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Hernando de Soto (Madrid 1568 — ?)
Hernando de Soto was born during the reign of Philip II, in whose court his
father was employed as an auditor (Contador de su Majestad). This
position of his father – also named Hernando – and in the royal service for
more than sixty years, with the additional responsibilities of king’s yeoman
(Continuo de la Casa de Castilla), and provisioner (Veedor), allowed
our author a relatively carefree life that placed him in contact with the
circles of Court writers. Hernando de Soto inherited at a young age his
father’s position as Contador but he had already developed on his own a
penchant for letters that would win him a place of honor among the friends of
Lope de Vega.
Although he never dedicated himself wholly to writing, Soto nevertheless
participated occasionally in this craft by contributing poems to the
preliminary materials of several very relevant works (the Isidro de Sevilla
y La Arcadia, by Lope himself, or the Divinas Rimas… by Vicente
Espinel…), and he maintained contact with authors such as Mateo Alemán, both of
whom shared in part the same philosophy, or with Alonso de Barros. But the work
for which he has passed into the history of Spanish literature is the small
volume, in octavo, with its sixty Emblemas moralizadas, that we edit
here.
Emblemas moralizadas (1599)
The book came out in 1599, that is to say, when emblem literature is well-known
in Europe, but still somewhat rare in Spain, at least in terms of original
production. Only the works of Juan de Borja (published in Prague in 1581
although with a minimal diffusion in Spain until the successful augmented
edition of 1680) and that of Juan de Horozco (1589 and 1591) totally fulfill
all of the requirements to be considered as Spanish emblem books prior to that
of Soto. It is true that there are other books – they can be read on this very
CD – that touch on the genre, although in an incomplete manner for one reason
or another. One year earlier, for example, the book of another civil servant
like Soto had appeared, a book that presents undeniable points of contact with
emblematics: the Discursos del amparo de los legítimos pobres by the
Spanish Royal Navy Physician (Protomédico de las Galeras de España) Cristóbal
Pérez de Herrera (there are earlier editions, beginning in 1595, but incomplete
and without woodcut illustrations). This is worth mentioning due to some
fundamental similarities with Soto, especially in terms of their moral
attitude.
Formally, Soto conforms to the basic scheme of inscriptio, pictura,
subscriptio (in verse), accompanied by a gloss or prose commentary that is
never very extensive. The didactic tone and desire to reach a wide public, and
not just the erudite minority, can be seen in the fact that the Latin motto,
outside of the plate and situated just above it, is always accompanied by its
translation into Spanish. The picturae are of a very rudimentary
quality, and at times can even be characterized as crude, which nevertheless
does don detract from their charm. For the subscriptio, Soto opts for a
popular stanzaic form: the union of two quatrains (redondillas) (with
the exception of the emblem dedicated to the death of the Marquis of Tarifa,
which features three) of independent rhyme. The extremely high proportion of
acute rhymes adds even more to the popular nature of the collection.
It is in the prose commentaries, of sententious formulation, where Soto
introduces his wealth of erudition, although in a synthesized fashion, in
marginalia, where he identifies his sources or parallels with his discourse,
without overburdening the text of the commentary itself with an excessive
accumulation of explicit references, which would be the case with subsequent
emblematists, whose tendency to over-annotate became quite tedious.
Both in the verse, with its fable-like tone, and in the prose, Soto manifests
some of the moral concerns typical of a man of the Spanish Baroque, with its
strong dose of disillusionment, its contemplation of the world as something
essentially destructive and deceitful, a world in which one must know how to be
cautious, to be on guard, to use silence, to derive profit from harm… a world
where traditional values have been definitively replaced (see, for example, the
emblem Pulchrum pecunia Faunum / El dinero à lo feo haze hermoso).
Federico Revilla has keenly observed throughout this book the “horizon and portrait of a
lay intellectual under the Austrias,” since the religious preoccupations are
relegated to being sporadic, one of the major points of favorable comparison to
Pérez de Herrera noted above.
Hernando de Soto’s book was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries.
Judging by the numerous quotes and echoes of Soto found in other authors, it
seems apparent that his work was widely disseminated.
Editions
Enrique Cordero de Ciria – in his study “Las Emblemas moralizadas de Hernando de Soto y su primera versión,
inédita, en un manuscrito de la Biblioteca Nacional”, Boletín del Museo e Instituto Camón Aznar, LXV (1996),
5-18 – revealed the existence of manuscript 17.477 (“Varias poesías y papeles curiosos”) of the Biblioteca
Nacional of Madrid that contains a primitive edition of the Emblemas moralizadas. It consists of a series of
poems (also redondillas for the most part) the content of which appears to coincide with Soto’s book almost
completely. Cordero de Ciria analyzes the process of selection, elaboration and transformation that was carried out
on this primitive material – the tone of which is similar to that of a collection of brief fables that are essentially
narrative – in order to give rise to an emblem book, more witty and complex, with its added apparatus of engraving and
gloss, and above all a much more dense moral discourse. There can be no doubt, given the analysis by Cordero de Ciria,
that Hernando de Soto all ready had in mente an emblem book when he was preparing these manuscript texts.
• Emblemas moralizadas por Hernando de Soto, Contador y Veedor de la
casa de Castilla de su Magestad. Dirigidas a don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval,
Duque de Lerma, Marqués de Denia. Con privilegio. En Madrid. Por los herederos
de Iuan Iñiguez de Lequerica. 1599.
• Emblemas moralizadas. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española,
1983. Edición facsímil con Introducción de
Carmen Bravo-Villasante.
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Here we present Emblem 19 (Levium rerum
admirari, indignum est viri / Indigno es del nombre de hombre el que
de poco se admira) and Emblem 7 (Pulchrum pecunia Faunum / El dinero
a lo feo hace hermoso) from the Madrid 1599 edition, complete with
their original marginal notes:
Emblem 19:
Leuium rerum admirari, indignum
est viri / Indigno es del nombre de hombre el que de poco se admira
Admirose vn pueblo entero
Con espanto nunca oydo,
De ver rebuelto y assido
A vna llaue vn dragon fiero.
De esso (dixo) os admirays
Leontiquidas, mas podreys,
Quando la llaue que veys,
Rebuelta al dragon veays.
VAron, significa hombre de valor y fortaleza, no hombre que se
admira de cosas leues, y es para poco. Que por esto dezia vn
historiador grauissimo: Leuantaos en algun tiempo, si soys varones,
y tomad las armas. 1 Como si dixera: Si soys hombres de animo, y toca
a vosotros el pelear: no lo dexeys de hazer. Teme Amiclas la
tormenta, y el meterse en el mar con Cesar: pero el valiente Capitan
le anima, con que va el en la barquilla, y que la defendera de la
furiosa tempestad, que no sabe lo que le fauorece la fortuna.
2 Y
aunque es verdad, que el peligro no era para dexarse de temer, con
todo esso se echa de ver en aquello la entereza que tendria en las
cosas que fuessen de menos riesgo. Varones de Galilea, porque estays
mirando al cielo? Este Iesus que desde vosotros sube a el, de la
forma que le veys yr, ha de tornar a la tierra, que parece que se
admirauan de la Magestad con que Christo subia.
3 Y declara el texto
sagrado, que les dixeron esto dos varones vestidos de blanco, que
quedaron cerca dellos, por ser muy propio de Dios el yr de aquella
manera, y no auer ocasion de marauillarse.
4 Pinta S. Lucas a Ioseph
ab Arimathia noble y valeroso, llamale varon justo y bueno: el qual
fue a Pilatos y le pidio el cuerpo de nuestro Redemptor.
5 Marauillose
el juez de que huuiesse muerto, y no se marauillô el varon santo, de
que el le huuiesse condenado a muerte sin culpa.
6 Y para dar a
entender san Marcos el pecho de Ioseph, dize: que entrô a pedirle
con osadia el cuerpo de Iesus. 7 De lo qual se colige la bondad y
varonil pecho de Ioseph ab Arimathia, y la malicia y ruyn animo de
Pilatos. Que sea magnanimidad, difinio bien Espeusipo, pues
aduierte: que es vn moderado vso de lo que acontece, vna
conuersacion Cortesana con los hombres, y vna grandeza con razon:
8 porque los que merecen tener nombre de varoniles y sabios, no han de
admirarse de cosas leues: y muchas vezes de las que no lo son,
segun Leontiquidas, de cuya admirable sententia hazen mencion
Plutarcho y Erasmo. 9
1 Quint. Cur. de reb. gest. Alex. Mag.
2 Lucan. lib. 5.
3 Actuum c. 1. Viri Galilei, quid statis aspicientes in coelum? Hic
Iesus, qui assumptus est á vobis in coelum. &c.
4 Vbi supra. c. eodem.
5 Cap. 23.
6 Marc. c. 15.
7 Idem ibidem. Et introiuit audacter ad Pilatum, & petijt corpus Iesu.
8 Magnanimitas est moderatus contingentium vsus, vrbana cum
hominibus conuersatio, & magnificentia cum ratione.
9 Plutarch. in Leontichi. & Erasm. in Apophtegm.
Emblem 7: Pulchrum pecunia
Faunum / El dinero à lo feo haze hermoso
Ten essa cortina Amor,
Con rostro seuero y graue,
Pues tu madre Venus sabe
Quien lleuarà su fauor.
Porque esse Fauno belloso
Que tan feo agora ves
Le ofreze oro: y assi es
A sus ojos muy hermoso.
DEspues que passaron las tres edades, 1
y començò la de hierro, no huuo amigo con amigo, ni se dexó de
exercitar qualquier fraude, qualquier genero de mal, y daño:
siguiose tambien a esto, aquel desenfrenado desseo de señorear,
2 principio, y causa de guerras. De aqui el no estimarse vnos â otros,
sino es siendo ricos y poderosos. De aqui a valer tanto el dinero,
que le obligó a dezir al otro Poeta, 3 que el mucho oro es el que da
la honra y grandeza, y que con el oro se enamora: y es sin duda que
no se tiene mas credito de quanto dinero se tiene en el arca.
4 Que
reuerenciado, que seruido: y que adorado es el rico? Y que abatido,
que deshechado, y que aborrezido es el pobre. El dinero es el que da
amigos, y el que no le alcança en qualquier parte le menosprecian y
estiman en poco: 5 y es ordinario mientras vno estâ en su felicidad,
auer quien le siga, le haga amistad, y le ayude, y en boluiendo el
rostro la fortuna, dexarle, y no conocerle.
6 Llama Virgilio a la
pobreza fea, 7 y Seneca la llama triste,
8 no sin razon: porque no ay
cosa mas triste y fea el dia de oy que ella, y al contrario no la ay
mas estimada que el dinero, el qual es hermoso y a todo lo que no lo
es haze que lo parezca. 9 Desdichado del que en esta vida fuere pobre,
y tres y quatro vezes dichoso el que fuere rico, y vsare dello, como
sino lo fuere, que aunque el necessitado y pobre padezca en este
valle de miserias y desuenturas, lleuelo con paciencia, y sealo de
espiritu, 10 que no le està prometido, en recompensa dello, menos que
el Reyno de los cielos. 11 Finalmente la substancia del Emblema (que es
el querer dar a entender lo que puede y vale el dinero) viene a
encarecerse todo lo possible con la pintura de que Venus admite a vn
Fauno, porque trae las manos llenas de oro, siendo ella entre las
Diosas muy bella, y el entre los Dioses muy feo.
12
1 Ouid. lib. 1. Metamo. & Hesiod. in ope. & die.
2 Salust. in coniurat. Catili. Libidinem dominandi causam belli
habere.
3 Ouid. de arte aman. lib. 2. Plurimus auro venit honos: auro
conciliatur amor.
4 Iuuen. Saty.
5 Ouid. lib. 1. fast. Pauper vbique iacet.
6 Idem lib. 1. trist. eleg. 8.
7 lib. 6. Aeneid. Turpis egestas.
8 Traged. Thyest. Act. 2. Illinc egestas tristis.
9 Apul. Cupido formosae pecuniae leniebatur.
10 Quia egestas a Domino, &c. Pro. cap. 3.
11 2. ad Corin. c. 6. Tanquam nihil habentes, & omnia possidentes. Matth. c. 5. & Luc. c. 6.
12 Virg. Eclo. 7. formosae Myrtus veneri. Ouid. lib. 1. Metam. sunt
rustica numina Fauni. |
