This article was downloaded by: [McMaster University]

On: 19 December 2014, At: 18:04

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:
Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription
information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbhs19

Secret Language in the Cancioneros: Some

Courtly Codes
a
Ian MacPherson
a
University of Durham
Published online: 21 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Ian MacPherson (1985) Secret Language in the Cancioneros: Some Courtly Codes,
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 62:1, 51-63, DOI: 10.1080/1475382852000362051

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475382852000362051

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our
agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the
accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views
of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon
and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis
shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses,
damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in
connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial
or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and
use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 BHS, LXII (1985)

Secret Language in the Cancioneros:

Some Courtly Codes
IAN MACPHERSON
University of Durham

The title of this article contains a conscious stylistic device. By 'code' I wish to suggest not
only 'codigo', a conventionalized set of principles, but also 'cifra', a system whereby
meaning may be transferred from one person or one group of persons to another in a way
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

which will deliberately exclude any person who does not have access to the key to an agreed
system. By 'secret' I hope to imply not only 'cryptic', but also the sense in which Camilo Jose
Cela employs it in his Diccionario secreto, where he defines 'secreto' as 'Eufemismo de
motivacion moral 0 social. Venereo. Erotico,.1 The title itself is coded: its purpose is to
operate at either or both of two levels, and it is a fairly straightforward example of the
rhetorical device of ambiguitas. It is in the light of this notion of multiple meaning that I
would like to attempt a reconsideration of some features of courtly poetry written in Spain
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which have captured my interest, and which
until recently seem to me to have attracted rather less critical attention than they deserve.
The poem which I wish to take as my point of departure, and to which I shall return, is a
canci6n (Dutton 1955) which first appears in the manuscript Cancionero musical de Palacio
(MP4a), fols. 31v-32, compiled about 1500.
Justa fue mi perdiqi6n,
de mis males soy contento.
Ya no 'spero galard6n,
pues vuestro merecimiento
satisfizo a mi pasi6n.
Es vitoria conos<;ida
quien de vos queda ven\ido,
qu'en perder por vos la vida
es ganado el qu'es perdido.
Pues 10 consiente razon,
consiento mi perdimiento
sin esperar galardon,
pues vuestro mereqimiento
satisfizo mi pasi6n.
An abbreviated 'Justa' also appears in the late fifteenth-century or early sixteenth-century
manuscript Cancionero musical de Segovia (SG 1), fol. 207; "the earliest printed version is the
full one found in Hernando del Castillo's Cancionero general (11 CG), and it was reprinted
in all nine sixteenth-century editions of Castillo's collection. 2 This canci6n was one of the
great popular successes of the sixteenth century, and was the subject of glosses by at least ten
poets of the period: Costana (alias Constancio), Juan Boscan, the anonymous Hieronymite
friar who compiled the Cancionero espiritual of 1549, Jorge de Montemayor, Fernandez de
Heredia, Pedro de Andrade Caminha, Joaquin Romero de Cepeda, Gregorio Silvestre
(twice), Luis de Camoes, and the Principe de Esquilache. 3
Sl
 52 IAN MACPHERSON
There is evidence of Lope de Vega's familiarity with the poem in La Dorotea, V.III,
where the astrologer Cesar observes to Fernando: 'Pense que queriades decir con el discreto
Boscan:
Justa fue mi perdici6n
De mis males soy contento'.4

Lope was wrong to attribute it to Boscan-he clearly knew Boscan's famous gloss, but was
unaware of the fact that Boscan was elaborating on an earlier composition. 'Justa' is
frequently attributed by modern editors, more often than not without comment, to Jorge
Manrique, and there is slightly better evidence for this. The canci6n is anonymous in the
manuscript cancioneros. In the first edition of the printed Cancionero general it appears not
in the section devoted to Jorge Manrique (fols. 95v-102) but on folio 125, between two
canciones which Castillo attributes to 'don Jorge'; this one, however, is prefaced by the
simple rubric 'otra canci6n'. The first formal attribution to Manrique is not found, to my
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

knowledge, until the Segunda parte del Cancionero general published in Zaragoza in 1552,
where the rubric reads 'Canci6n de don Jorge Manrique'; on the basis of this late evidence
most modern anthologists and editors of Manrique have claimed it for him. 5 Romeu places
the poem cautiously, but not u'nreasonably, in the reign of Enrique IV (1454-74),6 and if the
thesis of composition by Manrique is correct this would give a terminus ad quem for 'Justa'
of 1479, the year of Manrique's death.
Baltasar Gracian knew and admired 'Justa', and thought it was by Manrique; he quotes
it in Agudeza y arte de ingenio, Discurso XXV. For the seventeenth-century Jesuit, it is the
quality of the 'artificioso ingenio' in the conceit of the first five lines which lifts the canci6n
from the ordinary: he draws attention to 'Ia proposici6n, que con su extravagancia
suspende, y despues con su ingeniosa raz6n satisface'? The impact on Gracian is made by
the 'extravagance' of the first two lines-'Justa fue mi perdi~i6n / de mis males soy
contento'-a notion which seems hyperbolic and irrational until the explanation, the
'ingeniosa raz6n', makes all clear: it was the great qualities of the lady which made the
poet's suffering so tolerable. Since Gracian's admiration is for content rather than form, it
would seem appropriate at this point to take stock of the content and to attempt an
'explanation' of the poem in its courtly context:
My ruin [=utter loss of happiness in a future state] was just,
and I am happy to suffer.
I expect no further favours,
since your great worth
was (ample) payment for my (previous) suffering.
Here, in the pie, the poet announces, 'astonishingly', that he is content to suffer. The key is
immediately supplied: he is a courtly lover, content to serve his lady, and he expects no
return for his devotion other than the pleasure of suffering the pangs of unrequited love for a
worthy woman.
To be conquered by you
can be recognized as a victory,
for in losing his life for you
the man who is lost is won.
Now we move to the courtly paradox of life and death: to be in love is a living death, and yet
one comes alive only by being in love. Thus defeat can be construed as victory, and death
becomes life.
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANClONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 53
Since my reason consents to it,
I consent to the utter loss of happiness,
expecting no further favours,
since your great worth
repaid all my suffering.
After the generalizing mudanza, the poet now appeals to his powers of logic. He consults his
reason, which tells him that it is quite in order to suffer the pangs of love without hope of
reward, and then loops back in the vue/ta to the observation that his lady's merit is sufficient
to compensate for all his suffering; he expects no physical satisfaction for his attentions.
The courtly context in which I chose to gloss this poem would benefit, nevertheless, from
closer examination. 'Justa' appears in a number of collections of fifteenth-century verse,
much of which is love poetry, male-orientated, and depending on established, formalized,
codes of behaviour between men and women. In such poetry woman is conventionally
idealized, worshipped, and placed on a pedestal; she is, as in this poem, faceless and passive,
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

but she inspires in the caballero who .serves her a recognition that love is a painful and
paradoxical experience which nevertheless, in spite of this or because of this, is something to
be sought after, something worthy, rewarding, and ennobling. In the expectation that
'Justa' was written within these courtly conventions, I supplied an appropriate gloss.
A number of studies have appeared in recent years, however, which suggest that the
summary of courtly attitudes which I have just offered is somewhat simplistic. A few critics,
among them Francisco Rico, Peter Dronke, Alan Deyermond, Julio Rodriguez Puertolas,
and above all Keith Whinnom, have not contented themselves with generalizations, but
have applied themselves to close reading of sections of the cancionero which have caught
their attention, and have been rewarded with findings which urge caution. s From their
many insights, I would like at this point to consider three.
In the first place, as the cultural climate changes in the twentieth century, and as it
becomes more possible to publish all the material contained in the cancioneros, rather
than what was considered 'decent' in Victorian times, the remarkable range and versatility
of the poets with whom we are concerned has become increasingly evident. Julio
Rodriguez, for example, was able in 1981 to describe the 'typical' cancionero poet
as 'amoroso, burlesco, satirico, obsceno, ocasionalmente religioso' (Poesia critica, 298).
Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino not only wrote the courtly love poems of a platonic and
romantic nature which tend to be gathered into the anthologies, but also a wide range
which encompasses the notoriously explicit:
Senora, pues que no puedo
abrevar el mi carajo
en esse vuestro lavajo,
por domar el mi denuedo,
he perdido, segunt cuedo,
mi affan e mi trabajo,
si tras el vuestro destajo
non vos arrega<;o el rruedo ...
This nine-stanza poem (Dutton 1244) appears on folio 35 of the Cancionero de Baena, and
in it the poet explains, on behalf of an anonymous rejected suitor, and in considerable verbal
and circumstantial detail, what in his opinion ought to be done to the lady who has seen fit
not to respond to his amorous advances. The modern editor of this cancionero, Jose Maria
Azaceta, primly notes: 'Composicion tremendamente burda y grosera, indigna de aparecer
en letras de imprenta'.9 None the less, in 1966 Azaceta was able to find a publisher, for the
cultural and social conventions of the sixties placed no embargo on such material. As little
 54 IAN MACPHERSON
as twenty years earlier, the poem might not have been felt totally suitable for a collection on
open sale.
The most recent editors of Diego de San Pedro, Dorothy Sherman Severin and Keith
Whinnom, are equally able in 1979 to show the full range for a poet writing late in the
fifteenth century, from his Pasion trobada to his cancion 'a una senora a quien rogo que Ie
besasse y ella respondio que no tenia culo'-the lady is, in effect, calling him a lameculos, to
which San Pedro takes notable, articulate, and earthy exception. 1O The poem does not
appear in the Ci<isicos Castellanos edition of Diego de San Pedro's Obras edited by Samuel
Gili y Gaya in 1951, but whether the omission is due to the aesthetic sensitivities of the
editor, his times, or his publisher, is not important; what does affect attitudes is that the true
picture is distorted by the conventions of the editor's times, not those of the poet.
Cancionero poets wrote about more than one kind of love between the sexes, and were on
occasion extremely explicit. The Cancionero musical de Palacio contains a very high
proportion of erotic love poetry; the Cancionero de obras de burlas provocantes a risa
appended to 11CG contains much obscene material; fifteenth-century attitudes and
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

sensitivities were not as those of the twentieth century.

Second, if one concentrates in particular on the love poetry of the last quarter of the
fifteenth century, the Isabelline period, one has to be prepared for a cultural context in
which a restricted 'in-group' of courtiers were writing primarily for each other, and in which
a range of vocabulary can be shown to be operating at two levels at once. The key word
'pasion', for example, which occurs in lines 5 and 14 of 'Justa', could mean in the Middle
Ages either 'suffering' or 'creative, ecstatic love'. In q study published in this volume (pp.
65-78), Jane Tillier underlines how 'pasion' came to be a key term in medieval love poetry,
much of which was written in the shadow of treatises of love such as Andreas Capellanus'
De amore, which opens with the statement that 'Amor est passio quaedam innata' .11 What
precisely 'pasion' might mean in any given context would depend on the circumstances of
that appearance: its connotations might be religious, or courtly, or erotic, or any
combination of the three.
Euphemisms and innuendo abound in cancionero verse. Keith Whinnom, after
examining usages in the straightforwardly obscene poems of the period, and collating his
findings with the invaluable Alzieu, Lissorgues and Jammes edition of Poesia erotica del
Siglo de Oro,12 is able to draw up a list of some thirty verbs amply documented as
euphemisms for the sexual act in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These include
cabalgar, encontrar, justar, merecer, perder, ponerse, servir, and veneer, and to these one
could add canocer, in its well-documented Biblical sense, and morir, which like Medieval
Latin morire, English 'die' (d. 'I will die bravely, as a smug bridegroom', Lear IV, 6), and
related terms in a wide range of European languages, is a standard term for 'to come to a
sexual climax', with dar muerte, perder la vida as recognizable variants in appropriate
contexts. Euphemisms abound for the male member involved in the exercise, among them
lanza, clavo, bombarda, caiion, pluma, dingaduj; for the corresponding part of the female
anatomy we find, among a host of others, caverna, dedal, hendidura, mazmorra, paraiso,
sortijuela, quiquiriqui-all of these fairly inventive and often humorous examples. The
many fully explicit compositions in which such terms abound leaves no room for doubt
whatsoever as to their meaning in clear contexts. Of course this is not to say that every time
one of these terms occurs in a cancion or a villancico it is full of erotic innuendo: there are
many poems, almost certainly a large majority of poems, where morir means to cease to live,
pluma refers to a pen, and paraiso indicates paradise. These, nevertheless, can be seen to be
code words, and a crucial question for the critic is how to interpret verses where these key
words occur, but where the intention is not, on the surface at least, outspokenly indecent.
Third, in an earlier article published in 1970, Whinnom brought forward conclusive
evidence of new attitudes towards the composition of poetry in the closing years of the
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANCIONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 55
fifteenth century.13 It was not just, as Patrick Gallagher described it two years earlier a
'new school of poetry ... in which passion and poetic artifice were wedded: the sch~ol
which refined the paradox and cultivated antithesis in order to express, ever more subtly,
elegantly and ingeniously, the tensions of courtly love,.14 This refinement was achieved,
but Whinnom, by dint of a close reading of the poems and a statistical count of their
content, has been able to show the means by which the end was attained, through
conscious, polished, restriction: the new school makes a virtue of economy, allowing
itself a severely reduced number of metres and metrical variations, and above all there is
a conceptual restriction. The vocabulary is consciously and rigorously restricted, in type
(this is a poetry of abstractions, without room for descriptive adjectives), and in range
(the fewer lexical items the poet can contrive to use, and the greater the conceptual
charge he can introduce into each, the more worthwhile, in the eyes of his peers, will
have been his effort). Brevity and density are the objectives of the best of the poetry of
this period.
With these three considerations in mind, 'Justa' can now be reconsidered. My
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

preliminary analysis of the canci6n suggested a critical verdict close to that of Romeu: 'Un
poema sobrio, cenido y expresivo, aun dentro del car<icter artificioso y del retoricismo del
estilo cortes'. 15 This verdict, however, seems uncomfortably at odds with the evidence from
the sixteenth century, when the poem was a success, printed and reprinted in cancioneros,
set to music in versions recorded in the musical collections of Palacio and Segovia, and
glossed again and again by a series of poets of stature, among them Boscan, Heredia,
Cam6es, and Gregorio Silvestre. One wonders what special quality in 'Justa' so captured the
imagination of such writers.
Mirta Aguirre properly reminds u,s that we are dealing here not with a poem but with a
song, and that its success could well have depended on the setting rather than the words;
taking her first two adjectives from Menendez Pelayo, she goes on to assert that 'leida es
insulsa y trivial, y musicalizada resulta diferente'.16 Mirta Aguirre makes no attempt to
explain what such a difference might be, however, and an examination of the setting by
Francisco de la Torre which she reproduces from MP4a does little to clarify matters. The
setting is very traditional, and not at all innovative, with a musical repetition scheme-
ABBA-which is typical of nearly all the canciones and villancicos in the Cancionero musical
de Palacio. Each musical phrase is constructed in the same way, with a melisma at the end,
after an essentially syllabic opening, and the result is pleasant, but in no way special. The
setting is like many others, with no special match of words and tune. 17 Mirta Aguirre's
assertion that 'musicalizada resulta diferente' appears to have little substance to it, and the
search for an explanation of the popularity of this canci6n must, it seems, take other
directions.
One possibility is suggested by a passing anecdote told by the Portuguese genealogist
Antonio Caetano de Sousa, who records how Frei J0<10 Manuel, Bishop of Guarda and
illegitimate son of the scholar-king Duarte, took as his mistress a lady of the Portuguese
court called Justa Rodrigues Pereira, who bore him two illegitimate children. Repenting
later in life of his youthful extravagances, Frei J0<10 adopted as his device the words 'Justa
fue mi perdici6n'.I~ The wry joke involves a coincidence which is probably too great not to
be taken seriously. The Bishop of Guarda died in 1476; Jorge Manrique died in 1479. Who
borrowed from whom, and always assuming that Manrique wrote the canci6n, may well
prove impossible to discover, but it is clear that the 'Justa' in the first line could be read, and
was read, as a lady's name: 'Justa was my downfall'.
Corroborating evidence for the concealed lady's name in the poetry of the time is
abundant, and the concealment can be detected at a number of levels. Pedro de Cartagena's
abecedarian eulogy of his lady Menda (Dutton 4334) has her name clearly spelled out on
the surface:
 56 IAN MACPHERSON
Por la M, que nos mata,
por la E, que la entendamos;
por la N, no podamos
desatarnos si nos ata;
por la C, cessa el plazer
de todos los que la vemos;
por la Y, yerra el saber
siendo d'otro parescer;
por la A, que la adoremos. (llCG, fol. 86)
Puerto Carrero's 'Dudo todo el bien qu'espero' (Dutton 6843) provides an example of the
standard single acrostic, where the first letters of stanza 2 spell out the name 'Beatriz':
Ante qu'el mal sea venido
vino con pena esperando;
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

el bien escoto, dubdando,

aunque venga 10 que pido.
Tanto quanto mas os quiero,
requiero menos provecho,
y quando mas satisfecho
ze[d]o queda 10 qu'espero. (14CG, fol. 109)
Juan del Encina was particularly fond of the device, and Roy Jones and Carolyn Lee provide
abundant examples of his acrostics in their introduction to his Poesia lirica y cancionero
musical. 19
More imaginative and less immediately evident examples involve junctura, and include
the anonymous mote (Dutton 6867) 'Meteres a mi en cuidado' (llCG, fol. 146), and Jorge
Manrique's 'Seg6n el mal que me sigui6' (Dutton 6156), where the name of Dona Guiomar
de Meneses, the poet's wife, can be extracted from lines 1 and 2: 'Seg6n el mal me sigui6 /
maravillome de mi .. .' (llCG, fol. 100) The accolade for ingenuity could possibly be
awarded to Luis de Tovar, who in this 'copla sola' (Dutton 6583) succeeds in concealing no
fewer than nine ladies in mid-line, eight with junctura ('Martirio', in line 3, is the ninth).
Feroz, sin consuelo, y sanuda dama,
remedia el trabajo a nadie creedero,
a quien Ie sigui6 martirio tan fiero,
no seas le6n 0 reyna, pues t'ama;
cien males se dob/an cada hora en que pene,
yen ti de tal gu[i]sa beldad, pues, se assienta;
no seas cruel en assi dar afruenta
al que, por te amar, ya vida no tiene. (llCG, fol. 147)
At the most recondite level, the poet may never mention the name directly at all, but
simply build in clues and leave the ingenious reader to do the rest. Thus in 'Concertados a
podia' (Dutton 6624) Soria devotes fifty lines to a lady whose identity can only be deduced
on the basis of two lines from stanza 2, and the last two lines of the poem:
porque a v6s no es cosa nueva
que matays a quien quereys ...
que quien por amores mata
por amor ha de morir. (llCG, fol. 181v)
The whole is directed 'a una senora que se llamava Mata'.
In Juan Manuel's romance 'Gritando va el caballero' (Dutton 6329) three clues are
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANCIONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 57
offered to the lady's name (never mentioned directly), and then the poet rather lamely
provides the key to the code:
En la cabe<;:a Ie puso
una corona real,
guarnecida de castanas
cogidas del castana/.
Lo que dize la castana
es cosa muy de notar:
las cinco letras primeras,
el nombre de la sin par. (llCG, fol. 135)
The lady, appropriately enough, was called Casta, since the young lover mourns the death
of 'su amiga / que murio sin la gozar' (line 14).
This device may be extended to areas other than ladies' names, and one or two critics
have already drawn attention to. examples of the technique in cancionero poetry. In 1978,
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

Alan Deyermond examined Florencia Pinar's 'D'estas aves su nacion' (Dutton 6241), where
the only internal clue to the nature of the birds (explained in the rubric as 'perdices') is the
gerund 'perdiendo' in line 11. Twelve years earlier, Francisco Rico's study of three
invenciones from 11 CG included this composition of the Condestable de Castilla (Dutton
0929):
Saquelas del cora<;:on
por que las que salen puedan
dar lugar a las que quedan. (llCG, fol. 141v)
Here the only clue in the surface structure of the invencion which connects it to the external
referent is the weak pronoun 'las' repeated three times: the key to the puzzle lies in the
realization that the referent is 'penas', the feathers worn on the knight's helmet, with
appropriate wordplay on its double values of 'feather' and 'suffering'.20
In the Encina cancion 'Sin veros no tengo vida' (Dutton 4499), the word 'veros' occurs
four times in the first four lines: 'Sin veros no tengo vida / muero en veros por quereros /
entre veros y no veras / tengo la vida perdida' (96JE, fol. 86). The outside reference this time
is to 'una dama que saco una ropa forrada en veros' and, inspired by the lady's fur-lined
wrap, Encina indulges himself in wordplay between the expressed 'veros' (verb + personal
pronoun) and 'veros' ('squirrel fur'). This may seem trivial unless the reader bears in mind a
further possible wordplay between the expressed 'veros' 'see you' and the unexpressed
'*averos' 'possess you', and chooses to read the whole poem in the light of the fact that white
ermine was frequently used to symbolize virginity. Encina's technique here is of
considerable linguistic and literary interest. His conceit displays a concern for the multiple
values of words, and a joy in handling language for its own sake; 'veros' is 'seeing you', 'fur',
and possibly 'possessing you' all at the same time. Nevertheless Encina is not drawing
attention to the conceptual relationships between the faculty of sight and a fur wrap, to the
fact that sight is like a fur wrap, or that fur wraps are clear-sighted; he is not making a
serious intellectual point about the nature of the world around him. 21
The device is rhetorical, and is essentially the annominatio of the medieval period, one of
the colours of rhetoric. These are puns, but a technical innovation is that one of the two
terms involved in the annominatio is concealed. In the thirteenth century, Berceo's practice
was to layout both terms, in full sight: 'Ella es dicho puerto a qui todos corremos, / E puerta
por la cual entrada atendemos' (Milagros, 549). In the fifteenth century, the cancionero poet
will frequently supply only one of the two elements in the surface structure of the poem-
meteres a, mata, castana, perdiendo, pena, veros-and the reader or hearer, by the exercise
of his wit and aided more often than not by an external visual stimulus, will have to supply
 58 IAN MACPHERSON
the second sense for himself. Once the rules of the game have been determined, the code may
be broken.
With these principles in mind, what seems to me one of the most imaginative and
successful invenciones of the period can now be considered. These two octosyllables
(Dutton 6381) are attributed to Juan Manuel:
Lo que haze, causa veros;
los que dize, conosceros. (llCG, fol. 142v)
The key term, as before, is not expressed in the letra itself, and in this case we are asked to
seek out the missing subject of the two main verbs, haze and dize. Fortunately, the rubric
supplied by Hernando del Castillo tells all: 'Don Juan traya en bordaduras unas sueltas'.
The annominatio centres on the sueltas (or rather suelta, since a singular subject is clearly
required by the two verbs)-the hobble worn by the horses as they entered the lists to
prevent them bolting, and the subject of the embroidery. In the first line, 'veros' has to be
read as the subject of the main verb 'causa': 'Seeing you causes restraint' (what the 'suelta'
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

does is to hobble, fetter, restrain); the lover is a prisoner of love, and the fetter deprives him
of his liberty. In the second line, however, we find ourselves committed to interpreting
'suelta' as the imperative or present indicative of the verb 'soltar', and to considering not '10
que haze', or what the fetter does (restrain), but '10 que dize', what its homophone 'says', or
means-and that is 'loosen', 'release', or 'set free'. Thus 'knowing you' (and this can be
taken in its everyday, or in its biblical sense), 'leads to release'. This invitation to an erotic
interpretation of 'conosceros' is underlined by the first line, moreover, where the ostensibly
harmless 'causa veros' could well be read, in the light of the annominatio discussed in the
Encina cancion above, as 'causa [a]veros'.
The technique behind this cancion is precisely what so pleased Gracian about the best of
the fifteenth-century poets, and what for him so distinguished them from the versifying of
some of his contemporaries-the 'palabra de dos cortes y un significar ados luces' (Agudeza
y arte de ingenio, XXIII)-and represents a quite remarkably condensed piece of wit. The
word simultaneously involves both restriction and release, and the parallels with the effects
of love (the tensions involved in holding back or coming forward) are now patently clear;
the enigma is resolved and the paradox is sharp and effective. Annominatio and paradox are
all bound up in the six letters of 'suelta', but 'suelta' does not even appear in the invencion
itself; the only clue is the visual stimulus of the embroidery on the knight's tunic. 22 'Secret
language' seems to me justifiable terminology for this type of procedure: the wordplay
depends for its effect, as Sister Miriam Joseph says of Shake¥'eare's use of puns, 'on the
intellectual alertness necessary to perceive the ambiguity'.z A superficial reading will
achieve little; the mind has to be engaged, and may, as in the last example, profit from its
involvement.
A piece of cancionero verse, therefore, may contain concealed references to ideas or
objects outside its own immediate context, and the name of a lady may be one of these;
annominatio, with the second sense of the word not appearing in the surface structure, can
be shown to be a regular feature of the poetry of the time. In 'Justa fue mi perdici6n' there is
thus no obstacle to the interpretation of the first word as both a lady's name and an adjective
meaning 'just'.
. !" pu~ on a name in the first line of a poem does not, however, transform it from a
tnvlahty mto a masterpiece, and more background is needed. 'Justa' also means a joust, or
toum~ment. The 'justa' joke was one of the favourites of the period: this word, at first sight
referrmg to an encounter between two armed men, was a standard term for an encounter
~etween the two sexes, a 'justa de amores'. The vocabulary involved was tailor-made for
mDuendo: encounters occur ('encontrar'); the men come armed with lances ('lan~as') and
the women have shields ('escudos'); horses and riding are introduced (which allows for such
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANCIONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 59
terminology as 'cabalgar', 'en la silla'); the encounters take place in the lists (for which the
contemporary term was 'tela', which also had the general sense 'membrane' and the more
particular one 'hymen', 'maidenhead', as well as 'cloth', and provides a plentiful supply of
virtually untranslateable innuendo and double-entendre based on 'tejer', 'tejedora', and
'urdir tela').24
I have analysed two of these poems in detail elsewhere-Antonio de Velasco's 'Pues que
con seis servidores' (Dutton 6820), and the reply provoked from Fadrique Enriquez, the
fourth Admiral of Castile, 'Salga el cabo de Castilla' (Dutton 6821)-in order to show how
the erotic innuendo is sustained throughout on the basis of double-entendres based on the
key terms 'servidores', 'tela', and 'texedora,.25 Tristan de Estuiiiga's 'Soiiava que vi justar'
(Dutton 6752), although too long to allow for all 180 lines to be reproduced here, provides
some classic examples of the suggestive techniques used in 'justa' poems of this type. The
rubric sets the tone; 'Justa que hizo Tristan de Estuiiiga a unas monjas, porque no Ie
quisieron por servidor de ninguna de ellas, y el t6vose por dicho que 10 dexavan por ser el de
hedad de treinta y cinco aiios', and the key is given in the first stanza:
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

Soiiava que vi justar

de noche, que no de dia;
era tan grande el soiiar
al tiempo dell' encontrar,
que de lexos bien se oYa.
Allegueme, por saber
quien era mantenedor,
y aun por dades a entender
si me querien acoger
alli, para justador. (llCG, fol. 222)
There is only one kind of joust which takes place in the dark, and the prowess shown in
such tournaments is far from military. The noise involved is considerable-'que de lexos
bien se oya'-and this theme is developed in stanza 2, where the poet is addressed 'a bozes,
que no en secreto': this whole affair is distinctly anti-courtly. The poet is advised in stanza 4
that his advancing years render him unsuitable for the encounter,
porque quien ha de justar
-segun son las ordenan~as­
es cierto que ha de quebrar,
y si no, Ie han de matar
d'un encuentro cuatro lan'1as.
Here the 'matar', 'encuentro', and 'Ianzas' euphemisms are transparent, and the remainder
of the poem develops along these lines, with the occasional grammarian's joke, such as the
annominatio of 'Toc6le en los genitivos' (stanza 10), and building to a final stanza which
contains perhaps the most explicit occurrence of the euphemistic value of 'morir' which I
have noticed in cancionero poetry. After the hectic conclusion to the joust:
Las armas son abolladas,
la justa quiera parar,
las pazes son pregonadas,
las lan~as todas quebradas,
ya las mandan apear.
Unos quedaron finados,
y se murieron de veras ...
Tristan de Estuiiiga, now wishing 'morir' to mean 'cease to live' rather than 'reach a
 60 IAN MACPHERSON
sexual climax', finds himself obliged first to preface his verb by the synonym 'finar'and then
to qualify it by the adverbial phrase 'de veras'. Had he not done so, the reader, not
unreasonably, would have continued to interpret 'morir' along the suggestive lines
indicated by the previous seventeen stanzas.
The sustained innuendo in this poem is designed primarily to entertain and amuse, but
the entertainment is not, in my view, in bad taste. No taboo items of vocabulary are
employed: Tristan de Estuniga simply encodes one kind of encounter (sexual) in terms of
another (military), so that all the vocabulary operates at two levels. In rhetorical terms, this
is what in the sixteenth century George Puttenham was to describe as amphiboLogia, 'the
figure of sence incertaine': 'when we speake or write doubtfully and that the sence may be
taken two wayes', clearly in its sub-category amphiboLogia obscena. 26 The poem is in no
way uncharacteristic of its times, but it is light-hearted, sexually aware, and, possibly as a
direct result, comparatively unknown. Compilers of anthologies have tended not to print
such verses.
On the other hand, Juan del Encina's 'Justa de amores' (Dutton 4469) is for some reason
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

printed regularly, but often with a striking absence of editorial comment. One reason may
be that the four stanzas whic~ I reproduce below are immediately followed by sections,
without innuendo, on the allegorical arms which he and she should bear to the battle, thus
allaying suspicion and implying that any innuendo seen by the reader in the first few stanzas
must have rested in the eye of the beholder. This basic procedure, in which 'el poeta se queda
con el decoro y los lectores con la indecencia', has already been identified and discussed in
Poesia amatoria by Keith Whinnom, who has coined for it the useful critical label 'Ia
defraudacian del lector'.27
Justa de amores hecha por Juan deL
Enzina a una donzella que mucho Le
penava, La quaL de su pena quiso dolerse.
'Pues por vas crece mi pena,
quiero, senora, rogaros
que querays aparejaros
a la justa que se ordena,
y abrir luego la cadena
donde esta mi libertad,
pues sabe vuestra beldad
que sin razan me condena,
siendo mi fe tanto buena.
Esta justa puede ser
de noche, y aun es mejor,
que de dia con calor
no nos podremos valer;
por esso mandad poner
a mis servicios la tela
en lugar donde candela
no ayamos menester,
y alii vereys mi poder.
De mucha merced os pido
que mireys que este bien puesta
en campo llano sin cuesta,
do se gane 10 servido,
que de mi dolor crecido
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANCIONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 61
la tela sera remedio.
Mas deveys mirar en medio
no tenga nada rompido,
por que no vaya perdido.
Vos sereys mantenedora,
yo sere competidor,
y aunque sea vencedor
quedareys por vencedora;
por 10 qual tomad, senora,
las armas que yo os dare,
y tan bien yo tomare
las que bien vereys agora,
siendo vos consentidora. (96JE, fol. 82)
The key to the double entendres is supplied by Encina in stanza 2: this 'justa' is to take
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

place between Encina and the lady of the title by night, when it is cooler; she is requested to
put her 'tela' at his service; a candle will not be required; there she will be given a
demonstration of his masculine 'poder'.
Encina's poem displays his versatility, but could hardly be described as subtle. It is very
difficult to offer an interpretation at an innocent level, because the poem fails to make sense
at that level: men and women are known to engage in nightly, but not knightly, pursuits. In
the third stanza the subject of 'este' in line 2 is 'tela'; the damsel is asked to layout the lists, or
herself, on a flat field, where the 'tela' will provide the 'remedio' for her lover, and to take
care that the 'tela' is unbroken. In these matters, there are of course no absolutes in taste, but
I find very little to capture the spirit in these verses; the techniques are similar to those of the
poems just discussed, but the lack of finesse, the chauvinism, and the absence of any real
sense of fun present a formidable barrier to total enjoyment. This is perhaps the clearest
case, among the last three poems considered, of amphibologia obscena, but the poem is so
heavily weighted on the side of the sexual suggestion that the innocent meaning of the key
terms virtually disappears. 28
'Justa fue mi perdicion' should now be considered one more time in the light of this
wider context. The first line operates primarily at a courtly level-'My ruin was just'-but
also allows for a religious gloss: 'My perdition was rightful'. Alternatively, the first word
may represent a lady's name, so that the line can be read: 'Justa was my downfall'. Lastly,
given the context of the 'justas de amores', a double entendre has to be borne in mind, and
we must consider the interpretation 'Tilting at that lady was my downfall'. 29 The first line
supplies the clue that a sensual interpretation, as well as a courtly one, could be sustained,
and the nature of the key vocabulary-'perdicion', 'galardon', 'pasion', 'perder la vida',
'satisfazer'-supports this. In a sensual, profane, context, the poem could be read:
Tilting at Justa, quite rightly, was my downfall,
but I am quite happy with my misdeeds.
I no longer expect a reward,
since making love to you
gave me ecstasy and satisfaction.
The man who has been to bed with you
has achieved a recognizable victory,
for in a climax achieved with you
the man who is lost is won.
Since my reason consents to it,
 62 IAN MACPHERSON
I consent to my downfall,
expecting no reward,
for making love to you
gave me ecstasy and satisfaction.
This particular canci6n, which seems to me 'insulsa y trivial' only on the most casual and
superficial of acquaintance, appears on closer investigation to have achieved its enormous
popular success for a combination of reasons. The surface meaning is beyond all doubt
completely courtly and irreproachable: this is a poem which could offend no one, and could
not possibly outrage public decency; it lends itself, moreover, to a fairly straightforward 'a
10 divino' gloss. Francisco de la Torre set it to a tune which complements the lyric well,
without being in any way outstanding or innovative. The poem has a memorable first line
and therefore title, which contains three-way wordplay including a lady's name-always a
sound recipe for success. And finally, but in my view crucially, 'Justa' operates sensitively at
multiple levels. It is either a courtly love poem, or a religious poem, or a sensual love poem
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

designed not to offend, but to compliment the lady and to rejoice in an event of significance
to both. Unlike Encina's 'Justa de amores', there is nothing lewd or leering or offensive
about it: it is a simple celebration of either courtly or physical love.
It is not legitimate to read innuendo into every poem written in this period, because
innuendo does not occur in every poem. There is, however, a demonstrable love of
ambiguitas and annominfltio in cancionero verse, and the modern critic, when faced by a
poem which may have an encoded message, needs to be on the alert for the indicators which
will help him to decode it. I have tried to draw attention to what form these might take in a
specific area, but am very much aware of the investigative and critical work which remains
to be done. More poems will have to be read more closely; editors must be prepared to think
about the poems rather than print them alongside patronizing adjectives. As yet, modern
criticism has some distance to go before it is in a position to achieve a complete and
informed understanding of this type of writing, and as critics we still need to have a clearer
idea of the nature of the aims and aspirations of the poets of the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth century. I am personally convinced that many of these poets were considerably
more enterprising and ambitious, particularly in their joy and skill in handling the multiple
values of words, than they have generally been given credit for. 30

NOTES
1 Camilo Jose Cela, Diccionario secreto, 3 vols (Madrid: Alianza, 1974), I, 50.
2 Cancionero musical de Palario (Siglos XV-XVI), ed. Jose Romeu Figueras, in La musica en la corte de los
Reyes Cat6/icos (Barcelona: Casa Provincial de Caridad, 1965), IV-2, 268; Cancionero de la Catedral de Segovia,
ed. Joaquin Gonzalez Cuenca (Ciudad Real: Museo de Ciudad Real, 1980), 43; Hernando del Castillo,
Cancionero general (Valencia: Cristobal Kofman, 1511), facsimile repe. by Antonio Rodriguez MoiIino (Madrid:
RAE, 1958). The Dutton poem humber and cancionero reference number, which I use to refer to all poems and
cancioneros quoted, are those established by Brian Dutton in his Catdlogo-indice de fa poesia cancioneril del siglo
XV (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1982).
3 For details, see Romeu, Cancionero musical, IV-2, 269.
4 Lope de Vega, La Dorotea, ed. Edwin S. Morby (Madrid: Castalia, 1980), 446.
5 The misattribution to Costana by the compiler of MP2 (fol. 163v) should not be taken too seriously.
Costana was responsible for the gloss, not the canci6n.
6 Cancionero musical, IV-1, 14.
7 Ed. Evaristo Correa Calderon, 2 vols (Madrid: Castalia, 1969), I, 253.
8 See, for example, Francisco Rico, 'Un penacho de penas. Sobre tres invenciones del Cancionero general',
Romanistisches Jahrbuch, XVII (1966),274-84; Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise ofthe European Love
Lyric, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965-66); Alan Deyermond, 'The Worm and the Partridge: Reflections on the
Poetry of F10rencia Pinar', Mester (Los Angeles), VII (1978), 3-8; Julio Rodriguez PuertoIas, Poesia critica y
 SECRET LANGUAGE IN THE CANCIONEROS: SOME COURTLY CODES 63
satirica del siglo XV (Madrid: Castalia, 1981); Keith Whinnom, La poesia amatoria de la epoca de los Reyes
Cato/icos, Durham Modern Languages Series, Hispanic Monographs, 2 (Durham: Univ., 1981).
9 Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena, ed. Jose Maria Azaceta, 3 vols (Madrid: CSIC, 1966), I, 210.
10 Diego de San Pedro, Obras completas, III. Poesias, ed. Dorothy S. Severin and Keith Whinnom (Madrid:
Castalia, 1979). La passion trobada (Dutton 4370) is on pp. 101-238 of this edition; the cancion 'M~s hermosa
que cortes' (Dutton 6764) is on pp. 261-62.
11 Jane Yvonne Tillier, 'Passion Poetry in the Cancioneros' BHS, LXII (1985), 65-78.
12 Poesia amatoria, Ch. III; Pierre Alzieu, Robert Jammes and Yvan Lissorgues, Floresta de poesias eroticas
del Siglo de Oro (Toulouse: Univ. de Toulouse-Miraille, 1975).
13 'Hacia una interpretacion y apreciacion de las canciones del Cancionero general de 1511', Filologia, XIII
(1968-69) [1970],361-81. .
14 Patrick Gallagher, The Life and Works of Carci Sanchez de Badajoz (London: Tamesis, 1968),211.
15 Cancionero musical, IV-I, 205.
16 Lirica castellana hasta los Siglos de Oro (La Habana: Arte y Literatura, 1977),486.
17 I am indebted to Dr Tessa Knighton, of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, who is at present
engaged in a detailed musical study of the religious songs in MP4a, and who was kind enough to look closely at the
setting of 'Justa' in this manuscript. The views expressed on Francisco de la Torre's setting are essentially hers, as
expressed to me in a letter early in 1983.
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 18:04 19 December 2014

18 Historia genealogica da Casa Real Portuguesa, 14 vols (Lisbon, 1735-49), IX, 388. See also my The
Manue/ine Succession, Exeter Hispanic Texts, XXIV (Exeter: Univ., 1979), xx.
19 Juan del Encina, Poesia lirica y cancionero musical, ed. R. O. Jones and Carolyn R. Lee (Madrid: Castalia,
1975), 14-16.
20 Both articles are cited in note 8.
21 It did not escape the attention of my colleague Alan Deyermond, on the other hand, that a conceit
involving the putting on or removing of a fur wrap does have a connection with sight-the lady may be naked
under the fur, a passing thought which could do much to stimulate the linguistic connection between 'veros' and
'averos'.
22 For further, but less warm comment on this invencion, see Whinnom, Poesia amatoria, note 95, pp.
104-05.
23 Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language (New York: Columbia U.P., 1947), 165.
24 See Alzieu, f'oesia erotica, nos. 3, 77, 80, 86, 101, 143, and Jose Alonso Hernandez, Lexico del
margina/ismo del Siglo de Oro (Salamanca: Univ., 1976),729.
25 'Conceptos e indirectas en la poesia cancioneril: eI Almirante de Castilla y Antonio de Velasco', Estudios
dedicados a James Leslie Brooks, ed. J. M. Ruiz Veintemilla (Durham: Univ., 1984), pp. 91-105.
26 George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, ed. Gladys Doidge Willcock and Alice Walker
(Cambridge: C.U.P., 1936),260.
27 Poesia amatoria, Ch. V, esp. p. 71.
28 Jones and Lee, Juan del Encina. Poesia lirica, 17-18, note the 'metaforas de facil interpretacion', and
comment briefly that 'este poema no 10 escribio un hombre al que no interesaban las mujeres'. The editors of Poesia
erotica are uncharacteristically hesitant: 'Uno puede preguntarse si fue inocente 0 no la intencion de Juan del
Encina' (9).
29 There is a slight violation of the syntax here-'Ia justa' would have read better-but this is not unusual in
cancionero poetry.
30 Earlier versions of this article were read to a Medieval Symposium at the University of Virginia in 1981,
and to the Medieval Spanish Research Seminar ofWestfield College, University of London, in 1983. I should like to
express my thanks for the contributions of the many who participated in the discussions which followed, and in
particular to my colleagues and friends Alan Deyermond, Keith Whinnom and Daniel Rogers, whose comments on
earlier drafts have done much to improve the argument, tighten the presentation, and reassure me about the
content.

ADDENDUM
As final proofs of this article were with the printer I was eventually able to consult Carolina Michaelis de
Vasconcelos, 'Justa fue mi perdicion', Circulo Camoniano, I (1898), 293-99. Her main argument is plausible but
speculative: she suggests that the mote represented by the first line could have been composed rather than
adopted by Frei Joao Manuel, Bishop of Guarda, and transmitted to Spain in the 1490s by his ambassador son
Joao. I was reassured to observe that she comments independently on and confirms my interpretation of the
three-way ambiguity of the first line, and is fully aware of the innuendo in the first five lines: 'palavras estas que
se podem interpretar de modo completamente diverso--muito ideal e muito cynicamente' (294).