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Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

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The Myth of Hercules in the Works of AlfonsoX: Narration in the Estoria de España and in theGeneral estoria

Anthony J. Cárdenas

To cite this article: Anthony J. Cárdenas (1997) The Myth of Hercules in the Works of AlfonsoX: Narration in the Estoria de España and in the General estoria, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies,74:1, 5-20, DOI: 10.1080/000749097760143508

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BHS, LXXIV (1997)

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The Myth of Hercules in the Works ofAlfonso X: Narration in the Estoria de

España and in the General estoria

ANTHONY J. CÁRDENAS

University of New Mexico

For Lloyd A. Kasten

The scholar of medieval texts may, in a way, be at an advantage for subjectmatter to investigate as compared with scholars of modern texts. Forbesides being amenable to examination in light of modern literary criticaltheory, medieval texts often present basic problems for scrutiny, andpossibly resolution: problems such as dating, language, authorship, not tomention perhaps the most basic problem of all, the constitutio textus, theestablishment of the text itself, the object of textual criticism. An excellentexample of this amplitude of investigation resides in the Alfonsinehistories.

Providing a date for Alfonso X’s Estoria de España (EE) and hissubsequent General estoria (GE), for example, poses a problem.Nevertheless, a facet of the Alfonsine histories that has begun to attractthe interest of some medievalists is their literary quality, and particularlythat of the Estoria de España. What this study will examine, then, is one

1 This is an expanded and slightly revised version of a paper read at the 1993CHISPA Conference held in New Orleans.

2 Francisco Rico, Alfonso X el Sabio y la ‘General Estoria’ (Barcelona: Ariel, [2nd ed.,rev. & enlgd] 1984) offers, I think, the most energetic analysis of the General estoria. Someother critics who have studied the literary craft of the historical works include: AníbalBiglieri, ‘Ascenso y caída del reino visigodo según la Primera crónica general’, Hispanófila,XCVI (1989), 1-11; Alan Deyermond, ‘The Death and Rebirth of Visigothic Spain in theEstoria de España’, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, IX (1984-85), No. 3, 345-67;Francisco Javier Díez de Revenga, in three studies: ‘Alfonso X y su condición de autorliterario: la General Estoria’, in La lengua y la literatura en tiempos de Alfonso X. Actas delCongreso Internacional, Murcia, 5-10 marzo 1984, ed. Fernando Carmona and Francisco J.Flores (Murcia: Univ. de Murcia, 1985), 159-67, ‘La condición de autor literario en Alfonso Xel Sabio: Crónica General’, Miscelánea Medieval Murciana, XIII (1986), 117-29, and

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aspect of the literariness of Alfonso’s Estoria de España and Generalestoria—the role of the narrator—as manifested in their versions of themyth of the classical Greek hero, Hercules, and how this speaks to thequestion of dating. The degrees of variance in the narration of these twohistories are such as to suggest advancing the commonly held date ofc.1270 for the Estoria de España to an earlier one, or at least toconsidering an earlier date since, from the point of view of narration, theaccount of Hercules is remarkably more emphatic in the General estoria

‘Literatura en las obras históricas de Alfonso X el Sabio’, Mester, XVII (1988), No. 2, 39-50;Inés Fernández-Ordóñez, in two studies: ‘La Estoria de España, la General Estoria y losdiferentes criterios compilatorios’, Revista de Literatura, L (1988), No. 99, 15-35, whichforms an earlier version of the second chapter of Las ‘Estorias’ de Alfonso el Sabio (Madrid:Istmo, 1992)—for notice of which I am especially grateful to the editors of the Bulletin ofHispanic Studies; Fernando Gómez Redondo, ‘La función del personaje en la Estoria deEspaña alfonsí’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, XIV (1984), 187-210; Olga Impey, in twostudies: ‘ “Del duello de los godos de Espanna”: la retórica del llanto y su motivación’,Romance Quarterly, XXXIII (1986), 295-307 and ‘En el crisol de la prosa literaria de AlfonsoX: unas huellas e preocupación estilística en las versiones del relato de Dido’, BulletinHispanique, LXXXIV (1982), 5-23; Germán Orduna, ‘La “estoria” de Acteón: Ovidio y laGeneral Estoria alfonsí’, Letras, XI-XII (1984-1985), 134-39; Brian Powell, Epic andChronicle: The ‘Poema de mio Cid’ and the ‘Crónica de veinte reyes’, MHRA Texts andDissertations 18 (London: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1983); D. G.Pattison, From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment of Epic Material in AlphonsineHistoriography , Medium Aevum Monographs, New Series 13 (Oxford: The Society for theStudy of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1983). Two recent studies that merit specialnotice in this regard are Cristina González’s ‘Salvajismo y barbarie en la Estoria de España’,Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, XL (1992), 63-71 and La tercera crónica de Alfonso X:‘La gran conquista de Ultramar’ (London: Tamesis, 1992). Finally, see El ‘Mio Cid’ del talleralfonsí: versión en prosa en la ‘Primera crónica general’ y en la ‘Crónica de veinte reyes’, ed.Nancy Joe Dyer (Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1995).

3 I am amply aware that the edited version of the General estoria Hercules myth usedderives from a fourteenth-century manuscript (General estoria II, 1:xii and lxiv; see note 13below). Another problem that medievalists must cope with: texts that survive only invariant form.

I am also aware that Diego Catalán has pointed out in his ‘Poesía y novela en lahistoriografía castellana de los siglos XIII y XIV’, in Mélanges offerts à Rita Lejeune, 2 vols(Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1969), I, 423-41, that ‘si las versiones alfonsíes “traicionan” a susfuentes, ello se debe a los propósitos didácticos de la compilación, al afán de clarificar lossucesos, y no a un esfuerzo consciente de recreación literaria’ (423, n. 2). Nevertheless,Cristina González perhaps clarifies the situation best: ‘En la Edad Media, la historia era unentretenimiento serio y competía con la novela, que era un entretenimiento frívolo. Ambosgéneros intercambiaban recursos y se consideraban muy próximos, ...’ (La tercera crónica deAlfonso X, 20; emphasis added). One ‘recurso’ worth examining is narration.

4 Pattison states, perhaps basing himself on Evelyn S. Procter’s astute observations(85 ff; see footnote 10 below): ‘There is evidence that Alfonso’s interest in this project[producing the Estoria de España] antedated his accession to the throne in 1252, as by thenhe was already engaged on the Estoria’ (From Legend to Chronicle, 3).

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than in the Estoria de España.In a fine study that helps account for the differences in narration in the

Estoria de España and the General estoria, Inés Fernández-Ordóñez hasextracted two distinct criteria of compilation for each work and hasidentified them using Alfonso’s own terminology: ‘estorias unadas’ and‘estorias departidas’. The ‘estoria unada’, or ‘aunada’ modernly, as itsname implies, focusses on a theme, brings together information andpackages it as a unit. The subject, then, constitutes the focus. This is theformat espoused by the General estoria, which, as an ‘estoria unada’, is‘dominada por el principio de contarlo todo’. This, combined with the factthat the Estoria de España concentrates on the fecho de España andthereby limits the twelve labours of Hercules to summary because they donot take place in Spain, accounts for the General estoria’s version ofHercules being ten-fold that of the Estoria de España’s The ‘estoriadepartida’, on the other hand, is chronologically oriented, annalistichistory, wherein everything that occurred or is known to have occurred in aparticular year is presented synoptically. The Estoria de España thusfinds direct annalistic forerunners in Lucas de Tuy’s Chronicon mundi(1236) and Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada’s De rebus Hispaniae (1243).

Regarding an emphasis on annalistic structure, Brian Powell makesclear that Alfonso X ‘used both of the above works, and especially the DeRebus Hispaniae, as the structural basis for his Estoria de España’, and D.G. Pattison sums it up well: ‘In particular, one might point to the use of thepoetic material in ... the work of Lucas, Bishop of Tuy (el Tudense), whoseChronicon Mundi was finished in 1236; ... and, above all, to RodrigoXiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo (el Toledano), whose De RebusHispaniae or Historia Gothica of 1243 could be said truly to foreshadow thedistinctive features of Alphonsine historiography in every respect but thelinguistic one ...’. These ‘distinctive features’ of the earlier works reflectedin Alfonsine historiography refer, we maintain, to the content and not tothe manner in which such is presented. Evelyn S. Procter, perhaps best ofall, shows the Estoria de España’s debt to ‘el Tudense’ and ‘el Toledano’.Thus, the Estoria de España, as an ‘estoria departida’, mirrors through itsannalistic structure these two major Latin chronicles. If the Estoria deEspaña were compiled in the earlier part of Alfonso’s reign, or at least

5 ‘La Estoria de España, la General Estoria y los diferentes criterios compilatorios’,23.

6 Ibid., 16.7 Ibid., 21.8 Powell, op. cit., 28.9 Pattison, op. cit., 1.10 Alfonso X of Castile: Patron of Literature and Learning (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1951), 96 ff.

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begun in the earlier part of his reign, the influence of ‘el Tudense’ and ‘elToledano’ on it would seemingly be considerable and appropriate, andwould certainly coincide with Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal’s observations thatworks from the 1250s manifest a closer relationship with their sources.

In contrast to the principle of ‘contarlo todo’ for an ‘estoria unada’, it isinteresting that the main body of the story of Hercules in the Estoria deEspaña, an ‘estoria departida’, requires only nine columns, four and one-half pages, whereas in the ‘unada’ version of the General estoria itencompasses ninety-one columns, or forty-five and one-half pages. Eachpage from these two modern editions comparably contains the sameamount of text, so that the discrepancy in quantity between the two resultsfrom an obvious change in purpose, design and focus and not from the trifleof different type fonts of modern printers.

Thus, for Fernández-Ordóñez, in the General estoria, ‘La Estoria deErcules es el fruto de la recolección y armonización de muy distintasfuentes en un arduo trabajo que los redactores no se tomaron por ningúnotro de los héroes de los que hablaba Ovidio’. Part of the reason, sheadds, is that ‘La Estoria alfonsí, promovida por un rey y compuesta defechos de reyes, está concebida en gran parte como maestra de futurosmonarcas. De ahí que la General Estoria destaque estructuralmente lasfiguras de Hércules, Alejandro o Julio César, modelos históricos deexcepción para reyes y príncipes’. She could easily have added: ‘paraemperadores’.

Alfonso’s appropriation of the Hercules myth in the General estoria isas immediate as is his consumption of the Jupiter myth in the same work.

11 Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, ‘Como trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes’, Nueva Revistade Filología Hispánica, V (1951), 363-80.

Additionally, Robert B. Tate, ‘Mythology in Spanish Historiography of the Middle Agesand the Renaissance’, Hispanic Review, XXII (1954), 1-18, demonstrates the Toledano’selaboration of ‘Hercules’ personal contribution to the formation of the internal map of Spain’(4). Both Alfonsine histories include similar information.

12 Primera crónica general de España, ed. Ramón Menéndez Pidal con estudioactualizador de Diego Catalán (Madrid: Gredos/Cátedra Seminario Menéndez Pidal, [3rdptng.] 1977 [1st ed. 1906]), 2 vols, I, 7-11.

13 General estoria. Segunda Parte, ed. †Antonio G. Solalinde, Lloyd A. Kasten andVíctor R. B. Oelschläger (Madrid: CSIC, Instituto ‘Miguel de Cervantes’, 1957, 1961), 2 vols,II, 1-46.

14 ‘La Estoria de España, la General Estoria y los diferentes criterios compilatorios’,26.

15 Ibid.16 As commonplace as it has become to do so, it merits highlighting that throughout

this study use of ‘Alfonso’ is a matter of convenience. By its use I do not mean to imply whatAlfonso himself accomplished. I abide by Procter’s summation that Alfonso was indeed aninterested editor-patron (‘The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castile: The Kingand his Collaborators’, Modern Language Review, XL [1945], 12-29, at p. 12) and bear in

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For explanation of this latter myth I remit to Francisco Rico’s learnedestimation: ‘En las páginas que la General estoria dedica al Padre de losdioses, además, ¿no parece como si Alfonso quisiera resaltar en Júpiterperfiles que le complacían en su propio retrato? Lo primero era indicar quede Júpiter “uinieron los reyes de Roma e de Troya e de Grecia e los otrosaltos príncipes” (I, pág. 191 b), entre quienes, como sabemos, figuraAlfonso, “Romanorum rex”. Después, la consanguinidad se convierte enafinidad intelectual’. For, as Rico explains, ‘Idéntica labor de vulgarizaciónde los saberes, pues, honraba a Júpiter y a Alfonso X’.

What follows hopes to demonstrate that the General estoria is assuccessful in its appropriation of the Hercules myth as it is in itsappropriation of the Jupiter myth. Part of this appropriation includesestablishing parallels between Espan, Hercules’ nephew and Alfonso. Thishappens in the Estoria de España as well. To begin, the Estoria de Españadifferentiates Hercules from Espan his nephew, to whom Herculesbequeaths the dominion of Spain and for love of whom Esperia is renamedEspaña (EE, 1:11), in this fashion: ‘E por que ell [Espan] era omne queamaua iusticia e derecho e fazie bien a los omnes, amauan le todos tanto,que assi cuemo Hercules se apoderaua de la tierra por fuerça, assi este seapoderaua della por amor’ (EE, 1:11). If one were looking for real lifecorrespondences for this passage, one would have to say that Alfonso’sfather Fernando III could be equivalent to Hercules, since Fernando’sactive reconquest of lands from the Infidel could be described in the terms‘se apodereaua de la tierra por fuerça’, although Alfonso himself was nomean warrior and fought alongside his father. Alfonso’s efforts torepopulate and govern newly conquered territories might be consideredgoverning the land ‘por amor’ for which Espan was noted.

In the Estoria de España we learn that Espan ‘que finco por sennor enEspanna, andudo por la tierra e fizo la poblar y endereçar, ca era muymaltrecha y destroyda por la grand guerra que fiziera Hercules; e com eraomne sabio y entendudo, soposse apoderar della’ (EE, 1:11). Espan’sactivities are much like Alfonso’s own recorded efforts to populate Spain.Furthermore, among the various towns Espan founded was Segovia: ‘e alli

mind Solalinde’s superlative study on the matter (‘Intervención de Alfonso X en la redacciónde sus obras’, Revista de Filología Española, II [1915], 283-88).

17 Rico, op. cit., pp. 115, 117.18 Cristina González writes: ‘Los objetivos establecidos por Fernando III para su

sucesor son relativamente modestos: reconquistar más “tierra de la mar aca”. Alfonso Xlogró estos objetivos, aunque mínimamente, ya que no acabó de reconquistar Andalucía. Sinembargo, estos mínimos logros debieron de parecerle un fracaso total a un monarca quehabía sido precedido en la reconquista por los enormes éxitos de su padre, Fernando III deCastilla, y de su suegro Jaime I de Aragón ...’ (La tercera crónica, 35).

19 See Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca/London: CornellU. P., 1975), 358-59.

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fizo muy marauillosa obra pora adozir ell agua a la cibdat, assi cuemo oydia parece’ (EE, 1:11). But if this link between Alfonso and Espan istenuously presented in the Estoria de España, perhaps even mostlydependent upon reader response/conjecture, the General estoria, on theother hand, unequivocally associates the two. For, the General estorialikewise tells us that Espan founded Segovia: ‘e este fizo y aquella puente,que es y agora, por do viniese el agua a la villa que se yua ya destruyendo’(GE II, 2:35). In both histories Espan built the aqueduct, but only theGeneral estoria then makes a direct association: ‘E el rey don Alfonso fizolarefazer e adobar, que viniese el agua por ella a la villa commo solia, ca auiaya grand tienpo que non venie por y’ (GE II, 2:35). In his own historyAlfonso becomes a third-person character whose action parallels that ofEspan. Espan builds the aqueduct to keep the city viable, and Alfonsorefurbishes it ‘ca auia ya grand tienpo que non venie [agua] por y’. Thelink between Alfonso and Espan, then, is much more direct in the Generalestoria than in the Estoria de España.

If we move on to the character of Hercules himself, the Estoria deEspaña states that Hercules ‘fue tan buen maestro dell arte de las estrellasque dixieron los sabios que sostenie el cielo en los ombros’ (EE, 1:8). In asignificantly unintrusive manner the narrator explains what is meant bythe metaphor. The General estoria follows suit: ‘E sopo [Ercules] el arte delas estrellas; e por ende dixeron del los sabios de los gentiles que sostuuierael cielo con los ombros’ (GE II, 2:5). A quick glance at Alfonso’s intellectuallegacy quickly reveals that if raw numbers form the most reliable index,astronomy/astrology, ‘el arte de las estrellas’, was his favourite subject.

20 That the Estoria de España does not mention Alfonso’s intervention regarding theaqueduct has been noted by any number of readers of these histories and leads FranciscoRico to confess: ‘No he sido capaz de fijar la fecha en que Alfonso mandó restaurar elAcueducto (noticia, en cuanto alcanzo, ignorada por los especialistas), ... Entre 1270 y 1280,el período más largo que el Rey pasó en Segovia parece corresponder al verano de 1278 ...También cabe que acometiera la empresa durante su estancia en junio de 1273 ..., pero, afalta de otros datos, es inútil especular sobre el particular’ (op. cit., 43, n. 12). Probablybecause of the bias established by the canonical c.1270 date, Rico does not consider the fewmonths during which the Cortes of Segovia were celebrated in 1256 at which time Alfonsowas in Segovia (Antonio Ballesteros-Beretta, Alfonso X el Sabio, con índices de MiguelRodríguez Llopis [Barcelona: Albir, 1984; 1st ed. 1963], 167), issuing documents (nos. 315-55, ‘cartas’ or ‘privilegios’ less nos. 317, 319-20 which are not explicitly granted in Segovia)which bear dates beginning 30 June to 30 October 1256 (Ballesteros-Beretta, op. cit., 1074-76). Still, these dates appear to shed little light on the topic.

21 The astronomical/astrological treatises outnumber treatises in each of the othercategories. When Alfonso has received criticism for his political ineptitude, it has oftentaken the form of the bumbling, astrologer king who ‘contemplaba el cielo y miraba lasestrellas; mas en el entretanto perdió la tierra y el reyno’ (Miguel Asín Palacios, ‘El juiciodel P. Mariana sobre Alfonso el Sabio’, Al-Andalus, VII [1942], 479) or of the haughtymonarch who is reputed to have said: ‘Had I been present at the Creation, I would have

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Both Hercules and Alfonso, then, showed a marked affinity for whatAlfonso calls in his scientific treatises ‘el más noble saber’. However,whereas intelligence is not Hercules’ forte in the Estoria de España, itbecomes so in the General estoria. In the General estoria, just as Jupiterwas able—‘por el grand saber que auie’ (GE II, 2:2)—to make himselfappear as Anfitrion in order to impregnate Anfitrion’s wife Almena,thereby siring Hercules, Alfonso by the power of his own design in theGeneral estoria is able to transform Hercules into a sabio. Both histories,in keeping with the etymological fashion common during the Middle Ages,claim that Hercules was so called because his name means ‘glorious instruggle’. The General estoria, nevertheless, goes one step further: ‘este[Hercules] fue el omne mas valiente e que mas e mayores fechos fizo porsus manos e avn por su saber de quantos nos fallamos en escrito’ (GE II,2:5; emphasis added in bold). Not merely content to state this, Alfonsoshows this in Hercules’ feats. Hercules uses force to overcome the wildboar of Arcadia, the lions of Partemio, of Numea and of Nemea. When,however, he encounters the serpent Hydra of Lerna and realizes that everylopped off head generates two new ones: ‘dexo las armas, e fue a ella, eechole las manos en todas las gargantas, e apretola tanto que la afogo’ (GEII, 2:8). Hercules, ‘glorious in struggle’, is intelligent enough to changetactics when necessary. And should Alfonso’s audience have missed thispoint, the narrator subsequently and blatantly declares: ‘E Ercules,maguer que sienpre andaua en lides e en trabajosos peligros, sienpre eramuy entendido e muy sabio; e sienpre se trabajaua de los saberes eauie grand sabor dellos; e sienpre aprendie por do quier queandaua si fallaua de quien’ (GE II, 2:30; emphasis added in bold). Thisis the same image presented for Alfonso as gleaned, for example, from hisLibro de las cruzes in this interesting parallel: ‘Onde nostro sennor, el muynoble rey don Alfonso, rey dEspanna, ... en qui Dyos puso seso, etentendimiento et saber sobre todos los prinicipes de su tyempo, leyendo por

given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe; ...’ (Richard H. Allen, StarNames: Their Lore and Meaning [New York: Dover, (rev. rpt) 1963; 1st ed., 1899], 12).

22 G. Karl Galinsky in chapter 5, ‘Herakles among the Philosophers and Alexandrians’(101-25), of his book, The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature fromHomer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), discusses Hercules’‘intellectualization ’, stating that ‘The writer who firmly established Herakles as using hismind was the sophist Prodicus’ (101).

23 Galinsky shows that Coluccio Salutati, in his De laboribus Herculis (c.1406),presented the same etymology offered by Alfonso: ‘He [Hercules] symbolizes virtue in all itsaspects—physical, moral, spiritual, and even intellectual—and this virtue is active, as isindicated by Salutati’s etymology for “Herakles”: heris kleos in Greek, gloria litis in Latin, or“glorious in strife” ... Yet we do not any longer have a living, breathing Herakles before us,but a type’ (op. cit., 197). Alfonso appears to have already done this more than a centuryearlier.

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diuersos libros de sabios, por alumbramyento que ouo de la gracia de Dyosde quien uienen todos los bienes, siempre se esforço de alumbrar et deabiuar los saberes que eran perdidos al tyempo que Dyos lo mando regnaren la tierra’. One finds similar expressions in Alfonso’s Iudizios and evenin his Lapidario. Iudizios presents him as ‘qui sempre desque fue en estemundo amo e allego assi las sciencias e los sabidores en ellas e alumbro ecumplio la grant mengua que era en los ladinos por defallimiento de loslibros de los buenos philosophos e prouados’. In Lapidario he provides aninteresting vignette of the manner in which he obtains the original of thiswork: ‘en Toledo de un iudio quel tenie ascondido que se non querieaprouechar del; nin que a otro touiesse pro’. When he discovers the goodit contains through one of his Jewish collaborators, Yhuda Mosca el Menor,he has it translated ‘de arauigo en lenguaie castellano por que los omnes loenten[n]diessen meior; & se sopiessen del mas aprouechar’ (3-4). Theseglimpses of Alfonso only corroborate the parallel established in the Generalestoria: both Hercules and Alfonso have an intimate relationship withknowledge.

Furthermore, in the General estoria Espan governed Spain ‘por amor’much as we conjecture Alfonso would have liked to have been viewed asdoing. Espan built the aqueduct in Segovia and Alfonso refurbished it. Inthe General estoria Hercules manifests a striking appreciation of the starsas does Alfonso in real life. Hercules fosters and seeks knowledge just asAlfonso records himself as doing in real life in the Cruzes. To all of this wecan apply what James F. Burke understands as ‘theosis’, i.e., ‘the processwhereby a privileged individual or a privileged place was shown to be anearthly reflection of the divine plan’. The narrator of the General estoria,let it be stressed again, appears as a more active appropriator/adapter ofmyth, establishing a direct relationship between it and Alfonsine activities.Burke adds further that ‘history-as-exemplum’ was a structuringcommonplace for histories of the period. Certainly, both the Estoria deEspaña and the General estoria offer the pronouncement that both goodand bad deeds were recorded so that ‘los que despues uiniessen por losfechos de los buenos punnassen en fazer bien, et por los de los malos que secastigassen de fazer mal’ (EE, 1:1) or so that ‘delos buenos tomassen los

24 Libro de las cruzes, ed. Lloyd A. Kasten and Lawrence B. Kiddle (Madrid: CSIC,1961), 1.

25 Aly Aben Ragel, Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas, traducción hecha enla corte de Alfonso el Sabio, prologue by Arnald Steiger, ed. Gerold Hilty (Madrid: RealAcademia Española, 1954), 1.

26 ‘Lapidario’ and ‘Libro de las formas & ymagenes’, ed. Roderic C. Diman and LynnW. Winget (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1980), 3.

27 ‘Alfonso X and the Structuring of Spanish History’, Revista Canadiense de EstudiosHispánicos, IX (1985), No. 3, 464-71, at p. 465.

28 Ibid., 466.

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omnes exemplo pora fazer bien, et delos fechos delos malos que reçibiessencastigo por se saber guardar delo non fazer’ (GE I, 3).

Again, whereas the intention for writing history remains the same inboth works, the method appears to be somewhat different. After listing inthe Estoria de España his sources that emphasize ‘la estoria de los godos,et de Pompeyo Trogo, et dotras estorias de Roma las que pudiemos auerque contassen algunas cosas del fecho dEspanna’ (EE, 1:4; emphasisadded), Alfonso writes that ‘compusiemos este libro de todos los fechos quefallar se pudieron della, desdel tiempo de Noe fasta este nuestro’ (EE, 1:4).In the General estoria, Alfonso underscores his intervention with a first-person singular form of the verb: ‘despues que oue fecho ayuntar muchosescriptos e muchas estorias delos fechos antiguos, escogi dellos los masuerdaderos e los meiores que y sope; e fiz ende fazer este libro, e mande yponer todos los fechos sennalados tan bien delas estorias dela Biblia, comodelas otras grandes cosas que acahesçieron por el mundo, desde que fuecomençado fastal nuestro tiempo’ (GE I, 3; emphasis added in bold). Now,if the second period of literary activity is characterized by Alfonso’s mostpersonal work as Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal claims, the first-personsingular of the General estoria—‘oue ... escogi ... sope ... fiz ... mande’—isunquestionably emphatically more personal than the first-person plural,albeit a royal one—‘compusiemos’—or the impersonal ‘fallar se pudieron’ ofthe Estoria de España. Also, if the second period of literary activity ischaracterized by encyclopedism, certainly recounting history from thebeginning of time to the present in the General estoria is more encyclopedicthan recounting history from Noah to the present, with emphasis onNoah’s son Japhet and the founding of Europe and specifically on the fechodEspanna, as in the Estoria de España.

Fernández-Ordóñez points out that Alfonso explains that the shorterformat, i.e., the ‘estoria departida’ format as found in the Estoria deEspaña, demands recounting history ‘de la maestría o del arte’ whereas thelonger format permits a ‘natural’ version as Alfonso himself explains inGeneral estoria, part II: ‘Diz [Estaçio] que al vn comienço llaman natural denatura, e al otro dixeron comienço de maestria o del arte. E del comiençode natura departe el asi: que es començar el estoriador a contar la estoriade la razon donde se leuanta el fecho e donde viene el primero comienço dela cosa de que fabla en ella. E el otro comienço del arte e de la maestria,diz que es quando omne dexa la razon donde nasçe aquello por que ovo aacaesçer aquel fecho de que el a de fablar, e todo lo al que yaze alli fastadonde el toma la razon de lo suyo; e comiença luego en la su razon enaquello que viene luego ante de lo suyo mas de çerca’ (GE II, 2:49).

29 Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., 369.30 ‘La Estoria de España, la General Estoria y los diferentes criterios compilatorios’,

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Although the Estoria de España falls into the category of ‘arte de lamaestría’, the narrative technique manifested by the General estoria provessubstantially more, if not sophisticated, intrusive. To begin, the Generalestoria exhibits an explicit awareness of the craft of history, the craft ofnarration, in its version of the Hercules myth, which is lacking in theEstoria de España: to wit, the discussion of the historical modusoperandi—‘departida’ vs ‘unada’—resides in the General estoria and not inthe Estoria de España. Wayne C. Booth has stated that ‘In a sense themost reticent narrator has been dramatized as soon as he refers to himselfas “I,” ... ’. Alfonso, in his introduction, as shown above, has entered histext in the first-person singular of the verbs in the General estoria, and alsoin the first-person plural in the Estoria de España. But his unquestionablerestoration of the aqueduct in Segovia makes him a bona fide, dramatizedparticipant in history in the General estoria, i.e., in his own story.

The General estoria begins the story of Hercules with the followingintroduction: ‘En este lugar vos contaremos el linage donde vino Ercules, eel su nasçmiento, e los grandes e estrannos fechos que el fizo por el mundo.E commo quier que los el fiziera en tienpos departidos e en muchas tierras,ayuntamos los nos aqui todos aquellos buenos fechos por que vaya toda lasu estoria vna, commo de grand prinçipe e sennor commo el, e que laentiendan mejor los que la quisieren oyr’ (GE II, 1:1). Although this maybe a long way from the dramatized, first-person narrator of theintroduction, or the third-person character who refurbishes the aqueductas seen above, ‘even the most clumsily worded intrusion can redeem itselfby conveying this sense of how deeply the narrator cares about what he isdoing’. This introductory intrusion is hardly clumsily worded. Herculesis a ‘grand prinçipe e sennor’, for Alfonso, a topic that deserves the utmostcare ‘que la entiendan mejor los que la quisieren oyr’, hence the narrationof the ‘fechos de Hercules’ as an ‘estoria unada’. This unified manner ofpresentation certainly gives Hercules further pre-eminence because, by allrights, his account takes place ‘en tienpos departidos e en muchas tierras’.Alfonso forsakes what would be the annalistic pattern of recounting theHercules event, that is, in fragments, that is, by the year, and insteadexpands the Hercules myth over ninety-two columns of text.

In the Estoria de España, on the other hand, the section on Herculesbegins with the narrator directly and minimally addressing the audience:‘Hya oystes de suso contar de cuemo se partieron los lenguages enBabilonia la grand en el tiempo de Phalec, que fue del linage de Noe; edesde aquel Phalec fasta Gedeon, ... Y en tiempo deste Gedeon fueHercules, aquel que fizo muchas marauillas por el mundo e

31 The Rhetoric of Fiction (London/Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, [2nd ed.] 1983; 1sted. 1961), 152.

32 Ibid., 215.

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sennaladamientre en Espanna, assi cuemo adelant oyredes en estestoria, ...’ (EE, 1:7). But even this narratorial-intervention-equals-concern-for-the-subject wanes compared with that intervention/concernmanifest in the General estoria as it lacks the explicit outline of what is tofollow. The presence of the narrator in the Estoria de España is largelylimited to small phrases that remind the reader of what has alreadytranspired or forewarn the reader about what will transpire, for example,‘Hercules, de que ya oyestes dezir’ (EE, 1:9) and ‘assi cuemo adelanteoyredes en est estoria’ (EE, 1:7). The Estoria de España includesreferences to sources but not with the frequency or explicitness of theGeneral estoria. Finally, in one instance, because the deed has little to dowith the fecho dEspanna the narrator explains: ‘Mas por que esto nonconuiene a los fechos dEspanna, dexamos de fablar dello, e tornamos acontar dErcules e de las cosas que fizo en Espanna despues que uencio aCaco’ (EE, 1:10). This, no doubt, accounts for the briefest of summaries inthe Estoria de España of one of the most interesting aspects of theHercules myth, his twelve labours.

Alfonso, as others before him, sought the ‘true’ meaning of words byapproaching their etyma, and so with the name Hercules. Although bothhistories present this, the distinct manners in which they do so arenoteworthy. Estoria de España states: ‘ca segund el lenguage griego fuetomado este nombre de dos partes de letras: de her e de cleos, que quierdezir batallador onrado o alabado en fuerça y en lit’ (EE, 1:7). Generalestoria offers: ‘este Ercules fue el grande e el muy valiente a manos, commooydes dezir de Sanson e avn mas. E quien bien lo catare puedelo entenderpor este su nonbre, que conpusieron los sabios destas dos palauras griegas:de her, que dizen en el griego tanto commo batalla en el nuestro lenguagede Castilla; e cleos, commo gloria. Onde este nonbre Ercules, ayuntado econpuesto destos dos nonbres her e cleos, tanto quiere mostrar commoglorioso en batalla, o en valentia o en poder’ (GE II, 2:1). Estoria deEspaña is satisfied to state ‘que quier dezir’ whereas the General estoriastates what the Greek means ‘en nuestro lenguage de Castilla’, wherein acertain pre-eminence is given to Castilian, and this, only after Hercules isidentified by a comparison to the biblical Samson. Antonio G. Solalindenotes that ‘cuando el significado castellano es muy distinto del vocablolatino explicado [or perhaps Greek, as in this case], introducen aquél con lafórmula “en nuestro lenguage de Castiella” u otras similares: ...’. Thephrase lacking in the Estoria de España, but frequent in the Generalestoria, may possibly function deictically. The modern reader, however,should not overlook Alfonso’s privileging the ‘lenguage de Castilla’ as the

33 ‘La expresión “nuestro latín” en la General Estoria de Alfonso el Sabio’, inHomenatge a Antoni Rubió i Lluch. Miscellània d’estudis literaris històrics i lingüistics,Estudis Universitaris Catalans, XXI (1936), 3 vols, I, 133-40, at p. 135.

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new vehicle for transmission of knowledge. Not to be overlooked either isthe General estoria’s designating its reader as ‘quien bien lo catare’, all ofwhich is absent in the Estoria de España.

The Estoria de España states that ‘Este tercero Hercules fue de muygrand linage, como que fue fijo del rey Jupiter de Grecia e de la reynaAlmena, muger que fue del rey Anfitrion’ (EE, 1:7). The General estoriadoes not even begin Hercules’ lineage until it has stated: ‘E pues queauemos departido commo fueron quatro los Ercules e quales, e en quetienpo cada vno, agora dexamos aqui de fablar de los tres primeros, ca nonfallamos mas dellos. E contar vos emos de los fechos deste quarto, e dellinage donde vino e commo’ (GE II, 2:1). Narrative intervention in thefirst-person plural merely sets the reader up for the thoroughness thatfollows: providing the various versions of events, sometimes opting for oneover the other, and sometimes not; explaining what that narrator views asdiscrepancies or oddities in these versions. Two such explications occurwhen Hercules is said to have been able to catch birds. The General estoriaexplains that surely ‘podrie esto seer al menos de aquellas que son pesadas,que se leuantan de la tierra e tardan en el bolar’ (GE II, 2:7); or when theArcadians refuse to worship Diana because they believe that theythemselves were created even before the moon, Alfonso’s narrator clarifies:‘segunt la verdad de la primera criança de las cosas, esto era mentira; caantes fue criada la Luna que el omne fecho’ (GE II, 2:7). In his ‘deseo porcontarlo todo’, Alfonso even presents Hercules’ deeds narrated from theperspective of the loser, specifically, from the conquered Ateloo in chapter415: ‘Como conto Ateloo a Teseo la contienda que ouo con Ercules’ (GE II,2:24-26), a case of a tale within a tale, an intradiegetic level within theframe, in which the narrator is indeed homodiegetic, i.e., present as acharacter.

Fernando Rubio Álvarez has called the difference between the twoworks ‘un notable progreso de la segunda redacción sobre la primera’, i.e.,of the General estoria over the Estoria de España, and believes this notableprogress to be a result of ‘el tiempo transcurrido entre ambas redaccionesque, según nuestros cálculos, es de unos seis años’. This is not anunreasonable assessment, but neither would be one that held that thedifference in narration in the two works results from a conscious change ofplan requiring significantly less than six years to be implemented. Thepoint worth making, however, is that the procedure followed in the Estoriade España coincides better with works begun in the 1250s and thatfollowed in the General estoria with procedures prevalent in works fromthe 1270s.

34 ‘Andanzas de Hércules por España según la General Estoria de Alfonso el Sabio’,Archivo Hispalense, XXIV (1956), 41-55, at p. 46.

35 Ibid.

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What, then, is the reason or reasons for holding c.1270 as starting datefor the Estoria de España? The answer to this question begins in 1906when Ramón Menéndez Pidal edited the Estoria de España. Since then‘c.1270’ as the date of inception has largely become gospel despite theevidence he used to establish this date being at best circumstantial andsubject to interpretations other than his. Ramón Menéndez Pidal arrivedat the date based on information that ‘en enero y febrero de 1270 Alfonsopidió al cabildo de la colegiata de Albelda y al convento de Santa María deNájera varios libros en préstamo para hacerlos copiar. Entre estos librosestán algunos necesarios para la redacción de la Crónica General, ...’.

In 1922 Antonio Solalinde concurred with his magister stating ‘hacia1270’ as the beginning date for the General estoria in his anthology AlfonsoX el Sabio. This agreement is repeated often in the various reprints ofthis work since 1941 when Austral took over Solalinde’s 1922 anthologyunder the new title Antología de Alfonso X el Sabio. In 1930, eight yearsafter his original acquiescence, as editor of the General estoria, part I,Solalinde apparently felt that this date of ‘hacia 1270’ for the Estoria deEspaña was not ‘absolutamente decisiva; al lado de libros que pudieronutilizarse o se pensó en ellos para la redacción de la Crónica ...’, for therewere others ‘que tanto podrían servir para la Crónica como para la GeneralEstoria ... y alguno, como la Tebaida de Estacio, que únicamente se utilizóen la Historia universal’, including ‘libros de derecho ... que se habríanpodido utilizar para las Partidas ... [que] se habían comenzado en 1256 yterminado en 1265’. Solalinde, of course, did not have at his disposalJerry R. Craddock’s cogent study on the chronology of the Alfonsinelegislative works wherein he shows that the Partidas were indeed‘compuestas entre el 23 de junio de 1256 y el 28 de agosto de 1265’ and‘refundidas a partir de 1272 y hasta cierto punto falsificadas hacia 1290’.Thus, the law books noted by Solalinde as borrowed in 1270 could easilyhave been used in the ‘refundición’ of the Partidas. At any rate, worthemphasizing is Solalinde’s excellent point that among the books borrowed,there were some, ‘como la Tebaida de Estacio, que únicamente se utilizó enla Historia universal’.

Equally important to consider, however, is that just because noticeexists that books were borrowed in 1270, and these were, according to

36 Primera crónica general de España, II, 856.37 Prólogo, selección y glosarios de ... Colección Granada (Madrid: Jiménez-Fraud,

1922), 2 vols, I, 115.38 Austral 169 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, [7th ed.] 1980; 1st ed. 1941), 71.39 Alfonso X, el Sabio, General estoria. Primera Parte, ed. Antonio G. Solalinde

(Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1930), xxiii, n. 1.40 ‘La cronología de las obras legislativas de Alfonso X el Sabio’, Anuario de Historia

del Derecho Español, LI (1981), 365-418, at p. 418 (my emphasis).41 Solalinde, op. cit., xxiii, n. 1.

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Ramón Menéndez Pidal ‘indispensables para que los primeros capítulos dela Crónica se escribieran’ (EE, 2:857, n. 15), namely books by Ovid andLucan, it does not mean that they could not have been borrowed and usedpreviously without any extant record documenting such a possible firstborrowing. This is precisely the point Evelyn S. Procter makes which shefollows with myriad variables that show the difficulties in dating thecommencement of the Estoria de España precisely, while, at the same time,providing evidence suggesting inception perhaps at a date much earlierthan c.1270.

This late ‘c.1270’ date, none the less, accounts largely for BenitoBrancaforte’s reticence to accept Charles F. Fraker’s persuasivehypothesis ‘that the Crónica [i.e., the Estoria de España] was to haveended sounding loudly the note of Alfonso’s Roman and imperialheritage’. Brancaforte astutely questions: if Alfonso really wanted theEstoria de España to bolster his imperial claims, why would he havewaited until c.1270 to begin it, given that his aspirations for the HolyRoman Emperorship had begun by 1257, at least thirteen years prior?

Brancaforte also inquires why, if the Estoria de España was in fact tobolster Alfonso’s imperial claim, did he abandon it in 1274, given thatAlfonso’s hopes for Holy Roman Emperorship were not definitively dasheduntil 1275. Upon examining the dilemma more closely, two optionspresent themselves: to question the dates established on evidence that is atbest controvertible, and open to interpretation from myriad perspectives;or, to question Fraker’s observations which appear, by comparison,unequivocal. Brancaforte opted for challenging the latter.

In addition to a 1270 document indicating that Alfonso X borrowscertain books which serve as sources for the Estoria de España, part ofRamón Menéndez Pidal’s argument for c.1270 rests on Gonzalo MenéndezPidal’s pivotal study which, in turn, expands Evelyn S. Procter’sobservation that there are two general periods of Alfonsine literary

42 Alfonso X of Castile, 86.43 Benito Brancaforte, Alfonso el Sabio. Prosa histórica, Letras Hispánicas 194

(Madrid: Cátedra, 1984), 22-23.44 Charles F. Fraker, ‘Alfonso X, the Empire, and the Primera crónica’, BHS, LV

(1978), 95-102, at p. 101.45 Brancaforte, op. cit., 24.46 In chapter five, ‘Historical Works’ (78-112) of Evelyn Procter’s Alfonso X of Castile,

beginning specifically at page 85, the learned British Hispanist discussed convincingly thedifficulty of dating and provided a rationale for questioning the canonical dates thus farheld, offering at the same time evidence for holding that ‘the work was begun early inAlfonso X’s reign and that the whole of the first recension was completed before his death,leaving only the final revision of the chronicle from the Moslem conquest to be completed atthe court of Sancho IV’ (111).

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activity: the 1250s and the 1270s. Ramón Menéndez Pidal focussed onGonzalo Menéndez Pidal’s characterization of these two periods: the 1250sas essentially a period of translation; the 1270s as one of encyclopedismand syncretism. The argument can be made, however, that these twoperiods and their characterizations, as presented, are not water tight. Thedates of compilation of the Siete partidas, 1256 to 1265, Alfonso’sencyclopedic lex legium soundly based on Roman law, transgresses atleast the chronological boundaries established in G. Menéndez Pidal’sstudy. Is it coincidence that Siete partidas, Roman law in Spanish dress,an ‘imperial’ law, was begun in 1256, the year before Alfonso initiated hisquest for Holy Roman Emperorship? If the answer is no, beginning nearlythirteen years later a text that would additionally bolster this endeavourdoes seem odd. Still, Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal’s assessments, especiallythat the period of the 1270s exhibits Alfonso’s most personal work,coincides well with the greater narratorial intrusiveness seen within theGeneral estoria.

In closing, myth, says Roland Barthes, is a system of communicationappropriated by society, metaphor adapted to a certain type of consumptionwhich demands that the consumer posit a natural relationship betweensignifier and signified. Alfonso has done that in the Estoria de España,but not to the extent that he does in the General estoria. One way heachieves this greater inflexion in the latter work is through theintrusiveness of his narrator, eminently aware of his art, and willing toexpound upon it, all so that the reader/hearer may better comprehend. Infine, the few narrative ploys here presented and manifest in the Generalestoria constitute but a small sampling of the many that could be adducedfrom the Hercules myth to illustrate how narration in the General estoriais much more self-conscious, and at least from one modern perspective,much more interesting than that in the Estoria de España. The increasedsubtleties of narration in the General estoria, coupled with thecircumstantial evidence used to forge the thus far accepted dates for theEstoria de España, make it difficult, for this reader at least, to find theproximity of the two canonical dates for the Alfonsine histories

47 ‘The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castile: The King and hisCollaborators’, 27.

48 ‘Cómo trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, V(1951), 363-80, at pp. 364-68.

49 Ibid., 369.50 Procter, Alfonso X of Castile, 64; E. N. Van Kleffens, Hispanic Law until the End of

the Middle Ages (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U. P., 1968), 171-78.51 G. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., 369.52 Mythologies , selections and trans. by Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang,

1985; 1st ed. Paris, 1957), 131.

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convincing. Although the question of dating may never be solvedsatisfactorily, Alfonsine narrativity certainly constitutes an area ofendeavour beckoning reader response, an area that will yield results inkind, that will ideally allow us a greater appreciation of Alfonsinehistorical artifice.

53 Fernández-Ordóñez, on the other hand, believes that ‘el contacto entre la Estoria deEspaña y la General Estoria fue más estrecho de lo que se ha venido suponiendo.Probablemente las dos compilaciones historiales comenzaron a elaborarse simultáneamente.Nada más lógico que la existencia de intercambio de materiales entre los equipos dehistoriadores de las dos obras, pues unos y otros trabajaban con las mismas fuentes y bajo elimpulso y la dirección del mismo patrón’ (Las ‘Estorias’ de Alfonso el Sabio, 95). Thisassessment, nevertheless, fails to account for the substantial difference in narratorialthrusts of the two works as I have hoped to point out in this study. Furthermore, whatwould account for the simultaneous compilation of two histories with such different goals asthose elucidated by Fraker and others? Granted that the exchange of materials between ‘losequipos de historiadores de las dos obras’ would be logical, but would not other elementsbeyond the mere sharing of source material also be? I refer here to details such as Alfonso’srefurbishing the aqueduct and others like it. I must respectfully disagree with Fernández-Ordóñez’s assessment here. Unfortunately, I have been unable to consult MarianneBreidenthal’s dissertation ‘The Legend of Hercules in Castilian Literature up to theSeventeenth Century’ (see Dissertations-Abstracts-International, Ann Arbor, MI [DAI]. 1986Sept., 47:3, 925A-926A).

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