SOR JUANA INEZ DE LA CRUZ.
If there is one literary glory among us, universally recognized and applauded, it is Sister Juana Inez de la Cruz, most virtuous nun, inspired poet, and pre-eminently admirable for her prodigious learning.
Sister Juana was a privileged being; her beauty captivated all hearts; her intellect astonished her contemporaries.
The life of that surprising woman is almost a fairy tale.
She was born near the slopes of those giants, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, in a country place called San Miguel Nepantla, in a humble inn known by the name of la celda, at eleven o’clock in the night of Thursday, November 12, 1651. At three years of age she had coaxed the teacher of her sister to teach her to read; she was not yet seven, when she had written verses and addresses to the Santisimo Sacramento, in order to win a book which had been offered as a prize; she came to Mexico, where she devoured the few books which her grandfather owned; in twenty lessons with her teacher, Martin de Olivas, she learned the Latin language; she begged her mother to dress her as a man, that she might study at the University; later, young and beautiful, as lady-in-waiting of Doña Leonora María de Carreto, then the vice-reina of New Spain, Juana de Asbaje charmed the gallants with her witcheries and astounded the learned with her knowledge.
One time, the Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, Marquis of Mancera, desired to convince himself whether the learning of that lady was real or apparent. He collected at his palace all the notable men, reputed learned, in the city. What with theologians, philosophers, mathematicians, historians, poets, humanitarians, ‘and not a few of those whom in sport we call tertulios’[15] (says Padre Calleja), forty were present. Juana de Asbaje appeared before that severe tribunal for examination. She astounded all by her responses. The viceroy himself, years later, admiringly recounted the impressions of that day to Padre Calleja, and added ‘As a royal galleon would defend itself against a few fishing-smacks which might assail it, so did Juana Inez easily disentangle herself from the questions, arguments, and objections which they all, each in his own way, put to her.’
But she did not long shine in worldly life; mysterious reasons—disappointments or impossible affections, or, more likely, the repeated entreaties of her confessor—decided her to enter a convent. She first chose that of San José, of the order of the bare-foot Carmelites, today Santa Teresa de Antigua; but the rigors of that order so enfeebled her that she abandoned the novitiate at the end of three months, by order of physicians. Soon, however, she entered another nunnery, that of San Gerónimo, never again to depart. There she publicly made her vows, on the 24th of February, 1669. Pedro Velásquez de la Cadena, a wealthy man of distinguished family, endowed her and her confessor, Padre Antonio Nuñez de Mirando, bore the expenses of the occasion, and was so delighted with her profession that he himself lighted the evening candles and invited the leading representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical governments, the religious notables, and the nobility of Mexico to be present.
Time passed. Sister Juana, in the silence of her cell, without a sign of pride, with spirit ever thirsting for knowledge, studied incessantly, and with modesty received the praises, which from all parts were bestowed upon her; but, suddenly, a religious fervor, offspring of her faith and the counsels of her spiritual director (who urged her to abandon all dealings with the world) drove her to dispose of her books; she divided the sum realized among the needy; she left her lyre to gather dust, flung her pen far from her, and, grasping her disciplina, scourged herself; she weakened herself by fasts, opened her veins, signed new vows with her own blood, until, finally, a pestilence, which had invaded the convent, stretched her upon her couch, after she had exercised her Christian charity in ministering to her sisters. She never rose again. Science, in vain, eagerly attempted to help her. Vain were also the clamors for her health which the convent bells clanged forth. Tranquil as a saint, she received her last communion on earth and calmly closed her eyes to open them in heaven.
Sister Juana died aged forty-three years, five months, five days, and five hours, at four in the morning of April 17, 1695.
The funeral was imposing. The Canon Francisco Aguilar conducted the ceremony. The most notable men, the most distinguished ladies, and the government officials were in attendance. ‘The populace,’ says one biographer, ‘crowded about the doors of the church of San Gerónimo. All mourned that loss for letters. Poets sung her praises and Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora pronounced the eulogy.’