The Latin Commentary Tradition and Stanza 70 of the Libro de buen amor: Notes on a Possible Source

[D]e todos jnstrumentos yo libro So pariente;bien o mal, qual puntares, tal te dira çierta mente.qual tu dezir quisieres y faz punto y tente;Ssy me puntar Sopieres Ssienpre me avras en miente.

(Libro de buen amor, st. 70)¹

In his 1974 edition of Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (LBA), Jacques Joset notes that the striking image in stanza 70, which equates the book with a musical instrument, has no known literary precedent, although he does refer the reader to Canto XII of Dante's Paradiso, in which the Franciscan Rulebook speaks. The importance of both stanzas 70 and 69 for the interpretation of the text was identified by Julio Cejador in his 1914 edition as follows: "En estas dos coplas está el nudo del libro, el intento del autor" (1: 35). In Raymond S. Willis's edition and paraphrase of the text, he remarks on the Archpriest's virtuosity in manipulating the meaning of the word punto in stanza 70: ". . . he whisks it, in a dance of words, from the realm of writing to that of music, changes it from noun to verb, associates it with decorative coloring and with the colors and tropes of rhetoric; it even becomes a gesture" (lxxv). Yet, in spite of their significance, discussion of these crucial stanzas has taken place largely in the form of editorial notes, notably by María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, Joan Corominas, Giorgio Chiarini, Gerald Gybbon-Monypenny and Alberto Blecua, as well as Joset and Cejador. A mere handful of articles explore the matter any further. The intention of this essay is to consider the possibility of a new direct source for stanza 70 within the context of the Latin commentary tradition, and to present evidence for the view that Juan Ruiz lived in a lectoral community that routinely echoed the notions of Hugh of Saint-Victor, a key figure in that tradition, regarding musical performance as an apt trope for readers' interpretative performances of works like the LBA. The potential direct connection between Hugh's work and Juan Ruiz's text may cast new light upon the ambiguous questioning of language and meaning that lies at the heart of the poem.

In tracing the evolution of the interpretations of stanza 70, it is evident that major critical opinion has upheld the idea of musical imagery implicit in instrumentos and in forms of the verb puntar (with the exception of Luis Jennaro-MacLennan, who argues that the word instrumentos refers to legal documents). James Burke picks up Jennaro-MacLennan's point, noting that one meaning of puntar is to penetrate a material slightly, usually parchment or paper, leaving a point or impression on it which thus creates a record for future reference. Burke claims that it is this kind of piercing action that has produced the text of the LBA, yet he nevertheless acknowledges that if we take puntar to mean "to play", then the reader can choose whatever tune they wish and interpret the poet's experiences as either positive or negative examples (175). Interestingly, Burke also believes that much of the LBA "originated as an academic exercise of imitation and rewriting" (164).

For Blecua, puntos means both musical notes and grammatical punctuation (17), a point taken up by Ana María Álvarez Pellitero in her 1995 article, in which she claims, "las coplas están ahí sobre el papel como los signos del ribaldo y el doctor en la disputa; depende de lo que cada uno puntúe, dejando desde su posición dialéctica el juicio bueno o malo" (513). In 1986, Mauricio Molho discussed stanza 70 in terms of the talking book and its use of the first person. He does not dwell upon the question of musical imagery, though he refers to yet another interpretation of puntos, this time Américo Castro's suggestion that they refer to the vocalization marks of Arabic and Hebrew script. Molho's comment that the Christian-Hebraic tradition views the Bible as a revelation of...