Grilled to Perfection: Miguel Cid's Poem in Praise of St. Lawrence

According to a probably apocryphal legend, as St. Laurence was suffering the lingering martyrdom of being roasted to death on a gridiron, he is said to have defied his torturers by shouting: "Turn me over, I'm done on this side." One could, of course, play with these notions in terms of being done or undone, finished or unfinished, but that is not where I am going in this paper. In the case of the poem Miguel Cid composed in honor of St. Laurence for a justa poética, the poet plays with that apocryphal tradition, referring to the saint as being grilled to perfection according to God's taste.

First, a few words about the author. Miguel Cid (1550–1617) has been hailed as "el poeta más prolífico de cuantos restringieron su actividad literaria a las justas poéticas sevillanas de finales del siglo XVI y comienzos del XVII" (Cancionero sevillano B 2495, 36). An enthusiastic participant in the so-called Marian War of the 1610s and 1620s that pitted the Dominican Order against the champions of the doctrine of the Immaculate Concepcion (Kendrick 88–103), the poet is the author of the famous redondilla: "Todo el mundo en general / a voces, reina escogida, / diga que sois concebida / sin pecado original" (Cancionero sevillano de Fuenmayor 31). Set to music by Bernardo del Toro, the copla became extremely popular, so much so that fanatical supporters of the doctrine of the Virgin Mary's immaculacy would embrace and applaud the author as he walked through the streets of Seville (Justas sagradas, "Al lector" [fol. 17v]).

Cid's fame as an advocate of the Immaculate Conception earned him the official recognition of appearing together with the Blessed Virgin in a painting by Francisco Pacheco. In the painting Cid holds in his hands a copy of his famous Immaculist poem "Todo el mundo en general." Cid was also affiliated with a sort of confraternity of questionable orthodoxy known as the Congregación de la Granada, whose members, imbued with a millenarian spirt, sought both the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Concepcion and the reform of the Church (González Polvillo 48–50).

Obviously, Cid did not make a living from writing verses. His day job was that of sayalero, that is, a sackcloth weaver. However, thanks to a series of wise investments, he was able to stop working and live off the income derived from those assets (Vranich 192). We must assume that at first Cid's poetry circulated in manuscript form, but in 1647, thirty years after his death in 1617, the poet's son, also named Miguel, published an edition of his father's poetic works under the title Justas Sagradas del insigne y memorable poeta Miguel Cid. The volume's dedicatee is none other than the Virgin Mary. Speaking to Mary, Miguel Cid, Jr., notes that if God was fond of "una Justa" [= Santa Justa, the patron of Seville] because she honored him, the Virgin will be pleased with the Justas contained in Cid's book because they are intended to honor her (Justas sagradas, "Dedicatoria" [fol. 16]). The sonetos laudatorios included in the book's preliminares did not lack for allusions to the poet's namesake, el Cid Campeador, including the inevitable comparisons between the warrior and the poet. Alonso Díaz Guzmán, for example, compares Justas sagradas to a flower garden whose gardener was "un Cid segundo" whose skill in planting was as great as the prowess of the first Cid in killing Moors (Justas sagradas [fol. 24v])

In his prologue, Miguel Cid, Jr., claims that "los coraçones de los fieles" begged him to publish his father's works (Justas sagradas, "Al lector" [fols. 17v–18r]). Two things are of interest here. First, thirty years after the poet's death, there was still enough interest in his works to justify their publication. Second, although justas poéticas are normally considered ephemeral events, in this case—and of course it is not a unique case—publication fixed and preserved the text of the poet's...