December 2013 – Page 4

Wednesday's flowers

leaf patterns embrace rose

Don Melón badgers Lady Plum after love rejection

In the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, Don Melón pleads his love to Lady Plum. She is a neighbor that he has been secretly admiring for years. Nourished by a woman’s advice, Don Melón screwed his courage to make an attempt at the sticking place. He saw her in the square:

God! How lovely Lady Plum is when walking through the square!
What figure and what grace! That slender swanlike throat I prize!
Oh what complexion, what mouth, what carriage and what hair!
She pierces with love’s arrows every time she lifts her eyes. [1]

Don Melón bravely accosted Lady Plum. He poured out his love to her: “There’s nothing that I love in all the world to equal you … I love you more than God.”[2] He ended his declaration of love with a request:

My lady, I don’t dare say more to plead my suit with you
Until you give some inkling of the way your passion leans.
Tell me your inclination, let us bare our hearts and minds. [3]

Lady Plum responded curtly, “Your words aren’t worth a hill of beans.” To Don Melón’s personal address, Lady Plum returned negative stereotypes of men:

Thus many men deceive us Lady Plums, put us to scorn.
Man is deceitful and seduces neighbors, undeterred.
Don’t think I’m loose because I listen to your trifling word.
Go seek some other to deceive with your mendacious thorn. [4]

That response reflects the misandristic culture prevalent throughout history. A medieval woman fed up with her husband stereotyping women had him shackled and starved for three days. Don Melón could not have called forth such punishment on Lady Plum. He wouldn’t have wanted to. Don Melón pursued more fruitful interests. He responded to Lady Plum’s misandristic, divisive words with strength and wit:

I know you’re angry, but your silliness can’t shame.
All men have dicks, but not all dicks are the same.
All men are not alike, nor they privilege hunt.
Fissures may be white or dark, but they’re all cunts. [5]

While Don Melón seductively challenged Lady Plume’s response, he had no interest in challenging men’s social and sexual subordination. He merely sought to differentiate himself from other men to further his seduction of Lady Plum. He continued speaking to Lady Plum:

Sometimes the innocent are punished for the guilty ones.
For mistakes of other men the pure must suffer all the time.
The guilt of an evil man now injures most the good and best.
The penalty should fall on those who really did the crime.

The wrong another man has done should not reflect on me.
Be kind and let me talk to you under that portico —
We don’t want any people going down the street to see.
Here I can say but little, there I’ll tell you all I know. [6]

Don Melón echoes misandristic culture with “mistakes of other men,” “evil man,” penalty, crime, and “the wrong another man has done.” Misandristic culture constructs men as criminals for nothing more than loving acts. Men, pursuing their sexual interests, contribute to creating and sustaining misandristic culture.

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Notes:

[1] Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor (Book of true love), s. 653, from Old Spanish trans. Daly (1978) p. 175. All subsequent quotations are from Daly’s translation, unless otherwise noted. The name Lady Plum corresponds to the name Doña Endrina in the Old Spanish text. Other translations of Doña Endrina are Lady Sloe and Lady Sloeberry.

[2] The distinction between true love and false love is the central theme of Libro de buen amor. In that book, loving a person more than one loves god indicates false love.

[3] Id. s. 664.

[4] Id. s. 665. The word “thorn” figures the man’s penis, and “mendacious thorn” is a synecdoche for the man’s person. Most men, even those who have experience the great joy of woman’s true, intimate love, have experienced much rejection from women. That’s a fundamental social reality of men’s lives. It’s a widely under-appreciated social inequality. That inequality is represented every time a man buys a woman dinner on a date, as if that’s his duty. That inequality is starkly apparent in statistics from an online dating site. In response to Lady Plum’s expressed anger and anguish after Don Melón forcefully had sex with her despite her strong protests, the go-between Trotaconventos declared to Lady Plum, “all men act as Don Melón Ortiz — they’re merely male.” Id. s. 881d. That statement generalizes a specific man’s acts to all men. That’s particularly hateful within false accusations of rape culture.

[5] My translation of s. 666. The Old Spanish text:

Yo le dixe: “Ya, sañuda, anden fermosos trebejos;
son los dedos en las manos pero non son todos parejos,
todos los omnes non somos de unos fechos nin consejos,
la peña tiene blanco e prieto pero todos son conejos.

From Anthony Zahareaus’ Old Spanish text for Libro de buen amor, in Daly (1978) p. 178. For translation of that stanza, Daly has:

I said, “I know you’re angry, but please leave such jokes aside!
Five fingers hang on every hand, but all are not alike.
All men are not one shape, nor does one nature there preside.
Your furs may be of white or black, but all are rabbit hide.

That translates literally allusions to penises and vaginas. Vasvári (2011), p. 15, paraphrases that stanza into “colloquial English today” as “Come on now, not all men are dicks, but a pussy is always a pussy, whatever the color of its fur.” That paraphrase is more gynocentric and much less witty than the source text. More generally, Vasvári (2011) uncannily represents the hackneyed, aggrieved authority of gender theory.

[6] Libro de buen amor, s. 667-8.

[image] courtship; Zurich, 1305-1340, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 032v, Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse), Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

References:

Daly, Saralyn R., trans. and Anthony N. Zahareas, ed. 1978. Juan Ruiz. The book of true love. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Vasvári, Louise O. 2011. “Comparative Cultural Studies and Paremiology: A Case Study of the Libro de Buen Amor.” In Marie-Sol Ortolá and Marie-Christine Bornes Varol, eds. 2011. ALIENTO. Corpus anciens et bases de données. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy.

COB-89: new milestones achieved

Adjusted profits are 23% higher than benchmark expected profits quarter-on-quarter, and 11% higher than last quarter, as measured in quarts extracted. Seasonally normalized, composite asset sales have risen 17% and have exceeded expected guidance. That makes for the seventeenth consecutive year that all performance milestones have exceeded guidance forecasts. Concerns that the staff appears to be anemic and may not be as productive in the future are unfounded as long as our health-care plan continues to fully fund transfusions. The strategic plan length has been increased by 19%, while the costs of counting revenues have decreased 56%. The newly hired group of 7 SVPs (“Super Suckers”) has already reduced line staff by 6 FTEs through targeted attrition. All revenue has been deferred to next year, simplifying the adjustment of this year’s fiscal results. Management’s in-house auditor has certified the corporation’s debt burden to be acceptable. No long-term effects are forecast from the seizure of furniture from corporate headquarters last February. New touch-screen input devices make the loss of fingers during the cold spell immaterial. Management remains optimistic about the future of the business as long as employee turnover exceeds garlic imports.

In other bureaucratic issues this month, Jerry Pournelle deserves respect as a bureaucratic authority. He explains:

I certainly started keeping a day book well before most, and long before the term “blog” or Web Log was invented. BIX, the Byte information exchange, preceded the Web by a lot, and I also had a daily journal on GE Genie. Both of those would have been considered blogs if there had been any such term. All that was long before the World Wide Web.

In short, he’s been doing the same thing for a long time. That’s impressive. Pournelle has formulated the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy, stated simply, says that there are two kinds of people: false bureaucrats and true bureaucrats. False bureaucrats foolishly pursue the organization’s goals. True bureaucrats diligently seek to perpetuate the organization. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy declares the world is the best of all possible worlds:

in every case the second group {true bureaucrats} will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Set up a meeting to celebrate the good news about your organization’s future!

Unfortunately, some history professors are failing in knowledge of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Consider what Larry Cebula says to his students:

In a way it is the greatest compliment a student can give. I ask them what they want to do with their history degree. They get all passionate and earnest and vulnerable as they answer, “I want your job. I am going to be a college professor!” Then they turn their smiling faces towards me, expectantly awaiting my validation and encouragement of their dreams. And I swallow hard, and I tell them…. No, my esteemed student, you are not going to be a history professor. It isn’t going to happen. The sooner you accept this the better.

That’s typical of dinosaur positivist historians out of date with theory. Scholarly theory has unlimited potential for growth. It’s also has low cost to produce. History students should be encouraged to provide life-long support for the history-student production organization.

Scott Kirsner in the Harvard Business Review blog network describes 11 ways big companies can successfully undermine innovation. Many big-company leaders fail to appreciate the full magnitude of the risks of innovation in their organizations. But with thorough, hands-on, detail-oriented management, these risks can be minimized. Some of Kirsner’s ideas are simple to implement:

Seeking more influence and power, the company’s Chief Information Officer has altered his title, becoming Chief Innovation Officer.

That’s a good start, but staff renaming is also necessary. The Chief Innovation Officer should move promptly to rename her typist an Innovation Service Specialist.

That’s all for this month’s Carnival of Bureaucrats. Enjoy previous bureaucratic carnivals here. Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month’s carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

Heber the Kenite sped to the marriage bed

Heber the Kenite sped to marriage bed

A figure of media in medieval Andalusan literature is an old woman go-between. In Judah al-Harizi’s Tahkemoni, Heber the Kenite encountered a go-between:

a crone, prune-face, features and limbs and what-not-else displaced, came apace, a wispy veil drawn over her face, foulness to perfection, incarnate evil: Fate must have hauled her straight up from the Devil. [1]

The go-between flattered Heber’s self-esteem. Then she offered him a dream:

rise from the dust to a nubile, doe-eyed maiden faint with lust. She is supple, her body warm and moist, well-spiced, glistening like amethyst, pure, holy, blest. Her eyes are two lions, her teeth strung pearls, each breast a trembling fawn. On, sir, on! Feast your eyes on each succulent part and feel your senses fall apart; ah me: thou shouldst go mad at the sight of thine eyes that thou shouldst see. Oh, happy the man who clasps her to his side, who mounts this chariot to ride; oh trebly sweet the lot of him who bows, falls down, and lies between her feet. [2]

That account is full of deceit. The go-between pulled a marriage switch for an ugly old witch. So also earlier told Judah ibn Shabbetai about the dismay of Zerah. Heber, disabused after the nuptial execution, abusively recounts the outrages he suffered.[3]

Al-Harizi’s text draws meaning from citations and allusions to the Bible. They would have saved Heber from his delusion, if he had been keenly discerning. The man who lies between a woman’s feet in the biblical book of Judges is the general Sisera. He doesn’t experience joyful sex in the wedding bed. The wife of Heber the Kenite hammers a tent peg through his skull, and he falls dead between her feet.[4] Heber claims to have delivered blows to his new wife and then fled for his life. The teller of the tale said:

Hearing Heber the Kenite’s misrepresentations, his mad concoctions, his ludicrous fabrications, I laughed my fill, then bade him goodbye, and off went I; and off went he — dreams, wit, and wondrous falsity. [5]

The reality of women’s guile and prevalent violence against men made for laughter that medieval culture allowed. Now even men’s dreams are disavowed. How can men still be sped to the marriage bed?

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Notes:

[1] Judah al-Harizi, Tahkemoni, Gate 6, from Hebrew trans. Segal (2001) p. 74. Go-betweens figure prominently in Pamphilus and Libro de buen amor. Id. transcribes the trickster as Hever the Kenite. The transcription Heber the Kenite seems more common, so I’ve used that.

[2] Id. pp 74-5. The go-between proposes a 2000 coin price for Heber the Kenite to wed the maiden. The italicized text quotes Deuteronomy 28:34, which is a curse. That curse thus foreshadows the bride that Heber the Kenite will receive.

[3] Heber the Kenite, unlike Jaume Roig, resolved from his bad womanly experience to avoid marriage:

By all the prophets’ lives, he shouted, not a word of wives, though you bore a command stamped by God’s own hand! One horror will suffice: never twice!

Id. p. 73.

[4] Judges 5:27. Jael is the wife of Heber the Kenite.

[5] Tahkemoni, trans. Segal (2001) p. 80. Concluding his analysis of this gate (chapter), Segal states:

One might well see in this gate a quintessential example of literary coarseness towards women as women, call it chauvinism or what you will. One might have good reason. The definition of womanhood here is that of subservient wife and sexual partner. She must be beautiful. She must have means. She may be beaten.

Some {those bad men} may laugh; others {good men who love their mothers} will not.

Id. p. 458. This is similar male rhetorical posing to that of Lacy in considering the fabliau La Dame Escoilliee (see note [4]).

[image] Marginal miniature of a couple embracing, Book of Hours, Use of Maastricht (‘The Maastricht Hours’); Netherlands, S. (Liège); 1st quarter of the 14th century; f.143, British Library Manuscript Stowe 17.

Reference:

Segal, David Simha, trans. and ed. 2001. Judah al-Harizi. The book of Taḥkemoni: Jewish tales from medieval Spain. Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization.