistle does
Manrique's stanza. Lida's argument, therenot deploy therefore, as fully as St. John's
text, the complex of associations evoked by
fore, can be reduced to the following: the
this topic in Christian writers and in
originator of the image, Philo of Alexandria,
Manrique's stanza.
was probably unknown to Manrique. The
Castilian poet's ultimate source was St. John Jorge Manrique alludes to the use of cosmetics in ways that are similar to St. John's
Chrysostom, but mediated through St.
Eucherius.

text.5 Manrique's text also insists, like St.

Lida, however, was both an excellent and

John's, on the peculiar perversion of a humanity that willfully prefers to care for the
a canny scholar. Her masterful and persisbody/face rather than for the soul.6 It theretent pursuit of intertextual relations showed
her quite clearly how difficult it was to point
fore appears unlikely that St. Eucherius was
to any source of Manrique's poem with anythe immediate source of Manrique. Philo
was likewise not the originator of the topic.
degree of certainty. Her article on stanza 13

lists some thirty-five occurrences of the

Properly speaking, the body/soul-slave/
mistress topic is a variation of a comparison
topic. The topic is likely to appear in any
doctrinal work that concerns the fiature ofwidely used in Classical philosophical and
the soul. We add one by a contemporary ofliterary works to explain how the mind
Manrique, fray Lope Fernandez de Minaya,
(mens) rules over the body, or how the soul
(anima) rules over the passions. The terms
who says: "La deshonra que la nuestra
of the comparisons reflect two social realianima siente en este mundo, segund suso
dicho es, es el captiverio en que esti, en ties
el of the ancient world from the time of
qual muchas vezes obedesce a la came,
Plato and before: a patriarchal family strucque, segund raz6n, es su sierva" (Espejo delture and a slave-based economy. The
alma, in Prosistas castellanos del siglo XV2:Greeks thought anything made up of parts,
237). With such a fecund image to contendincluding natural systems, societies, and
with, any preference for one source overman himself, to be hierarchically ordered
another had to be couched in careful lanfrom higher to lower (Aristotle, Politics
guage, and this Lida does, pointing out that 1254a28ff). Power flowed from higher to
for authors like Manrique inspiration filterslower.
through a veil of vaguely remembered read- The natural rule of men over women,

ings. There is more that can be said about

slaves, and the young reflected the workthose "remembered readings," however. ings of this hierarchical principle in human

Although Manrique's words echo St.society. It was justified by the belief that the

John's, they differ from St. Eucherius'sminds of women, slaves, and the young
Parenetic Epistle in significant ways. St.were either impaired or not fully formed,
Eucherius does not condemn the embeland thus were unable to effect the proper
lishment of the body. Instead, he comparesrule of the intellect over the passions.
the care one gives the soul to the care menWithin man himself, the rule of the intellect

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4 HISPANIA 84 MARCH 2001

he now wills to do what he cannot." "Si

(nous) over the passions (orexis) manifested

fuesse
en nuestro poder / hazer," though
the hierarchical principle, because the
paswe
do
not,
sions, unable to rule themselves, naturally says stanza 13, "como podemos
fell under the control of the intellect. For

hazer," yet we do not. It is here that the true

political and theological reasons, the earlymeaning of the commonplace is to be found:

Fathers of the Church adopted these ideas a Classical cliche used to refer to the supeto explain the superiority of the soul overriority of the mind over the body becomes
the body.

Prior to the conversion of Constantine,

a sign of the corruption of the Will by sin

that is expressed in the inordinate care for

the material world at the expense of the

spiritual world. Nonetheless, although St.
argued, as they sought freedom from Ro- Augustine explains the significance of the
man rule, that they were fully capable oftopic, only St. John Chrysostom ties the

Christians were considered to rank with

women and slaves. Christians had counter-

governing themselves.7 This early Christian corruption of the Will to the use of cosmetbelief in man's innate ability to rule himself, ics.

born out of the antagonistic relations that Christian apologists often berated
existed between the Christian communitywomen for the use of make-up and ornaand the Roman Republic, began to be sup-mentation, considering both sinful because

planted by a view formulated by the bishop

of Hippo.
St. Augustine radically reinterpreted the
nature and the effects of the Fall to emphasize humanity's enslavement to sin. Following Platonic philosophy in its assertion that
the soul is endowed with an intrinsic right

to subjugate the body-its "lower servant"-to its will, St. Augustine compared
the rebellion of the senses and of the body

they denoted pride in the body and because

they had as their objective the enhancement of sexual allure. Tertullian (d. ca. 220),

for example, dedicated a whole work, commonly known as On the Apparel of Women,
to warning Christian women against the use
of fashionable dress, extravagant adornment, and cosmetics. He reminded women
that it was through their sex that sin entered
the world and advised them to dress in peni-

against reason to the revolt of a slave

tential garb or mourning garments (De

against its master. He further interpreted

cultufeminarum 117).

Tertullian distinguishes between two

the disobedience of the body as punishment

for Adam and Eve's failure to keep God's

forms of adornment: cultus (dress and jew-

command not to eat of the fruit of the tree

elry) and ornatus (cosmetics and hairdress-

of knowledge. Before Adam and Eve's transgression, their bodies were subject to their

ing). The first he associates with ambition,

the second with prostitution.9 It is ornatus,
not cultus, however, that occasions his most
virulent attacks. The use of cosmetics is an
invention of the devil. "Whatever is born,"

rational will: "each received the body as a

servant...and the body obeyed God...in an
appropriate servitude, without resistance."'

After the Fall, man's flesh warred against

his mind, and his will could no longer impose its rule (14,15).
Augustinian anthropology characterized
the post-lapsarian pursuit of worldly plea-

he says, "that is the work of God. Obviously,

then, anything else that is added must be

the work of the Devil."10 To use make-up is
to betray the very roots of Christian devotion:
To have a painted face, you on whom simplicity in

sures as a rebellion of the body against natural will, which makes man work against his
best interests: "For what else is man's mis-

every form is enjoined! To lie in your appearance, you

to whom lying with the tongue is not allowed! To seek
for that which is not your own, you who are taught to

ery," says St. Augustine in De civitate Dei

keep hands off the goods of another! To commit adul-

(using words that in their rhetorical balance

tery in your appearance, you who should eagerly

strive after modesty! (Tertullian, De cultufeminarum

recall Manrique's) "but his own disobedi- 136)

ence to himself, so that in consequence of

his not being willing to do what he could do, Similarly, Clement ofAlexandria (d. ca. 230)

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JORGE MANRIQUE'S COPLAS POR LA MUERTE DE SU PADRE 13:145-156 5

very same commonplace in a satire of a man

called the flesh a slave and questioned
whether it was "reasonable to adorn such a

who has importuned a friend of his with

handmaid as the bawd does" (Paidagogos, repeated requests for a toupee:
in Christ the Educator 200-1) and in Death Muy escusada porfia
as Good (De bono morte). St. Ambrose (d.
es a vos, sefior Ribera,
397) called the soul: "...the user, the body que mates a Herran Garcia
escriuiendo cada dia
that which is being used, and thus the one

is in command, the other in service; the one

is what we are, the other what belongs to

us. If anyone loves the beauty of the soul,
he loves us; if anyone loves the grace of the
body, he loves not the man himself, but the

beauty of the flesh, which quickly wastes

away and disappears" (Seven Exegetical

c'os enbie vna cabellera;

digo lo sefior, por esto

que le visto responder,
que ni es justo ni es onesto

qu'enmendes en vuestro gesto

lo que Dios no quiso her.
Ni tengo por buena cosa
del christiano que sarea
de culpa tan peligrosa,

Works 91).

por her la cara hermosa

tornar ell anima fea;

Ornatus: Cosmetics

por qu'es pecado mortal,

os suplican mis renglones
que dexes lo artificial,
que a las henbras esta mal,
quanto mas a los varones.
Que los cabellos, mirados
por los cuerdos y los buenos,
muy mejor seran juzgados
los vuestros, aunque frisados,
que muy Ilanos los ajenos;
qu'en las memorias pasadas
de los dinos de renonbres,
no las coletas peynadas,
mas las obras esforpadas

When God banished Adam and Eve from

Paradise, they were condemned to a life of

labor and were made subject to time and
death. Henceforth they lived in time and
were of time. The use of cosmetics is an at-

tempt to arrest the effects of time on the

body. Many of the Fathers of the Church

agree on this point, but perhaps the most
eloquent testimony comes from a littleknown 13th century Anglo-French treatise

on cosmetics, L'ornement des dames or

Ornatus mulierum, whose author remarks
that God endowed woman with imperish-

eran caras de los onbres.

Oy ya, por nuestros pecados,

otros son nuestros aferes,
los camisones labrados,

able beauty in Paradise, but she lost it when

she bit into the apple." The treatise goes on
to explain how it can be preserved or recovered through the use of various concoctions

los gestos muy concertados

para engafiar las mugeres;
y a nosotros engafiamos
los que asy nos conponemos,
que por qu'el suyo tomamos

("Pur ceo vus fas jeo cest livre / Que tres

bien seez delivre / Vus memes en baute

y nuestro gesto negamos

guarder, Et vus acunit el amender"

[L'ornement des dames 32: 17-20]). There

diablos les parescemos.

(Foulche Delbosc, Cancionero castellano 1, no.
102)

is a correlation, naively propounded in The condemnation of the use of a hairL'ornement, between the use of cosmeticspiece falls within the type of adornment
and the desire to regain eternal life andcalled ornatus by Tertullian and was consid-

beauty (12).12 The sanguine approach of the ered a form of facial adornment. In both
author of L'ornement to the use of cosmet- stanza 13 of the Coplas and in Alvaro Gato's
ics runs strongly against the common grain,satire quoted above, the context suggests
for the condemnation of cosmetics was
that the soul has a "face" that is besmirched
never far from any discussion of the body.
by the act of beautifying the earthly face ("Si
This condemnation of cosmetics frefuesse en nuestro poder / hazer la cara

hermosa / corporal, / como podemos hazer

quently resulted in a reference to the face

el alma tan gloriosa, / angelical,") or donrather than to the whole body. Alvarez Gato,
a contemporary of Manrique, employs the
ning an unmanly wig ("por her la cara

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6 HISPANIA 84 MARCH 2001

hermosa / tornar ell anima fea") instead

of
pleasures
of this world that end with stanza

13. The
worthy deeds ("mas las obras esforgadas
/ next section exemplifies the result
eran caras de los onbres"). The soul of
is this
of- pursuit by referring to the famous
ten described as having a face which can
contemporaries
be
in the ubi sunt stanzas (14blemished by sin. Fray Lope Fernandez
24). They
de
are opposed by the stanzas that
devoted to don Rodrigo (25-39). Stanza
Minaya, for example, in his Espejo del are
alma
names the Will "el rostro del criminal" 13
and
foreshadows this opposition in its conbetween the face of the body ("hazer
considers each of the capital sins to trast
be the
stains that defile its beauty:
la cara hermosa / corporal" 146-47) and the

"face" of the soul ("hazer / el alma tan

Cri6 Dios nuestra Anima a la su semejanza e a su

imagloriosa
/ angelical" 149-50), between
gen, de hermoso rostro e limpia faz, el qual viduals
rostro owho use cosmetics to decorate the
faz es la voluntad, como dicho es, la qual si siempre

indi-

face of the body at the expense of the soul

estoviese en el estado en que fue creada, cattndose

and those who do not.
en este espejo (ie. the mirror of conscience), nunca

Given the nature of fifteenth-century panfallaria en si cosa fea que oviese de emendar, nin mancilla que oviese de alimpiar. Mas lo uno, por egyrics,
el peca- the reader expects an exposition of
do original en el qual se ensuzia el Anima luego
don que
Rodrigo's achievements to follow his
se ayunta al cuerpo, el qual heredamos de nuestro paintroduction into the poem in stanza 25. Indre AdAn, lo otro, por los pecados actuales que des-

stead,
there is an assessment of the man's
pubs fazemos de cada dia, mancillase e af6ase
este

rostro que es la voluntad.... Las mancillas o fealdades

greatness refracted through the experique a la nuestra voluntad afean o mancillan son
estas:
ences
of those who knew him; a catalog of

soberbia faze este rostro, que es la voluntad,

ser
the virtues
of the knight. Their judgement

finchado; la vanagloria, polvoriento; la invidia, negro

about his
o verde; la safia, colorado; la acidia, triste; la avaricia,
arrugado e encojido; la gula, abuhado; la

(Espejo del alma 2: 242-43)

character is confirmed by the

comparisons
Manrique makes between his
luxuria,
gafo.
father and the ancient Romans.

The ancient Roman generals and emper-

ors were the common models held up for

These authors make it clear that though
emulation
in the education of knights. They
St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine are
are used
the main sources of the topic expressed
in in the Coplas in a symbolic manner.to
Each Roman emperor or general menstanza 13, we will never be able to point

tioned
an exact source for Manrique's stanza.
Therepresents a single quality that is
present
metaphor is used too widely. However,
if in don Rodrigo. Octavian is fortune,
Caesar is valor, Scipio is virtue, Hannibal is
the use of cosmetics is a sign for the effects
of sin on the face of the soul (and the wisdom,
use of Trajan is charity, etc. The inescap-

conclusion is that Manrique's father

cosmetics is, as Alvarez Gato's poemable
indicates, a "pecado mortal"), then what are
surpassed
the
each one in his own peculiar vir"cosmetics" that would make the soul tue
beauthrough his actions in life. He embodies any
all of the virtues represented by the catatiful? The answer to that question is in
doctrinal work on the nature of the soul:
"It
log of
emperors and generals.

is not the appearance of the outer man that

Manrique also points out that because he
wasof
virtuous, Don Rodrigo died without
should be made beautiful," says Clement
Alexandria, "but his soul, with the ornament
having accumulated great riches ("Non

of true virtue" (Christ the Educatordex6

202).
grandes thesoros, / nj alcan?6 muchas
This is the form of ornamentation thatriquezas
is the

/ nj baxillas" [337-39]). What

subject of all of the stanzas that aregoods

dedihe acquired were always placed at
cated to don Rodrigo Manrique.
the service of higher ideals. Furthermore,
he carried the virtues he evidenced as a

The Adornment of the Soul

youth into old age ("estas viejas estorias /

que con su bravo pint6 / en jouentud, / con

otras nueuas victorias / agora las renou6 /

As we have seen, the early stanzas are
general comments on the pursuit of the
en senectud" [361-66]).

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JORGE MANRIQUE'S COPLAS POR LA MUERTE DE SU PADRE 13:145-156 7

a cancerous sore that consumed his face:

The association of youth to the pursuit of

worldly pleasure and age to wisdom makes

"Este indomable caudillo, que en su vejez
virtue a quality peculiarly characteristic of
sobrepujaba en los ejercicios militares a los
the old. In the Nicomanichean Ethics
m~s robustos j6venes, con un vigor fisico

Aristotle portrays the studies of the young

incansable para todo, sucumbi6 A

as vain and unprofitable, because theconsecuencia

end
de una puistula cancerosa,
que
aimed at is not knowledge but action. It en pocos dias le consumi6 el rostro"
(Palencia,
Crdnica 3: 309).
makes no difference whether youth
is
thought of in terms of years or in terms Palencia
of
goes on to describe the last days

character, because the defect does not

ofdedon Rodrigo in a manner that supports
pend on time, but on the way in which the
the image of him that is developed in the
young live and pursue each successive
ob- According to Palencia, on the 131 of
Coplas.
ject as passion directs. For Aristotle women
November Rodrigo writes Ferdinand and
Isabel a farewell letter in which he advises
and the young are incomplete men, women
because they are defective males (Barnes,
them to trust in God, bring peace to Castile,
and
restore the Military Orders to their old
The Complete Works ofAristotle, De gen.
an.

[737a28]) and children because their rearule, then threatened by the ambition of
soning is still defective (Politics 1324b21-2).
men. He concludes by recommending his
With the old, the situation is differentL
The
family
to the king and queen: "Muy

old reestablish control over the body,especialmente

and
les rogaba que se
for them knowledge becomes an end in
itcompadeciesen
de su mujer y de sus fieles
self. The young may seek the pleasures and
criados, a quienes le apenaba dejar sin

satisfactions of the body, but the oldamparo

seek
ni bienes de fortuna, porque los

trabajos e intolerables
"opulence...honors, fame, prestige,extremados
and
glory" (lohannes Lodovicus Vives, dispendios
De
les habian reducido a la iltima

anima et vita 167). The old, therefore,

are
indigencia,
de que s6lo podria sacarles la
liberalidad de los Reyes, a quienes servirian
superior in this respect to the young. Only
the intervention of divine grace cancon
putla misma lealtad y sumisi6n que les
sirvi6
down the rebellion of the body against
the siempre, mientras tuvo vida, el que
rational will in youth, and allow the willahora,
(and a las puertas de la muerte, les daba
consequently the soul) to have dominance
los 6iltimos consejos" (Palencia, Cronica 3:
over the body (De natura et gratia 43,311).
50; The advice to restore the Order to its
PL 44, 271). We can see the workingsold
ofrule and the plea for protection of his
family are intimately connected.
divine grace only in very special individuals.
Don Rodrigo is one of those individuals.In an age when nepotism was an integral
As a youth he was capable of mature acts
fact of life, the Coplas argued the need to

protect the Manrique clan. The sons and

and as an old man he was capable of youthful exploits. At both extremes of his life
he
"criados"
of don Rodrigo enjoyed great preference in the Order. The death of don
was invested with the virtues of the elect:
Rodrigo exposed them to a variety of perils
prudence (prudentia), courage (fortitudo),
that only the protection of the Catholic
measure (temperantia), and justice (iusti-

Kings
tia). The implications of the passage
are could counterbalance. The poem

that don Rodrigo is an extraordinary serves

indi- to remind the kings that true service
should be rewarded. It makes no direct
vidual who, in life, transcends the natural
mention
limitations of man and carries the virtues
of of the nature of the ailment that

a knight as his only adornments when

took
hedon Rodrigo's life other than that immakes his final contrition before death.plied
He in stanza 13.
stands opposed to the individual who lives
Manrique sets up the body/soul contrast
his life for himself or herself.

in stanza 13 and links it to the care of the

According to the chronicler Palencia,

"face" of the body through cosmetics and
don Rodrigo died in November of 1476 from
the adornment of the "face" of the soul. But,

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8 HISPANIA 84 MARCH 2001

PG 47:soul?
277-316. Twenty-eight Greek and forty-seven
how do you adorn the "face" of the
Latin manuscripts survive, the latter usually with the
The answer, we have seen, is contained
in

title De reparatione lapsi. See Jean Dumortier's edi-

the ubi sunt stanzas and in the panegyric

to
tion A Theodore
30ff. For mentions of St. John in

don Rodrigo. You adorn the soul fifteenth-century

with the

attributes mentioned in stanzas 27-28:

Castilian works see Lida de Malkiel

166, n. 2.

"ventura, uencer e batallar, virtud, saber5 Lope

e FernAndez de Minaya was the fifteenth-cen-

tury Toledan author of one of the dozens of "mirrors"

trabajar, bondad, liberalidad con alegria
of the soul written in the Middle Ages. He takes the
(fuerga), verdad, clemencia, ygualdad
del
same rational approach to the care of the body and of
semblante, eloquencia, humanidad e buen
the soul. God wishes us, he says, to use doctors to
talante, deciplina e rigor, fe, amor de
curesu
the body, even though only He can effect a real

cure and should therefore be considered the princitierra." Don Rodrigo's true worth, the true
pal doctor of both body and soul (Espejo del alma 2:
adornment of his soul, lay in those virtues

248). "E por ende, devDis saber que, ansi como en las

that he espoused in life and which served

dolencias corporales Dios solo es el fisico que las sana,

to safeguard his immediate family,

his
pero
quiere con todo eso que Ilamemos el fisico e

"criados," and the kingdom.

P alencia,
with the
benefit ofhowever,
hindsight, knew writing
that the
wishes expressed in don Rodrigo's

final letter to Ferdinand and Isabel were not

satisfied. Instead of appointing a friend of

the Manrique family to the mastership of
the Order, the king appointed Alonso de

Cardenas, the enemy of don Rodrigo.

Cardenas assumed the dignity, and the preferential treatment of the Manrique clan was

at an end. Even don Rodrigo's fame was in

peril as his claim to have been master of

Santiago was denied because he did not

control Le6n. After CArdenas, Ferdinand
assumed the Mastership of the Order.

usemos de aquellas cosas que naturalmente pueden

dar remedio a las dolencias, asi es en las dolencias del
alma, El solo las puede sanar e alimpiar de todas sus
pasiones e fealdades, el qual solo la cri6 fermosa e sin

mancilla....E ansi como en las dolencias corporales

primero Ilamades a Dios que al fisico...tornad a Dios

como a fisico principal, sin el qual vos nin otra persona

nunca entienda que puede sanar."

6 I do not know of any Castilian translation of St.
Eucherius's epistle before the sixteenth century. St.
John's works, however, were translated by Alfonso de

Madrigal (See Escorial MS a.IV.5 and a IV 7, Juan

Zarco Cuevas, Cat6logo de los manuscritos del Escorial

3 vols. [Madrid, 1924-29, I: 9-12] and Alonso de

Palenzuela (?) [Zarco Cuevas, I: 38-39]).
7Elaine Pagels discusses the relations between
Christians and the Roman state in Adam, Eve and the

Serpent, especially chapter 5: "The Politics of Paradise" 98-126.

8 Sancti Aurelii Augustini, De civitate dei 2: 437:

"Nam quae hominis est alia miseria nisi aduersus eum

m NOTES

ipsum inoboedientia eius ipsius, ut, quoniam noluit

' Obviously, these remarks on the structure of the

Coplas apply to the traditional structure followed, for
example, by Cortina's edition (13 + 10 + 16 and 1 con-

cluding stanza = 40) and by all the major early prints.

However, what I have to say about the meaning of

stanza 13 holds true no matter what the structure of

quod potuit, quod non potest uelit?" "For what else is

man's misery but his own disobedience to himself, so
that in consequence of his not being willing to do what
he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot."
9 Tertullian, De cultufeminarum 146. The term we

currently use to designate bodily adornment-cos-

the poem is considered to be. On the structure of themetic-is of Greek origin. It is related to cosmos by its
root and it implies something applied to the natural
Coplas, see Dominguez 63, 72-73.
2 Stanza 13 appears as number 13 or as number 7order of things. As such, it is more neutral than the

term used by the Latin poets and biblical exegetesin most editions of the poem.
3 St. Ambrose, for example, relies heavily on Philo medicamina-which evokes the use of medicines,
in his treatment of the relationship between the bodyphilters, and poisons. It is in this line that we should
and the soul in Death as a Good: "The soul, then, isconsider Ovid's De medicaminefacieifeminae and his
the user, the body that which is being used, and thusbetter-known Ars amatoria and the Remedia amoris.
the one is in command, the other in service; the one We should also keep in mind the aforementioned link
is what we are, the other what belongs to us. If any- made by these writers between cosmetics and slavery,
one loves the beauty of the soul, he loves us; if any- a common institution in the ancient and medieval
one loves the beauty of the flesh, he loves not the man world. Slaves and prostitutes are often depicted as

himself, but the beauty of the flesh, which quicklyexcelling in the use of cosmetics. The admonition is
wastes away and disappears" (St. Ambrose: Seven Ex-to avoid both slaves and prostitutes and cosmetics. For
the treatment of gender by the Roman poets, see Amy
egetical Works 91).
4 Paraenesis sive adhortatio ad Theodorum lapsum, Richlin, "Making Up a Woman: The Face of Roman

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

JORGE MANRIQUE'S COPLAS POR LA MUERTE DE SU PADRE 13:145-156 9

rence, 1548], A. Piemontese's Del secreti di conservar

Gender," Off with Her Head 185-213. For a concise
overview of the early development of views on cosmetlagioventa et ritardar la vecchiezza [Rome, 1557], and

ics see: Marcia Colish, "Cosmetic Theology: TheG. Marinnello's Gli ornamenti delle donne [1562]).
Transformation of a Stoic Theme" 3-14.

Howard Eilberg-Schwartz and Wendy Doniger dis-

10 Tertullian, De cultu feminarum 136; also Innocuss the bibliography about the symbolic value of hair
in Off with Her Head.
cent III: "An artificial countenance is plastered on, the
natural face covered up, as if man's skill could surpass
the art of his Creator. Not so, not so...But far be it that
0

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rouge the cheeks, elongate the eyebrows, when favor

Ambrose, Saint. St. Ambrose: Seven Exegetical Works.
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the Misery of the Human Condition 64). Clothing meta- the Church: A New Translation. Vol. 65. Washingphor similar in tenor to Stanza 13 has long been used ton: Catholic U P, 1972.
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metic receipts in French. It is unrelated to a work of

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the same title, Ornatus mulierum, attributed to the Educator. Trans. by Simon P. Wood, CP. Washingfemale physician Trotula of Salerno (see Trotula mi- ton: The Catholic U of America P, 1954.
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Bernard Grillet's Lesfemmes et lesfards dans l'antiquiti to Medieval and Renaissance Texts I (1981): 3-14.

Dominguez, Frank A. Love and Remembrance: The

12 Cosmetic receipts are the subject of Ovid's De Poetry ofJorge Manrique. Lexington: U P of Kenmedicamine faciei feminae-a fragment often pub- tucky, 1988.
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