This weblog will post daily individual entries from Baltasar Gracián y Morales, Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia. A favorite of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Gracián’s little book is well worth reading slowly and pondering carefully. I hope to post the occasional sonnet from Gracián’s era, but that will only be once or twice a month.
I am not a Hispanist, and my translations will be plain inelegant prose, for those who (like me) can read Spanish, but not well enough to dispense with the English entirely. I’m doing this partly to improve my Spanish by tackling a very difficult text.
Several English translations have been published, but none, I think, is on the web. I am consulting various editions and translations and have more on order. So far, I have found these two the most useful:
The Spanish text of Oráculo Manual is on-line here (archaic spelling), and here (so far only the introductory matter, plus chapters 1-10 and 101-110).
I plan to post each day’s entry shortly after midnight eastern time, so it will be available before breakfast to readers in North America and Western Europe. Out-of-town trips will necessitate occasionally skipping a day or double-posting, but I will keep to the one-per-day schedule, which means that the last post of 300 will be Christmas Day. Of course, if anyone wishes to contribute towards buying me a laptop so I can post while out of town, I will be extremely grateful.
Unlike most weblogs, this one is arranged top-down, with the latest post at the bottom. This seems more appropriate to a literary corpus. Regular readers will be able to jump straight to the latest entry, or the latest unread entry, by using the calendar at the top of the right-hand column.
Comments are open. Please try to contribute something useful. Those that are rude, inane, or irrelevant will be deleted without apology or explanation. I am looking for literary, historical, exegetical, and interpretative questions -- and answers.
I have numbered the sentences and larger clauses for easy reference. It will be less confusing if commenters are specific and write things like ‘What does sentence 3 mean?’ or ‘Doesn’t this contradict 17.2?’
Readers may also wish to take a look at the other Lanx Satura weblogs in the right margin. More will be added in time.
1 Todo está ya en su punto, y el ser persona en el mayor. 2 Más se requiere hoy para un sabio que antiguamente para siete; 3 y más es menester para tratar con un solo hombre en estos tiempos que con todo un pueblo en los pasados.
1 Everything is now at its peak, and being a great man at the highest. 2 More is required now for one wise man than in ancient times for seven; 3 and more is needed to handle a single man in these times than a whole people in those past.
1 Genio y Ingenio. 2 Los dos ejes del lucimiento de prendas: el uno sin el otro, felicidad a medias. 3 No basta lo entendido, deséase lo genial. 4 Infelicidad de necio: errar la vocación en el estado, empleo, región, familiaridad.
1 Genius and Wit. 2 The two poles of the display of natural gifts: the one without the other, happiness by halves. 3 Understanding does not suffice, genius is desired. 4 A fool’s misfortune: to be mistaken in his choice of status, employment, domicile, circle of friends.
Note: How difficult is Gracián? The three translations I have consulted translate “Genio y Ingenio” as “Genius and Wit” (Walton), “Character and Intelligence” (Maurer), and “Mind and Spirit” (Fischer). That’s an embarrassingly wide range of antitheses: the three pairs of words have very little in common. Was Gracián too busy punning to be precise?
1 Llevar sus cosas con suspensión. 2 La admiración de la novedad es estimación de los aciertos. 3 El jugar a juego descubierto ni es de utilidad ni de gusto. 4 El no declararse luego suspende, y más donde la sublimidad del empleo da objecto a la universal expectación; 5 amaga misterio en todo, y con su misma arcanidad provoca la veneración. 6 Aun en el darse a entender se ha de huir la llaneza, assí como ni en el trato se ha de permitir el interior a todos. 7 Es el recatado silencio sagrado de la cordura. 8 La resolución declarada nunca fue estimada; antes se permite a la censura, y si saliere azar, será dos vezes infeliz. 9 Imítese, pues, el proceder divino para hacer estar a la mira y al desvelo.
1 Keep your affairs in suspense. 2 Admiration of novelty is esteem for achievements. 3 Playing [cards] with your hand uncovered is neither useful nor pleasant. 4 Not declaring yourself immediately keeps people in suspense, more so where the loftiness of your position provides an object for universal anticipation; 5 it conceals a mystery in all things, and with its very arcaneness causes veneration. 6 Even in making yourself understood, you should avoid frankness, just as in social intercourse you should not show what is inside you to everyone. 7 A discreet silence is the sanctuary of prudence. 8 The purpose, once declared, was never respected; it permits criticism beforehand; and if it should come out badly, you will be twice unfortunate. 9 Imitate, then, the ways of God, to keep others alert and awake.
1 El saber y el valor alternan grandeza. 2 Porque lo son, hacen inmortales; 3 tanto es uno quanto sabe, y el sabio todo lo puede. 4 Hombre sin noticias, mundo a oscuras. 5 Consejo y fuerzas, ojos y manos; 6 sin valor es estéril la sabiduría.
1 Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness. 2 Because they are immortal, they make men immortal; 3 one is as great as what he knows, and the wise man can do everything. 4 Man without knowledge, world in darkness. 5 Judgment and strength, eyes and hands; 6 without courage knowledge is sterile.
1 Hacer depender. 2 No hace el numen el que lo dora, sino el que lo adora. 3 El sagaz más quiere necessitados de sí que agradecidos. 4 Es robarle a la esperanza cortés fiar del agradecimiento villano, que lo que aquélla es memoriosa es éste olvidadizo. 5 Más se saca de la dependencia que de la cortesía: buelve luego las espaldas a la fuente el satisfecho, y la naranja esprimida cae del oro al lodo. 6 Acabada la dependencia, acaba la correspondencia, y con ella la estimación. 7 Sea lección, y de prima en experiencia, entretenerla, no satisfazerla, conservando siempre en necessidad de sí aun al coronado patrón; 8 pero no se ha de llegar al excesso de callar para que yerre, ni hacer incurable el daño ajeno por el provecho proprio.
1 Make people depend on you. 2 It is not he who gilds [dora] but he who adores [adora] that makes the divinity. 3 The wise man looks more for those who need him than those who thank him. 4 To trust in vulgar thankfulness is to cheat gracious hope, for the latter is prone to remember as the former is to forget. 5 More is gotten from dependence than from courtesy: the satisfied man turns his back on the spring, and the squeezed orange falls from the gold to the mud. 6 Dependency ended, harmony ends, and with it esteem. 7 Let it be the first lesson of experience to extend it, not to satisfy it, keeping always in need of you even the royal patron. 8 but one should not go so far in concealment as to lead into error, nor make another’s loss incurable for your own advantage.
1 Hombre en su punto. 2 No se nace hecho: vase de cada día perficionando en la persona, en el empleo, hasta llegar al punto del consumado ser, al complemento de prendas, de eminencias. 3 Conocerse ha en lo realzado del gusto, purificado del ingenio, en lo maduro del juicio, en lo defecado de la voluntad. 4 Algunos nunca llegan a ser cabales, fáltales siempre un algo; tardan otros en hacerse. 5 El varón consumado, sabio en dichos, cuerdo en hechos, es admitido y aun deseado del singular comercio de los discretos.
1 Man at his peak. 2 One is not born complete: he goes along every day perfecting himself in character, in profession, until he arrives at the peak of consummate being, the completion of talents, of expertise. 3 This state can be recognized by the excellence of one’s taste, purification of wit, ripeness of judgment, clarification of will. 4 Some never arrive at perfection, they always lack something; others are slow in developing. 5 The consummate nobleman, wise in words, sound in deeds, is admitted to, and even desired by, the special intimacy of the discreet.