SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ.
So little is known of Spanish American literature that any fresh report from its pages seems to have the nature of a revelation. Our acquaintance with Heredia, Placido, Milanes, Mendive, Carpio, Pesado, Galvan, Calderon, is slight or naught; yet these poets are most interesting on account of the countries, peoples, and causes for which they speak eloquently, even if we deny that they add greatly to the genuine substance of our literary possession. Less question, however, can be entertained of the importance of some older names whose fame made for itself a refuge in the Spanish churches and cloisters of the New World long before revolutionists took to shooting the Muses on the wing. In the seventeenth century lived and wrought Cabrera, Siguenza, and Sor or Sister Juana Ines. They belonged to a country which claimed for awhile as its scholars, though not as its natives, Doctor Valbuena, author of the very well-known epical fantasy called The Bernardo, and Mateo Alaman, who wrote the famous story of Guzman de Alfarache. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, one of the most remarkable dramatic poets of a great dramatic age, was a native of that same country, Mexico. Siguenza, as mathematician, historian, antiquary, and poet, has been well esteemed by Humboldt and the scholars of his own race. It is much to say that the land which produced an artist as great as Cabrera also gave birth to a scholar and poet as renowned in her day and as appreciable in ours as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Among all these celebrities, who would have been eminent in any time among any people, this Mexican nun of the seventeenth century holds a place of her own. Looking back upon the past with all our modern light, we cannot but regard her as one of the most admirable characters of the New World.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was born at San Miguel de Nepantla, twelve leagues from the city of Mexico, in the year 1651, and died at the age of forty-four. When but three years old, she was able to read, write, and "cipher," and at eight she wrote a prologue for the feast of the Holy Sacrament. Once she cut her hair, and would not allow it to grow till she had acquired the learning she proposed to herself, seeing no reason why a head should be covered with hair that was denuded of knowledge, its best ornament. After twenty lessons, it was said, she knew Latin, and so great was her desire to learn that she importuned her parents to send her to the University of Mexico in boy's clothes. When seventeen years of age, and a cherished inmate of the Viceroy Mancera's family, she amazed a large company of the professors and scholars of the capital by tests of her various erudition and abilities. Notwithstanding her beauty and fortune, her rank and accomplishments, and the life of a gallant and brilliant court, she determined at that early age to retire to a cloister, and in a few years became known as Sor Juana of San Geronimo, a convent of the city of Mexico. After this appeared her poems, The Crisis and The Dream, in the latter of which she writes much of mythology, physics, medicine, and history, according to the scholastic manner of her time. With these and her subsequent poetic writings, such as her sonnets, loas, romances, and autos, she had rare fame, and won from some of her admirers the enthusiastic titles of "The Phœnix of Mexico," "Tenth Muse," and "Poetess of America." The writer has an old volume before him bearing literally this title-page: "Fama, y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, y Dezima Musa, Poetisa de la America, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Religiosa Professa en el Convento de San Geronimo, de la Imperial Ciudad de Mexico. Recogidas y dadas a luz por el Doctor Don Juan Ignacio de Castorena y Ursua, Capellan de Honor de su Magestad, y Prebendado de la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de Mexico. En Barcelona: Por Rafael Figuero. Año de MDCCI. Con todas las licencias necessarias." Thus it appears we owe to the Prebendary Castorena the edition of the posthumous works of Sor Juana given to the light in 1701, six years after her death.
But, whether as the sister or the mother of a convent, Juana Ines de la Cruz was more than a mistress of vain learning or unprofitable science. Her daily assiduous exercise was charity, which at last so controlled her life and thoughts that she gave all her musical and mathematical instruments, all the rich presents which her talents had attracted from illustrious people, and all her books, excepting those she left to her sisters, to be sold for the benefit of the poor. Though she had evidently prized science as the handmaid of religion, the time came when her verses upon the vanity of learning reflected a mind more and more withdrawn from the affairs of this world to the contemplation of the next. When an epidemic visited the Convent of San Geronimo, and but two out of every ten invalids were saved, the good, brave soul of Madre Juana shone transcendently. Spite of warnings and petitions, and though all the city prayed for her life, Madre Juana perished at her vigil of charity—the good angel as well as muse of Mexico.
Of the enthusiasm created by her genius, we have abundant and curious proofs. Don Alonzo Muxica, "perpetual Recorder of the City of Salamanca," wrote a sonnet upon her having learned to read at the age of three, when "what for all is but the break of morn in her was as the middle of the day." Excelentissimo Sir Felix Fernandez de Cordova Cordona y Aragon, Duke of Seffa, of Væna and Soma, Count of Cabra, Palomas, and Olivitas, and Grand Admiral and Captain-General of Naples, speaks of her in a lofty poetic encomium as for the third time applauded by two admiring worlds of readers, and praises her persuasive voice as that of a sweet siren of thought. Don Garcia Ribadeneyra, with the grandiose wit of his day, says in a decima that this extraordinary woman surpassed the sun, for her glorious genius rose where the sun set, that is to say, in the West; and Don Pedro Alfonso Moreno argues piously that St. John the Baptist's three crowns of Virgin, Martyr, and Doctor were in measure those of Madre Juana, who was from early years chaste, poor in spirit, and obedient, according to the vow of religious women. Don Luis Verdejo declares that she transferred the lyceums of the Muses to Mexico, and that the light of her genius is poured upon two worlds. Padre Cabrera, chaplain of the Most Excellent Duke of Arcos, asserts that the Eternal Knowledge enlightened Juana in all learning. "Only her fame can define her," writes one of her own sex; and when the Poetess of the Cloister wrote with her own blood a protestation of faith, it was said of this "Swan of erudite plume" that she wrote like the martyr to whose ink of blood the earth was as paper. Her gift of books to be sold in order to relieve the poor inspired Señora Catalina de Fernandez de Cordova, nun in the Convent of the Holy Ghost in Alcara, to say thus thoughtfully:
"Without her books did Juana grow more wise,
As for their loss she studied deep content.
Know, then, that in this human school of ours,
He only is wise who knows to love his God."
At thought of her death, Don Luis Muñoz Venegas, of Granada, wonders that the sun shines, that ships sail, that earth is fair, that all things do not grieve her loss, whose happy soul in its beatitudes enjoys the riches of which death has robbed the world—sweetness, purity, felicity. Fray Juan de Rueda, professor of theology in the college of San Pablo; Licentiate Villalobos of San Ildefonso, and Señor Guerra, fellow of the same college; Advocate Pimienta, of the Royal Audience, and Bachelor Olivas, a presbyter; Syndic Torres, Catedratico or Professor Aviles, Cavalier Ulloa, have all something to say in Spanish or Latin on the death of our poetess. Doctor Aviles imagines the death of Sor Juana to be like that of the rose, which, having acquired in a brief age all its perfection, needed not to live longer. Don Diego Martinez suggests beautifully that the profit which other excellent minds will derive from the posthumous writings of the poetess will be like the clearness which the stars gain by the death of the sun. Mingled with these honest tributes of admiration is much extravagance of comparison; but they prove at least that Sor Juana was regarded by the learned of her day as a woman of astonishing powers.
Amid all her studies and labors, we read that Sister Juana was constant in her religious devotions, and faithful to the least rules of her order. But her conscientious spirit, moved by a letter of Bishop Fernandez of Puebla, determined her at length to renounce the exercise of her talents for the strictest and purest ascetism. Hence, one of her Mexican critics is led to say that we have only the echoes of her songs, only the shades of her images, inasmuch as her sex and state, and the reigning scholasticism, were not convenient for the true expression of her thoughts. The noble, ascetic literature of Spain, respecting which it is with reason boasted that the world contains nothing of the kind more valuable, discredits in good part this supposition. Moreover, the recognition of Sor Juana's work and genius was, as we have seen, not inconsiderable. The world is still in its infancy as regards religious ideality, and, spite of the highest evidences, often refuses to believe that thoughts fed from the divine source can fulfil the true poem of life, be it written or acted. What the thoughts of Sor Juana were like in her ordinary religious life we understand partly from a number of daily exercises and meditations which have come down to us. Here are specimens of these compositions:
EXERCISE.
On this day, at seeing the light come forth, bless its Author who made it so beautiful a creation, and praise him with a submissive heart; not only because he created it for our good, but because he made it a vassal to his mother and our mediatrix. Go to Mass with all possible devotion, and those who can, let them fast and give thanks to God. Thou shalt sing the canticle Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino and the verse Benedicite lux. Understand that not only the just ought to praise God, who are themselves as light, but the sinners who are as darkness. Consider yourselves such, every one of you, and mourn for having added to the original transgression, darkness upon darkness, sins upon sins. Resolve to correct thyself; and that Mary's purest light may reach you, recite a Salve, and nine times the Magnificat, face to the ground, and fly from all sin this day, even the shadow thereof. Abstain from all impatience, murmurings, repinings, and suffer with meekness those evils which are a repugnance to our nature. If it be a day of discipline of the community, that is enough, but if not, it shall be especially made so. Those who do not know how to read Latin shall recite nine Salves mouth to the ground, and shall fast if they are able, and if not, they shall make an act of contrition, so that the Lord may give them light for his timely service, even as he gave them material light by which to live.
MEDITATION.
If we look at the properties of the firmament, what more assimilates to the miraculous constancy of Mary, whom neither those steeped in original sin could make fall, nor the combats of temptation make stumble! But still, amid the torrents and tempests of human miseries, between the troubles of her life, and the painful passion and death of her most holy Son and our most beloved Saviour; amid the waves of incredulity in the doubts of his disciples; among the hidden rocks of the perfidy of Judas, and the uncertainty of so many timid souls—ever was her constancy preserved. Not only was she firm, but beautiful as the firmament, which (according to the mathematicians) hath this other excellence, that it is bordered by innumerable stars, but has only seven planets which are fixed and never move. Thus, holiest Mary was not only most pure in her conception, transparent and translucent, but afterwards the Lord adorned her with innumerable virtues which she acquired, even as the stars which border that most beautiful firmament; and she not only had them all, but had them fixed, all immovable, all in order and admirable concert: but if in the other children of Adam we see some virtues, they are errant—to-day we have them, to-morrow they are gone—to-day is light, to-morrow darkness. We will rejoice in her prerogative, and say unto her:
OFFERING.
Honored Lady, and crown of our human being, divine firmament where the stars of virtue are fixed, give their benign influence to us, thy devoted ones, that by thy favor we may cure ourselves and acquire them; and that light which thou dost partake of the Sun of Righteousness, communicate it to our souls, and fix in them thy virtues, the love of thy precious Son, and thy sweetest and tenderest devotion, and of thy happy husband, our patron and advocate, St. Joseph.
These compositions doubtless give us a better idea of the interior thought of Mexican monasticism than some yellow-covered speculations. In that life grew the finest genius, the greatest woman, perhaps the most remarkable character in all respects that Mexico ever produced. Considering the time and place in which she wrote, the New World has scarcely produced her superior among women of genius. Up to the nineteenth century America had, doubtless, no, literary product comparable to the poems of Sor Juana Ines. What Cabrera, was to the art, Sor Juana seems to have been to the literature of her country; and both these workers of genius gave their powers to the service of religion. It is here worthy of remark that not only were the greatest painter and poet of Mexico studious servants of the church, but that its most celebrated scientist was the Jesuit Siguenza y Gongora, author of a funeral eulogy of Sor Juana Ines, whom he knew and appreciated, for he, too, was a poet. Without social helps, without emulation, such as is ordinarily understood, such proofs of her high intelligence as we possess have come to light. Perplexed as it was with the mannered erudition of the schools, her poetry nevertheless reveals noble sensibility and thought in superior forms. Thus she sings in her verses entitled "Sentiments of Absence:"
"Hear me with eyes,
Now that so distant are thine ears;
Of absence my laments;
In echoes from my pen the groans;
And as can reach thee not my voice so rude,
Hear thou me deaf, since dumbly I complain."
This is like a voice of the Elizabethan age; but what woman even of that day has left us so rare a record of poetry and piety combined as the nun of San Geronimo, she who lived in 1670 in far-off, outlandish Mexico? What chapter of literature would seem too good to entertain this Tenth Muse, to whom we owe such sonnets as these:
TO A PAINTER OF OUR LADY, OF MOST EXCELLENT PENCIL.
If pencil, although grand in human wise,
Could make a picture thus most beautiful,
Where even clearest vision not refines
Thy light, O admirable—yet in vain:
How did the author of thy sovereign soul
Proportion space to his creation fair!
What grace he painted, and what loveliness!
The scope more ample, greater was the hand.
Was found within the sphere of purest light
The pencil, schooled within the morning-star,
When thou wert dawned, Aurora most divine?
Yea, thus indeed it was; but verily
The sky has not paid back thy cost to him
Who spent in thee more light than it has now.
THE LOVERS.
Feliciano loves me, and I hate him;
Lizardo hates me, and I do adore him;
For him who does not want me, do I cry,
And him who yearns for me, I not desire.
To him who me disdains, my soul I offer,
And him who is my victim, I disdain.
Him I despise who would enrich my honor,
And him who doth contemn me, I'd enrich.
If with offence the first I have displeased,
The other doth displease by me offended—
And thus I come to suffer every way;
For both are but as torments to my feelings—
This one with asking that which I have not,
And that in not having what I'd ask.
THE ROSE.
Celia beheld a rose that in the walk
Flourished in pride of springtime loveliness,
And whose bright hues of carmine or of red
Bathed joyfully its delicate countenance—
And said: Enjoy without the fear of fate
The fleeting course of thy luxuriant age,
Since will not death be able on the morrow.
To take from thee what thou to-day enjoyest;
And though he come within a little while,
Still grieve thou not to die so young and fair:
Hear what experience may counsel thee—
That fortunate 'tis to die being beautiful,
And not to see the woe of being old.
THE DECEPTION.
This that thou seest, a deception painted,
Which of art's excellence makes display,
With curious counterfeit of coloring,
Is an insidious cheating of the sense.
This, wherewithin has flattery pretended
To excuse the grim deformity of age,
And vanquishing the rigor hard of time
To triumph o'er oblivion and decay;
Is but the shallow artifice of care,
Is as a fragile flower within the wind;
It is a useless guard 'gainst destiny;
It is a foolish and an erring toil;
'Tis labor imbecile, and, rightly scanned,
Is death, is dust, is shadow, and is naught.
These rude translations give but a poor idea of the poet's expression, but they allow the height and quality of her intellect to be understood. In one of her most thoughtful poems, the Romance on the Vanity of Science, she argues against self-seeking knowledge, and the perils to which genius exposes itself by too much seeking its own devices. This poem is so representative and remarkable that we must give it entire quotation:
ROMANCE.
Finjamos que soy feliz,
Triste pensamiento un rato;
Quizá podreis persuadirme,
Aunque yo sé lo contrario.
Feign we that I am happy,
Sad thought, a little while,
For, though 'twere but dissembling,
Would thou couldst me beguile!
Que, pues solo en la aprension
Dicen que estriban los daños;
Si os imaginais dichoso.
No sereis tan desdichado.
Yet since but in our terrors
They say our miseries grow,
If joy we can imagine,
The less will seem our woe.
Sirvame el entendimiento
Alguna vez de descanso;
Y no siempre esté el ingenio
Con el provecho encontrado.
Must our intelligences
Some time of quiet find;
Not always may our genius
With profit rule the mind.
Todo el mundo es opiniones,
De paraceres tan varios,
Que lo que el uno, que es negro,
El otro prueba que es blanco.
The world's full of opinions,
And these so different quite.
That what to one black seemeth
Another proves is white.
A unos sirve de atractivo
Lo que otro concibe enfado;
Y lo que este por alivio
Aquel tiene por trabajo.
To some appears attractive
What many deem a bore;
And that which thee delighted
Thy fellow labors o'er.
El que está triste, censura
Al alegre de liviano;
Y el que está alegre, se burla,
De ver al triste penando.
He who is sad condemneth
The gay one's gleeful tones;
He who is merry jesteth
Whene'er the sad one groans.
Los dos filosofos griegos
Bien esta verdad probaron,
Pues, lo que en el uno risa,
Causaba, en el otro llanto.
By two old Greek wiseacres
This truth well proved appears;
Since what in one caused laughter,
The other moved to tears.
Célebre su oposicion
Ha sido, por siglos tantos,
Sin que cúal acertó, esté
Hasta agora averiguado.
Renowned has been this contest
For ages, without fruit,
And what one age asserted
Till now is in dispute.
Antes en sus dos banderas
El mundo todo alistado,
Conforme el humor le dicta,
Sigue cada cúal su bando.
Into two lists divided
The world's opinions stand.
And as his humor leads him
Follows each one his band.
Uno dice, que de risa
Solo es digno el mundo vario;
Y otro, que sus infortunios
Son solo para llorarlos.
One says the world is worthy
Only of merriment;
Another, its distresses
Call for our loud lament.
Para todo se halla prueba
Y razon en que fundarlo;
Y no hay razon para nada,
De haber razon para tanto.
For all opinions various
Some proof or reason's brought,
And for so much there's reason
That reason is for naught.
Todos son iguales jueces
Y siendo iguales, y varios.
No hay quien pueda decidir
Cúal es lo mas acertado.
All, all are equal judges,
And all of different view,
And none can make decision
Of what is best or true.
¿Pues sino hay quien lo sentencie,
Por qué pensais vos, errado,
Que os cometió Dios á vos
La decision de los casos?
Then since can none determine,
Think'st thou, whose reason strays,
To thee hath God committed
The judgment of the case?
¿O por que, contra vos mismo,
Severamente inhumano,
Entre lo amargo, y lo dulce
Quereis elegir lo amargo?
O why, to thyself cruel,
Dost thou thy peace reject?
Between the sweet and bitter,
The bitter dost elect?
¿Si es mio mi entendimiento,
Por qué siempre he de encontrarlo
Tan torpe para el alivio,
Tan agudo para el daño?
If 'tis mine my understanding,
Why always must it be
So dull and slow to pleasure,
So keen for injury?
El discurso es un acero
Que sirve por ambos cabos;
De dar muerte por la punta,
Por el pomo de resguardo.
A sharp blade is our learning
Which serves us at both ends:
Death by the point it giveth,
By the handle, it defends.
¿Si vos sabiendo el peligro
Quereis por la punta usarlo,
Que culpa tiene el acero
Del mal uso de la mano?
And if, aware of peril,
Its point thou wilt demand,
How canst thou blame the weapon
For the folly of thy hand?
No es saber, saber hacer
Discursos sutiles, vanos,
Que el saber consiste solo
En elegir lo mas sano.
Not is true wisdom knowing
Most subtle speech and vain;
Best knowledge is in choosing
That which is safe and sane.
Especular las desdichas,
Y examinar los presagios,
Solo sirve de que el mal
Crezca con anticiparlo.
To speculate disaster,
To seek for presages,
Serves to increase affliction,
Anticipates distress.
En los trabajos futuros
La atencion sutilizando.
Mas formidable que el riesgo
Suele fingir el amago.
In the troubles of the future
The anxious mind is lost,
And more than any danger
Doth danger's menace cost.
¡Que feliz es la ignorancia
Del que indoctamente sabio,
Halla de lo que podece
En lo que ignora sagrado!
Of him the unschooled wise man
How happy is the chance!
He finds from suffering refuge
In simple ignorance.
No siempre suben seguros
Vuelos del ingenio osados,
Que buscan trono en el fuego,
Y hallan sepulcro en el llanto.
Not always safe aspire
The wings that genius bears,
Which seek a throne in fire,
And find a grave in tears.
Tambien es vicio el saber
Que si no se va atajando,
Cuanto menos se conoce
Es mas nocivo el estrago.
And vicious is the knowledge
That seeking swift its end
Is all the more unwary
Of the woe that doth impend.
Y si vuelo no le abaten
En sutilezas cebado,
Por cuidar de lo curioso
Olvida lo necesario.
And if its flight it stops not
In pampered, strange deceits,
Then for the curious searching
The needful it defeats.
Si culta mano no impide
Crecer al arbol copado,
Quitan la sustancia al fruto
La locura de los ramos.
If culture's hand not pruneth
The leafage of the tree,
Takes from the fruit's sustainment
The rank, wild greenery.
¿Si andar a nave ligera,
No estorba lastre pesado;
Sirve el vuelo de que sea
El precipicio mas alto?
If all its ballast heavy
Yon light ship not prevents,
Will it help the flight of pinions
From nature's battlements?
En amenidad inutil,
Que importa al florido campo.
Si no halla fruto el otoño
Que ostente flores el mayo.
In verdant beauty useless,
What profits the fair field
If the blooming growths of springtime
No autumn fruitage yield?
¿De que le sirve al ingenio
El producir muchos partos,
Si a la multitud le sigue
El malogro de abortarlo?
And of what use is genius
With all its work of might,
If are its toils rewarded
By failure and despite?
Yá esta desdicha, por fuerza
Ha de seguirle el fracaso
De quedar el que produce.
Si no muerto, lastimado.
And perforce to this misfortune
Must that despair succeed,
Which, if its arrow kills not,
Must make the bosom bleed.
El ingenio es como el fuego,
Que con la materia ingrato,
Tanto la consume mas,
Cuanto el se ostenta mas claro.
Like to a fire doth genius
In thankless matter grow;
The more that it consumeth,
It boasts the brighter glow.
Es de su proprio señor
Tan rebelado vasallo,
Que convierte en sus ofensas
Las armas de su resguardo.
It is of its own master
So rebellious a slave,
That to offence it turneth
The weapons that should save.
Este pesimo ejercicio,
Este duro afan pesado,
A los hijos de los hombres
Dió Dios para ejercitarlos.
Such exercise distressful,
Such hard anxiety,
To all the sad world's children
God gave their souls to try.
¿Que loca ambicion nos lleva
De nosotros olvidados,
Si es para vivir tan poco,
De que sirve saber tanto?
What mad ambition takes us
From self-forgetful state,
If 'tis to live so little
We make our knowledge great?
Oh! si como hay de saber,
Hubiera algun seminario,
O escuela, donde á ignorar
Se enseñara los trabajos!
Oh! if we must have knowledge,
I would there were some school
Wherein to teach not knowing
Life's woes, should be the rule.
¡Que felizmente viviera,
El que flotamente cauto;
Burlara las amenazas
Del influjo de los astros!
Happy shall be his living
Whose life no rashness mars;
He shall laugh at all the threatenings
Of the magic of the stars!
Aprendamos á ignorar
Pensamientos, pues hallamos,
Que cuanto añado al discurso,
Tanto le usurpo á los años.
Learn we the wise unknowing,
Since it so well appears
That what to learning's added
Is taken from our years.
We may dispute, in some respects, the drift of Sister Juana's philosophy; but we cannot question the poetic wisdom of many of her reflections. How true it is that in a multitude of reasons one finds no reason at all; that the rank overgrowth of knowledge does not bear the best fruit; that genius, allied with base substance, grows brighter, by a kind of self-consuming; that wisdom can sometimes find refuge in ignorance! No one, be his fame what it may, has stated a grand and touching truth with better force than appears in Sor Juana's grave misgiving with regard to the genius "which seeks a throne in fire, and finds a sepulchre in tears." Is not this the history, at once sublime and pathetic, of so many failures of the restless intellect? Sor Juana knew how to preach from such a text, for she was a rare scholar, and mistress of verse, and religious woman. The variety of her literary employments was considerable, in comparison with the bulk of Mexican verse and prose, notwithstanding the old-fashioned manners of her cloistered muse. She wrote, in addition to sonnets and romances, the dramatic religious pieces called loas and autos, among which we find dialogues and acts entitled "The Sceptre of St. Joseph," "San Hermengildo," and "The Divine Narciso." Her poetic moods were not, it appears, limited to hymns and to blank-verse; indeed, she had the qualities of a ripe poet—humor, fancy, imagination, able thought, and, if anything else should be added, doubtless the reader will find it in the ideality of a sonnet so superb as the one in praise of Our Lady. Of her religious tenderness we have a fine example in the following lines from "El Divino Narciso," which have been compared by a Mexican critic to the best mystical songs of St. John of the Cross and other Spanish ascetics. They convey the appeal which the Shepherd of Souls makes to a soul which has strayed from the flock:
O my lost lamb,
Thy master all forgetting,
Whither dost erring go?
Behold how now divided
From me, thou partest from thy life!
In my tender kindness,
Thou seest how always loving
I guard thee watchfully,
I free thee of all danger,
And that I give my life for thee.
Behold how that my beauty
Is of all things beloved,
And is of all things sought,
And by all creatures praised.
Still dost thou choose from me to go astray.
I go to seek thee yet,
Although thou art as lost;
But for thee now my life
I cannot still lay down
That once I wished to lose to find my sheep.
Do worthier than thou
Ask these my benefits,
The rivers flowing fair,
The pastures and green glades
Wherein my loving-kindness feedeth thee.
Within a barren field,
In desert land afar,
I found thee, ere the wolf
Had all thy life despoiled,
And prized thee as the apple of mine eye.
I led thee to the verdure
Of my most peaceful ways,
Where thou hast fed at will
Upon the honey sweet
And oil that flowed to thee from out the rock.
With generous crops of grain,
With marrowy substances,
I have sustained thy life,
Made thee most savory food,
And given to thee the juice of fragrant grapes.
Thou seekest other fields
With them that did not know
Thy fathers, honored not
Thy elders, and in this
Thou dost excite my own displeasure grave.
And for that thou hast sinned
I'll hide from thee my face,
Before whose light the sun
Its feeble glory pales;
From thee, ingrate, perverse, and most unfaithful one.
Shall my displeasure's scourge
Thy verdant fields destroy,
The herb that gives thee food;
And shall my fires lay waste,
Even from the top of highest mountains old.
My lightning arrows shall
Be drawn, and hunger sharp
Shall cut the threads of life,
And evil birds of prey
And fiercest beasts shall lie in wait for thee.
Shall grovelling serpents show
The venom of their rage,
By different ways of death
My rigors shall be wrought;
Without thee by the sword, within thee by thy fears.
Behold I am thy Sovereign,
And there is none more strong;
That I am life and death,
That I can slay and save,
And nothing can escape from out my hand.
Our last quotation from Sister Juana's poems will be one of those tributes which, in verse or prose, she so often paid to the Blessed Virgin. It is a song taken from her villancicos, or rhymes for festivals. The literary manners of her time seem to have obscured the native excellence of her thought, but the buoyant style of the following lines meets with little objection from her modern Mexican critic:
To her who in triumph, the beautiful queen,
Descends from the airs of the region serene;
To her who illumines its vaguest confine
With auroras of gold, and of pearl and carmine;
To her whom a myriad of voices confessed
The lady of angels, the queen of the blest:
Whose tresses celestial are lightly outborne
And goldenly float in the glory of morn,
And waving and rising would seek to o'erwhelm
Like the gulfs of the Tibar an ivory realm:
From whose graces the sunlight may learn how to shine,
And the stars of the night take a brilliance divine,
We sing thee rejoicing while praises ascend,
O sinless, O stainless! live, live without end.
The scarcity of the poems of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, even in her native land, is cause for wonder, but not if we first remark that still greater marvel—the long-continued discomposure of Mexican society. It is one hundred and seventy years since the parchment-bound book, from which we have drawn a number of facts in the life of the Poetisa, was published. Our impression of the rarity and age of her printed works, as derived from acquaintance with educated Mexicans in their own country, tempts us to doubt whether they have been issued in any complete shape during the present century. For a good portion of the extracts we have presented we are indebted to an intelligent and scholarly review prepared in Mexico, two years ago, by Don Francisco Prinentel, the author of a number of books on the races and languages of Mexico. Outside of the monastic or rich private libraries of that country, it is doubtless a task of much difficulty to find the poems of Sor Juana. For this reason we are disposed to excuse the able American historian of Spanish literature for omitting everything in relation to her except the mere mention of her name as a lyrical writer. It is hoped, however, that this notice of her life and works, probably the first which has appeared in the United States, will supply the omission of what should be a chief fact in any American notice of Spanish literature. The claim which we make for Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, as regards the literature of the New World, is not short of the very highest.
DION AND THE SIBYLS.
A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.
BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.