[In the following essay, Murray considers the implications of the term “measure” with respect to personal conduct in The Book of Good Love.]

Critical studies of the Libro de buen amor¹ have pointed out that Juan Ruiz shows a preoccupation with measure in his description of the god of love, Don Amor, and in the planctus or invective against the death of Trotaconventos, the Archpriest's go-between.² But while studies of mesura have been limited to such isolated passages, the reader of the Libro notices that Juan Ruiz has scattered the concept of mesura throughout other passages just as he has done with other key concepts, e.g., buen amor, cordura and locura. In the present study I demonstrate that the author elaborates the theme that nature is a measure or norm of conduct. This theme, in turn, serves the errant protagonist as a premise in an argument to justify his truancy.

Schutz and Leo interpret mesura as it appears in the Libro in accordance with its courtly meaning. Basing his discussion on two coplas (1548-1549) from the Archpriest's lament at the death of his go-between, Schutz defines mesura as an equilibrium in the moral structure of the individual. These coplas contain a scale of virtues belonging to the courtly scheme. Death destroys what each of these virtues represents. With the annihilation of self-respect, represented by the virtue of verguença, the entire moral structure of the individual becomes imbalanced and mesura is lost: «Toda la estructura moral del individuo se desequilibra. Sabemos la importancia que tiene la mesura en la concepción del héroe épico, y sabemos también que la falta de equilibrio puede ser trágica, pues conduce a la deshonra o a una catástrofe física total» (Schutz, p. 70).

Ulrich Leo sees the invective against Death set in opposition to the Archpriest's attack on Don Amor. The contrast between Death and Don Amor centers on the basic knightly concept of mesura, which Leo defines as the mark of the courtly knight, the «fleckenlose gentleman.» Like Schutz, he points out that death for the Archpriest is the embodiment of everything uncourtly: «non ay en ty mesura, amor nin piedad» (1522c).³

Schutz and Leo might have been more specific in their definition because mesura in the Middle Ages was not limited to the sphere of courtly life. The medieval Christian scheme of the virtues provides another understanding of the concept. Before studying nature as a measure of conduct, it is necessary to survey the concept of mesura from two aspects, the medieval Christian scheme of the virtues and the code of courtly virtues. A comprehensive view of these overlapping aspects will aid our understanding of measure in the passages of the Libro to be discussed.

The location of discussions of measure in Christian treatises on the virtues varies from one presentation to another. Most writers consider measure as either an element of the virtue of temperance or part of some virtue related to temperance. Gulielmus Peraldus, in his Svmmae virtvtvm ac vitiorvm, the great medieval encyclopedia on the virtues and vices, discusses measure under the heading of temperance.⁴ It is treated by Guillaume de Conches' Moralium dogma philosophorum and Alain de Lille's Tractatus de virtutibus et vitiis in their presentations of sobrietas, moderantia and modestia, all parts of temperance.⁵ Frère Lorens, whose vernacular encyclopedia could be said to rival the Latin work of Peraldus, considers measure as an element of the virtues equité and sobrieté.⁶ The Pseudo-Seneca is concerned with measure under the virtue of continentia.⁷

Modus or measure, from which, according to Peraldus, the word moderation is derived, has a fourfold meaning: «Et notandum quod modus à quo moderatio dicitur, quadruplex est. Primus est restrictio inordinati appetitus in vi concupiscibili quae prona est ad repellendum nociuum vel corrumpens. Secundus consistit in priuatione eius quod est nimis & parum. Tertius in hoc quod opus debitis circumstantijs induatur: & huius tertij modi secundus modus pars est. Quartus modus est, à quo virtus modestiae dicitur, quam Tullius ponit tertiam partem temperantiae» (Peraldus, p. 179). In the first definition measure restrains the inordinate concupiscible appetite—the desire for food, drink and sex. The three other definitions develop logically from the first. The second meaning is the well-known definition of measure as keeping the mean between the extremes of too much and too little. Frère Lorens incorporates this principle in his definition of sobrieté, the virtue planted in the heart by the gift of sapience: «Sobrieté n'est autre chose que garder droite mesure qui tous jours tient le milieu entre trop et pou, selonc ce que reson enluminée par grant entendement enseigne» (Lorens, p. 156). This concept of measure informs the virtues sobrietas and moderatio, which regulate the appetite for food and drink.

An important concept of measure, one not as well known or immediately recognized as the regulation of the extremes, concerns what is proper, worthy and suitable. It is found in the third and fourth definitions of modus set forth by Peraldus. The third type of measure sees to it that an action is performed within the proper circumstances. The fourth meaning of modus is synonymous with modestia. Modestia effects an external ordering by rejecting what is unseemly: «declinando indecentiam in exterioribus efficit ordinationem exteriorem quae modestiae est» (Peraldus, p. 184). The modus from which modestia is derived means to maintain what is becoming: «notandum quod modus à quo modestia dicitur, est tenere decorem» (Peraldus, p. 185).

Several things must be considered to establish just what is becoming. Actions should be measured against how they suit the nature of the persons who perform them, the appropriateness of time and place, and the status of the person: «Ad cognoscendum verò aliquid decorum vel non, attendendum est an sit naturae consentaneum, & an sit persona dignum quae hoc agit vel cum qua agitur. Attendendem est etiam ad congruentiam temporis vel loci. … Item aliquid est indecens in persona prelati, quod non esset indecens in persona priuata» (Peraldus, p. 185). Ultimately, nature is the supreme criterion. What is consonant with the excellent nature of man will be fitting in an individual (Peraldus, p. 185).

In the courtly code actions also are to be measured against nature. It is in making nature a measure of conduct that the courtly code overlaps with the Christian scheme of virtues. The courtly virtue of mezura, according to Jacques Wettstein, is not a state or the result of conduct; it is the norm or principle which leads to perfection.⁸ For Wettstein courtly mezura derives its meaning as a norm from the scholastic concepts of being and plenitude. The idea of being is always perceptible in passages where mezura means norm. Modus, or measure, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute Being reflected in the being of each creature. Since each creature exists according to a determined mode, the more perfectly he observes this measure the more perfect is his being. A creature's corruption is caused by a lessening of its being because it does not observe the measure which is natural to it. The plenitude of its being is, therefore, a perfect measure which is opposed to excess and deficiency.

Measure in the courtly code affects both personal and social conduct. Moshé Lazar says that mezura serves the individual as a norm of personal conduct while with cortezia he regulates his life in society. As a personal duty mezura implies the interior discipline of the courtly lover. One of the chief personal demands made on the individual by mezura is the maintenance of sentiments and reason in balance. On the social level cortezia which directs «l'équilibre, la modération des faits et gestes du parfait chevalier parmi ceux qui l'entourent, sa conduite sociale et morale» is analogous to mezura.⁹ One fulfills his social duty by submitting to the demands of society.

The opposite of mezura is desmezura, which implies the violation of the norms of nature and reason. Not to live in harmony with one's nature would constitute desmezura because one would be lessening or trying to exceed his being. Lazar supplies examples of desmezura in the personal and social spheres. In the lai Les dous Amanz, the excess of vanity is a personal desmezura because there is an imbalance between feelings and reason. To seek love outside one's social milieu, prohibited by the code of the troubadours, violates social measure (Lazar, p. 30f.).

What does the courtly code mean by nature and reason? Lazar takes issue with Wettstein's theory that the kind of reason which is a criterion of measure is reason inspired by faith. Lazar maintains that the troubadours did not give to nature and reason the values which these terms had in Christian ethics: «Lorsque les troubadours parlent de ce qui est naturel et raisonnable, ils ne songent guère à des valeurs spirituelles empruntées à une éthique religieuse. Leur idéologie morale et esthétique s'inscrit tout simplement dans les limites de la vie sociale de la classe aristocratique de l'époque. Disons aussi, ce qui est naturel et raisonnable pour le troubadour, ne l'est plus du tout consideré du point de vue de l'Église.»¹⁰ The conduct demanded by measure in the code of courtly love does not have the sanction of religion. For example, a woman is considered to be measured in her behavior if, being loved by a faithful and courtly lover, she loves him in turn, gives him a kiss, and eventually «‘un peu plus’.»¹¹ Robert S. Briffault stresses the element of sexual reward in mezura which he defines as «patience in the pursuit of love's meed.»¹² With these definitions in mind, the significance of mesura in the LBA [Libro de Buen Amor] may be more firmly apprehended.

The connotation of granting sexual favors figures in the use of mesura in the Libro de buen amor. Don Melón, complaining to Venus about Endrina's disdain for his love and devotion, asks what woman would refuse mesura to the man who serves her:

¿qual es la dueña tan braua E tan dura
que al su seruidor non le faga mesura?

(606a,b)

Melón then goes to speak with Endrina to persuade her to grant him mesura:

yo vo Rasonar con ella, quierol dezir mi quexura
por que por mi fabla venga a fazer mesura.

(65a,b)

Since his goal is to seduce the young widow, mesura in these cases means Endrina's favors.

Lazar's thesis that the conduct demanded by the code of courtly love did not give to nature and reason the values which these terms had in Christian ethics should not exclude the influence of Christian philosophy on the formulation of the courtly concept of mezura. In both Christian and courtly systems one brings the potential of his being to fulfillment by living in harmony with his particular nature. The two systems differ, however, in their understanding of nature. In the Christian view man's nature corrupted by the sin of his first parents and then redeemed by Christ is still subject to the effects of the fall, e.g., the tendency to lust. The courtly code, on the other hand, makes no distinction between nature before and after the first sin. Hence, questionable urges arising from corrupt nature are viewed as being natural.

Juan Ruiz calls our attention to the theme of nature as measure through the use of a special vocabulary describing the violation of a norm of conduct and the harm inflicted on the one who commits the action. The discussion of the vice envidia in the Archpriest's pelea with Don Amor describes the desire for another man's possessions. The fable of the peacock and the crow, which illustrates the sin, goes beyond the crow's envy of the peacock's beauty to focus on a problem of metaphysical dimensions when the crow desires to assume the peacock's nature.¹³ The crow does not merely desire to look beautiful like the peacock; but she strips herself of her own feathers, dons the peacock's plumage and behaves as if she were a peacock.

The crow's intention, «‘yo fare quanto pueda por ser atan fermosa’,» is a locura (285b,c), the same term which the Archpriest used in 74d to designate man's sexual conduct when it is not controlled by the rule of moderation. To describe the effect of envy on Amor's followers and the action of the crow, Juan Ruiz uses verbs denoting excess. He speaks of Amor making his followers exceed the mark: «anssy con tu envidia ffazes a muchos sobrar» (289a) and of the crow acting rashly against herself: «la negra por ser blanca contra sy se denueda» (285d). The crow exceeds the measure of her nature, of her very being, by dressing and behaving as if she possessed the nature of the peacock. Thus the crow's locura is a synonym for desmesura.

An act of desmesura brings injury to the one who commits it. The crow acted rashly against herself (285d) in attempting to renounce her own nature and assume the nature proper to another creature. When the other birds discover that the crow is an impostor, they strip her of the peacock's plumage and she is left without even her own feathers, which she herself had discarded earlier. In summing up the moral of the fable, Juan Ruiz emphasizes that the injury consists in the diminution of one's own nature:

quien quiere lo que non es suyo E quiere otro paresçer,
con algo de lo ageno aora rresplandesçer,
lo suyo E lo ageno todo se va a perder;
quien se tiene por lo que non es loco es; va a perder.

(290)

The individual, like the crow, not only loses «lo ageno,» i.e., what belongs to someone else, but, even more importantly, «lo suyo» or what is properly one's own.

The theme of nature as a measure of conduct is present in the story of the nun Doña Garoza where it is expressed in a situation and language similar to those in the fable of the crow and the peacock. On the second day of her attempt to seduce the nun for her client the Archpriest, Trotaconventos continues the debate begun at the previous meeting by narrating the fable of the ass and the lap-dog (1401-1408).¹⁴ In this fable a lap-dog gives pleasure to his mistress and her companions by standing on his hind legs, wagging his tail, barking, and licking the lady's hands. The reward which the dog receives for this entertainment makes the ass envious when he considers his service to the household as a beast of burden. The ass thinks that by imitating the dog's tricks he can win the lady's favor. For his foolishness in standing on his hind legs, braying and placing his hooves on the lady's shoulders the ass is soundly beaten. Trotaconventos, fearing that she was misunderstood during the first meeting, narrates the fable to prove her good intentions. Before relating the fable and again in the moral which follows it, the go-between leaves little doubt that she is casting herself in the role of the ass who toils for the lady; the mistress represents Doña Garoza. In fact, the nun and Trotaconventos see each other in the relationship of mistress and servant respectively in the fables of the gardener and the serpent (1348-1354) and of the greyhound and his master (1357-1366), which were narrated in the previous day's debate.

The moral to the fable is contained in two coplas:

          Non deue ser el omne a mal faser denodado,
nin desir nin cometer lo que non le es dado;
lo que dios e natura han vedado E negado
de lo faser el cuerdo non deue ser osado.
          quando coyda el bauieca que dis bien e derecho,
E coyda faser serviçio e plaser con su fecho,
dise mal con neçedad, fase pesar E despecho;
callar a las de vegadas fase mucho prouecho.

(1407-1408)

In the first Trotaconventos focuses on deeds, speech, and thoughts for which man has neither the right nor the ability. Engaging in such activities violates measure («non deue ser … denodado,» 1407a). The moral then proceeds to a broader application as it warns man to refrain from acts which God and nature forbid.¹⁵ In fact, the cuerdo or man of common sense (the opposite of loco, synonymous with desmesurado) will not violate this measure.

Trotaconventos applies the fable to herself in the second copla by narrowing the emphasis to a lack of measure in speech and introducing the notion of good intention. Referring to herself as the «bauieca» (1408a), which echoes similar epithets in the body of the fable, she would have Doña Garoza believe that her fears are founded on a misunderstanding. Trotaconventos' intention was to serve and please the nun, but unfortunately this right intention was badly expressed (1408c). The important line in the go-between's moral is that at times it is more beneficial to keep silent (1408d). This is a complete shift from the emphasis in the last copla on desmesura as a violation of nature and God's law. The old woman skirts the issue that she is exceeding the moral measure when she advocates to the nun a relationship which breaks the commandment of God.

The ass committed an act of desmesura because he tried to accomplish something which nature and nature's Author had forbidden and denied to him. He exceeded the measure of his own nature, very much like the crow, by attempting to be like a creature of another species. The ass, like the crow, had committed a locura and merited the epithets: «el asno de mal seso» (1403a), «el burro nesçio» (1403b), and «commo garanon loco, el nesçio tal venía» (1405b). The two coplas of the moral further echo the language in the fable of the envious crow. The act of surpassing measure is a «locura» (1408c, Mss. T and G) resulting from rashness, «denodado,» and boldness, «osado» (1407a,d). «Denodado» recalls the crow's action «contra sy se denueda» (285d). Finally, the stifling of one's own nature through the imitation of another species results, as it did for the crow, in personal injury.

The fables of the envious crow and of the ass and the lap-dog provide the premise that nature is a measure of conduct and any attempt to suppress one's own nature is to exceed measure which inevitably results in punishment. The Archpriest as protagonist of the book's love adventures refers to this premise when the story of Doña Garoza moves from the world of the animal fable to a human situation. His lament over Garoza's being a nun (1499-1500) presents an example of desmesura in human terms.

The Archpriest sees Doña Garoza for the first time when she is praying at Mass. Seen through the Archpriest's eyes the nun is lusty and beautiful:

          En el nonbre de dios fuy a misa de mañana,
vy estar a la monja en oraçion loçana,
alto cuello de garça, color fresco de grana;
desaguisado fiso quien le mando vestir lana.

(1499)

and passionate: «oteome de unos ojos que paresçian candela» (1502a). Corominas has pointed out the similarity of this portrait to that of Endrina in copla 653.¹⁶ The similarity rests on the details of the swanlike neck, the color of the complexion and the passionate glance of the eyes. To make his point that the nun's life is a desmesura the Archpriest contrasts this picture of a woman whose nature it is to be loved and beget children with the church setting, her attitude of prayer and the nun's garb. In the face of this conflict the Archpriest blames the one who made her wear the religious habit for acting unreasonably («desaguisado fiso» 1499d).

Copla 1500 recasts in poetic imagery the conflict between what the Archpriest believes is an imposed, religious commitment and nature:

          ¡val me Santa Maria, mis manos aprieto,
quien dyo a blanca rrosa abito, velo prieto!
mas valdrie a la fermosa tener fijos e nieto,
que atal velo prieto, nin que abitos çiento.

Garoza is compared to a white rose shrouded in a habit and black veil. The Archpriest laments that the young woman has no opportunity of marriage. This lament is, as María Rosa Lida has pointed out, in the tradition of the song of the unhappy nun found in the Latin and French lyric of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.¹⁷ Otis H. Green noted that the passage in the Libro deviates from the usual pattern by placing the lament of the nun unhappily married to her heavenly Bridegroom on the lips of the Archpriest who is in love with her.¹⁷ Garoza, however, gives no indication that she is unhappy with her situation. The lament contrasts the habit, symbol of the religious life and its vow of chastity, to the lusty beauty of the woman to show how the state of virginity stifles the nature of the young woman.

The image of the white rose clothed in the habit and black veil recalls the desmesura of the crow. It is the reverse image of the black crow strutting about in the peacock's plumage. The idea that Garoza as a nun is something «desaguisado,» that it would be better for her to bring her nature to its fullness by having children, and the image of the white rose place this passage squarely within Juan Ruiz's theme of nature as a measure of conduct.

O. H. Green maintains that in this passage Juan Ruiz, who is responsive to all the love traditions prevalent during his time, proclaims his adherence to the doctrine of Plenitude.¹⁸ This doctrine advocated populating the earth («henchir la tierra»). By uniting the doctrine of Plenitude with its insistence on marriage to the theme of nature as a measure of conduct, the Archpriest adds more force to his argument to discredit virginity. Virginity becomes a desmesura which suppresses nature.

Adherence to the doctrine of Plenitude meant opposition both to the Church's orthodox doctrine of virginity and to the courtly code whose notion of love was extramarital and precluded parenthood. However, since the principal end of marriage is procreation, the doctrine of Plenitude is not heretical as far as married persons are concerned. The error consists in using the doctrine to attack the vow of chastity or virginity accepted in the religious state and the promise of celibacy exacted of the diocesan clergy. For those called to practice the evangelical counsel of chastity, virginity rather than stifling nature brings it to a higher fulfillment.¹⁹

But how serious is Juan Ruiz's belief in this doctrine? Green admits that «Vaguely, if not philosophically, Juan Ruiz holds to the doctrine of Plenitude.»²⁰ Green must have sensed that something was peculiar about the Archpriest's position when he used the word «vaguely» to describe the Archpriest's stance.

Copla 1501, which immediately follows the lament, undercuts the Archpriest's argument against virginity.

          Pero que sea errança contra nuestro Señor
el pecado de monja a omne doñeador,
¡ay dios! ¡E yo lo fuese aqueste pecador
que fesiese penitençia desto fecho error!

(1501)

The Archpriest knows that it is wrong to sin with a nun. In jest he adds that he would like to be that sinner and perform a penance after the sin. Despite the jest, we have his admission that loving a nun is sinful. There is, indeed, no joke without this declaration. If he did not accept the validity of the Church's doctrine of virginity, he would not have to make such confession. It is not a question of the author Juan Ruiz's adhering to the doctrine of Plenitude, but rather it is the Archpriest-protagonist who tries to convince himself that the state of virginity is contrary to nature in order to justify his designs on the nun. Copla 1501, then, reveals that the lament for the nun unhappily married to her celestial Bridegroom is one further example in the Libro of the truant Archpriest-protagonist.

From the several seemingly isolated passages treating measure in the Libro de buen amor there emerges a unified theme that one is to measure his conduct against the dictates of nature. This role of measure is based on Christian and courtly understandings of the concept which converge to insist that an individual fully actualizes his being by acting according to his particular nature. On the other hand, denying one's nature is to court personal disaster. The Archpriest-protagonist converts this theme into a thesis to argue that the nun, Garoza, who, in his view, is stifling her nature by not bearing children, is being forced to act contrary to her nature. The premise, legitimate in the case of married laymen, is meant to justify what by the time of the story of Doña Garoza has become the Archpriest's characteristic delinquent stance.

Notes

1. A shorter form of this paper was read at the Forty-first South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention, November 5, 1971.

2. A. H. Schutz, «La tradición cortesana en dos coplas de Juan Ruiz,» NRFH [Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispanica], 8 (1954), 63-71 and Ulrich Leo, Zur dichterischen Originalität des Arcipreste de Hita (Frankfurt, 1958), p. 99f.

3. Leo, p. 100. All quotations from the Libro de buen amor are from the Salamanca manuscript, where possible, as published in the palaeographic edition of M. Criado de Val and Eric W. Naylor (Madrid, 1965).

4. Gulielmus Peraldus, Svmmae virtvtvm ac vitiorvm (Cologne, 1629), I, 178, 179, 185.

5. Guillaume de Conches, Moralium dogma philosophorum, ed. John Holmberg (Uppsala, 1929), pp. 41-43. Alanus de Insulis, De virtutibus et de vitiis et de donis Spiritus Sancti, ed. O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XII^eet XIII^esiècles (Paris, 1942-1960), VI, 57.

6. Frère Lorens, Somme des vices et des vertus [i.e., Somme le Roi], Part II: ed. E. H. Allen, unpublished M.A. thesis (University of North Carolina, 1951), p. 30ff.; pp. 156-170.

7. Formula Vitae Honestae in Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia, ed. Claude W. Barlow (New Haven, 1950), pp. 242-246.

8. Jacques Wettstein, «Mezura,» idéal des troubadours: son essence et ses aspects (Zurich, 1945), p. 28. In addition to p. 28, I base my discussion of mezura in this paragraph on pp. 22 and 25 of Wettstein's study. See also St. Augustine, De natura boni, PL 42.553.

9. Moshé Lazar, Amour courtois et «fin' amors» dans la littérature du XII^esiècle (Paris, 1964), p. 32.

10. Lazar, p. 31.

11. Lazar, p. 30.

12. Robert S. Briffault, The Troubadours (Bloomington, 1965), p. 124.

13. For the sources of the fable, see O. Tacke, «Die Fabeln des Erzpriesters von Hita im Rahmen der mittelalterlichen Fabelliteratur,» RF [Revista de Folosofia], 21 (1911/1912), 635-640, and Félix Lecoy, Recherches sur le Libro de buen amor (Paris, 1938), p. 127f.

14. For the sources, see Tacke, pp. 670-674, and Lecoy, p. 134f. Wilhelm Kellermann, «Zur Charakteristik des Libro del Arcipreste de Hita,» ZRPH [Zeitschrift fuer Romantische Philologie], 67 (1951), 239, noted the presence of measure in this fable, but he did not analyze its significance.

15. This lesson corresponds to the moral in Walter of England's version, which is an analogue of Juan Ruiz's fable: «quod Natura negat, nemo feliciter audet … quod Natura negat, turpiter ambit homo … » (vv. 15, 18). See Joan Corominas, ed., Libro de buen amor (Madrid, 1967), p. 528, n. 1407 c.

16. Corominas, p. 556, n. 1499 b,c.

17. María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita: Libro de buen amor (Buenos Aires, 1941), p. 155.

18. Otis H. Green, Spain and the Western Tradition: The Castilian Mind in Literature from El Cid to Calderón (Madison, 1963), I, 31. Corominas (op. cit., p. 556, n. 1500-1501), contradicting Lida and Green, believes that the song of the nun in love («monja enamorada») had no influence on this passage.

19. Green, p. 44.

20. Green, p. 102.