Background
Ruiz was born in c. 1283 either in Alcalá de Henares or Alcalá la Real, still unknown today. Little is known about him today, except for what can be reconstructed from his poem.
(Ésta es oraçión qu'el arçipreste fizo a Dios quando comen...)
Ésta es oraçión qu'el arçipreste fizo a Dios quando començó este libro suyo. Señor Dios, que a los jodíos pueblo de perdiçión sacaste de cabtivo del poder de Faraón, a Daniel sacaste del poço de Babilón, saca a mi coytado d'esta mala presión. Señor, tú diste graçia a Ester la reyna, ant'el rey Asuero ovo tu graçia digna, Señor, dame tu graçia e tu merçed ayna, sácame d'esta laçeria, d'esta presión. Señor, tú que sacaste al Profeta del lago, de poder de gentiles sacaste a Santiago, a Santa Marina libreste del vientre del drago, libra a mí, Dios mío, d'esta presión do yago. Señor, tú que libreste a santa Susaña, del falso testimonio de la falsa compaña, líbrame, mi Dios, d'esta y coyta tanmaña, dame tu misericordia, tira de mí tu saña. A Jonás, el Profeta, del vientre de la ballena en que moró tres días dentro en la mar llena, sacástelo tú sano así como de casa buena; Mexías, tú me salva sin culpa e sin pena. Señor, a los tres niños de muerte los libreste, del forno del grand fuego sin lesión saqueste, de las
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(Love is the life-giving spirit, the axle on which the wor...)
Love is the life-giving spirit, the axle on which the world turns, the infinite tenderness of God for His creation. It is also the love between women and men. Desires ethereal, ardent, even animalistic, "The Book of Good Love" honours them all. This study edition contains commentary on the text.
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Ruiz was born in c. 1283 either in Alcalá de Henares or Alcalá la Real, still unknown today. Little is known about him today, except for what can be reconstructed from his poem.
Ruiz probably studied in Toledo.
Ruiz gives an alleged self-portrait in his poem Libro, but scholars have pointed out that before these lines can be accepted as a physical picture of Ruiz, the weight of rhetorical tradition in literary portraiture and the fact that the description is made by a go-between, Trotaconventos, must be taken into consideration. Since the poet also mentions a prison at the beginning of the Libro de buen amor (The Book of Good Love), scholars have argued that the reference in the poem is to the symbolic prison of Christian man and that this reference was interpreted literally by the scribe. Documentary proof gives evidence that by 1351 Ruiz was no longer archpriest of Hita. It is assumed that he died sometime earlier. The Libro has survived in three main manuscripts, each one incomplete at different points. Two of the manuscripts represent a version of the poem finished in 1330. The third one represents an amplification of that version finished in 1343. Some fragments are also extant, including one of a Portuguese translation. Leaving aside the prose introduction, the poem has 1, 728 stanzas, mainly narrative and in cuaderna vía (a learned 14-syllable poetic form) but with frequent lyrical outbursts in a variety of meters. The poem is supposedly an erotic autobiography written with a moral purpose, more in the medieval Ovidian tradition than in the tradition of the Arabic and Hebrew works that have been pointed out as possible models. Ruiz's poetic imagination and individualism were such, however, that no poetic tradition or literary theme employed by him has remained the same after his treatment of it.
(Love is the life-giving spirit, the axle on which the wor...)
(Ésta es oraçión qu'el arçipreste fizo a Dios quando comen...)