Cornell University Library 
 PQ 6408.E5 1917 
 
 Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and his fort 
 
 3 1924 027 683 014 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBR'i^ftY* 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Chas, P. Wagner 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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 Dt 
 
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 '^me^ 
 
 - v >H - Jul 
 
 
 PRINTED INU.S. A. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027683014 
 
THE LIFE OF LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 LA2ARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 AND HIS FORTUNES AND ADVERSITIES 
 
 DONE OUT OF THE CASTILIAN 
 
 FROM R. FOULCHE'DELBOSC'S 
 
 RESTITUTION OF THE EDITIO 
 
 PIUNCEPS 
 
 By Louis How 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
 CHARLES PHILIP WAGNER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 1917 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 h^^il^ji 
 
 TO 
 
 PRINTED IN AMERICA 
 
WITH GRATITUDE AND GREAT RESPECT, 
 
 TO 
 
 R. FOULCHE-DELBOSC 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Prologue i 
 
 Treatise First — Lazaro' Recounts His 
 Life, and Whose Son He Was 4 
 
 Treatise Second — How Lazaro Took 
 Service with a Priest, and of the 
 Things He Went Through While 
 with Him 33 
 
 Treatise Third — Of How Lazaro 
 Took Service with an Esquire, and of 
 What Happened to Him with Him 5 8 
 
 Treatise Fourth — How Lazaro Took 
 Service with a Friar of La Merced, 
 and of What Happened to Him 
 While with Him 96 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Treatise Fifth — Hoiv Lazaro Took 
 Service with a Pardoner, and of the 
 Things He Went Through with Him 97 
 
 Treatise Sixth — How Lazaro Took 
 Service with a Chaplain, and What 
 He Went Through with Him 117 
 
 Treatise Seventh — Ho%v Lazaro Took 
 Service with a Constable, and of 
 What Happened to Him While with 
 Him 119 
 
 Notes 126 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 When it becomes possible to write the 
 definitive history of the origins of the 
 modem novel, there will be much mention 
 of Spain, whose original literature is being 
 ever more closely studied and better under- 
 stood. In particular, the results of com- 
 parative method and the interpretation of 
 bibliographical data are making it increas- 
 ingly clear that the latest great literary form, 
 the peculiar contribution of the nineteenth 
 century, rests upon a foundation of sixteenth 
 century Spanish models. The earliest recog- 
 nizable examples of the novel of adventure, 
 the sentimental novel and the novel of man- 
 ners, are Spanish, and each is a masterpiece 
 of its kind. 
 
 The first two of these must be considered a 
 heritage of the romantic or idealizing tend- 
 
a INTRODUCTION 
 
 ency which prevailed in mediasval fiction in 
 verse. Just as in France the first prose 
 romances were prose translations, if we may 
 call them so, of the earlier meti-ical ones, so 
 in Spain the national epics, with their verse 
 structure very ill disguised, found their way 
 into the chronicles, and certain French poems 
 of the Carlovingian cycle were worked over 
 into the thirteenth century Castilian of the 
 Gran Conquista de Ultramar. The first 
 Spanish novel worthy of the name, the 
 Libro del Caballero Cifar, written about 
 1300, makes use of the matiere de Bretagne 
 and is preponderatingly romantic in tone. 
 It points plainly to the sentimentality and 
 extravagance of the romances of chivalry, of 
 which the most famous, the Amadis of Gaul, 
 existed at least as early as 1350, in a form 
 more primitive than the one preserved to us. 
 The Amadis and its like, tiresome as they 
 now seem for the most part, even to the 
 professional explorers of this field, were the 
 favorite form of fiction in Spain until well 
 
INTRODUCTION HI 
 
 past the first half of the sixteenth century, 
 when they gave way to the pastoral novel, a 
 more specialized form of the same impulse. 
 It is the popularity of idealizing fiction at 
 this time that lends such significance to the 
 appearance, about the middle of the century, 
 of a work of entirely different character. 
 
 The Lazarillo de Tormes is a work of the 
 most uncompromising realism, direct in style 
 where its predecessors were ela!borate, and as 
 brief in form as they were voluminous. It 
 is the_^r^itj\gve\.J,o^^^ -h^IP 
 
 frornjthe dregs of society, and above all the 
 first-tacixale. the, impression of absolute and 
 eternaJLactuauty which makes it live while its 
 contemporaries are forgotten. Whether we 
 choose to regard the Lazarillo as an unac- 
 countable but timely flash of genius, or as a 
 conscious protest of the anti-hero against the 
 ubiquitous hero, or as merely an inevitable 
 and logical step in the development of the 
 novel of manners, in any case^ts position as 
 the first rogue novel is unassailable^ 
 
iv INTRODUCTION 
 
 This Is to say merely that the claims of the 
 Lazarillo to priority are beyond dispute, not 
 that the forces which produced it had not 
 long been at work and given results, both 
 outside and inside Spain. In mediaeval 
 France, the ribaud of servant's hall or market- 
 place, ancestor of the picaro, amused his low- 
 born audience with the versified anecdotes 
 we know as fabliaux, or with more reforma- 
 tive intent elaborated beast satire as we have 
 it in Renart. One of his careless crew, by 
 the apparently simple device of grouping a 
 number of roguish episodes about a single 
 figure and giving artistic unity to the whole, 
 created the thirteenth century Trubert, which 
 but for the technicality of its being in verse, 
 we must consider the first picaresque romance 
 instead of Lazarillo. About the same time 
 the German Strieker composed his Pfafe 
 Amis by a similar grouping of episodes. 
 The Til Eulenspiegel, later by a couple of 
 centuries, represents an experiment of the 
 same kind in prose, and is significant for the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 biographical material which it surely con- 
 tains. It unfortunately lacks the sequential 
 character of the novel. In Italy and Eng- 
 land, the two arch-realists, Boccaccio and 
 Chaucer, have given us some of the best 
 short stories of picaresque interest, and it 
 seems a miracle that neither should have in- 
 vented the rogue novel. 
 
 There is no reason for believing that the 
 anonymous author of Lazarillo knew these 
 earlier foreign essays in realism, and still 
 less for connecting him with Petronius or 
 Apuleius, as some would like to do. It must 
 be borne in mind that to those who know him 
 best the Spaniard has always seemed an odd 
 mixture of realist and idealist, who even in 
 his highest flights keeps an eye on the earth. 
 It is not then surprising to find the rogue 
 and with him satire appearing very early in 
 Spanish literature. A brief review of this 
 material will help establish Lazarillo's pedi- 
 gree. 
 
 In the Caballero Cifar, already mentioned, 
 
Vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 appears the first Spanish picaro, in the per- 
 son of the Ribaldo, art out-and-out loafer, 
 clever and witty, who speaks in proverbs and 
 acts as a foil to the unreal hero. The amus- 
 ing episodes in which he plays a part, some 
 of which betray a folk origin, give a sort of 
 unity to a work of very disparate character. 
 Prmrf Jnnn MnnwVfj _C pnde Lucan or, com- 
 pnsfff1_ah£2ii<- T34T, the greatest prqsT^worl? 
 v^Ttiirhjjip-Spgnifjfi Middig-Ages.. Can show, 
 usesjhfif-Fegae as Boccaccio does, in^anxumber 
 of tiiore or less elaborate, imrelated, anec- 
 dotes, which are ^models , of storydtelling. A 
 work of more importance for us is the novel 
 in verse, in which the reprobate Archpriest 
 of Hita, Juan Ruiz, sets forth his own indis- 
 cretions and worse, in the guise ofwhglescune 
 warnings. His Libro de Buen Amor (ca. 
 1350), is the work of an unquenchable real- 
 ist who regards life with an eye at once af- 
 fectionate and ironical, and it is not only the 
 first rogue autobiography, but the most genial 
 work of the period. 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 With ostensibly the same object as his col- 
 league of Hita, the Archpriest of Talavera 
 wrote his prose Corbacho nearly a century 
 later, arranging under ethical categories the 
 results of long and close contact with human 
 frailty. The Corbacho, like the four works 
 just mentioned, makes large use of proverbs 
 and folk tales, and its extent makes it a sub- 
 stantial contribution to the already sizable 
 body of Castilian literary prose. 
 
 The next step in the development of Span- 
 ish realism is represented by the famous 
 Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, better 
 known, from "Tts^-ceatFat figure, as fhe Cetes 
 ft"n«. irTHe first known edition of this re- 
 markable work bears the date 1499, ^^^ '^s 
 author is believed to be one Fernando de 
 Rojas, an obscure lawyer of Jewish parent- 
 age. The love story which ends in the 
 
 tragic death of the l£verSj,^jg|t£fes&Jl3Utti'S ii'-" 
 tensity of its passion, the high-water mark 
 of sentiment;, but for us the CelesHna has 
 more than the heart interest: A great share 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 o£its_jip_wsr_lies in the other side of its dual 
 personalilyj ^Jn the seething underwork, 
 brutal, rollicking, sordidj through whidi 
 moves the old bawd whose rnachinations 
 bring about the tragedy, and who stands out 
 still as one of the most vivid personalities in 
 all fiction. The Celestina is an anomaly. 
 Its dialogued form classifies it as a drama, 
 while its length precludes the possibility of 
 its being acted. It is the perfection of abun- 
 dant and coloured prose, and had it occurred 
 to the author to write it in the third person, 
 he would have created the modern novel in 
 a masterpiece which like the Don Quixote, 
 transcends the distinctions of realism and 
 idealism. As it is, both the drama and the 
 novel claim his work. 
 
 It was inevitable that a book of such sur- 
 passing merit and originality should have 
 imitators at a time when cheapened produc- 
 tion had given rise to a swarm of eager au- 
 thors. The descendants of Celestina resem- 
 ble their mother more or less closely in form 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 and matter, though some stress the sentimen- 
 tal and others the realistic sidej Of the lat- 
 ter type one of the best is the Segunda Celes- 
 tina, written by the same Feliciano de Sllva, 
 " the reason of whose unreason " drew the 
 ironical praise of Cervantes. Another work 
 of this group, unique in some respects, is 
 Francisco Delicado's Lozana Andaluza, 
 published in Rome in 1528. This study of 
 the adventures of a Spanish courtesan in 
 the Imperial City, with its panorama of the 
 vicious Roman underworld, is all the more 
 startlingly direct for its dialogued form. As 
 Menendez y Pelayo puts it, " the Lozana is 
 rather spoken than written." By ignoring 
 the sentimental and seeking his inspiration 
 in the purely pornographic aspects of the 
 Celestina, which he frequently mentions by 
 name, Delicado takes a step forward, or 
 downward, in the path of realism, and illus- 
 trates, better than any contemporary perhaps, 
 that curiosity of life which informs the later 
 Renascence. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 At this point it becomes necessary to call 
 attention to the satirical tendency which is 
 present from the first in non-idealizing fic- 
 tion, beginning with the first simple anecdote. 
 With the emergence of personality and the 
 development of marked societal types that 
 characterize the Renascence, the impulse to 
 formal satire became more pronounced and 
 surely had not a little to do with the Refor- 
 mation. In the Lucianesque dialogue the 
 Erasmian found a ready-made vehicle for his 
 ideas of reform, and the Spanish leaders in 
 this movement were not slow to avail them- 
 selves of it. Its most distinguished expo- 
 nent was Juan de Valdes, whose Dialogue of 
 Mercury and Charon appeared in the same 
 year as the Lozana. Although the Dialogue 
 is primarily a controversial work, its satirical 
 presentation of a long line of contemporary 
 types, chiefly clerical, gives it much of the in- 
 terest of fiction, and its style — Valdes was 
 a master of restrained and elegant diction 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 — helped to create the flexible prose of the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 Such, in too summary outline, are the stages 
 of the development of Spanish realism down 
 to the) Lazarillo, which, so far as now ap- 
 pears, Inust have been printed first not later 
 than the latter part of 15 53, 'though no edi- 
 tion of that year is known to exist. Xijp 
 earliest^ editions are of i';S4 - In that year 
 Juan de Junta printed an edition at Burgos, 
 another was published at Alcala de Henares 
 by Salzedo and a third was issued at Ant- 
 werp by Martin Nucio (Nutius, Nuyts), in 
 his day the most prolific printer of Spanish 
 books in the Lowlands. QThese three edi- 
 tions differ so substantially from each other, 
 that the distinguished French scholar to 
 whom this volume is dedicated has been able 
 to show that no one of them derives from 
 any other. The edition of Burgos bears no 
 date but the year. Inasmuch as the several 
 extant copies of the Antwerp edition are all 
 
XU INTRODUCTION 
 
 bound with an anonymous continuation which 
 has a title-page dated 1555, it is probable 
 that this edition was really issued in that 
 year or late in 1554. The edition of Alcala 
 states explicitly that it is a second printing, 
 with corrections and additions, and its colo- 
 phon gives the date of printing as February 
 26th. 
 
 By way of demonstrating that the Alcala 
 edition could not have come from that of 
 Burgos, it has been reasonably urged that it 
 would have been physically difficult if not im- 
 possible to prepare such a new edition in a 
 period of time which could not exceed fifty- 
 six days. If this is admitted, the logical 
 next step is that the original of Alcala, wher- 
 ever printed, was probably issued in 1553. 
 Furthermore the Alcala volume could hardly 
 call itself " this second printing " unless 
 Salzedo himself had issued the earlier edi- 
 tion. Is it not logical to assume an Alcala 
 edition of 1553 or earlier? 
 /What manner of work is it that begins life 
 
INTRODUCTION XUl 
 
 with such promise of popularity? There is 
 a rather conventional prologue in which the 
 writer promises to relate the facts of his life 
 at .the request of some- one- whom -4*e»>ad- 
 dreases 3,8, youp-'WO'fsfeip. The narrative 
 proper is divided into seven treatises or 
 chapters of very uneven length. The first 
 deals with the early life of Lazarillo and his 
 peregrinations as guide of a blind beggar. 
 In the next four he appears as the servant of 
 a priest, an impoverished petty noble, a friar 
 and a pardoner. In the sixth and seventh he 
 serves a painter of tambourines, a chaplain 
 and a constable, and finally becomes a town 
 crier of Toledo, which is the most ignomini- 
 ous public office after that of executioner, 
 and finally settles down as the complacent 
 husband of a maidservant of the Archpriest 
 of San Salvador parish. Most of the action 
 passes in Toledo or in its immediate neigh- 
 borhood. The satirical character of, the 
 
 work, which is least apparent in ttig jection 
 de Vote'd to Ihe "^^SJxasSl&J^^SlS&MBaMe^ 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 pronounced in the_rest of the book, andjhe 
 height of iiuMy~4& reach^ditt Xazaro^^£_£2,"- 
 cluding words: ".At that time I was in my 
 prosperity and at the summit oTall gooaTor- 
 tune." The Lazarillo is complete as it 
 stands, and only a careless reader could find 
 in the last chapter, as some have done, a 
 promise of a continuation. 
 
 Plot there is none. As Lazarillo passes 
 from master to master, each pathetic or ig- 
 noble type is seen in the light of the hero's 
 own whimsical and none too scrupulous per- 
 sonality. Nothing could be simpler, but 
 the form Is perfectly adequate to the aim. 
 The style Is admirably effective. It is collo- 
 quial though not without elegance, not too 
 rich to be direct, and unusually free from the 
 stylistic affectations of the day. 
 
 If much of the Lazarillo's greatness lies in 
 the charm of its vivid style and its deepjjjt 
 manit y. its greatest originality is doubtless 
 found in the breaking loose from the shackles 
 of the dialogue by the frank assumption of 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 the first person, and in the rediscovery of the 
 peripatetic servant-hero as the perfect me- 
 dium for social satire. 
 
 Who was the genius who at a single stroke 
 achieved the formula of the rogue novel — a 
 formula which with unimportant modifica- 
 tions has persisted to our own time? No 
 early edition bears his name. He chose to 
 screen his identity behind a misleading pro- 
 logue and the sixteenth century has been dis- 
 creetly silent regarding him. If the Inquisi- 
 tion knew his name as it did his work, its 
 archives have not yet yielded up their secret. 
 Recorded conjecture begins in 1605, when 
 Jose de Sigijenza, the historian of the Jerony- 
 mltes, states on hearsay that a certain Fray 
 Juan de Ortega was the author, and that the 
 original manuscript in Ortega's hand was 
 found in his cell. Nothing of the little that 
 is known of Ortega's life gives certain 
 ground for discussing this attribution. 
 
 In 1607, again on hearsay, Lazarillo was 
 ascribed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 (1493-1575), diplomat and litterateur, per- 
 haps the most distinguished Spanish noble- 
 man of his time. This attribution was ig- 
 nored in 1 6 10 by the editor of Mendoza's 
 works and by his biographer in 1627. It has, 
 never been established, and though persistent 
 on the title-pages of modern editions and 
 even in histories of literature, it has been 
 quite generally discarded since M. Morel- 
 Fatio rejected it in a careful study published 
 a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 The Lazarillo's latest editor, following the 
 timid suggestion of an earlier critic, has at- 
 tempted in considerable detail to prove that 
 its author was Sebastian de Horozco of 
 Toledo, with whose Cancionero it has several 
 points of contact. He has not met with per- 
 fect success, inasmuch as the parallelism of 
 subject-matter, spirit and language, may be 
 explained without the assumption of common 
 authorship for the two works. 
 
 A prominent authority on the Spanish pic- 
 aresque literature has expressed the belief 
 
INTRODUCTION XVll 
 
 that the Lazarillo is substantially an auto- 
 biography. This is a* seductive theory, but 
 untenable, it would seem, from the moment 
 it is possible to show, as it is, that the work 
 contains folklore material which is not essen- 
 tially Spanish, and which is earlier than the 
 earliest possible date of composition. Then 
 too the style, despite clear traces of iftexpert- 
 ness, is much more cultivated than appears 
 at first sight and there is more balance and 
 conscious artistry than one could possibly ex- 
 pect from a pregonero of Toledo. Very 
 reasonable is Morel-Fatio's suggestion that 
 the unknown author be sought among those 
 advanced thinkers, who like Valdes, had a 
 profound sense of the abuses within the 
 church and state, and felt called to express 
 themselves, though compelled by reasons of 
 policy to maintain their anonymity. T He was 
 certainly a mature man with a tolerant and 
 kindly appreciation of the foibles of his fel- 
 lows, but with a strong hatred for ecclesi- 
 astical parasitism. He is a keen and sympa- 
 
XVIU INTRODUCTION 
 
 thetic observer and the possessor of a highly 
 individual prose style that reflects his clarity 
 of vision, and which may yet be the means of 
 identifying him. 
 
 The elusiveness of the author increases 
 the difficulty of establishing the date of com- 
 position, for which evidence both internal 
 and external is scanty. The earliest histori- 
 cal event mentioned is the battle of Los 
 Gelves, in which Lazarillo's father met his 
 death in 15 lo, and the only other allusion rec- 
 ognizable as historical is in the closing para- 
 graph: " This was the same year that our 
 victorious emperor entered the famous city 
 of Toledo, and held the Cortes here, as Your 
 Worship will have heard." The only Cor- 
 tes held in Toledo between 15 11 and 1554 
 were those of 1525 and 153 8-1 539. An 
 acute Spanish scholar, Sr. Bonilla y San Mar- 
 tin, argues that the festivities in connection 
 with the Cortes of 153 8-1 539 were more 
 notable than those that attended the Cortes 
 of 1525, and that consequently the Lazarillo 
 
INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 must have been written in 1539 at the ear- 
 liest. One may admit the premises and not 
 accept the conclusion, for obviously, in case 
 the author were writing before 1538 he could 
 not have alluded to the festivities of that 
 date, however magnificent they may have 
 been. Aside from this, there is abundant 
 proof that 1525 was a gala year for Toledo. 
 On April 27 the Emperor Charles the Fifth 
 made his first entry into that city, and elabo- 
 rate feasts were planned In his honour. His 
 court fool, FrancesIUo de Zuniga, in his 
 humorous account of the first part of the 
 reign, relates how His Majesty was received 
 in Toledo with great pomp and enthusiasm. 
 The greater part of the year was taken up by 
 celebrations, and Charles not only held a gen- 
 eral Cortes, but established there his perma- 
 nent court (corte). The heyday of the Im- 
 perial City lies between this date and the re- 
 moval of the court to Madrid by Philip II. 
 
 The expression " our victorious Emperor " 
 used by Lazarillo to describe Charles, also 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 points to 1525. It would be easy to multi- 
 ply examples to show that invicto and invic- 
 tisiino were honorifics regularly applied to 
 this monarch during and after his reign, but 
 the form victorioso is more specific, and 
 would seem to be suggested by the recent vic- 
 tory of Charles over Francis at Pavia. This 
 interpretation receives curious confirmation 
 in another expression used by Lazarillo. In 
 the second chapter he says : " At that time 
 it (was certainly not the cares of the King of 
 France that prevented my sleeping." Might 
 these words not allude to Francis a prisoner 
 at Madrid? On the whole it seems reason- 
 able to accept 1525 as the anterior limit for 
 the composition of the novel, and then 1538 
 becomes automatically the posterior limit. 
 
 There is a certain amount of evidence that 
 the text circulated in manuscript before ap- 
 pearing in print. First, literature actuated 
 by such evident anti-clerical animus circu- 
 lated surreptitiously and anonymously at a 
 time when the Inquisition was becoming in- 
 
INTRODUCTION XXI 
 
 creasingly active. Next, the reported find- 
 ing of a manuscript in Ortega's cell may well 
 mean that the tolerant friar knew and liked 
 the little book well enough to transcribe it in 
 his own hand. Finally, there is the evidence 
 of the chapter headings. A glance at these 
 shows that the last two but imperfectly con- 
 form to the contents of the chapters. One 
 example will suffice to make this clear. The 
 heading to Treatise Seventh reads : " How 
 Lazaro Took Service with a Constable, and 
 of What Happened to Him While with 
 Him." As a matter of fact his service with 
 the constable occupies only one-twelfth of the 
 chapter, the real subject of which is Laza- 
 rillo's marriage and his establishment as 
 town crier. It is inconceivable that the 
 author should have supplied such a caption. 
 It is hard to believe that it came from the 
 editor ; but to those familiar with manuscript 
 literature it is easily recognizable as just the 
 sort of rubric often supplied by unintelligent 
 or indifferent scribes. The possession in 
 
XXU INTRODUCTION 
 
 common of these rubrics by all three editions 
 of 1554 points to a common manuscript 
 source not the original, which had no rubrics. 
 From the original the princeps is at least two 
 steps removed. 
 
 Not only did the Lazarillo circulate in 
 manuscript, but probably in two or more dif- 
 ferent redactions. From a sixteenth cen- 
 tury manuscript collection of facetiae called 
 the Liber facetiarum, M. Foulche-Delbosc 
 has printed a chapter entitled: "From a 
 part of the hook called Lazaro de Tormes, 
 who among his peregrinations went to a 
 monastery of nuns and saw what is here set 
 forth." The extract is unpunctuated and 
 full of errors and orthographical absurdities, 
 all of which points to manuscript rather than 
 printed transmission. It has the same- anti- 
 clerical intention as our Lazarillo, and ends 
 with an allusion to another apocryphal ad- 
 venture, in these curious words : " Seeing 
 that in all the earth I could find no remedy 
 or comfort or place of refuge among man- 
 
\ INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 kind, I came to the sea among the fishes." 
 A redaction of Lazarillo, containing the con- 
 vent episode and the story of Lazarillo 
 among the fishes, would seem to have been 
 known to the admirable satirist Cristobal de 
 Villalon. In the eighth Canto of his Crota- 
 Ion, the hero, Gallo, is transformed into a 
 nun, and on her death his spirit enters the 
 body of a frog. This particular frog is 
 elected Captain General to command in a 
 battle against the mice, in which battle the 
 frogs are assisted by five thousand veteran 
 mullets " who were present in the battles 
 which the tunny-fish had with the other fishes 
 in the time of Lazaro de Tormes." This 
 tradition which represents Lazarillo as liv- 
 ing among the fishes is very persistent and 
 forms one of the principal episodes of the 
 Segunda Parte of 1555, and Is used again by 
 the expatriate Juan de Luna in the continu- 
 ation which he published in Paris in 1620. 
 
 A traditional Lazarillo, not he of the 
 printed book, is attested by two early refer- 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 ences. The Lozana Andaluza (1528) 
 makes bare allusion to a Lazarillo " who 
 mounted his grandmother," a feat commonly 
 credited to another hero, and in a work by 
 Timoneda published in 1559, there is men- 
 tion of a Lazarillo de Tormes " who had 
 three hundred and fifty masters." 
 
 Probably the most popular portion of the 
 Lazarillo has been that which describes his 
 life with the blind beggar. This is said to 
 have given us the Spanish noun lazarillo used 
 to designate a blind beggar's guide, or in- 
 deed guide in general, while the last episode 
 of the chapter, the story of the revenge 
 which Lazarillo takes on his master, is be- 
 lieved to account for the expression oler el 
 paste, " to smell the post," meaning " to be 
 forewarned of danger." It is well known 
 that the figures of the blind man and his boy 
 were popular in mediasval folk lore and lit- 
 erature. Not only are they attested in mar- 
 ginal illustrations to a manuscript of the four- 
 teenth century, but they frequently appeared 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 in early French farces, though never, ap- 
 parently, in any connection that offers a close 
 parallel to our story. It does happen, how- 
 ever, that the smell-the-post story exists in a 
 number of versions. There is a very clear 
 allusion to it in Much Ado A\bout Nothing, 
 and there exist an English version of 1547- 
 1553, a German form of 1548, a Latin one 
 of 1586, and several others, all differing 
 sufficiently from each other to suggest a 
 rather remote connection. In only one is the 
 boy named Lazarillo, and that is a Toledan 
 versified farce, which cannot be dated at pres- 
 ent more closely than the middle of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Another portion of the Lazarillo certainly 
 not original with its author is the pardoner 
 tale, which is found in very similar form 
 in the Novellino of Massuccio di Salerno ; 
 ( 1476) . Three other episodes, the story of 
 the stone bull, the story of the funeral, and 
 the anecdote of the grapes, also exist in in- 
 dependent versions. 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 Is it possible, without drawing too much 
 on fancy, to reconcile the traditional Laza- 
 rillo and the Lazarillo of the book? It can 
 do no harm to suggest a working hypothesis. 
 There was a Lazarillo, perhaps a blindman's 
 boy, whose legend grew by accretions from 
 the common fund of folk lore, much as did 
 the legends of those other humorists, Eulen- 
 spiegel, Nasr' Eddin and Lincoln. It oc- 
 curred to some one to collect this material. 
 The original collector or another, more 
 gifted, recognized the possibilities of the 
 genre as a vehicle for the satire of contem- 
 porary life, and by a process of elimination 
 and elaboration created a work of art. 
 After circulating in manuscript for at least 
 sixteen years (1538-1553), the work was 
 printed without the knowledge of its author, 
 possibly long after his death, but at precisely 
 the right moment to make its impression. 
 
 It is safe to say that the undergraduate of 
 Alcala was more interested in life than in 
 canon law, and we can easily realize the 
 
INTRODUCTION XXVU 
 
 freshness of appeal of the little volume that 
 appeared one day in Salzedo's shop. Its ap- 
 pearance coincided almost exactly with the 
 height of the a p ^itatio^ against ^|ie sellers o f! 
 indulgences. These parasites were familiar | 
 gtrresin every Lastihan hamlet, and so gen- 
 erally detested were they that the fifth chap- 
 ter' alone wouldT have sold the first edition. ' 
 
 Ihe LazanUo was one or the few works 
 of pure literature to be prohibited by the 
 first formal Spanish Index Expurgatorius , 
 that of 1559. , For the preceding decade the 
 Inquisition was busy collecting material for 
 this Index, and exercising its well-established 
 right to expurgate or confiscate offending 
 works. It seems strange that the first Laza- 
 rillo should not have been suppressed at once, 
 but that it was not is plain from the appear- 
 ance of a second printing with two other par- 
 doner stories as disreputable as , the first. 
 The two editions must have been very near 
 together, and the second suppressed very 
 soon, for despite the popularity of the story, 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 gone with others to protect the females at 
 the spawning grounds, is caught in a net at 
 the fisheries of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, 
 near Cadiz. Taken before the Duke at 
 Seville, he is first exhibited as a marvel, then 
 (Chapter XVII) extracted front the tunny 
 skin, and finally set on his way to Toledo 
 dressed in a cast-off suit of the nobleman's. 
 Arrived home he finds the house empty, and 
 on attempting to gain entrance to the house 
 of the Archpriest, he is driven away by his 
 wife and the clergyman. He is arrested on 
 suspicion and cast into jail. The priest, for 
 whom he has sent, fails to recognize him. 
 That night he is visited in a dream by Truth, 
 who promises his liberation. Indeed, on the 
 next day he is recognized and returns home 
 to his wife and two children. In the final 
 chapter Lazarillo makes a visit to Salamanca, 
 " which," he says, " I had much desired to 
 do, in order that I might try to worst some 
 of those priests and long-cloaks." While 
 there he routs the Rector of the University 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXI 
 
 in a public debate which is a version of the 
 well-known tale of the " riddle-questions." 
 He also wins a substantial sum at cards, with 
 which he returns home. The book ends: 
 " This is what happened since the expedition 
 to Algiers. The rest Your Worship shall 
 hear in due time." 
 
 Only a few pages of this extravaganza are 
 in the style and manner of the first part, not- 
 ably Chapters I and XVII. It begins by as- 
 suming, apparently, that the Cortes men- 
 tioned in the last chapter of the original were 
 those of 1538-39, and ends in the air with a 
 vague promise of more. What little satire 
 there is, consists in an occasional formal com- 
 parison of the ways of men with the ways of 
 the fishes. The anti-clerical spirit is almost 
 entirely lacking. So great is the difference 
 between the two works that the continuation 
 was declared, as early as 1573, not to be by 
 the author of the original, and since then it 
 has been deemed almost unworthy of notice. 
 It would appear at first sight to have been 
 
XXXll INTRODUCTION 
 
 written at the date of publication or there- 
 abouts, for the purpose of profiting by the 
 success of the first part. There are grounds, 
 however, for thinking that this view would 
 not be entirely correct. Surely the natural 
 thing for an imitator to do is to imitate, to 
 write as nearly as possible in the vein of his 
 original, and thefe are many examples of this 
 practice in Spanish literature. In this case 
 the obvious thing would be to continue to pass 
 Lazarillo through the hands of new masters, 
 with abundant satire of these. Instead of 
 this we have the major part of the new work 
 devoted to the tunny story ; and since we know 
 Lazarillo among the fishes to be a part of the 
 Lazarillo tradition, it is not difficult td be- 
 lieve that the continuer utilized an early 
 Lazarillo manuscript. 
 
 There is more evidence to this effect. 
 Chapter XV, in which Lazarillo describes 
 his meeting with Truth, begins abruptly with- 
 out apparent reference to the content of the 
 preceding chapter. It commences : " When 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXIII 
 
 I became separated from my people I found 
 Truth. . . ." The continuer, noting the 
 lack of connection, provides a chapter head- 
 ing, as follows: "How Lazarillo going 
 hunting in a wood, separated from his people, 
 found Truth." There is nothing in the text 
 about going hunting in a wood. The end of 
 this same chapter and the first part of Chap- 
 ter XVI, when brought together, read thus : 
 " She (Truth) told me marvellous things 
 that she had experienced with all sorts of peo- 
 ple, all of which, were I to write it to Your 
 Worship, would be tedious and remote from 
 what pertains to my travails; when Your 
 Worship pleases, if you desire it, I shall send 
 the account of what I did with her. Coming 
 back to my King I told him what had passed 
 between me and Truth. Going to the court, 
 consoled by these words, I lived happily in 
 the sea for several days." The lack of se- 
 quence is apparent, and is best explained by 
 confusion resulting from manuscript trans- 
 mission. Again, when Truth appears to 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Lazarillo in the jail (Chapter XVII), she 
 says: "You promised in the sea that you 
 would never put me away from you." Since 
 in our text Lazarillo made no such promise, 
 these words probably refer to a less con- 
 densed version of the Truth episode than 
 that given in Chapter XV. Without the 
 necessity of insisting further, these are abun- 
 dant grounds for not dismissing the Se- 
 gunda Parte with a wave of the hand. 
 
 In 1573 there appeared at Madrid, with 
 the consent of the Inquisition, a volume con- 
 taining in expurgated form three important 
 works, all of which had been prohibited by 
 the Index of 1559. One of these was the 
 Lazarillo, concerning which the editor of the 
 volume thus expresses himself: "Although 
 this little treatise of the life of Lazarillo de 
 Tormes is not of so great worth in so far as 
 touches the language, as the works of Chris- 
 toual de Castillejos and Bartolome de Torres 
 Naharro, it is so lively and proper a presen- 
 tation of what it portrays, with such zest and 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXV 
 
 charm, that for this reason it deserves to be 
 esteemed; and so it was always very accept- 
 able to all, for which reason, although it was 
 prohibited in these realms, it was read, and 
 commonly printed outside them. Wherefore 
 with the permission of the Council of the 
 Holy Inquisition, and of his Majesty, it has 
 been emended in certain matters for which it 
 had been forbidden, and the whole second 
 part has been removed, which, inasmuch as it 
 was not by the author of the first, was quite 
 beside the point and graceless." 
 
 In this expurgated edition, known as the 
 Lazarillo Castigado, the chapters of the 
 Friar of La Merced and the Pardoner are 
 not included. A few isolated anticlerical 
 passages have been modified or omitted, some 
 of which will be pointed out in the notes to 
 this translation. On the whole the text is 
 excellent. The editor did his work with care, 
 and while he followed in general the edition 
 of Antwerp, it would appear from certain 
 readings that he also had before him the edi- 
 
XXXVl INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion of Alcala of 1554, or its original. The 
 editions printed outside of Spain, to which he 
 refers, are not now known, with the excep- 
 tion of one made in Antwerp in 1555 by 
 Guillermo Simon, in imitation of that pub- 
 lished by Nucio. It is significant of the 
 respect shown to ecclesiastical censure of 
 books, that all the Lazarillos printed in 
 Spain down to the nineteenth century fol- 
 lowed the text of the Castigado. 
 
 The next transformation of our text did 
 not take place until 1620. In that year a 
 certain Juan de Luna, an expatriate Castilian 
 who made his living by teaching his native 
 tongue to the Parisians, noticing how often 
 the Lazarillo was being used as a manual for 
 the study of Spanish, and considering its style 
 an unfortunate model to follow, brought out 
 a corrected text, " carding out " as he says, 
 "an infinity of wretched words, more 
 wretched constructions, and most wretched 
 phrases." To Luna, himself a brilliant 
 stylist of a later school, the Lazarillo must 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXvii 
 
 have seemed barbarous indeed in its direct- 
 ness. On the whole we should thank him for 
 leaving us, in his elegant version, a priceless 
 record of the change In literary taste. We 
 should be grateful too that he had the in 
 spiration and the wit to continue the Laza 
 rillo much in the spirit of the original work 
 His Second Part of Lazarillo de Tormes 
 drawn from the ancient chronicles of Toledo 
 published in the same volume with the cor- 
 rected first part, is one of the joys of pica- 
 resque literature, an original and entertaining 
 work. Luna alludes in his preface to the 
 earlier Second Part of Lazarillo, " which 
 touches somewhat of his life, without a trace 
 of truth. The greater part of it is spent in 
 telling how Lazaro fell into the sea, where 
 he was changed into a fish, called tunny, and 
 lived there many years, marrying a lady 
 tunny, from whom he had three children, 
 fishes like the mother. It relates too the 
 wars which the tunnies waged with Lazaro 
 as their leader, and other nonsense as silly as 
 
XXXviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 false, and as ill-founded as absurd." It is 
 to correct this absurd continuation that he 
 writes another, just exactly as he had seen it 
 written in certain portfolios in the archives of 
 the fraternity of vagabonds at Toledo, and 
 just as he had heard his grandmother and his 
 aunts tell it by the fire on winter nights. He 
 wishes to be considered the chronicler merely, 
 not the author. 
 
 Without going so far as to accept at its 
 face value this account of the source of 
 Luna's work, one may ask whether it may not 
 contain more than a grain of fact, since the 
 chronicler begins with the Algiers expedition, 
 the shipwreck and Lazarillo's rescue by fish- 
 ermen, in short with a LazariUo fish-story, 
 just as if he had been unable entirely to ig- 
 nore an episode which was for him an essen- 
 tial part of the LazariUo tradition. From 
 the rescue on, Luna's version is quite differ- 
 ent. The fishermen dress LazariUo to re- 
 semble a merman and exhibit him for profit 
 in a tank. For a long time he is made to 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXIX 
 
 subsist on the bread which is thrown him by 
 spectators. One day he recognizes among 
 these his wife, who is again pregnant, and 
 overcome by grief at sight of her, he tries 
 suicide by drowning. He so far succeeds 
 that his proprietors have difficulty in resusci- 
 tating him, and are about to throw him in the 
 Tagus, when he comes to and makes his es- 
 cape from them. He later loses a lawsuit 
 which he brings against his wife and the Arch- 
 priest, becomes a carrier of burdens, joins a 
 band of gypsies, becomes the servant of seven 
 ladies at one time, and finally a false hermit. 
 He falls in love with a young woman whom 
 he meets while begging from door to door in 
 his hermit's garb, and she encourages his at- 
 tentions ; but when he is about to possess her, 
 the ladies of the bridal party make him the 
 butt of a practical joke which culminates in 
 their threat to send for Pierres the Gelder to 
 come and make a singer of him. He there- 
 upon succeeds in breaking away from his tor- 
 mentors and takes sanctuary in a church, 
 
xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 where, covering his nakedness with a grave 
 cloth, he muses upon the ups and downs of 
 fortune. 
 
 Though the Spanish fortunes of Lazarillo 
 come to an end with Luna, his foreign adven- 
 tures, long since begun, were destined to con- 
 tinue indefinitely. The study of the inter- 
 relation of several of the translations is ex- 
 tremely complex, and would be out of place 
 here, even if all the data were available. 
 Yet some account of the more important ver- 
 sions is necessary. Of these the first was the 
 French translation printed in Lyons by Sau- 
 grain in 1 5 60, as " Les fails merveilleux, en- 
 semble la Tsie du gentil Lazare de Xormes," 
 and made, according to the title-page, by 
 J. G. de L. A;. Very little is known about 
 this work. It is not even certain whether it 
 is the same as that printed the following year 
 in Paris as L'histoire plaisante et facetieuse, 
 in thirty-one chapters and ending with the 
 first chapter of the continuation, the chapter 
 about the Gerraans. The edition of Ant- 
 
INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 werp 1594 is the Lazarillo Castigado in twen- 
 ty-eight chapters, including the " Germans," 
 and it was reproduced in 1598. A new ver- 
 sion, printed in Paris in 1601 together with 
 the Spanish text, was often reprinted. Of 
 the other French translations, it is sufficient 
 to mention the verse paraphrase of 1653, the 
 charming but not very close version of 1698, 
 which is important for having been used as 
 the original of an English and a German 
 translation, the sincere rendering of Viardot 
 (1846), Adrien Robert's absurd garbling 
 (1865), and lastly, the scholarly and smooth 
 translation of Morel-Fatio (1886). 
 
 The Lazarillo was translated into Dutch 
 as early as 1579, but it did not get into Ger- 
 man until 1 61 7 when Nicolaus Ulenhart pub- 
 lished his expurgated version, apparently 
 from the French of 1594. The latest Ger- 
 man version is that of Dr. Hubert Rausse 
 (1908). The early Italian Lazarillo by 
 Barezzi ( ? 1621) is really a paraphrase, and 
 contains extraneous matter, including La 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Gitanilla of Cervantes. There are recent 
 Italian versions by Carlesi ( 1907) and Bacci 
 (1915). The ultimate seal of approval 
 which the Renaissance could put upon a work 
 in the vernacular was to give it Latin form, 
 and this Caspar Ens did for the Lazarillo 
 when he inserted it into his Latin Guzman in 
 place of less interesting matter. 
 
 The English Lazarillos have been pur- 
 posely left for the last. The first of these is 
 known to us only by a record in the Stationers 
 Registers for 1568-1569, licensing to 
 Thomas Colwell The marvelus Dedes and 
 the lyf of Lazaro de Tormes. It should be 
 noted that this title betrays a knowledge of 
 the French Lazarillo of 1560. In 1573 
 Colwell's license was sold to Henry Binne- 
 mao, who in 1576 printed The Pleasant His- 
 tory of Lazarillo de Tormes, a Spanyard 
 . . . drawen out of the Spanish by Dauid 
 Rouland of Anglesey. The title is seen to 
 resemble closely that of the French of 15 61. 
 It is known that Rowland was acquainted 
 
INTRODUCTION xliu 
 
 with Colwell, who printed another book for 
 him in 1569, and we may assume, it seems to 
 me, that Rowland made or at least planned, 
 the earlier version, utilizing the French text 
 of 1560, and that before the work was finally 
 printed by Binneman, he had at least exam- 
 ined the edition of 156 1. In his dedication 
 to Sir Thomas Gresham he mentions the 
 French translations, and I am convinced from 
 certain of his renderings, that he used one. 
 Rowland's work is very charming with its 
 old-time English, and for the most part very 
 faithful. It was reprinted in 1586 and 1596, 
 and many times from 1624 on, accompanied 
 by a translation of Luna's Second Part. 
 From 1653 Rowland's version appears as 
 Lazarillo, or the excellent history of Laza- 
 rillo de Tormes, with introductory matter 
 signed by one James Blakeston, who claims 
 that he is presenting a more accurate account 
 and a more complete work. Despite this 
 very positive statement, a comparison of the 
 later editions with the Rowland of 1639, in 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 which Blakeston is not mentioned, shows no 
 variants, except of orthography. From 1708 
 on, Rowland seems to have lost favour, and 
 the editions from that year down to the trans- 
 lation by Roscoe (1832) are all descendants 
 of the French of 1698. Roscoe evades real 
 difficulties, but he has the merit of returning 
 to the primitive text. In 1908 there ap- 
 peared a rendering by Sir Clements Mark- 
 ham which has been too gently handled by 
 the reviewers. While readable enough, it 
 frequently betrays such a lack of comprehen- 
 sion of the Spanish as to cast grave doubts 
 on the scholarship of the author. Mr. 
 How's translation will be found to be even 
 more faithful than Rowland, and far supe- 
 rior in other respects to any other version in 
 English. 
 
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes 
 and His Fortunes and Adversities 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 I THINK it well that things so remark- 
 able, and mayhap never before heard 
 of or seen, should come to the attention of 
 many, and not be buried in the tomb of ob- 
 livion; since it is possible that some one who 
 reads of them may find something to please 
 him, and those who do" not get so far as that 
 it may divert; and in this connection Pliny 
 says that therejsjao_book', bad though It be, 
 but Jias^pjnethingjgood in_it ; more especially, 
 as tastes are not all the same, but what one 
 will not eat, another would give his ears for. 
 And so we find things held in slight considera- 
 tion by some and not by others. And there- 
 fore, nothing^hould be destroyed , or should 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 be thrown to waste, unless it be very detest- 
 able, but should be communicated to all, 
 especially when it is without prejudice and 
 some fruit may be gathered from it; for, if 
 this were not so, very few would write for 
 themselves alone, since it is not done without 
 labor; and they wish, when they have been 
 through it, to be rewarded, not with money, 
 but by their works being seen and read, and 
 if there be any cause, praised; and in this 
 connection TuUy says: Appreciation fos- 
 ters the arts. Who supposes that the soldier 
 who is first in the escalade despises life more 
 than the others? Not a bit; but the dgsire 
 for praise makes him run into danger, and in 
 fhe arts and letters it is the same. The 
 young friar preaches very well, and is a man 
 who greatly desires the profit of souls; but 
 let them ask His Worship if he is distressed 
 when people say: "Oh, how marvellously 
 Your Reverence has done I " Senor Don So- 
 and-So jousted very badly, and gave his coat- 
 armour to the jester, because he flattered him 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 on having broken many a good lance: what 
 would he do if it were true? And so goes 
 everything: wherefore, admitting that I am 
 not more saintly than my neighbours, it will 
 not distress me if whoever finds any diver- 
 sion in this trifle that I write in this gross 
 style, share in it and enjoy it, and see that 
 there lives a man of so many fortunes, perils, 
 and adversities. I entreat Your Worship to 
 accept the poor hand-service of one who 
 would make it richer, if his power and his 
 desire conformed. And since Your Worship 
 writes for me to write him and describe my 
 case quite circumstantially ; it seemed well not 
 to take it up in the middle, but from the be- 
 ginning, so that you may have a complete 
 account of my person, and also that those 
 who have inherited noble positions may 
 reflect how little this is due to themselves, for 
 fortune was partial to them, and how much 
 more those have done to whom it was con- 
 trary, who rowing with vigour and skill have 
 come home to a good port. 
 
TREATISE FIRST 
 
 Lazaro Recounts His Life, and Whose Son 
 He Was 
 
 THEN know Your Worship, before any- 
 thing else that my name is Lazaro of 
 Tormes, son of Thome Gongales and Antona 
 Perez, natives of Tejares, a hamlet near 
 Salamanca. My birth took place in the 
 river Tormes, for which reason I had the 
 surname, and it was in this manner. My 
 father (whom God forgive) had the job of 
 overseeing the grinding of a water-mill, which 
 is by the bank of that river, wherein he was 
 miller more than fifteen years ; and my mother 
 being one night in the water-mill, big with me, 
 her pains took her and she delivered me 
 there ; so that I can truthfully say I was born 
 in the river. Well, when I was a child of 
 4 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 eight, they imputed to my father certain awk- 
 ward bleedings in the sacks of those who, 
 came there to grind, for which he was taken, 
 and he confessed, and denied not, and suf- 
 fered persecution for justice' sake. I trust 
 in God that he is in glory, for the Gospel calls 
 them blessed. At this time there was an 
 expedition made against the Moors, in the 
 which went my father, who had been banished 
 for the misfortune abovesaid, serving as 
 muleteer to a knight; and with his lord, like 
 a loyal servant, he ended his life. 
 
 My widow mother when she found herself 
 without husband or suppbrt, determined to 
 get among worthy people and be one of them, 
 and betook herself to live in the city, and 
 hired a little house, and undertook to do the 
 cooking for some students, and washed 
 clothes for certain stable-boys of the Comen- 
 dador de la Magdelena, so that while she 
 was frequenting the stables, she and a brown 
 man among those that took care of the beasts, 
 became acquainted. Sometimes this fellow 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 brought himself to our house and went away 
 in the morning; other times he came to the 
 door by day on the pretext of buying eggs, 
 and entered the house. When he began to 
 come I disliked him and was afraid of his 
 colour and his ugly face ; but when I saw that 
 with his coming the food improved, I began 
 to like him well, because he always brought 
 bread, pieces of meat, and in winter faggots 
 at which we warmed us. So the lodging and 
 commerce continued until finally my mother 
 gave me a very pretty little mulatto, whom I 
 rocked and helped keep warm. And I re- 
 member that once while my negro stepfather 
 was playing with the little fellow, when the 
 child saw that my mother and I were white 
 and he not, he fled with fear to my mother, 
 and pointing his finger, said : " Mother, 
 bugaboo! " Laughing he answered: " Lit- 
 tle whoreson I " I, although quite a lad, 
 noted that word of my small brother's, and 
 said td myself: " How many there must be 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 in this world who flee from others because 
 they do not see themselves." 
 
 Our fate brought the intimacy of Zayde, 
 for that was his name, to the ears of the 
 major-domo, and an examination being made, 
 it was found that he was stealing about half 
 the barley which they gave him for the beasts, 
 as well as bran, firewood, curry-combs, 
 aprons, and the rugs and horse-blankets, and 
 when there was nothing else, he unshod the 
 horses, and with all this he was assisting my 
 mother to maintain my small brother. We 
 need not wonder so much at a priest or at a 
 friar, if the one robs the poor and the other 
 his house, for the sake of his female devotees 
 and for the aid of a companion, when love 
 instigated a poor slave to this. And every- 
 thing I've said was proved on him, and even 
 more, for they questioned me with threats, 
 and like a child I answered and in my fear dis- 
 closed all I knew, even to certain horseshoes 
 which by my mother's command I had sold 
 
8 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 to a smith. They flogged and larded my 
 poor stepfather, and on my mother, in ad- 
 dition to the wonted hundred stripes, they 
 laid the legal penalty that she should not 
 enter the house of the aforesaid Comendador 
 or receive the punished Zayde in hers. 
 
 In order not to throw the rope after the 
 bucket, the unhappy woman did her best and 
 fulfilled the sentence ; and to avoid danger and 
 escape evil tongues, she went into service with 
 those who were then living at the inn of La 
 Solana ; and there suffering a thousand annoy- 
 ances, she managed to bring up my small 
 brother to the point where he knew how to 
 walk, and me to where I was a good-sized 
 little fellow, who fetched wine and candles for 
 the guests, or whatever else they bade me. 
 
 At this time there came a blind man to 
 lodge at the inn ; and as it seemed to him that 
 I would be suitable for leading him, he 
 begged me of my mother, and she turned me 
 over to him, telling him how I was the son 
 of a good man, who had died to exalt the 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 faith in the affair of Los Gelves, and that she 
 had trust in God I should not turn out a worse 
 man than my father, and she begged him to 
 treat me well and look after me, for I was an 
 orphan. He answered that he would do so, 
 and that he was receiving me not as his boy 
 but as his son. And so I began to serve and 
 to lead my new old master. 
 
 After we had remained in Salamanca sev- 
 eral days and it appeared to my master that 
 the profits were not to his satisfaction, he de- 
 termined to leave there; and when we were 
 about to depart I went to see my mother, and 
 both weeping she gave me her blessing and 
 'said: " Son, now I know that I shall never 
 see thee more ; try to be good, and God guide 
 thee ; I have reared thee and placed thee with 
 a good master, take care of thyself." And 
 so I went along to my master who was wait- 
 ing for me. 
 
 We went out of Salamanca, and as you ap- 
 proach the bridge there is a stone animal at 
 the entrance, almost in the shape of a bull. 
 
lO LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 and the blind man bade me go close to the 
 animal, and when I was there, said to me: 
 " Lazaro, put thine ear close to this bull and 
 shalt hear a great noise inside." Naively I 
 went, believing this to be so; and when he 
 perceived that I had my head close to the 
 stone, he swung out his hand hard and gave 
 my head a great blow against the devil of a 
 bull, so that for three days the pain of the 
 butting remained, and said to me : " Silly 
 fool, learn that the blind man's boy has to 
 know one point more than the devil," and 
 laughed a great deal at the joke. It seemed 
 to me that in that instant I awoke from the 
 childish simplicity in which I had always been 
 asleep. I said to myself: "This man says 
 the truth, for it behooves me to open mine 
 eyes and look about, since I am alpne, and 
 to consider how to take care of myself." 
 
 We began our journey, and in a very few 
 days he taught me thieves' jargon, and when 
 he saw me to be of a good wit, was well 
 pleased, and used to say: " Gold or silver 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES II 
 
 I cannot give thee, but I will show thee many 
 pointers about life." And it was so; for 
 after God this man gave me my life, and 
 although blind lighted and guided me in the 
 career of living. I enjoy relating these 
 puerilities to Your Worship in order to show 
 how much virtue there is in men's knowing 
 how to rise when they are low, and in their 
 letting themselves lower when they are high, 
 how much vice I To return to my good blind 
 man and his affairs, Your Worship must know 
 that since God created the world; he never 
 formed any one more astute or sagacious. 
 In his trade he was an eagle ; he knew a hun- 
 dred and odd prayers by heart: had a bass 
 voice, tranquil and very sonorous, which 
 made the church where he prayed resound, a 
 humble and devput countenance which he put 
 on with very good effect when he prayed, 
 without making faces or grimaces with his 
 mouth or eyes, as others wont to do. Be- 
 sides, he had a thousand other modes and 
 fashions for getting money : he said he knew 
 
12 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 prayers to many and divers effects : for women 
 that did not bear, for those that were in 
 travail, for those badly married to make their 
 husbands love them ; he cast prognostications 
 for the pregnant whether they were carrying 
 son or daughter. Then in regard to medi- 
 cine, he used to say that Galen didn't know 
 the half of what he knew about grinders, 
 swoons, the vapours ; in a word, nobody could 
 tell him that he was suffering any illness, but 
 straightway he would reply: " Do this, you 
 will do that, pluck such an herb, take" such 
 a root." Accordingly he had all the world 
 marching after him, especially the women, 
 for they believed whatever he told them; 
 from them he extracted large prdits by the 
 arts I tell you of, and used to gain more in a 
 month than a hundred blind men in a year. 
 
 But also I wish Your Worship to know, 
 that with all he acquired and possessed, never 
 did I see so miserly or mean a man, to such a 
 point that he was killing me with hunger, and 
 didn't share even the necessaries with me. I 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 3 
 
 am telling the truth : if I had not known how 
 to cure myself by my slyness and good de- 
 vices, many times I should have died of 
 hunger: but with all his experience and vigi- 
 lance I worked against him in such fashion, 
 that the biggest and best part, always or more 
 generally, fell to me. To this end I played 
 him devilish tricks, some of which I shall re- 
 late, though not all to my advantage. 
 
 He used to carry bread and everything 
 else in a linen sack which closed at the mouth 
 with an iron ring and a padlock and key, and 
 when he put things in and took them out, it 
 was with so much attention, so well counted, 
 that the whole world wouldn't have been 
 equal to making it a crumb less. But I would 
 take what stingy bit he gave me, and finish it 
 in less than two mouthfuls. After he had 
 fastened the lock and stopped worrying 
 about it, thinking me to be engaged in other 
 things, by a little seam, which I unsewed and 
 sewed up again many times in the side of the 
 sack, I used to bleed the miserly sack, taking 
 
14 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 out bread, — not measured quantities but good 
 pieces, — and slices of bacon and sausage; 
 and thus would seek a convenient time to 
 make good the devilish state of want which 
 the wicked blind man left me in. 
 
 All I could filch and steal I carried in half- 
 farthings ; and when they bade him pray and 
 gave him a farthing, it was no sooner prof- 
 fered than I had it popped into my mouth and 
 a half-farthing ready, so that however soon 
 he held out his hand, his remuneration was al- 
 ready reduced by my money-changing to half 
 its real value. The wicked blind man used 
 to complain to me, for he at once perceived 
 by the feeling that it was not a whole far- 
 thing, and would say : " Why the devil is it 
 that since thou art with me they don't give 
 me but half-farthings, and before, they paid 
 me a farthing and oftentimes a maravedl? 
 This bad luck must come through thee." He 
 used also to shorten his prayers and not half 
 finish them, having ordered me that when the 
 person went away who had ordered him to 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 5 
 
 pray, I should pluck him by the end of his 
 hood. And so I used to do ; and at once he 
 began again to lift his voice, saying: " Who 
 would like to have me say a prayer? " as the 
 custom is. 
 
 When we ate he used to put a little jug of 
 wine near him. I would quickly seize it and 
 give it a couple of silent kisses and return it 
 to its place ; but this plan didn't work long, 
 for he noticed the deficiency in his draughts, 
 and in order to keep his wine safe, he never 
 after let go the jug, but kept hold of the 
 handle. But there is no lode-stone that 
 draws things to it so strongly as I with a long 
 rye straw, which I had prepared for that 
 purpose, and placing which in the mouth of 
 the jug, I would suck up the wine to a fare-ye- 
 well. Blit the villain was so clever that I 
 think he heard me; and from then on he 
 changed procedure and set his jug between 
 his legs and covered it with his hand, and thus 
 drank secure. Now that I had grown ac- 
 customed to wine, I was dying for it ; and see- 
 
1 6 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 ing that. the straw-cure was no longer helping 
 me, I decided to make a tiny hole in the bot- 
 tom of the jug for a little drain, and to bung it 
 neatly with a very thin cake of wax, and at 
 dinner-time, pretending to be cold, I got be- 
 tween the wretched blind man's legs to warm 
 me at the miserable fire we had, in whose 
 heat the wax being soon melted, for there was 
 very little, the streamlet began to drain into 
 my mouth, which I held in such a way that 
 devil a drop was lost. When the poor crea- 
 ture went to drink, he found nothing: he was 
 astounded, damned himself, and sent the jug 
 and the wine to the devil, not knowing what 
 it all could mean. " You won't say, uncle, 
 that I drank it for you," said I, " for you 
 haven't let it out of your hand." He turned 
 and felt the jug so much, that he found the 
 outlet and fell on to the trick; but made as 
 though he had not perceived it. And the 
 next day, when I had my jug leaking as be- 
 fore, and was not dreaming of the injury in 
 store for me, or that the wicked blind man 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 7 
 
 heard me, I sat as before, in the act of re- 
 ceiving those sweet draughts, my face turned 
 toward heaven, my eyes partly closed, the bet- 
 ter to enjoy the delicious liquid, when the des- 
 perate blind man perceived that now was his 
 time to take vengeance of me, and with all his 
 might, raising that sweet and bitter jug with 
 both hands, he let it fall upon my mouth, 
 making use (as I say) of all his strength, so 
 that poor Lazaro, who was expecting none of 
 this, but, as at other times, was careless and 
 joyful, verily it seemed to me that the heavens, 
 with all that in them is, had fallen on top of 
 me. Such was the gentle tap he gave me that 
 it stupefied and knocked me senseless, and the 
 blow so hard that the pieces of the jug stuck 
 in my face, breaking it in many places, and 
 cracked off my teeth which I remain without 
 until this very day. From that hour forth I 
 hated the wicked blind man ; and although he 
 liked and caressed me and cared for me, well 
 I saw that the cruel chastisement had diverted 
 him. He washed with wine the wounds he 
 
1 8 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 had made me with the pieces of the jug, and 
 smiling, said: "How seems it to thee, 
 Lazaro? That which made thee sick cures 
 thee and gives thee health," and other pleas- 
 antries which to my taste were none. 
 
 Once I was half well of my horrid bumps 
 and bruises, considering that with a few such 
 blows the cruel blind man would be rid of me, 
 I was anxious to be rid of him ; but I did not 
 manage it too quickly, in order to do it with 
 more safety and profit. Even though I 
 should have been willing to soften my heart 
 and forgive him the blow with the jug, the 
 ill-treatment the wicked blind man gave me 
 from this point on, left no chance for that; 
 for he abused me without cause or reason, 
 beating me over the head and pulling my hair. 
 And if anybody asked him why he treated me 
 so badly, he at once retailed the story of the 
 jug, saying: " Would you take this boy of 
 mine for an innocent ? Then listen, whether 
 the devil himself could teach another such 
 exploit." Those that listened would say. 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 9 
 
 making the sign of the cross : " Well, now, 
 who would expect such badness from a lad so 
 small!" and would laugh heartily at the 
 trick, and say to him: " Chastise hinj, chas- 
 tise him, for you'll get your reward from 
 God," and on that he never did anything else. 
 
 And meantime I always led him by the 
 worst roads, and purposely, to do him harm 
 and damage; if there were stones, through 
 them, if mud, through the deepest; for al- 
 though I didn't go through the dryest part, 
 it pleased me to put out one of my own eyes in 
 order to put out two for him, who had none. 
 Therefore he used always to keep the upper 
 end of his staff against the back of my head, 
 which was continually full of bumps, and the 
 hair pulled out by his hands ; and although I 
 swore I didn't do it of malice, but because I 
 found no better road, that didn't help me, nor 
 did he believe me any more for that ; such was 
 the perspicacity and the vast intelligence of 
 the traitor. 
 
 And that Your Worship may see how far 
 
20 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 the cleverness of this astute blind man ex- 
 tended, I will relate one instance of many that 
 befel me with him, wherein it seems to me he 
 made his great astuteness very manifest. 
 When we left Salamanca his intention was to 
 go to the region around Toledo, because he 
 said the people were richer, although not very 
 charitable ; he pinned his faith to the proverb : 
 The hard give more than the poor. And we 
 came along that route through the best places : 
 where he found good welcome and profit, we 
 would stop, where not, on the third day, we 
 would move away. It happened that on ar- 
 riving at a place called Almorox at the time 
 when the grapes are gathered, a vintager gave 
 him a bunch for alms. And as the paniers 
 generally get hard treatment, and the grapes 
 at that time are very ripe, the bunch fell apart 
 in his hand: if put into the sack, it would turn 
 to must, and so he decided on this : he resolved 
 to have a banquet, as much because we could 
 not carry it, as to comfort me, for that day he 
 had given me many kicks and blows. We 
 
LAZARILLp DE TORMES 21 
 
 sat down on a wall and he said : " Now I 
 wish to be generous with thee: we will both 
 eat this bunch of grapes, and thou shalt have 
 as big a share as I ; we will divide in this way : 
 thou shalt pick once and I once ; provided thou 
 promise me not to take more than one grape 
 each time. I shall do the same until we 
 finish, and in this way there will be no cheat- 
 ing." The agreement thus made, we began; 
 but directly at the second turn the traitor 
 changed his mind and began to take two at a 
 time, supposing that I must be doing like- 
 wise. As I saw he was breaking the agree- 
 ment, I was not content to keep even with 
 him, but went still farther: I ate them two at 
 a time, three at a time, and as I could. The 
 bunch finished, he waited awhile with the stem 
 in his hand and shaking his head said: 
 " Lazaro, thou hast cheated : I will swear 
 to God that thou hast eaten the grapes by 
 threes." " I have not," said I ; " but why do 
 you suspect that ? " The clever blind man re- 
 plied : " Knowest how I see that thou wast 
 
22 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 eating them by threes? Because I ate by 
 twos and thou saidst nothing." [To which 
 I answered not. And so as we were going 
 along under some arcades, in Escalona, where 
 at that time we were, In the shop of a shoe- 
 maker there were many ropes and other 
 things that are made of broom, and a part of 
 them struck my master on the head, and he 
 raising his hand touched them, and seeing 
 what they were said to me: " Make haste, 
 boy, let's get out from among such bad 
 victuals, which choke you without your eating 
 them." I was walking along paying no at- 
 tention, but I looked, and as I saw nothing 
 but ropes and cinches, which are not things to 
 eat, I said: " Uncle, why do you say that? " 
 He answered: " Be quiet, nephew; anybody 
 with bad habits like thine shall know, and 
 thou shalt see that I speak the truth." And 
 so we went ahead through the same arcade, 
 and arrived at an inn, at whose door there 
 were lots of horns on the wall, to which the 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 23 
 
 [muleteers tied their beasts ; and as he went 
 feeling along to see if this was the inn where 
 he prayed every day for the landlady the 
 prayer of the anchoress, he took hold of a 
 horn, and with a great sigh he said : " O 
 evil thing, worst shapen there is, how many 
 wish to place thy name upon others' heads, 
 and how few wish to have thee, or even hear 
 thy name, in no manner." When I heard 
 what he was saying, I said : " Uncle, what 
 is this you are saying? " " Be quiet, nephew, 
 for one day what I am now holding in my 
 hand will give thee some bad dinners and 
 suppers." " I shan't eat it," I said, " and it 
 won't give me them." " I tell thee the truth, 
 and thou shalt see, if thou live." And so we 
 passed on to the door of the inn, where I 
 would to God we had never arrived, because 
 of what befel me there. Such landladies and 
 eating-house women and nougat-sellers, and 
 prostitutes, and such women-folk, were all he 
 prayed for, for I almost never saw hini say a 
 
24 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 prayer for a man.] I laughed inwardly, and 
 although only a lad noted well the blind man's 
 just reasoning. 
 
 But not to be prolix, I omit an account of 
 many things, as funny as they are worthy of 
 note, which befel me with this my first master, 
 but I wish to tell our leave-taking and with 
 that to finish. We were at Escalona, town 
 of the Duke of that ilk, in an inn, and he gave 
 me a piece of sausage to roast. When he 
 had basted the sausage and eaten the bast- 
 ings, he took a maravedi from his purse and 
 bade me fetch wine from the tavern. The 
 devil put the occasion before my eyes, which, 
 as the saying is, makes the thief; and it was 
 this: there lay by the fire a small turnip, 
 rather long and bad, and which must have 
 been thrown there because it was not fit for the 
 stew. And as nobody was there at the time 
 but him and me alone, as I had an appetite 
 whetted by having got the toothsome odour 
 of the sausage inside me (the only part, as I 
 knew, that I had to enjoy myself with), not 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 25 
 
 considering what might follow, all fear set 
 aside in order to comply with desire, — while 
 the blind man was taking the money out of his 
 purse, I took the sausage, and quickly put the 
 above-mentioned turnip on the spit, which my 
 master grasped, when he had given me the 
 money for the wine, and began to turn before 
 the fire, trying to roast what through its 
 demerit had escaped being boiled. I went 
 for the wine, and on the way did not delay in 
 despatching the sausage, and when I came 
 back I found the sinner of a blind man hold- 
 ing the turnip ready between two slices of 
 bread, for he had not yet recognized it, be- 
 cause he had not tried it with his hand. 
 When he took the slices of bread and bit into 
 them, thinking to get part of the sausage too, 
 he found himself chilled by the chilly turnip ; 
 he grew angry and said : " What is this, 
 LazariUo?" "Poor Lazaro," said I, "if 
 you want to blame me for anything. 
 Haven't I just come back with the wine? 
 Somebody was here, and must have done this 
 
26 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 for a joke." " No, no," said he, " for I've 
 not let the spit out of my hand. It's not pos- 
 sible." I again swore and forswore that I 
 was innocent of the exchange, but little did it 
 avail me, for nothing was hid from the sharp- 
 ness of the confounded blind man. He got 
 up and seized me by the head and came close 
 up to smell me ; and since he must have caught 
 the scent like a good hound, the better to 
 satisfy himself of the truth in the great agony 
 he was suffering, he seized me with his hands, 
 opened my mouth wider than it ought to go, 
 and unconsideringly thrust in his nose, — 
 which was long and sharp, and at that crisis a 
 palm longer from rage, — with the point of 
 which he reached my gorge; what with this 
 and with the great fright I was in, and the 
 short time the black sausage had had to get 
 settled in my stomach, and most of all, with 
 the tickling of his huge nose nearly half- 
 choking me, — all these things conjointly were 
 the cause that my misconduct and gluttony 
 were made evident, and his own returned to 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 27 
 
 my master; for before the wicked( blind man 
 withdrew his bugle from my moUth, my 
 stomach was so upset that it abandoned its 
 stolen goods, and thus his nose and the 
 wretched, half-masticated sausage went out 
 of my mouth at the same time. O great 
 God, that I had been buried at that hour ! for 
 dead I already was. Such was the depraved 
 blind man's fury, that if they had not come to 
 my assistance at the noise, I think he had not 
 left me alive. They dragged me from out 
 his hands, leaving them full of what few hairs 
 I had, my face scratched and my neck and 
 throat clawed; and well my throat deserved 
 this, for such abuse befel me through its 
 viciousness. The wicked blind man related 
 my disgraceful actions to all that approached, 
 and gave them the history lonce and again, 
 both of the wine-jug and of the bunch of 
 grapes, and now of the actual trouble. 
 Everybody laughed so much that all the pass- 
 ers-by came in to see the fun; for the blind 
 man related my doings with so niuch wit and 
 
28 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 sprightliness that although I was thus 
 abused and weeping, it seemed to me that I 
 was doing him injustice not to laugh. And 
 while this was going on, I remembered a 
 piece of cowardly weakness I had been guilty 
 of, and J cursed myself for it; and that was 
 my leaving him with a nose, when I had such 
 a good chance, half the distance being gone, 
 for by only clinching my teeth it would have 
 remained in my house, and because it be- 
 longed to that villain, perhaps my stomach 
 would have retained it better than the sau- 
 sage, and if it didn't reappear I could have 
 refused all requests for it. Would to God 
 I had done it, for nothing worse could have 
 resulted. The landlady and the others there 
 made us friends, and they bathed my face 
 and throat with the wine I had fetched him 
 to drink: whereupon the wicked blind man 
 made jokes, saying: "It's a fact, this boy 
 wastes me more wine in washings at the end 
 of a year than I drink in two. At any rate, 
 Lazaro, thou art more indebted to wine than 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 29 
 
 to thy father, for he begat thee once, but wine 
 hath given thee thy life a thousand times." 
 And straight he recounted how often he had 
 scratched and torn my face, and with wine 
 straight healed it. " I tell thee," he said, 
 " if there is to be a man in the world lucky 
 at wine, it is thou " ; and those that were 
 washing me laughed a great deal at this, 
 though I raged. But the blind man's prog- 
 nostic did not turn out false, and many times 
 since I have recalled that man, who must 
 doubtless have had the spirit of prophecy, 
 and I am sorry for the displeasures I did 
 him, — although I paid him well for them, 
 — considering that what he that day told me 
 has turned out so true, as Your Worship 
 shall hear farther on. 
 
 In view of this and the evil tricks the blind 
 man played me, I decided to leave him once 
 and for all, and as I had everything thought 
 out and in my mind, on his playing me this 
 last game I determined on it more fully. 
 And so it was that the next day we went out 
 
30 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 about town to beg alms, and it had rained a 
 great deal the night before; and as it was 
 still raining that day he walked in prayer 
 under some arcades which there were in that 
 town, where we didn't get wet; but as night 
 was coming on and the rain didn't stop, the 
 blind man said to me : " Lazaro, this water 
 is very persistent, and the more night shuts 
 down, the heavier it is : let us get back to the 
 inn in time." To go there we had to cross 
 a gutter which was running full because of 
 all the water; I said to him : " Uncle, the gut- 
 ter runs very wide; but if you wish, I see 
 where we can get over more quickly without 
 wetting us, for there it becomes much nar- 
 rower, and by jumping we can cross with dry 
 feet." This seemed good advice to him, 
 and he said : " Thou art clever, I like thee for 
 that. Bring me to the place where the gutter 
 contracts, for it is winter now and water is 
 disagreeable, and going with wet feet still 
 more so." Seeing the scheme unfolding as 
 I desired, I led him out from the arcades 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 3 1 
 
 and brought him in front of a pillar or stone 
 post which was in the square, and upon which 
 and others like it projections of the houses 
 rested, and said to him: "Uncle, this is the 
 narrowest crossing there is in the gutter." 
 As it was raining hard, and the poor creature 
 was getting wet, and what with the haste 
 we made to get out of the water that was fall- 
 ing on us, and most of all because God 
 blinded his intelligence in that hour, — it was 
 to give me revenge on him, — he trusted me, 
 and said: "Place me quite straight, and do 
 thou jump the gutter." I placed him quite 
 straight in front of the pillar, and gave a 
 jump, and put myself behind the post like 
 one who awaits the charge of a bull, and said 
 to him: "Hey, jump aU you can, so as to 
 get to this side of the water." Scarcely had 
 I finished saying it, when the poor blind man 
 charged like a goat and with all his might 
 came on, taking a step back before he ran, 
 for to make a bigger jump, and struck the 
 post with his head, which sounded as loud 
 
32 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 as if he had struck it with a big gourd, and 
 fell straight down backwards half dead and 
 with his head split open. " What, thou 
 smeltest the sausage and not the post? 
 Smell, smell! " said I, and left him in charge 
 of many folk who had come to help him, and 
 took the town-gate on foot in a trot, and be- 
 fore night had struck into Torrijos. I 
 knew no more of what God did with him, 
 nor cared to know. 
 
TREATISE SECOND 
 
 Hov) Lazaro Took Service with a Priest, 
 
 and of the Things He Went through 
 
 while with Him 
 
 THE next day, as it did not seem to me 
 that I was safe there, I went on to a 
 village called Maqueda, where my sins ran 
 me against a priest, who when I approached 
 him to beg alms, asked me if I knew how to 
 serve mass. I told him yes, which was true, 
 for although he abused me, the sinner of a 
 blind man taught me a thousand good things, 
 and one of them was this. In a word, the 
 priest received me to be his. I escaped 
 from the thunder and got into the lightning, 
 for the blind man was, compared to this one, 
 an Alexander the Great, though being ava- 
 rice itself, as I have recounted. I say no 
 
 33 
 
34 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 /^more, except that all the meanness of the 
 world, was enclosed in this one; I know not 
 whether it was his own invention, or if he 
 had annexed it with the clerical habit. He 
 had a big old chest, locked with a key which 
 he carried fastened to a strap of his cassock, 
 and when the wheaten loaf came from the 
 church, it was at once thrown in there by 
 his hand, and the chest locked up again ; and 
 in the whole house there was not a thing to 
 eat, as there generally is in others: some 
 bacon hung in the chimney, some cheese set 
 on a shelf in the cupboard, some little basket 
 with some hunks of bread left over from the 
 table. It seems to me that although I might 
 not have enjoyed them, I could have consoled 
 myself with the sight of them. There was 
 only a string of onions, and those under lock 
 and key, in a chamber at the top of the house ; 
 whereof I had as rations one every four days. 
 And when I asked for the key to go for it, 
 if any one was present, he would put his 
 hand into his breast-pocket, and with great' 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 35 
 
 deliberateness unfasten It and give it me, 
 saying: " Take it, and bring it back directly, 
 and don't do a thing but stuff," as if all the 
 conserves of Valencia had been under it, 
 whereas there was not another blessed thing 
 in the said chamber, as I, said, but the onions 
 hung on a nail; which moreover he had so 
 well by tale, that if through the misfortunes 
 of myosins I had indulged myself in more 
 than my dole, it would have cost me dear. 
 In a word, I was dying of hunger. Well, 
 although he had little charity toward me, 
 toward himself he showed more. Five 
 farthings' worth of meat was his ordinary, 
 for dinner and supper. True it is that he 
 would divide some of the broth with me, but 
 as for the meat it was all in my eye, and only 
 a little bread, and would to God he had 
 shared even I On Saturdays in this region 
 they eat sheeps' heads, and he would send 
 me for one that cost three maravedis; this 
 he would boil, and eat the eyes and the 
 tongue and the neck and brains and the meat 
 
36 LAZARI LLO DE TORMES 
 
 on the jaws, and give me the gnawed bones, 
 give me them on his plate, saying: "Take. 
 Eat. Triumph, since for thee is the world; 
 thou hast a better life than the pope." 
 " God give thee such another," I used to say 
 apart to' myself. 
 
 At the end of three weeks with him, I 
 became so feeble that I was unable to stand 
 on my legs for pure hunger. I clearly saw 
 myself going to the grave, if God and my wits 
 should not cure me : to make use of my dodges 
 I had no chance, because I had nowhere to 
 make him jump, — and even had I had, I 
 could not make him blind, — as I did him 
 whom God forgive if he died of that blow 
 on the head, who, though sharp, yet through 
 lacking that precious sense did not see 
 through me; but this other one, there's no- 
 body could have so keen a sight as he had. 
 
 VWhen we were at the offertory, not a far- 
 thing fell into the shell that was not registered 
 by him : he would have one ^ye on the people 
 and the other on my hands ; his eyes used to 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 37 
 
 dance in his skull as if they were of quick- 
 silver; how many farthings they were offer- 
 ing he knew by number, and the offering 
 over, he would at once take the little shell 
 away from me and put it upon the altar. I 
 was not able to snatch one farthing from it 
 all the time I lived, or I'd better say died, 
 with him. From the tavern never did I fetch 
 him a farthing's worth df wine, but that little 
 from the oblation which he kept in his chest, 
 he ordered in such wise that it lasted him all 
 the week, and to hide his great stinginess, 
 he used to say to me : " Look, boy, priests 
 should be very frugal in their eating and 
 drinking, and therefore I don't indulge my- 
 self like others; " but the wretch lied falsely, 
 because at confraternities and at funerals 
 where we prayed, he would eat at somebody 
 else's expense like a wolf and drink more 
 than a quack-doctor^ 
 
 And now that I speak of funerals, God 
 forgive me, for I was never an enemy to the 
 human race but then, and that was because 
 
38 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 we used to eat well and I got my fill ; I used 
 to wish and even to entreat God that each 
 day he would kill his man. And when we 
 gave the sacraments to the sick, especially 
 extreme unction, when the priest calls on 
 those present to pray, I certainly was not 
 the last in prayer, but with all my heart and 
 good-will besought the Lord, not that he 
 would dispose of him however it might be 
 most to his service, as it is said, but that he 
 would take him from this world. And when 
 any of them escaped, God forgive me for 
 it, but I sent him a thousand times to the 
 devil, and whoever died carried away as 
 many of my benedictions. In all the time 
 I was there, which would be about six months, 
 only twenty persons expired, whom I well 
 believe I killed, or. to put it better, they died 
 at my request; because the Lord seeing my 
 violent and continuous death, took pleasure 
 I think in killing them in order to give me 
 my life. But for what I then suffered I 
 found no remedy, for if on the day we buried 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 39 
 
 I used to live, the days there was no one 
 dead I returned to my quotidian hunger, and 
 felt it all the more from having been well ac- 
 customed to fulness. So that in nothing did 
 I find respite, save in death, which sometimes 
 I desired for myself too as well as for others, 
 but saw it not, although it was always in me. 
 
 I thought many times of going away from 
 that mean master, but for two reasons gave 
 it up. One was that I didn't trust my legs 
 for fear of the weakness coming from sheer 
 hunger; and the other was, as I used to say 
 on consideration: "I have had two masters: 
 the first brought me to death with hunger, 
 and on leaving him I ran upon this other who 
 has me already in the grave with it; if then 
 I leave him and hit upon another worse yet, 
 what will it be but to finish? " Thus I durst 
 not move, for I held it as an article of faith 
 that I must find every step more desolate, 
 and on descending one degree lower Lazaro 
 would make no sound, or be heard in the 
 world. Being then in such affliction, from 
 
40 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 which may it please the Lord to deliver every 
 faithful Christian, and ignorant how to give 
 myself counsel, while I went from bad to 
 worse, one day when my miserable, vile, and 
 wretched master had gone outside the village, 
 by chance there won to my door a tinker, 
 who I believe was an angel sent to me in that 
 guise by the hand of God ; he asked me if I 
 had anything to mend. " In me you could 
 find plenty to do, and you would not do little 
 if you patched me up," I said apart, so that 
 he didn't hear me; but as this was no time 
 to waste in witticisms, inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost I said to him: "Uncle, I have lost 
 the key to this big chest, and I fear my mas- 
 ter will whip me. For your life see if there 
 be any among those you carry that will do, 
 for I will pay you for it." The angelic 
 tinker began to try one and another of a big 
 bunch he carried, and I to help him with my 
 feeble prayers. When I am not expecting it, 
 I see, in the form of loaves of bread, the face 
 of God, as they say, inside the big chest; and 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 4 1 
 
 when it was open, I said to him : " I have 
 no money to give you for the key, but take 
 your payment from here." He took one of 
 the wheaten loaves, the one that looked best 
 to him, and giving me my key went away very 
 well content, leaving me more so. But at 
 that time I touched nothing, lest the defi- 
 ciency be noticed, and moreover, because, 
 now that I saw myself lord of so much goods, 
 it seemed to me that hunger durst not ap- 
 proach me. Back came that miserable mas- 
 ter of mine, and God willed that he should 
 not note the oblation the angel had levied. 
 And the next day, on his going away from 
 the house, I opened my bread paradise, and 
 took a wheaten loaf between my hands and 
 my teeth, and in two credos made it invisible, 
 not failing to close the chest; and I began 
 to sweep the house with great gaiety, for it 
 seemed to me with that remedy I remedied 
 my unhappy life from then on. And so I 
 was joyful over it that day- and the next; but 
 it was not my good luck that this relief should 
 
4i LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 last me long ; for on the third day the genuine 
 tertian fever promptly took me, in this man- 
 ner, — in an evil hour I saw him who was 
 killing me with hunger, over our big chest, 
 turning the loaves over and over, counting 
 them and counting them again. I dis- 
 sembled and in my secret prayers and devo- 
 tions and supplications, I was saying: " Saint 
 John, come and blind him." After Jbe had 
 been a long while casting the account, count- 
 ing by days and fingers, he said: " If I didn't 
 keep this chest so well shut up, I should 
 say that loaves had been taken out of it. 
 But from today on, merely to close the door 
 against suspicion, I will keep a strict ac- 
 count of them. Nine remain and one piece." 
 " God send thee nine new pieces of troub^p," 
 said I to myself. 
 
 Meseemed by what he said he pierced my 
 heart with a hunter's arrow; and my stomach 
 began to ache with hunger, seeing itself put 
 on its former diet. He went out of the 
 house ; I, to console me, opened the box, and 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 43 
 
 when I saw the bread, began to adore it, not 
 daring to take any. I counted, in case by 
 good luck the wretch had made a mistake, 
 and found his reckoning truer than I should 
 have wished. The most I could do was to 
 give them a thousand kisses; and from the 
 broken loaf as delicately as I could I took 
 a little where it was broken; and with that 
 I passed that day, not so joyful as the day 
 before. But as my hunger grew, — and all 
 the more since I had been getting my stomach 
 fixed for more bread those two or three days 
 already mentioned, — I was dying a bad 
 death: to such an extent, that whenever I 
 was alone, I would do nothing else but open 
 and tlose the chest ahd contemplate the face 
 of God, for so children call it: but God him- 
 self who helps the afflicted, seeing me in such 
 a strait, brought to my memory a little 
 remedy; for on consideration I said: "This 
 press is old and big and broken in some 
 places, although the holes are small. One 
 might think that mice go in and damage \this 
 
44 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 bread. To take a whole loaf Is not discreet, 
 because he will see that it is wanting, he who 
 makes me live in such want. This it will 
 easily stand," and I began to crumble the 
 bread upon some not very valuable table- 
 cloths that were there, taking one loaf and 
 leaving another, in such a way that from each 
 of three or four I crumbled a little; after- 
 wards, like one that eats comfits, I ate it, and 
 somewhat consoled myself. But he, when he 
 came to dinner and opened the chest, saw the 
 bad work, and without doubt believed it was 
 mice that had done the damage, because it 
 was very closely counterfeited in the way 
 they wont to do. He examined the whole 
 chest from one end to the other, and found 
 various holes by which he suspected they had 
 entered. He called me, saying: " Lazaro, 
 look! Look what affliction befel our bread 
 last night." I played very much astonished, 
 asking him what it could be. " What should 
 it be! " said he; " Mice, which do not spare 
 anything." We sat down to dinner, and 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 45 
 
 God willed that even in this things should 
 go well for me, for more bread fell to my 
 share than the wretched bit he usually gave 
 me, for he cut off with a knife all he thpught 
 was mouse-eaten, saying : " Eat this, for the 
 mouse is a clean creature." A"^ so that 
 day, with the addition of the ration earned 
 by the work of my hands, — or my nails, 
 to put it better, — we finished dining, al- 
 though I never really began. And directly 
 I had another shock, and that was to see him 
 going around anxiously pulling out nails from 
 the walls and looking for slats, with which 
 he nailed up and closed all the holes in the 
 old chest. " O Lord," said I then, " in 
 what misery and misfortune and disasters 
 are we placed by being born, and how short 
 a while last the pleasures of this our toil- 
 some life! ' Here am I who thought by this 
 poor and trifling method' to remedy and 
 chatige my misery, and was already somewhat 
 joyous about my good-luck: but not thus 
 willed my ill-fate who stirred up this 
 
46 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 wretched master of mine, and gave him even 
 more energy than he naturally had (for the 
 miserly for the most part never lack, that) , 
 so that now, by closing the holes in the chest, 
 he has closed the door of my consolation 
 and opened that of my grief." Thus I 
 lamented, while my diligent carpenter ended 
 his work with many nails and slats, saying: 
 " Now, sir traitor mice, it behoves you to 
 change procedure, for in this house you will 
 find little profit." 
 
 As soon as he left the house, I go to ex- 
 amine the work, and found that he had not 
 left a hole in the unhappy old chest, through 
 which even a gnat could enter. I open it 
 with my unprofitable key, without hope of 
 deriving any profit, and saw the two or 
 three loaves begun on, those my master be- 
 lieved were mouse-eaten, and from them I 
 did after all get some poor solace, touching 
 them very lightly, after the manner of a dex- 
 trous fencer. Since necessity is so good a 
 teacher, and I was always in so much neces- 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 47 
 
 sity, I kept thinking night and day what way 
 I could find to sustain my life; and I believe 
 that hunger was a light to me in finding these 
 darksome contrivances, for they say the wits 
 are animated by it, and contrariwise with 
 satiety, and so it certainly was with me. 
 Well, one night while I was awake with my 
 thoughts, thinking how I might make some 
 profit out of the big chest, I was aware that 
 my rtiaster slept, because he showed it by 
 snoring and by some great shorts he used to 
 give when he was sleeping. I got up very 
 quietly, and having thought out during the 
 day what I had to do and left an old knife, 
 which was knocking around there, in a place 
 where I could find it, I go over to the un- 
 happy chest, and where I had noted it made 
 the least defence, I attacked it with the knife, 
 which I used like a gimlet: and as I found 
 the ancient chest, which was so very many 
 years old, devoid of strength and heart, but 
 on the contrary very soft and worm-eaten, it 
 soon yielded to me, and permitted a good 
 
48 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 hole in its side for my advantage. This be- 
 ing made, I open the wounded chest very 
 gently, and guided by my touch, did with 
 the bread I found broken as is written above : 
 and some whit consoled by that, I shut it 
 again and returned to my straw, where I re- 
 posed and slept a little. I used to sleep 
 badly, and attributed it to not eating; and 
 that must have been so, because at that time 
 certainly the cares of the King of France 
 cannot have prevented my sleeping. The 
 next day the damage was seen by my lord 
 and master, both that done to the bread and 
 also the hole I had made ; and he began send- 
 ing the mice to the devil, and saying : " What 
 are we to say to this? Never to have no- 
 ticed mice in this house till now ! " And 
 doubtless he told the truth, for if there was 
 a house in the kingdom justly privileged 
 against them, it must in reason have been 
 that one, because they are not wont to dwell 
 where there is nothing to eat. He began 
 again to look for nails about the house and 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 49 
 
 in the walls, and for slats to stop up the holes 
 with. When night was come and his repose, 
 I was soon on foot with my tools, and what 
 he stopped up by day I unstopped by night. 
 And in such wise did it go and such haste 
 did we make, that no doubt because of this the 
 saying arose : When one door is closed, 
 another is opened. In a word, we seemed 
 to have Penelope's web for a job, for what- 
 ever he wove by day I unravelled by night, 
 and in a few days and nights we got the poor 
 larder into such a shape that one who wished 
 to speak, correctly would have called it 
 rather an old cuirass of ancient times than a 
 chest, from the nail-work and tacks upon it. 
 When he saw that his patching was of no 
 profit to him, he said: "This press is so 
 abused now, and the wood is so old and weak, 
 that there is no mouse it could be protected 
 against; and it is already in such a state that 
 if we continue, it will leave us without de- 
 fence; and yet the worst is, that although it 
 does little good, still if it be missing it will 
 
50 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 be missed, and will put me to an expense of 
 three or four bits. The best remedy I can 
 find, since the present one is no use, will be to 
 make ready on the inside for these accursed 
 mice." Presently he borrowed a mouse- 
 trap ; and with rinds of cheese that he begged 
 of the neighbours, the cat was continually on 
 the watch inside the chest, — a particular help 
 to me, for even though I didn't need many 
 sauces to my food, still I enjoyed myself with 
 the rinds of cheese which I used to take out 
 of the mouse-trap, and besides didn't fail to 
 gnaw the bread. When he found the bread 
 gnawed and the cheese eaten, and the mouse 
 that ate it not caught, he sent himself to the 
 devil, and asked the neighbours what it could 
 be that ate the cheese and removed it from 
 the mouse-trap, and still the mouse not be 
 caught or remain inside, and yet the door of 
 the trap be fallen? The neighbours agreed 
 that it was not a mouse that was doing this 
 mischief, because it would certainly have been 
 caught some time. One neighbour told him : 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 5 1 
 
 " I remember that a snake used to wander 
 about in your house, and no doubt It must be 
 that. And this is reasonable, for as it is so 
 long, it is able to take the bait, and even if 
 the door catches on it, since it doesn't go all 
 in, it can get out again." Everybody agreed 
 with him, and this greatly upset my master; 
 and from then on he slept less soundly, for 
 any worm in the wood that made a noise at 
 night, he thought was the snake nibbling his 
 chest. At once he would be on his feet, and 
 with a cudgel he kept by his bed since they 
 told him that, he would give the wretched 
 chest great cudgellings, thinking to frighten 
 the snake. He used to waken the neigh- 
 bours with the fracas he made, and didn't 
 let me sleep. He would come to my straw 
 and turn it over and me with it, thinking the 
 snake would make for me and wrap itself in 
 my straw or in my clothes, because they told 
 him it happens at night that these animals, 
 seeking warmth, crawl into the cradles where 
 babies are, and even bite them and do them 
 
52 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 harm. Generally I pretended to sleep, and 
 in the morning he would say to me : " Last 
 night, boy, didst not feel anything? For I 
 went after the snake, and indeed I think it 
 must make for thee in thy bed, for they are 
 very cold and seek warmth." " God forbid 
 that it bite me," I would say, " for I am 
 mighty scared of it." In this way he kept so 
 excited and aroused from sleep, that faith! 
 the snake or the boy-snake, to put it better, 
 durst not gnaw by night or arouse himself to 
 go to the chest; but by day, while he was at 
 church or about the town, I would do my pil- 
 lage. In view of which damage and the 
 slight remedy he could contrive for it, he 
 went about at night, as I said, like a ghost. 
 
 I feared that with all this assiduity he 
 would discover me with the key which I kept 
 under the straw, and it, seemed safest to me 
 to put it into my mouth at night; because ever 
 since I 'had lived with the blind man I had 
 made such a purse of it, that sometimes I 
 held twelve or fifteen maravedis in it, all in 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 53 
 
 half-farthings, without its interfering with 
 ray eating, for otherwise I was not master 
 of a farthing that the confounded blind man 
 didn't light upon, not leaving seam or patch 
 of mine without a very minute search. So 
 then as I say, I used to put the key into my 
 mouth every night and sleep without dread 
 that my warlock of a master would light upon 
 it. But when trouble is to come, care is 
 vain. My destiny would have it, or to put it 
 better, my sins, that one night when I was 
 asleep, thekey got placed in my mouth, which 
 I must have held open, in such a manner and 
 position, that the air and breath whicli I gave 
 out while sleeping, went through the shank 
 of the key, which was a tube, and whistled, as 
 my ill-luck would have it, very loud; so that 
 my master heard it, and believed it of course 
 to be the whistling of the snake, and it cer- 
 tainly must have seemed so. He arose very 
 softly with his cudgel in his hand, and groping 
 toward the sound of the snake, approached 
 me with great quietness, so as not to be per- 
 
54 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 celved by the snake ; and when he found that 
 he was near me, he thought that it had come 
 there into the straw where I was stretched 
 out, to my warmth. Lifting the stick high, 
 thinking he had the snake underneath and 
 would give it such a cudgeUing as should kill 
 it, with all his might he discharged so great 
 a whack upon my head that he left me sense- 
 less and very badly wounded. When he 
 realized that he had struck me,- — for I prob- 
 ably made a great outcry at the fierce whack, 
 — he used to relate that he had come to me, 
 and shouted to me calling my name, and tried 
 to bring me to ; but when he touched me with 
 his hands, he felt the great quantity of blood 
 I was shedding, and realized the damage he 
 had done me, and went in much haste to get 
 a light; and coming back with it, found me 
 moaning, still with the key in my mouth, — 
 for I had never let go of it, — half outside, 
 just in the same way it must have been when 
 I was whistling through it. The snake-slayer 
 wondering what that key could be, took it en- 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 55 
 
 tirely out of my mouth and examined it, and 
 saw what it was, because in its wards it was 
 just like his. He went at once to prove it, 
 and thus proved my evil practices. The 
 cruel hunter probably said: " I have found 
 the mouse and snake that made war on me and 
 ate my property.!' Of what happened in 
 the three succeeding days I shall give no cer- 
 tification, because I passed them in the whale's 
 belly; but as for what I have related, I heard 
 my master tell it after I returned to myself, 
 for he related it fully to whomsoever came 
 there. 
 
 At the end of three days I returned to my 
 senses and found myself stretched on my 
 straw, my head all plastered and covered with 
 oils and unguents; and astonished, I said: 
 " What is this ? " The cruel priest an- 
 swered: " Faith, it means that I have been 
 hunting the mice and snakes that were ruining 
 me." And I examined myself and found 
 myself so maltreated that I at once suspected 
 my trouble. At this juncture entered an old 
 
56 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 woman who was a healer, and the neigh- 
 bours, and they began to take bandages off my 
 head and to dress the wound ; and when they 
 found me come back to my senses, they re- 
 joiced greatly and said: " Since he has re- 
 turned to his right mind, it may please God 
 that it shall be nothing." Then once more 
 they set to relating my mishaps again and to 
 laughing at them, and I poor sinner to weep- 
 ing at them. Meanwhile they gave me food, 
 for I was worn out with hunger, and scarcely 
 could they help me: and so, little by little, 
 in a fortnight I got myself up and was free 
 from danger, though not from hunger, and 
 half well. 
 
 The very next day after I was got up, 
 my lord and master took me by the hand and 
 shoved me outside the door, and when I was 
 in the street, said to me : " Lazaro, from 
 today on thou art thine own boy and not 
 mine; seek a master, and God go with thee, 
 for I do not wish so diligent a servant in my 
 employ. Thou certainly must have been the 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 57 
 
 boy of a blind man." And making the sign 
 of the cross, as if I had been possessed of a 
 devil, he went back again into his house and 
 shut the door. 
 
TREATISE THIRD 
 
 Of How Lazaro Took Service imth an 
 
 Esquire, and of What Happened to 
 
 Him with Him 
 
 THUS was I obliged to extract strength 
 from weakness; and little by little, 
 with assistance from good people, got myself 
 to this famous city of Toledo, where by 
 God's mercy, my wound closed a fortnight 
 later. And while I was ill, people would al- 
 ways give me alms ; but after I was well they 
 would all say to me: " Thou! a rogue and 
 vagabond art thou. Go, seek a master to 
 work for." " And where shall he be found," 
 I would say to myself, " unless God create 
 him fresh, as he created the world? " 
 
 I was wandering thus aimlessly from door 
 to door, with mighty little alleviation, — be- 
 S8 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 59 
 
 cause Charity had already mounted to 
 heaven, — when God threw me in with an es- 
 quire who was walking along the street, with 
 pretty good clothes, well-kempt, his gait and 
 bearing orderly. He looked at me and I at 
 him, and he said to me. " Boy, seekest a 
 master? " I told him: " Yes, sir." " Then 
 come along behind me," he answered, " for 
 God has shown thee a mercy in throwing thee 
 in with me. Thou hast said some good 
 prayer today." And I followed him, thank- 
 ing God for what I heard, and also because 
 he seemed to me, from his dress and air, to 
 be the person I was in need of. 
 
 It was in the morning when I fell in with 
 this my third master; and he led me behind 
 him through a large part of the city. We 
 passed by the squares where bread and other 
 provisions were selling: I was thinking and 
 wishing that he would want to load me there 
 with what was selling, because this was just 
 the time when it is usual to lay in what is 
 necessary: but he passed by these things at a 
 
6o LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 very lively gait. " Perhaps he sees nothing 
 to his taste here," said I, " and wishes to try 
 in another quarter." In this way we rambled 
 about until it struck eleven: then he entered 
 the principal church, and I behind him ; and I 
 saw him very devoutly hear mass and the 
 other divine offices, until everything was 
 ended and the people gone : then we left the 
 church. At a good round pace we began to 
 go down a street ; I walked along the happiest 
 in the world because we had not occupied our- 
 selves in laying in provisions : I considered it 
 certain that my new master must be a man 
 who provided in bulk, and that dinner would 
 be ready, and such as I desired and even was 
 in need of. 
 
 At this time the clock struck one after 
 noon, and we reached a house in front of 
 which my master halted, and I with him, 
 and throwing back the end of his cape on the 
 left, he drew out a key from his sleeve, and 
 opened the door, and we entered the house; 
 whose entrance was so dark and dismal that 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 6 1 
 
 it seemed to cause dread to those that en- 
 tered, although inside there was a small 
 court and fairly good rooms. After we had 
 entered, he took off his cape, and having 
 asked whether I had clean hands, we shook 
 and folded it, and when he had very neatly 
 blown the dust off a stone bench that was 
 there, he placed it upon it. This done he 
 sat down beside it, and asked me in great de- 
 tail whence I was and how I had come to that 
 city. I gave him a longer account than I 
 liked, because it seemed to me a more fitting 
 time for bidding the table be set and the stew 
 dished, than for his questions : nevertheless, I 
 satisfied him about me the best I knew how to 
 lie, telling him my good points and keeping 
 silent about the rest, which did not seem to 
 me to be appropriate. This done, he re- 
 mained as he was for a while, and I imme- 
 diately saw a bad sign, for it was now nearly 
 tw^o and I didn't see him show any more keen- 
 ness for his dinner than a dead man. There- 
 upon I considered his keeping the door 
 
62 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 locked, and my not hearing, above or below, 
 the footsteps of a living soul in the house: 
 all I had seen was walls without a chair be- 
 tween them, or a meat-block, or bench, or 
 table, or even a big chest like that of other 
 days. In a word, it seemed like an en- 
 chanted house. With this, he said to me: 
 " Thou, boy, hast eaten? " " No, sir," said 
 I, "for it hadn't yet struck eight when I met 
 Your Worship." "Well, although it was 
 early, I had breakfasted; and when I eat 
 something that way, I tell thee I go on ^he 
 same way until night. Therefore, manage as 
 thou canst, for afterwards we will sup." — 
 Your Worship may believe, that when I heard 
 this, I was within a little of falling in my 
 tracks, not so much from hunger as from 
 knowing now absolutely that fortune was 
 against me. Then my troubles presented 
 themselves anew to me, and I began again to 
 weep over my misfortunes ; then there came 
 into my memory the reasoning I followed 
 when I was thinking of quitting the priest, 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 63 
 
 telling myself that although he was miserable 
 and mean, perhaps I should fall in with an- 
 other worse. In a word, I then wept over 
 my unhappy life past and my death near to 
 come. And with It all, dissembling the best 
 I could, I told him : " Sir, I am a lad who 
 don't bother myself much about eating, 
 blessed be God ! Therefore I can boast my- 
 self the most abstemious among all my con- 
 temporaries ; and thus I have been praised for 
 it until today by the masters I have had." 
 " That is a virtue," said he, " and on that ac- 
 count I shall like thee better : because stuffing 
 is for pigs, and eating moderately is for gen- 
 tlemen." " I understand thee well," said I 
 to myself; " confound such medicine and vir- 
 tue as these masters I get find in hunger! " 
 
 I put myself at one end of the arcade, and 
 took out some pieces of bread from my 
 bosom, which remained of those I had got in 
 God's name. He, on seeing this, said to me : 
 "Come here, boy, what eatest?" I ap- 
 proached and showed him the bread. He 
 
64 LAZARILLO DE TO RMES 
 
 took one piece, the best and biggest of the 
 three there were, and said: " By my life, 
 but this looks like good bread." " Why, in- 
 deed," said I, " it is good, sir." " Yes, in 
 faith," said he; "where didst thou get it? 
 Was it kneaded by clean hands ? " "I don't 
 know that," I told him, " but for my part the 
 taste of it doesn't nauseate me." " May it 
 so please God," said my poor master; and 
 lifting it to his mouth, began to take as fierce 
 bites as I of the other piece. " Most deli- 
 cious bread it is," said he, " by Jove." And 
 when I perceived on what foot he limped, I 
 made haste, for I saw he was disposed, if he 
 finished first, to be civil enough to help with 
 what remained; and thus we finished almost 
 together. With his hands he began to brush 
 off some crumbs, and very small ones, which 
 had remained on his breast; and went into a 
 little room there, and brought out a mouthless 
 jug, not very new, and after he had drunk of- 
 fered it to me. I, to play the abstemious, 
 said: "Sir, I don't drink wine." "It is 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 65 
 
 water," he answered; " thou mayst drink all 
 right." So I took the jug and drank; not 
 much, for thirst was not my affliction. 
 
 So there we were until night, talking ahout 
 things he asked me, to which I answered the 
 best I knew how : during this time he took me 
 into the room where the jug we drank from 
 was, and said : " Boy, get over there, and 
 thou shalt see how we make this bed, that 
 thou may know how to do it from now on." 
 I got on one side and he on the other, and we 
 made the wretched bed. There was not 
 much to make, for it had a reed framework 
 upon some benches, on which were spread the 
 bed-clothes over a dirty mattress, which, from 
 not being very constantly washed, did not 
 appear a mattress, although it served for one, 
 with a great deal less wool than was neces- 
 sary. We spread it out, trying to soften it, 
 which was impossible, because what is hard 
 can ill be made soft. The miserable saddle- 
 pad had devil a thing inside, and when it was 
 placed on the reed frame-work all the reeds 
 
66 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 showed, and looked exactly like the spine of 
 a most skinny pig; and over that starved mat- 
 tress a cover of the same stamp, whose colour 
 I could not decide. The bed made and night 
 come, he said to me : " Lazaro, it's already 
 late, and from here to the square is a big 
 stretch: besides, many robbers wander about 
 in this city at night and snatch people's capes. 
 Let us get through as we can, and tomorrow, 
 when day is come, God will be merciful. Be- 
 ing alone, I am not provided, but have been 
 eating outside these days. But now we shall 
 have to do otherwise." " Sir, about me," 
 said I, " let Your Worship not worry, for I 
 well know how to pass one night, and even 
 more, if necessary, without eating." " Thou 
 wilt live longer and more healthily," he an- 
 swered, " because, as we were saying today, 
 there's no such thing in the world for living 
 long, as eating little." '? If that is the road," 
 said I to myself, " I shall never die, for I 
 have always observed that rule perforce, and 
 even expect, with my bad luck, to keep it all 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 67 
 
 my life." And he went to bed, putting his 
 hose and his pourpoint for a pillow, and bade 
 me stretch at his feet, which I did. But devil 
 a wink I slept, for the reeds and my protrud- 
 ing bones didn't leave off quarrelling and 
 fighting the whole night, for with my hard- 
 ships, woes, and hunger, I think I hadn't a 
 pound of flesh on my body ; and besides, as I 
 had eaten almost nothing that day, I was rag- 
 ing with hunger, which has no friendship with 
 sleep. A thousand times I cursed myself 
 (God forgive me for it) and my wretched 
 luck, most of the night from then on; and 
 worse yet, not daring to turn over lest I 
 awaken him, I many times begged death of 
 God. 
 
 When morning came we got up, and he be- 
 gan to clean and shake his hose and pour- 
 point, coat and cape, and with me serving as 
 an idle assistant, dressed himself slowly to 
 his great pleasure. I poured water on his 
 hands, he combed his hair, and put his sword 
 into his baldric, and while he was putting it in, 
 
68 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 _i ', 
 
 said to me : " Oh, if thou knewest, boy, 
 what a piece this is I There is not a mark of 
 gold in the world I would give it for; the 
 more so, because of all those that Antonio 
 made, he didn't manage to get the edges of 
 any so keen as this one ;" and he drew it from 
 the scabbard and tried it with his fingers, 
 saying: " Dost see it? I engage to sever 
 a puff of wool with it." And I said to my- 
 self: *' And I with my teeth, although they 
 are not steel, a four-pound loaf." He put 
 it in again, and girded it and a string of fat 
 beads in his baldric. And with an easy step 
 and body erect, making very genteel move- 
 ments with it and his head, throwing the end 
 of his cape over his shoulder and at times un- 
 der his arm, and placing his right hand on his 
 hip, he issued out the door, saying : " Laz- 
 aro, see for the house while I go hear mass; 
 and make the bed, and go for a pitcher of 
 water to the river, which is here below; and 
 lock the door so that they won't steal any- 
 thing from us, and put the key. here over the 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 69 
 
 door, SO that if I come back in the meanwhile 
 I can get in." And he went down the street 
 with so genteel visage and carriage, that any 
 one who didn't know him would have thought 
 he was a very near kinsman to the Count of 
 Arcos, or at least the chamberlain who 
 handed him his clothes. " Blessed be thou, 
 Lord," I remained behind saying, " who 
 causest the sickness and appliest the cure ! 
 Who that might meet this master of mine but 
 would think, judging by his air of self-con- 
 tent, that he had supped well last night and 
 slept in a good bed, and though now it is 
 early morning, would not suppose he had 
 breakfasted well? Great secrets. Lord, are 
 those that thou makest and people are igno- 
 rant of I Who will not be deceived by that 
 fair appearance and decent cape and coat? 
 And who will imagine that genteel man 
 passed the whole of yesterday on a morsel 
 of bread, which his servant Lazaro had car- 
 ried a day and a night in the cupboard of his 
 bosoni, where much cleanness cannot have 
 
70 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 clung to it, and that today, when he washed 
 his hands and face, he used the skirt of his 
 coat for lack of a towel? Surely nobody 
 would suspect it. O Lord, how many such 
 thou must have, scattered through the world, 
 who suffer for the jade they call honour that 
 which they would not suffer for thee ! " 
 
 Thus was I at the door, watching, and con- 
 sidering these things, until my gentleman 
 master had passed down the long narrow 
 street. I turned back into the house, and in 
 a credo I wdnf all over it, high and low, with- 
 out making a halt or finding a reason to. I 
 made the wretched hard bed, and took the 
 pitcher, and betook me to the river, where I 
 saw my master in great confab with two 
 veiled women, apparently some of those of 
 whom there is no lack in that place, — but in- 
 deed many have the habit of going out in the 
 early summer mornings to get the cool air, 
 and to breakfast on those fresh river-banks, 
 without taking along wherewithal, confident 
 that there cannot fail somebody to give it 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 7 1 
 
 them, for those gentlemen of the place have 
 got them into this custom. And as I say, 
 he was among them, changed into a Macias, 
 telling them more sweet things than ever 
 Ovid wrote. But when they perceived that 
 he was well softened, they made no shame to 
 beg him for breakfast, with the customary 
 payment. He feeling as cold of purse as he 
 was hot of stomach, fell into such an ague 
 that it robbed his face of color, and he began 
 to be troubled in his speech and to make ex- 
 cuses that were not valid. They, who must 
 have been well schooled, as soon as they per- 
 ceived his infirmity, left him for what he was. 
 I, who was eating certain cabbage-stalks 
 wherewith I broke my fast, with a new boy's 
 great diligence returned to the house, with- 
 out being seen of my master; I thought of 
 sweeping some part of it, for it was right 
 necessary, but I didn't find wherewithal: I 
 set to thinking what I should do, and it 
 seemed well to me to await my master until 
 the day should be half over, if perhaps he 
 
72 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 should come and bring something to eat; but 
 my experiment was in vain. After I saw that 
 it was two, and he came- not, and hunger was 
 distressing me, I closed the door and put the 
 key where he bade me, and returned to my 
 trade: with low and feeble voice, and my 
 hands crossed on my breast, God set before 
 my eyes, his name on my tongue, I began to 
 beg bread at the doors and houses that 
 seemed the greatest to me; but as I had 
 sucked this mystery in my milk, — I mean to 
 say r learned it with the grand master the 
 blind man, — I came out so expert a dis- 
 ciple, that although there was no charity in 
 this town, nor had it been a very abundant 
 year, I was so crafty that before the clock 
 struck four, I already had that many pounds 
 of bread in my body, and over two more 
 stowed away in my sleeves and my bosom. I 
 retifrned to our lodging, and in passing by 
 the tripery, begged from one of those women 
 there, :who gave me a piece of cow's-heel and 
 some little bits of boiled tripe. 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 73 
 
 When I reached the house, my good master 
 was already In, his cape folded and laid on 
 the stone bench, and he taking a walk about 
 the court. As I entered, he came toward me ; 
 I thought he wanted to reprove my tardiness, 
 but God made it better. He asked me 
 whence I came; I told him: " Sir, I stayed 
 here until it struck two, and when I saw that 
 Your Worship was not coming, I went out 
 about the city to commend myself to the 
 worthy people, and they have given me what 
 you see." I showed him the bread and the 
 tripe which I carried in one end of my skirt, 
 at which he put on a good face, and said: 
 " Well, I awaited thee for dinner, and when 
 I saw that thou didst not come, I dined. But 
 thou doest like a man of honor in this, for it 
 is better to beg in God's name than to steal. 
 And may God bless me as much as this seems 
 right to me, and I only charge thee that they 
 do not know thou livest with me, because it 
 touches on my honour; although I well be- 
 lieve that it will remain secret, seeing how lit- 
 
74 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 tie I am known in this town ; I ought never to 
 have come to it!" "Have no care about 
 that, sir," I told him, " for nobody cares a 
 hang about asking me this question, or % 
 about answering." " Now, eat them, sinner, 
 for if it please God, we shall soon see our- 
 selves out of necessity; though I tell thee, 
 since I entered this house hothing has gone 
 well with me : it must be an evil location, for 
 there are unlucky and ill-placed houses, which 
 communicate bad luck to those that live in 
 them; this must doijbtless be one of them, but 
 I promise thee, and that when the month is 
 once ended, I don't remain in it, even if they 
 gave it to me for my own." 
 
 I sat down on the end of the bench, and 
 that he might not take me for a glutton, I 
 said nothing about my lunch, and began my 
 supper, biting into my bread and tripe, and 
 kept looking askance at my unfortunate mas- 
 ter, who did not take his eyes from my lap, 
 which at that time was serving for a plate. 
 May God have as much pity for me as I had 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 75 
 
 for him, for I felt what he was feeling, and 
 had passed through it many times, and was 
 passing thrdugh it every day. I was think- 
 ing whether it would be well to be so polite as 
 to invite him ; but since he had told me he had 
 dined, I feared he would not accept the invi- 
 tation. In a word, I was wishing that the 
 poor wretch would help out his trouble 
 by the fruits of mine, and would break 
 his fast as he had the day before, since there 
 was better wherewithal, through the vict- 
 uals' being better and my hunger less. 
 God willed to fulfil my desire, and I even 
 think his too, because as I began to eat, and 
 he was wandering about taking a walk, he ap- 
 proached me and said : " I tell thee, Lazaro, 
 thou hast the best grace in eating that I ever 
 saw a man have in my life, and nobody could 
 see thee eat without thy giving him an appe- 
 tite, even though he had none." " The very 
 good one thou hast," said I to myself, " makes 
 mine appear beautiful to thee." However, I 
 thought I would aid him, since he was aiding 
 
76 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 himself and opening me a way for it, and I 
 said to him : " Sir, good tools make a good 
 workman; this bread is most delicious, and 
 this cow's-heel so well boiled and seasoned, 
 that there could be nobody it would not in- 
 vite by its savour." "Cow's-heel, is it?" 
 " Yes, sir." " I tell thee it is the best morsel 
 in the world, and there is no pheasant tastes 
 so good to me." " Then try it, sir, and you 
 shall see how good it is;" I put the heel into 
 his hand, and also three or four pieces of 
 bread, of the whitest; he sat down by my side, 
 and began to eat like a person with an appe- 
 tite, gnawing each knuckle of it better than 
 one of his greyhounds would do. " With 
 garlic sauce," said he, " this is excellent feed- 
 ing." " Thou art eating it with a better 
 sauce," I answered, apart. ■" By'r lady, but 
 it tasted as good to me, as if I had not eaten 
 a mouthful today." "May happy years 
 come to me as surely as that ! " said I to my- 
 self. He asked me for the water-pitcher, 
 and I gave it him just as I had fetched it: a 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 77 
 
 sign, since there was no water missing, that 
 my master's dinner had not been excessive; 
 we drank, and well content went to sleep as 
 the night before. And to avoid prolixity, 
 we went on eight or ten days in this way, the 
 sinner going out in the morning with that sat- 
 isfied manner and affected gait of his to swal- 
 low the air in the streets, having in poor Laz- 
 aro a wolf's head. 
 
 Many times I reflected on my misfortune, 
 how escaping from the wretched masters I 
 ,had had and seeking an improvement, I had 
 happened to run across one who not only 
 didn't maintain me, but whom I had to main- 
 tain. However, I liked him well, for I saw 
 that he had nothing more and could do noth- 
 ing more, and I rather had pity for him than 
 enmity ; and often, because of carrying home 
 what he might live on, I lived poorly. Be- 
 cause one morning, the unhappy man getting 
 up in his shirt, went up to the top of the 
 house for a certain necessity; and meanwhile 
 in order to be free from doubt, I unrolled his 
 
78 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 pourpoint and his hose which he left at the 
 head of the bed, and found a satin-velvet 
 purse, folded a hundred times, and with devil 
 a farthing in it, or sign that it had held one 
 for a long time. " This master," said I, " is 
 poor, and nobody gives what he has not ; but 
 the miserly blind man and the cursed mean 
 priest, who, although God had provided for 
 them both, one through his hand-kissing and 
 the other through a glib tongue, used to kill 
 me with hunger, them it is right to abhor, 
 and this one to be sorry for." God is my 
 witness that even today, when I run across 
 any of his kind with that gait and pomposity, 
 I pity him, wondering whether he suffers 
 what I saw that one suffer, whom, with all his 
 poverty, I was more glad to serve than the 
 others, for the reason I have given. Only I 
 was a little bit discontented with him; for I 
 could have wished that he had not so much 
 vanity, but would diminish his ideas a little 
 with the great increase of his necessity; but, 
 as it appears to me, it is a rule still regarded 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 79 
 
 and kept among such folk : although they have 
 not a copper of change, their caps must be 
 well cocked. The Lord help them, for they 
 will go to their graves having this infirmity. 
 
 Well, then, I being in such a condition, 
 leading the life I say, my bad luck would have 
 it, — for it had not had enough of pursuing 
 me, — that I should not keep on in that 
 labourious and shameful mode of life. And 
 it was this way; as that year the region was 
 short of bread, the town council agreed that 
 all stranger paupers should leave the city, 
 making a proclamation that any they came 
 across from that time on should be punished 
 by whipping. And so, enforcing the law, 
 four days after the proclamation was made, I 
 saw them conduct a procession of paupers, 
 whipping them through the Quatro Calles; 
 the which caused me so much terror that I 
 never dared take upon me to beg again. 
 Hence, whoever could see it, might see the 
 abstinence of our house and the sadness and 
 silence of its inmates; to such an extent, that 
 
8o LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 we would happen to be two or three days 
 without eating a mouthful or speaking a 
 word. Some wenches, cotton-spinners, who 
 made caps and lived near us, kept me alive, 
 for I was on terms of neighbours and ac- 
 quaintances with them; out of the pittance 
 they earned, they used to give me some little 
 bit, with which I barely managed to bear up. 
 And I had not so much pity for myself as for 
 my pitiful master, for during eight days devil 
 a mouthful did he eat; at least at the house 
 we certainly passed them without eating; I 
 know not how or where he went, or what he 
 ate. And to see him come down the street 
 at midday, with stiff body, longer than a 
 greyhound of good breed; and with regard 
 to what touched his wretched honour, as they 
 call it, he would take a straw, of which even 
 there were not enough in the house, and go 
 out the door picking those that had nothing 
 in them, complaining still of that evil loca- 
 tion, saying: " It is bad to see how the bad- 
 luck of this dwelling brings evil. As thou 
 
LA2AR1LL0 DE TORMES 
 
 seest, it is dismal, sad, dark. While we re- 
 main here we shall suffer; I wish this month 
 were ended so we could get out." 
 
 Well, while we were in this distressed and 
 hungry affliction, one day, I know not by what 
 luck or chance, into the poor control of my 
 master there entered one bit, with which he 
 came home as satisfied as if he had had the 
 treasure of Venice, and with a very joyous 
 and smiling face, he gave it to me, saying: 
 " Take it, Lazaro, for now God is opening 
 his hand. Go to the square and buy bread 
 and wine and meat. Let us put out the 
 devil's eye. And moreover, I'll let thee 
 know, that thou may rejoice, that I have 
 rented another house, and we have not to be 
 in this disastrous one longer than until the 
 month is ended; may it be damned, and he 
 who put the first tile on it, for in an evil day I 
 entered it. By our Lord, so long as I have 
 lived here, drop of wine or mouthful of bread 
 have I not eaten, nor have I had any rest, 
 such a look it has and such darkness and sad- 
 
82 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 ness. Go, and come quickly, and today let 
 us dine like counts." I took the bit and the 
 pitcher, and giving wings to my feet, I began 
 to mount the street directing my steps toward 
 the square, very contented and joyful. But 
 what does it profit me, if it is written in my 
 sad fate that no pleasure come to me without 
 anguish? And so it was now, because while 
 going up the street, casting up how I should 
 lay out my bit that it might be best and most 
 profitably spent, giving infinite thanks to God 
 who had made my master have some money, 
 in an evil hour there came toward me a dead 
 man, whom many priests and people were 
 carrying down the street on a bier. I flat- 
 tened myself against the wall to give them 
 room, and after the body had passed, there 
 came, just behind the litter, one that must 
 have been the wife of the defunct, loaded 
 with mourning, and with her many other 
 women; she walked along weeping in a loud 
 voice and saying: " My husband and lord, 
 whither are they taking you from me ? To 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 83 
 
 the sad and unhappy house, to the dismal and 
 dark house, to the house where they never eat 
 or drink! " When I heard this, the heaven 
 joined with the earth, and I said: " O un- 
 happy me! They are taking this dead man 
 to my house." I changed my course and 
 pushed through the middle of the folk, and 
 returned down the street as fast as I could 
 run toward home; and entering, I closed in 
 great haste, invoking the aid and support of 
 my master, clinging to him, that he would 
 come to assist me and to defend the entrance. 
 He, somewhat disturbed, thinking it to be 
 something else, said: "What is this, boy? 
 What art thou crying about? What's the 
 matter witl^ thee ? Why art closing the door 
 with such fury?" " O sir," said I, "help 
 me, for they are bringing us a dead man 
 hither." " How so? " he -replied. " I met 
 him up there, a,nd his wife walked along, say- 
 ing, ' My husband and lord, whither are they 
 taking you? To the dismal and dark house, 
 to the sad and unhappy house, to the house 
 
84 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 where they never eat or drink I ' Hither to 
 us, sir, they are bringing him." And cer- 
 tainly when my master heard this, although he 
 had no reason to be very cheerful, he laughed 
 so much that he was a very great while with- 
 out being able to speak. During this time I 
 still had the bar dropped across the door, and 
 my shoulder placed against it for more se- 
 curity. The people passed with their dead, 
 and I still feared that they were going to put 
 him into our house; and after my good mas- 
 ter was fuller with laughing than with eating, 
 he said to me : " True it is, Lazaro, judging 
 from what the widow is saying, thou wast 
 right in thinking what thou didst think; but 
 since God has made it better and they are 
 passing on, open, open, and go for something 
 to eat." " Let them, sir, finish passing 
 through the street," said I. At last my mas- 
 ter came to the door, and opened it, reassur- 
 ing me, which was right necessary because of 
 my fear and disturbance, and I went again on 
 my way. But although we dined well that 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 85 
 
 day, devil a bit of pleasure I took, in it, nor in 
 the next three days did my colour return; and 
 my master very laughing every time he re- 
 membered that supposition of mine. 
 
 In this manner I continued with my third 
 master, this esquire, for some days, always, 
 wishing to know the purpose of his coming, 
 and remaining in that region; for from the 
 first day I was in service with him, I knew him 
 to be a stranger, from the slight acquaintance 
 and intercourse he had with the natives there. 
 At last my wish was fulfilled and I knew 
 what I desired; for one day when we had 
 dined reasonably well and he was rather con- 
 tented, he gave me an account of his affairs, 
 and told me he was from Old Castile, and that 
 he had left his country for nothing more than 
 to avoid taking off his hat to a knight, his 
 neighbour. " Sir," said I, " if he was what, 
 you say and richer than you, you did not err 
 in taking it off to him. first, since you say that 
 he used also to take his off to you." " He 
 is what I say, and was richer, and he also 
 
86 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 did use to take his off to me; but, as often 
 as I took mine off first, it would not have 
 been ill of him to be civil sometimes and an- 
 ticipate me." " It appears to me, sir," I 
 said, " that I should not have considered 
 that, particularly with my betters and people 
 who have more." " Thou art a lad," he re- 
 plied, " and dost not understand questions of 
 honour, wherein consists today the whole cap- 
 ital of gentlemen ; but I'll let thee know that 
 I, as thou seest, am esquire; but I swear to 
 God, if I run across the count in the street 
 and he does not take off his hat to me, quite 
 entirely off, the next time he comes, it may 
 suit me better to enter a house, pretending 
 some business there, or to turn down another 
 street, if there be one,, before he gets near 
 me, in order not to take mine off to him. 
 For a gentleman owes nothing to any- 
 body but God and the king, nor is it 
 fit, being a man of worth, to omit a sin- 
 gle point in having a high opinion of 
 one's own self. I remember that one day 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 87 
 
 I insulted an artisan in my country and 
 wanted to lay hands on him, because when- 
 ever I met him, he would say : ' God keep 
 Your Worship.' ' You, sir worthless vil- 
 lain,' I told him, 'why aren't you polite?' 
 " God keep you," must you needs say to me, 
 as if I were merely anybody? ' From then 
 on, here and yon, he used to take his hat off 
 to me, and speak as he should." " And isn't 
 it a good way for one man to salute another," 
 said I, " to say to him, may God keep him? " 
 " Look, confound thee," said he, " to men of 
 little breeding they say that, but to the higher, 
 like me, they must say not less than : * I kiss 
 Your Worship's hands,' or at least: ' I kiss 
 your hands, sir,' if he who speaks to me is a 
 knight. And so, that fellow in my country, 
 who was stuffing me with keeping, — I didn't 
 care to stand it any more, nor would I stand 
 it, nor wiU stand it from any man in the 
 world, below the king, that he say to me : 
 ' God keep you.' " " As I'm a sinner," said 
 I, " that's why he takes so little care to keep 
 
88 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 thee, since thou dost not suffer anybody to ask 
 him." " Especially," he said, " since I am 
 not so poor but that I have in my own coun- 
 try a place for building houses, and if these 
 houses were up and fine ones, sixteen leagues 
 away from where I was born, on that slope of 
 Valladolid, they would be worth over two 
 hundred thousand maravedis, so big and good 
 they might be made ; and I have a dove-cote, 
 which were it not fallen down as it is, would 
 give every year over two hundred young 
 doves ; and other things that I don't mention, 
 which I left because of my honour's sake. 
 And I came to this city, thinking that I should 
 find a good situation, but it has not turned out 
 for me as I thought. Canons and lords of 
 the church I find a-plenty, but it is a folk so 
 frugal, that the whole world will not draw 
 them out of their gait. Knights of middling 
 rank also seek me; but to serve these is a 
 great labour, because you have to be changed 
 from a man to a manille; or if not, ' God go 
 with thee,' they will tell you ; and most often 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 89 
 
 the wages are at long intervals, and the most 
 likely is, food for service ; and when they wish 
 to still their consciences and recompense your 
 sweats, you are paid off in the wardrobe with 
 a sweated doublet or worn-out cape or coat. 
 Now when a man takes service with a gentle- 
 man of title, then his indigence passes. For 
 is it not peradventure in my ability to serve 
 and satisfy these? By the Lord, if I fell in 
 with one, I think I should be his prime 
 favorite, and that I should do him a thou- 
 sand services, because I should know how to 
 lie to him as well as another, and how to be 
 most marvellously agreeable to him: to 
 laugh hard at his pleasantries and ways, al- 
 though they were not the best in the world; 
 never to tell him anything that might weigh 
 upon him, although it might be very impor- 
 tant to him; to be very diligent about his per- 
 son, in word and deed; not to kill myself over 
 doing things well which he would not see; 
 and to set myself to quarrelling with the 
 serving-people, when he would hear it, so that 
 
90 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 I should appear to be very careful of what 
 concerned him; if he should quarrel with any 
 of his servants, to tell some trifles to fire his 
 wrath, and which should appear to be in 
 favour of the culprit; to tell him good about 
 what seeimed good to him, and about the con- 
 trary, to be malicious, a mocker; to slander 
 those of the house and those outside; to 
 search out and try to know the lives of others 
 to relate to him; and many other amusing 
 things of this sort, which are customary 
 nowadays in palaces, and seem good to the 
 lords there. And they don't wish to have 
 virtuous men in their houses : but abhor them 
 and hold them of little account, and call them 
 asrfes, and that they are not men of affairs or 
 with whom the lord can be at ease; and the 
 clever nowadays behave with such lords in 
 the way, as I say, that I should behave. But 
 my fate does not will me to find one." In 
 this manner my master deplored his adverse 
 fortune, giving me an account of his worthy 
 self. 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 9 1 
 
 Well, while we were thus occupied, a man 
 and an old woman came in at the door. The 
 man asked him for the rent of the house, 
 and the old woman for that of the bed : they 
 cast the account, and for two months they 
 made it what he wouldn't make in a year; I 
 think it was twelve or thirteen bits. And he 
 gave them a very good reply: that he would 
 go out to the square to change a doubloon, 
 and they should return later in the evening; 
 but his going:Out was without return. By 
 this token, that later in the evening they re- 
 turned, but it was too late ; I told them that 
 he was not yet come. The night being come 
 and he not, I was afraid to stay in the house 
 alone, and betook myself to the neighbour- 
 women and told them the situation, and slept 
 there. The morning being come, the credi- 
 tors return and ask for the neighbour, but 
 " Try next door ! " The women reply : 
 " Here you have his boy and the door-key." 
 They asked me about him, and I told them 
 that I didn't know where he was, and that he 
 
92 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 had not returned home again after he went 
 out to change the piece of money, and that I 
 thought he had gone away with the change 
 from me as well as from them. When they 
 hear this, they go for a constable and a 
 notary; and behold! they soon return with 
 them, and take the key, and call me, and call 
 witnesses, and open the door, and go in to at- 
 tach my master's effects until they should be 
 paid their debt. They went over the whole 
 house and found it unfurnished, as I have re- 
 lated, and said to me : " How about thy 
 master's effects, his chests and wall-hangings, 
 and furnishings?" "I don't know," I an- 
 swered. " No doubt," they say, " they must 
 have removed it all last night and taken it 
 somewhere. Mr. Constable, arrest this lad, 
 for he knows where it is." On this came the 
 constable and laid his hand on the collar of 
 my doublet, saying: "Boy, thou art ar- 
 rested, unless thou disclose the goods of this 
 master of thine." I, never having seen my- 
 self in another such situation, — because I 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 93 
 
 had been seized by the collar, yes, many 
 times; but it was gently, by the blind man, so 
 that I might show the road to him who saw 
 not, — I was greatly scared, and weeping, 
 promised to tell what they asked me. " That 
 is good," they say; "then tell what thou 
 knowest and be not afraid." The notary 
 sat down on a stone bench to write the in- 
 ventory, asking me what there was. " Sirs," 
 said I, " what this master of mine has, ac- 
 cording to what he told me, is a very good 
 place for building houses and a fallen-down 
 dove-cote." " That is good," they say; " lit- 
 tle as that may be worth, there is enough to 
 settle us this debt. And in what part of town 
 has he that?" they asked me. "In his 
 own country," I replied. " By'r Lady, but 
 this is a good business," said they. " And 
 where is his country? " " In Old Castile he 
 told me it was," I told them. The constable 
 and the notary laughed a great deal, saying: 
 " This is information enough to cover your 
 debt, even were it better." The neighbour- 
 
94 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 women, who were present, said : " Sirs, 
 this is an innocent child, and it is only a few 
 days he has been with this esquire, and he 
 knows no more of him than Your Worships. 
 Besides, the poor little sinner comes here to 
 our house, and we give him what we can to 
 eat for the love of God, and at nights he went 
 back to sleep with him." My innocence be- 
 ing seen, they let me go, liberating me. And 
 the constable and the notary asked their fees 
 of the man and of the woman; upon which 
 they had a grand dispute and uproar, because 
 they maintained they were not obliged to pay, 
 since there was not wherewithal and the at- 
 tachment was not made : the others said they 
 had given up going to other business which 
 was more important to them, to come to this. 
 Finally, after much talking, at the end they 
 loaded a bailiff with the old woman's old bed- 
 ding, but he wasn't very heavy laden. All 
 five went away disputing. I don't know how 
 it came out: I believe the poor wretched 
 bedding paid for everything; and it served it 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 95 
 
 right, for at the time when it ought to have 
 reposed and rested from its former labours, 
 it was going about for rent. Thus, as I have 
 related, my poor third master left me; 
 wherein I fully realized my wretched luck, 
 for behaving as outrageously as possible to- 
 ward me, it did my business so contrariwise, 
 that whereas masters are wont to be left by 
 .their boys, in my case it was not so, but my 
 master left me and ran away from me. 
 
TREATISE FOURTH 
 
 Hoiv Lazaro Took Service with a Friar 
 of La Merced, and of What Hap- 
 pened to Him While with Him 
 
 I HAD to seek the fourth, and this one 
 was a friar of La Merced, whom the 
 wenches I mentioned put me into the way of, 
 and whom they called kinsman : a great enemy 
 of the choir and of eating at the convent, daft 
 on gadding about, most friendly to secular 
 business and visiting ; so much so, that I think 
 he wore out the most shoes of all the con- 
 vent. He gave me the first shoes that ever 
 I wore out in my life, and they didn't last 
 me a week; nor with his trotting could I last 
 longer. And because of this, and other 
 trifles I don't mention, I made my exit. 
 
 96 
 
TREATISE FIFTH 
 
 How Lazaro Took Service with a Pardoner, 
 
 and of the Things He Went 
 
 Through with Him 
 
 THROUGH my luck I hit on the fifth, 
 who was a pardoner, the most impu- 
 dent and shameless, but the best seller of in- 
 dulgences that ever I saw or expect to see, or 
 think any one ever saw; because he had and 
 sought out modes and methods and very cun- 
 ning contrivances. On entering the villages • 
 where the bull was to be offered, first he 
 would present the priests and curates with 
 some trifles, of neither much value nor im- 
 portance: a Murcian lettuce, a couple of 
 limes or oranges if it was the season, a cling- 
 stone peach, a couple of free-stone peaches, a 
 greenish pear to each one : thus he would try 
 97 
 
98 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 to get them inclined to favour his business and 
 to call on their parishioners to buy the in- 
 dulgence. When they were offering him 
 their thanks, he would inform himself of 
 their calibre : if they said they understood it, 
 he wouldn't speak a word of Latin so as not 
 to make a slip, but utilized a genteel and 
 clear-cut vernacular and a very smooth 
 tongue ; and if he knew that the said clergy 
 were of the reverends, — I mean those that 
 are ordained more with money than with let- 
 ters and orders, — he would make himself a 
 Saint Thomas among them, and speak two 
 hours in Latin, or at least it appeared such, 
 although it was not. When they were not 
 buying the bulls of him willingly, he under- 
 took that they should take them unwillingly ; 
 and to that end he would play havoc on the 
 town ; and at times tried cunning tricks. Ai;id 
 because it would be too long to relate all those 
 I saw him do, I will tell only one subtle and 
 amusing one, by which I shall well prove his 
 talent. 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 99 
 
 In a place in the Sagra of Toledo he had 
 preached two or three days, making his ac- 
 customed side-efforts, and they had not 
 bought the indulgence from him, nor to my 
 mind had they any intention of buying it. 
 He was devilish at that; and on considering 
 what to do, decided to invite the whole town, 
 the next day in the morning, to dispose of the 
 bull. And that night after supper, he and 
 the constable sat down to play for the colla- 
 tion. And over their play they fell to quar- 
 relling and to having bad words: he called 
 the constable a thief, and the other called 
 him a forger. Upon this, Mr. Commis- 
 sioner, my gentleman, took a lance, which 
 was in the arcade where they were playing; 
 the constable put his hand on his sword, which 
 he had at his side. At the noise and outcry 
 we all made, the guests and neighbours came 
 to their assistance, and got between them ; and 
 they, very angry, tried to get free from those 
 that were between them, so as to kill each 
 other; but as people swarmed to the great 
 
lOO LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 noise till the house was full of them, seeing 
 that they could not harm each other with 
 arms, they said abusive words, among which 
 the constable told my master that he was a 
 forger and that the bulls he preached were 
 forged. Finally, the townspeople, seeing 
 they were not able to pacify them, agreed to 
 carry the constable away from the inn to 
 somewhere else ; and so my master remained 
 there, very angry; and after the guests and 
 neighbours had entreated him to get rid of 
 his anger and go to sleep, he went, and so we 
 all went to bed. 
 
 The morning being come, my master be- 
 took himself to the church, and bade them 
 ring to mass and to a sermon for disposing 
 of the indulgence. And the people assem- 
 bled, murmuring about the bulls, saying how 
 they were forged, and that the constable him- 
 self had revealed it in quarrelling: so that if 
 they had small desire to buy it before, now 
 they altogether abhorred it. Mr. Commis- 
 sioner mounted into the pulpit, and began 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES lOI 
 
 his sermon, urging the people not to remain 
 without so much benefit and indulgence as the 
 holy bull carried with it. When he was in 
 the best of the sermon, the constable en- 
 tered through the church-door; and after he 
 had said a prayer, he arose, and in a loud and 
 deliberate voice, judiciously began to say: 
 " Good men, hear me a word, and after- 
 wards ye shall hear whomsoever ye may wish. 
 I came here with this swindler who is preach- 
 ing to you, and he corrupted me, and told me 
 I should abet him in this business and we 
 would divide the profits; and now, seeing the 
 harm it would do my conscience and your 
 pockets, repenting of what I have done, I de- 
 clare to you plainly that the bulls he preached 
 are forged, and that ye should not believe 
 him or buy them, and that I neither directly 
 nor indirectly am party to them, and that 
 from now on I give up my staff and throw it 
 on the ground; and if at any time this man 
 should be punished for his forgery, that ye 
 be witnesses for me how I am not with him 
 
102 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 and do not give him aid in it, but instead 
 undeceive you and declare his iniquity." 
 And he ended his discourse. Some gentle- 
 men who were there wanted to get up and 
 throw the constable out of the church, to 
 avoid scandal; but my master was ahead of 
 them and ordered them all not to disturb him 
 under pain of excommunication, but to let 
 him say all he wished; and so he too kept 
 silence while the constable said all I have said. 
 When he hushed, my master requested him, 
 if he wished to say any more, to say it. The 
 constable said: "There is plenty more to 
 say about you and your forgery, but for now 
 enough," Mr. Commissioner went on his 
 knees in the pulpit, and with his hands 
 clasped, looking up to heaven, spoke thus: 
 " Lord God, to whom no thing is hid, but all 
 things manifest, and to whom naught is im- 
 possible, but everything possible, thou know- 
 est the truth and how unjustly I am defamed. 
 As for what concerns me, I for^ve him, in 
 order that thou, Lord, may forgive me ; look 
 
V X X V 
 
 LAZARILLO DE TORMES IO3 
 
 not upon that man who knoweth not what he 
 says or does: but as to the offence done to 
 thee, I beseech thee, Lord, do not dissemble, 
 because some one here, who perhaps thought 
 to buy this holy bull, may give credit to the 
 false words of that man and refrain from do- 
 i^ig so. And since the injury to his neighbour 
 is so great, I beseech thee, Lord, do not dis- 
 semble it, but forthwith show a miracle here, 
 and let it be in this manner: that if what that 
 man saith be true, and I am wicked and a 
 forger, this pulpit may sink with me and go 
 seven fathoms under the earth, whence may 
 neither it nor I ever appear; and if what I 
 say is true, and that man, persuaded of the 
 devil, speaketh evil in order to quit and de- 
 prive those present of so great benefit, be he 
 then chastised, and his malice known of 
 all." 
 
 Scarcely had my devout master ended his 
 prayer, when the wretched constable fell from 
 his footing, and hit so hard on the floor that 
 it made the whole church resound, and began 
 
I04 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 to roar and to blow foam out of his mouth, 
 and distort it, and make grimaces with his 
 face, striking with foot and hand, rolling 
 about on the floor from one place to an- 
 other. The clamour and outcry of the peo- 
 ple was so great, that they couldn't hear one 
 another. Some were amazed and scared ; cer- 
 tain said: "The Lord help and protect 
 him," others: "It serves him right, when 
 he was bearing such false witness." Finally, 
 some of them, and it seemed to me not with- 
 out more or less fear, approached, and seized 
 him by the arms, with which he was punching 
 those that were near him ; others took him by 
 the legs and held on vigorously, for there 
 was never a tricky mule in the world that 
 gave such vigorous kicks; and so they held 
 him a long while, because more than fifteen 
 men were on top of him and he gave them all 
 their hands full, and if they were careless, 
 in their snouts. 
 
 During all this, my lord and master was in 
 the pulpit on his knees, his hands and eyes 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 105 
 
 turned toward heaven, transported in the 
 divine essence, for the uproar and noise and 
 outcry in the church were not capable of part- 
 ing him from his divine contemplation. 
 Those good men approached, and by shout- 
 ing aroused him, and besought him to be 
 pleased to succour that poor creature who 
 was dying, and not to consider things past or 
 his evil sayings, since he had already had his 
 payment for those; but if in any way he could 
 manage to liberate him from the peril and 
 pain he was suffering, for the love of God he 
 would do it, since they clearly saw the cul- 
 prit's culpability, and his own truth and good- 
 ness, since at his petition and for his satisfac- 
 tion the Lord did not defer the chastisement. 
 Mr. Commissioner, like one who awakens 
 from a sweet dream, looked at them, and 
 looked at the delinquent, and at all those that 
 were around him, and very deliberately said 
 to them : " Good men, ye never had to pray 
 for a man through whom God had so mani- 
 festly made himself manifest: but since he 
 
I06 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 commands us not to return evil for evil, and 
 to forgive injuries, we may with confidence 
 beseech him to carry out what he commands 
 us, and ask His Majesty to forgive this man, 
 who offended him by putting obstacles to his 
 holy faith. Let us all supplicate him." 
 And so he descended from the pulpit, and 
 recommended them to beseech our Lord very 
 devoutly that he might find it well to forgive 
 that sinner and restore him to his health and 
 sound sense, and cast out the devil, if His 
 Majesty had permitted it to enter into him 
 for his great sin. All went down on their 
 knees before the altar, and began in a low 
 voice to chant a litany with the priests; and 
 coming with the cross and holy water, after 
 having sung over him, my lord and master, 
 with his hands turned to heaven and his eyes 
 so that almost nothing showed but a little 
 white, began a prayer no less long than de- 
 vout, by which he made all the people weep, 
 — as they are wont to do at the Passion 
 sermons, with a devout preacher and congre- 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES IO7 
 
 gation, — beseeching our Lord, since he did 
 not desire the death of the sinner, but rather 
 his life and repentance, to be pleased to for- 
 give this man misled by the devil and lured 
 by death and sin, and to give him life and 
 health, in order that he might repent and con- 
 fess his sins. And this done, he bade fetch 
 the bull, and placed it on his head: and at 
 once the wretch of a constable began little by 
 little to be better and to return to himself; 
 and when he was well restored to his senses, 
 he threw himself at the feet of Mr. Commis- 
 sioner, and asked forgiveness of him; con- 
 fessed that he had said all that by the mouth 
 and command of the devil, for one thing to 
 do him harm and revenge himself for his 
 anger, for another and more particularly, be- 
 cause the devil was in great pain over the 
 good that would be done there in buying the 
 indulgence. My lord and master forgave 
 him, and friendship was made between them ; 
 and there was such haste to buy the bull, 
 that scarcely a living soul in the village re- 
 
I08 LAZARILLO. DE TORMES 
 
 mained without one, husband^and wife, and 
 sons and daughters, men-servants and maid- 
 servants. 
 
 The news of the occurrence spread through 
 the neighbouring villages, and when we 
 reached them, a sermon was not necessary, 
 or even to go to church, for they came to 
 the inn to buy it as if it were pears that 
 were given away gratis. So that in ten or 
 twelve villages of those round about, to 
 which we went, my lord and master got rid 
 of as many thousand bulls without preaching 
 a sermon. When the healing took place, 
 I confess my sin that I too was astounded, 
 and believed it was true, like many others; 
 but afterwards on seeing the laughter and 
 jokes that my master and the constable en- 
 joyed over the business, I knew how it had 
 been engineered by that ingenious and in- 
 ventive master of mine. [In another vil- 
 lage, which I prefer for its honour not to 
 name, there happened to us the follow- 
 ing, and this was that my master preached 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES IO9 
 
 [two or three sermons, and not a blessed 
 bull did they take; my astute master see- 
 ing how it went and that although he said 
 he would give credit for a year, it was no 
 use, and that they were so stiff-necked about 
 buying it, and that his labour was lost, he had 
 the bells rung for his leave-taking, and hav- 
 ing preached a sermon and taken leave from 
 the pulpit, when he was ready to come down, 
 he called the scrivener and me who was 
 loaded with saddle-bags, and had us come to 
 the first step, and took what the constable 
 carried in his hands, and those that wouldn't 
 go into the saddle-bags he put near his feet, 
 and went back into the pulpit with a happy 
 face, and began to toss out the indulgences by 
 tens and by twenties, in every direction, say- 
 ing: "Take them, my brothers, take the 
 blessings that God sends you into your 
 houses, and grieve not, for it is a very pious 
 work, the redemption of the captive Chris- 
 tians who are in Moorish lands, that they 
 may not deny our holy faith, and go to the 
 
no LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 [torments of hell. At least aid them with 
 your alms and with five Pater Nosters and 
 five Ave Marias, that they may escape from 
 captivity. And moreover, they are valid for 
 your parents and brothers and sisters and 
 spouses whom ye have in purgatory, as ye 
 will see in this holy bull." When the people 
 saw them being tossed like something given 
 gratis and coming from the hand of God, they 
 took them, and took more for the babies- in 
 the cradle, and for all their dead, counting 
 from the children to the very least servant 
 of theirs, counting them on their fingers. 
 We were in such a press that, for my part, 
 they tore almost to pieces a poor old coat I 
 was wearing, so that I assume Your Worship 
 that in a little over an hour not a bull re- 
 mained in the saddle-bags, and it was neces- 
 sary to send to the lodging-house for more. 
 When all were taken, my master said from 
 the pulpit to the scrivener and to the mem- 
 bers of the council that they should rise, and 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES III 
 
 [in order that he might know who those were 
 that should profit by the holy indulgence, 
 and in order that he might give a good ac- 
 count to him who had sent him, that they 
 should be written down. And so at once 
 everybody with very good will told how many 
 he had taken, counting in order the children 
 and servants and the dead. His inventory 
 made, he begged the alcaldes that for charity' 
 sake, because he had things to do elsewhere, 
 they would send the scrivener to give him a 
 report of the inventory and a memorandum 
 of those that remained there, which, accord- 
 ing to what the scrivener said, were, more 
 than two thousand. This being done, he 
 took his leave with much peace and love, and 
 so we departed from this village, and before 
 we departed he was asked by the vicar of the 
 village and by the aldermen, if the indulgence 
 served for Infants that were in their mothers' 
 wombs. To which he replied that accord- 
 ing to the studies he had made, no, that they 
 
112 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 [should go ask older doctors than he, and 
 that this was what he regretted about this 
 business. 
 
 And so we departed, all being very gay 
 over the good business, my master saying to 
 the constable and the scrivener: "What dp 
 you think of these rustics who by merely say; 
 ing : * We are old Christians,' think to be 
 saved without doing works of charity, without 
 giving any of their property ? For by the life 
 of the Licenciate Paschasio Gomez, at their 
 cost more than two captives shall be ran- 
 somed." And so we went to another vil- 
 lage on that side of Toledo toward La Man- 
 cha, as they say, where we encountered still 
 others who were obstinate^ about buying in- 
 dulgences. My master and the others that 
 went with us having done all we could, in two 
 feast-days that we were there they hadn't 
 sold thirty bulls. My master seeing the 
 great loss and the large expense he under- 
 went, the stratagem that my wily master 
 found for getting rid of his indulgences was 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES II3 
 
 [this> that he said the high mass that day, and 
 after the sermon was ended, returning to the 
 altar, he took a cross he carried, a little more 
 than a palm long, and put it into a burning 
 brazier which was on the altar (which they 
 had brought for warming his hands, because 
 it was very cold) behind the missal, without 
 anybody's seeing it, and there, saying noth- 
 ing, he put the cross on the fire. And when 
 he had ended the mass, and given the benedic- 
 tion, he took the cross in his right hand well 
 wrapped up in a cloth, and in the other the 
 bull, and so he went down to the last step 
 of the altar, where he made as if he kissed 
 the cross, and made a sign that they should 
 come and adore the cross. And so the al- 
 caldes came first, and the most reverend peo- 
 ple of the village were coming one by one, 
 as the custom is. And the first to come, who 
 was an old alcalde, although he gave him the 
 cross to kiss very gently, burned his face, and 
 drew away hastily. My master seeing 
 which, said: "Softly, gently, Mr. Alcalde, a 
 
114 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 [miracle." And seven or eight others did 
 the same and to all of them he said: *' Softly, 
 gentlemen, a miracle." When he saw that 
 there were enough burnt-faces to be wit- 
 nesses to the miracle, he stopped offering it 
 to be kissed, went up to the foot of the altar, 
 and there said marvellous things, saying that 
 because of the little charity there was in them, 
 God had permitted that miracle, and that 
 that cross must be carried to the holy main 
 church of the bishopric, for because of the 
 little charity there was in the people the cross 
 had burned. Such was the haste they made 
 to get the bull that two scriveners and the 
 priests and the sacristans were not enough to 
 write it. I really believe that they took more 
 than three thousand indulgences, as I have 
 told Your Worship. Afterwards, on leav- 
 ing, he went with great reverence, as is fitting, 
 to get the holy cross, saying that It must be 
 set in gold, as it properly ou|ht. He was 
 much begged by the council and the clergy 
 of the village to leave that holy cross there. 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES II5 
 
 [in memory of the miracle that had occurred. 
 He didn't at all wish to do so, and at last since 
 so many begged him, he left it, on condition 
 that they give him another old cross of an- 
 tique silver that they had, which might weigh 
 two or three pounds, as they said. And so 
 we departed, contented with our good trade, 
 and with having had good business in gen- 
 eral. Nobody saw the abovesaid but me, be- 
 cause I went up on the altar to see if any- 
 thing was left in the cruets, so as to put it 
 away, as I was accustomed to do at such 
 times ; and when he saw me there, he put his 
 finger to his mouth, making me a sign that 
 I should keep quiet. So I did, because it 
 behooved me, although after I had seen the 
 miracle I could hardly refrain from letting 
 it out, except that fear of my clever master 
 did not permit me to communicate it to any- 
 body. And it never came out through me, 
 because he took my oath not to disclose the 
 miracle, and I never did until now.] And 
 though but a lad, I was much amused and 
 
Il6 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 said to myself: " How many of these games 
 these cheats must play among the Innocent 
 folk! " To conclude, I was with this my 
 fifth master about four months, during which 
 I also underwent sufferings, [.although he 
 gave me plenty to eat at the cost of the cu- 
 rates and other priests where he went to 
 preach] . 
 
TREATISE SIXTH 
 
 How Lazaro Took Service with a Chaplain, 
 and What He Went Through with Him. 
 
 AFTER this I took service with a master 
 of tambourine-painting, to grind the 
 colours for him, and again I suffered a thou- 
 sand ills. 
 
 Being now by this time a good big youth, 
 entering the principal church one day, a chap- 
 lain there received me for his; and put me 
 in charge of a good ass and four jars and 
 a whip, and I began to sell water about the 
 city. This was the first rung I mounted 
 toward reaching a comfortable life, because 
 I had my belly full : every day I gave my mas- 
 ter thirty maravedis earned, and Saturdays 
 I earned for myself, besides all the. excess, 
 during the weeL over thirty maranedis. 
 117 
 
1 1 8 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 The vocation did so well for me, that at the 
 end of four years that I followed it, by tak- 
 ing good care with my earnings, I saved 
 enough to dress myself very decently in the 
 Ropa Vieja, where I bought an old fustian 
 jerkin, and a worn coat with garnished sleeves 
 and open in the neck, and a cape that had 
 boasted a nap, and a sword of the old first 
 ones of Cuellar. After I saw me in the 
 habit of a gentleman, I told my master he 
 could take his ass, since I no longer cared to 
 follow that vocation. 
 
TREATISE SEVENTH 
 
 How Lazaro Took Service mth a Con- 
 stable, and of What Happened to 
 Him while with Him 
 
 HAVING said good-bye to the chaplain, 
 I took service as a bailiff with a con- 
 stable; but lived a very little while with him, 
 for that vocation seemed to me dangerous; 
 the more so, because one night some men in 
 ambush ran upon us, me and my master, with 
 stoning and clubs ; and my master, who made 
 a stand, they maltreated, but didn't get me: 
 on this I renounced the trade. 
 
 And thinking what mode of life should be 
 my employihent so as to have ease and to 
 earn something against old age, God was 
 pleased to enlighten me and to place me in 
 a profitable way and road; and with the 
 IIP 
 
I20 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 favour I had from friends and gentlemen, all 
 my labours and hardships till then undergone 
 were repaid by my obtaining what I procured, 
 which was a royal office — seeing that there 
 is nobody thrives but those that have one — 
 in which this very day I live and reside at 
 the service of God and of Your Worship; 
 and it is this, — I have the job of crying 
 the wines that are sold in this city, and auc- 
 tions, and lost articles, of accompanying 
 those that suffer persecution for justice' sake 
 and declaring aloud their crimes: crier, 
 speaking in the vernacular. [In which vo- 
 cation, one day that we hanged a sneak-thief 
 in Toledo, and I was carrying a good broom- 
 rope, I understood and took in the saying 
 which that blind man, my master, had said in 
 Escalona, and I was sorry for the bad pay- 
 ment I gave him for all he taught me, for 
 after God, he gave me the instruction to make 
 me reach the state I am now in.] It has 
 turned out so well for me, and I have filled 
 the place so easily, that nearly all things 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 121 
 
 touching the profession pass through my 
 hands ; insomuch that, in the whole city who- 
 ever has wine or something else to put on 
 sale, unless Lazaro de Tormes is engaged 
 in it, they reckon on not getting a profit. 
 
 During this time, the archpriest of San 
 Salvador, my lord, and Your Worship's 
 servant and friend, seeing my ability and my 
 good way of life, having occasion to notice 
 me because I was crying his wines, undertook 
 to marry me to a maidservant of his; and 
 since I saw that only benefit and favour 
 could come from such a person, I agreed to 
 do it. And so I married her, and up to now 
 I have not repented ; because, besides her be- 
 ing a good girl and a diligent helper, I have 
 from my lord archpriest all favour and aid, 
 and in the course of a year he always gives 
 her from time to time elosc to a load of 
 wheat, her meat on the great feast days, and 
 now and then a couple of the wheaten loaves, 
 and the old hose he is through with. And 
 he had us rent a little house near his own; 
 
122 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 Sundays and almost all holidays we ate in 
 his house ; but evil tongues, which never were 
 wanting or will be wanting, do not leave us 
 alone, saying I know not what, and yes I 
 do know, because they see my wife go to make 
 his bed and cook his victuals. And may God 
 help them better than they tell the truth 
 [, although at this time I always had some 
 tiny bit of suspicion, and had some bad times 
 waiting for her some nights until lauds and 
 even later; and that has come to my mind 
 which my blind master told me in Escalona, 
 when he was holding the horn, although 
 really I always think the devil brings it to 
 my mind to make my marriage unhappy, and 
 he doesn't succeed] : for in addition to her 
 not being a woman who is pleased with these 
 jokes, my lord has promised me what I think 
 he will fulfil, for he talked to me very fully 
 one day before her, and said : " Lazaro de 
 Tormes, he who regards the speeches of evil 
 tongues will never thrive; I say this because 
 I should not be astonished if somebody 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 23 
 
 talked, seeing thy wife enter my house and 
 leave it. She enters greatly to thine honour 
 and hers, and this I promise thee. There- 
 fore do not notice what they can say, but 
 rather what concerns thee, I mean thy prof- 
 it." " Sir," I told him, " I determined to 
 stick to the honest people : true it is that some 
 of my friends have told me something of 
 this, and even have assured me more than 
 thrice that before she was married to me she 
 had lain in thrice, saving the presence of 
 Your Worship, because she is here." Then 
 my wife swore such oaths that I thought the 
 house would sink under us; and afterwards 
 took to weeping and to hurling maledictions 
 at him who had married her to me, so that 
 I "wished I had been dead before that word 
 had issued from my mouth ; but I on one side 
 and my lord on the other, spoke to her and 
 conceded so much, that she ceased her weep- 
 ing, on an oath I made her never again in 
 my life to mention anything of that to her, 
 and that I was pleased and held it good that 
 
124 LAZARILLO DE TORMES 
 
 she should come in and go out, by night and 
 by day, since I was right sure of her virtue ; 
 and so we all three became quite reconciled. 
 Until this very day nobody ever heard us on 
 the matter; but instead, when I feel that 
 somebody means to say something about her, 
 I stop him and tell him : " Look here, if you 
 are my friend, do not tell me anything that 
 would sadden me, for I do not hold him as 
 a friend who makes me sad; all the more if 
 they intend to set me at odds with my wife, 
 who is the thing I most care for in the world, 
 and I love her more than myself; and God 
 does me in her a thousand mercies and more 
 good than I deserve; for I will swear upon 
 the consecrated host, that she is as good a 
 woman as dwells within the gates of Toledo, 
 and whoso should tell me otherwise, I will 
 fight him." Thus they tell me nothing, and 
 I have peace in my house. 
 
 This was the same year that our victorious 
 emperor entered into this famous city of 
 Toledo and held the Cortes here, and there 
 
LAZARILLO DE TORMES 1 25 
 
 were great celebrations and feasts made, as 
 Your Worship will have heard. 
 
 Well, at this time I was in my prosperity 
 and at the summit of all good fortune. [Of 
 what shall happen to me- from now on I will 
 inform Your Worship.] 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page ii.] Gran Conguista de Ultramar. Biblioteca de 
 Autores Espanoles, vol. XLIV. Studied by G. Paris 
 in Romania, XVII, 512, 541; XIX, 562; XXII, 345. 
 
 Libra del Caballero Cifar. In vol. CXII of the 
 Literarischer Verein, Stuttgart. See also C. P. Wag- 
 ner, Sources of El Cavallero Cifar, in Revue His- 
 panique, X, 1903, 5-104. 
 
 Amadis of Gaul. First known edition, 1508. May be 
 read in Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. XL, and 
 in English in Southey's translation. 
 
 Page IT.] fabliaux. Recueil geniral des fabliaux, ed. 
 Montaiglon, Paris, 1872-1883, 6 vols. J. Bedier, Les 
 fabliaux, zA ed., Paris, 1895. 
 
 Trubert. Trubert, ed. Ulrich, Dresden, 1904. (Gesell- 
 schaft fiir Rom. Lit., vol. IV.) 
 
 Pfaffe Amis. In H. X-ambel, Erzdhlungen und Schiudnke, 
 Leipzig, 1 883 J 
 
 Til Eulenspiegel. First known edition, 151 5. 
 
 Page v.] Apuleius. " We find no direct imitation of 
 Apuleius, either in Lazarillo or in its continuators." 
 Menendez Pelayo, Biblioteca Hispano-Latino-Cldsica, 
 page 146. 
 
 Page vi.] Conde Lucanor. In Biblioteca de Autores Es- 
 panoles, vol. LI. Edited by Knust, Leipzig, 1900. Eng- 
 lish translation by James York, London, i868. 
 
 Libra de Buen Amor. Annotated edition by J. Cejador, 
 Madrid, 1913. 
 
 126 
 
NOTES 127 
 
 Page vii.] Corbacho. Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, 
 Arcipreste de Talavera, Madrid, 1901. (Sociedad de 
 Bibliofilos Espanoles.) 
 
 Celestina. The work exists in two redactions, one of 
 sixteen and one of twenty-one acts. For the first, see 
 the editions by Foulche-Delbosc in the Bibliotheca His- 
 panica, vols. I and XII; for the second, the edition in 
 the Bibliotheca Romanica, nos. 142-145 (Heitz, Strass- 
 burg). James Mabbe's English translation of 1631 is 
 available in the Tudor Translations, no. 4, with an 
 admirable introduction by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly 
 (London, Nutt, 1894), and in the Library of Early Nov- 
 elists, London, Routledge, n. d., edited by H. Warner 
 Allen, with an excellent study of the picaresque novel. 
 For the Celestina question in general, see M. Menendez 
 y Pelayo, Origenes de la Novela, vol. Ill, pages i, S. 
 
 Page iz.] Segunda Celestina. First known 1 edition, 
 1534. Modern edition, Madrid, 1874 (Libros Raros 6 
 Curiosos, vol. IX). 
 
 Lozana Andaluza. Modern ed. in Coleccidn de Libros 
 Picarescos. 
 
 Page X.] Dialogue. Didlogo de Mercurio y Cardn, in 
 Boehmer's Romanische Studien, vol. VI,, 1881. 
 
 Page xi.] Nucio. C. J. N., Essai sur I'imprimerie aes 
 Nutius. Seconde ed., Bruxelles, 1858; G. Van Havre, 
 Marques Typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires 
 awversois, Anvers, 1885, vol. II, p. 49 ff. ; Biographic 
 Nationale de Belgique, XVI, p. n ff. From a check- 
 list which I have compiled, it is apparent that con- 
 siderably over half of the Spanish books published in 
 Antwerp in the sixteenth century were from the presses 
 of Nucio and his successors. While he is to be cred- 
 ited with some first editions, his more common prac- 
 tice was to reprint books that had already been issued 
 in Spain. In the privilege of a book of 1544 it is 
 
[28 NOTES 
 
 stated that Nucio had been in Spain and knew Spanish. 
 Revue Hispatiique XXXIII, p. 319. 
 
 French scholar. R. Foulche-Delbosc, Remarques sur 
 Lazarille de Tormes, in Revue Hispanique, VII, 1900, 
 81 ff. I am very much indebted to this article, which 
 see for description of the three early editions, pp. 
 81-82. 
 
 'age xiv.] careless reader. "La continuation que I'au- 
 teur promet, en finissant, d I'histoire de son Lazarille 
 n'a jamais ete faite." Viardot, in Lesage, Gil Bias, 
 Paris, 1846, p. XLX; Hannay, Later Renaissance, p. 
 14.1 ; " Les dernieres lignes semblent annoncer une suite 
 qui ne parut point." E. Merimee, Pricis d'Histoire de 
 la Literature Espagnole, Paris, 1908, p. 193. These 
 authors seem not to have noticed the earlier passage in 
 the last chapter (on page 120 of this translation), "a 
 royal office — in which this very day I live and reside." 
 
 age xy.] SigUenxa. Tercera Parte de la Historia de 
 la Orden de San Geronimo, Madrid, 1605, p. 183. Mod- 
 ern edition edited by Catalina Garcia, z vols., Madrid, 
 1907, 1909. See vol. 11, p.- 145. 
 
 tendoza. Catalogus clarorum Hispaniae scriptorum 
 . . . opera ac studio Valerii Andreae. Mayence, 1607, 
 p. 44. 
 
 age xvi.] histories of literature. E. Faguet, Initiation 
 into Literature, p. 142. 
 
 torel-Fatio. Recherches sur Lazarille de Tormis. In 
 Studes sur I'Espagne, Premiire s&rie, 2me edition, 
 Paris, 1895, pp. 109-166. (First edition, 1888.) The 
 first serious modern study of the Lazarillo. All later 
 studies owe much to Morel-Fatio's work. " L'attri- 
 bution du Lazarillo a Mendoza ne supporte pas un long 
 examen, tant I'absurdite en est flagrante: elle a ete 
 combattue par Gregorio Mayans en 173 1, par un tra- 
 ducteur fran^ais anonyme en 1781, et un siicle plus tard 
 
NOTES 129 
 
 par M. Morel-Fatio." Foulch^-Delbosc, Les awvres 
 attributes a Mendoxa, in Rev. Hisp., XXXII, 19141 
 p. 16. 
 
 Latest editor. Julio Cejador y Frauca, who prepared the 
 edition for the Cldsicos Castellanos, Madrid, La Lec- 
 tura, 1914. For this edition see Modern Language 
 Notes, XXX, 191 5, p. S5 ff. Cejador has advanced 
 the same views in his Historia de la lengua y literatura 
 Espanola {£poca de Carlos V), Madrid, 1915, p. 2358. 
 
 Cancionero. Sevilla, 1874. Quite as reasonably it has 
 been suggested that Horozco borrowed from Lazarillo. 
 A. Morel-Fatio et L. Rouanet, Le theatre espagnol, p. 11. 
 
 Page xvi.] prominent authority. Fonger de Haan, An 
 Outline of the History of the Novela Picaresca in Spain, 
 The Hague, New York, 1903, p. 13. This book is one 
 of the two standard works on the subject. The other 
 is F. W. Chandler's Romances of Roguery, N. Y., 1899. 
 
 'Page xvii.] the style. The notes to the text will call at- 
 tention to several passages in which the author shows 
 himself a conscious stylist. 
 
 Morel-Fatio's suggestion. In Recherches, etc., p. 164. 
 
 Page xviii.] Los Gelves. See note to p. 9. 
 
 Bonilla y San Martin. Anales de la Literatura Espanola 
 (Anos Igoo-lg04), Madrid, 1904, p. 157. 
 
 Page xix.] Charles the Fifth. See Julio Milego, El 
 Teatro en Toledo, p. 13 ; Cronica de Don Francesillo 
 de Ziniga, p. 36 ff. (In Biblioteca de Aut. Esp., vol. 
 36.) There were, of course, complimentary festivities 
 in connection with the cortes of i538-'39. 
 
 Page XX.] Pama. February, 1525. "The campaign of 
 the winter of 1524-1525 is perhaps the greatest triumph 
 of Spanish arms." M. A. S. Hume, Spain, Its Great- 
 ness and Decay, Cambridge, 1898, p. 54. On the other 
 
130 NOTES 
 
 hand the signing of a ten years' truce between Charles 
 and Francis in 1538, was in no sense a victory for 
 Charles. See Hume, The Spanish People, N. Y., 1901, 
 p. 384. 
 
 Circulated in manuscript. Indeed, this survival of a me- 
 dixval custom was rather the rule than otherwise, 
 throughout Europe. Among Spanish authors whose 
 works are known to have circulated in manuscript are 
 Antonio de Guevara, Castillejo, Cristobal de Villalon, 
 Quevedo, Garcilaso, GiSngora. Of his Religio Medici, 
 Thomas Browne says: "Being communicated to one, 
 it became common unto many, and was by transcrip- 
 tion successively corrupted, until it arrived in a most 
 depraved copy at the press." See ed. London, Scott, 
 1886, p. XL 
 
 Page xxii.] Liber facetiarum. Foulche-Delbosc, Re- 
 marques, pp. 95-97. Properly punctuated and cor- 
 rected, this extract has more litprary value than the 
 editor is inclined to grant it. 
 
 Page xxiii.] CrotaUn. Accessible in Menendez y Pe- 
 layo's Origenes de la Novela, vol. II. See pages 166- 
 172, particularly p.' I7r. There are two redactions of 
 the Crotaldn, and in only one of these is Lazarillo 
 mentioned. Both de Haan (Outline, p. 85), and Bo- 
 nilla (Anales, p. 221) take the allusion to the tunny- 
 fish to be a reminiscence of the Segunda Parte of 
 Lazarillo. In that case, how can we explain the con- 
 vent episode, which is not in the Segunda Parte, and 
 in the other two texts occurs with very curious paral- 
 lelisms of language? 
 
 Page xxiv.] Lozana Andaluza. Ed. cit., p. 137. The 
 story is told by Sacchetti, Nov. XIV, and in the Cent 
 Nowvelles Nowvelles, No. 50. James Howell repeats it 
 in the Familiar Letters, ed. Jacobs, p. 571. 
 
 Timoneda. In the Menechmos. Reprinted in Moratin, 
 
NOTES 131 
 
 Origenes del Teatro espahol (Bib. de Aut. Esp., vol. II, 
 p. 302). Allusion noted by De Haan. 
 
 oler el paste. Morel-Fatio found it classified as a civili- 
 dad (stereotyped phrase) by Quinones de Benavente 
 (1645). See Coleccidn de piezas dramdticas de Luis 
 Quinones de B., Madrid, 1872, vol. I, p. 49, and E. 
 Cotarelo, Coleccidn de Entremeses, Madrid, 1911, Tomo 
 I, vol. 2, p. 503 ff. Used also by Alcala Yafiez, Alonso, 
 mozo de muchos amos, Segunda Parte, 1626, Cap. VIII. 
 Correas, Vocabularia de Refranes, p. 154, says the ex- 
 pression is taken from the cuento de LasSarillo, and is 
 used to allude to one who, foreseeing danger, is able 
 to escape from it. 
 
 marginal illustrations. First noticed by Jusserand in 
 Athenieum, Dec. 29, i8Sg, then published by him in 
 English Wayfaring Life, London, 1889. A better re- 
 production in Foulche-Delbosc's Remarques, to face p. 
 94. One of the pictures seems to portray the anecdote 
 of the boy who steals the blind man's wine through a 
 straw. 
 
 Page XXV.] French farces. See Le Garden et I'Aveugle. 
 Jeu du Xllle siicle, edite par Mario Roques, Paris, 191 1. 
 (Les classiques frangais du moyen age.); Gustave 
 Cohen, La seine de I'anieugle et de son valet dans le 
 theatre frangais du moyen age, Romania, XLI, 1912. 
 
 smell-the-post story. I hope to publish shortly a study 
 of the different versions of this story. The follow- 
 ing are the nlore important of the versions known 
 to me. (i) Tales and Quiche Answer es, London, 
 1567, reprinted in Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-Boohs, 
 First Series, London, 1864, p. 142. The tale in ques- 
 tion is not in the first edition, ca. 1535, and was 
 probably collected between the years 1547 and 1553, 
 according to Stiefel, in Anglia, XXXI, 516. (a) 
 Burchard Waldis, Esopus, Frankfort, 154S. See the 
 
132 NOTES 
 
 edition by H. Kurz, Leipzig, 1862, vol. II, p. 238. (3) 
 Jacobi Brassicani Cool, ' Fabularum Libellus, Goudae, 
 typis J. Sasseni Thoennii, 1586, p. ii2. (4) Sebastian 
 de Horozco, RepresentaciSn de la historia evangilica 
 del capitulo nono de Sanct Joan. In the Can'cionero, 
 pp. 157-166. This farce is believed to have been 
 acted in 1548, and possibly composed much earlier. See 
 Lazarillo, ed. Cejador, p. 58. (s) Much Ado about 
 Nothing, Act II, sc. I. Benedict. " Ho ! now you 
 strike like the blind man; 'twas the boy that stole 
 your meat, and you'll beat the post." The parallel to 
 the Lazarillo was pointed out in the 18th century by 
 Eschenburg, but modern editions of the play seldom 
 mention it. (6) Fernan Caballero, Cuentos y poesias 
 populares an4aluces, Sevilla, 1859, p. 176. Notice by 
 Foulche-Delbosc, Remargues, p. 92. (7) Braga, Contos 
 tradicionaes do povo portuguee, vol. I, p. 196, " O cego 
 e o mogo." 
 
 Novellino. Parallel noted by Morel-Fatio, 'Vie de Lazar- 
 ille de Tormh, Traduction nouvelle. . . . Paris, i886, 
 pp. 10 ff. 
 
 other episodes. See notes to p. 9, stone animal, p. atj, I 
 grapes, p. 83, the sad and dismal house. 
 
 Page xxvii.] Salzedo's shop. Juan de Brocar and 
 Athanasio de Salzedo were apparently, at this time, 
 the only printers in the Univefsity town. We first 
 hear of Salzedo in 1551 as a bookseller and not as a 
 printer. The Lazarillo, the first book known to be 
 printed by him, is not mentioned in the official history 
 of printing in AlcaU, Catalina Garcia's Ensayo de una 
 tipografia hispalense, Madrid, 1889. Salzedo must 
 have been a man of education, as he prepared for the 
 press the edition of Senega's tragedies printed by Brocar 
 in 1552. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the 
 undergraduates at Salamanca had as good an oppor- 
 
NOTES 133 
 
 tunity to read Lazarillo as did their confreres at Al- 
 cali, for the printer of the Burgos edition, Juan de 
 Junta, maintained a press at Salamanca as well. In- 
 deed there seems to be something significant about the 
 launching; of Lazarillo by two University printers. 
 
 setters of indulgences. See note to page 97. 
 
 Index. F. H. Reusch, Der Index der Verbotener Biicher, 
 Bonn, 1883, vol. I, p. 360 ff. and p. 593 ; H. C. Lea, 
 History of the Inquisition in Spain, N. Y., 1907, vol. 
 Ill, pp. 482-487. 
 
 fage xxviii.] additions of Alcatd. Described by Morel- 
 Fatio, op. cit. They have been included, between 
 brackets, in the present translation. 
 
 anonymous continuation. La Segvnda Parte de Lazarillo 
 de Tormes. . . . Anvers, Martin Nucio, MDLV. Re- 
 printed in No<velisias anteriores a Cervantes, in Bibl. 
 de Autores Esp., vol. III. 
 
 Page xxxi.] "riddle questions." See the interesting 
 monograph by Dr. R. Schevill, Some Forms of the Rid- 
 dle Question, in University of California Publications 
 in Modern Philology, vol. II, pp. 183-237. 
 
 1573. See the passage quoted on p. XXXI. 
 
 Page xxxiv.] Lazarillo. For the title see F. W. 
 Chandler, Romances of Roguery, N. Y., 1889, p. 401. 
 This valuable work contains an excellent bibliography 
 of the Spanish rogue novel. 
 ''Page xxxvi.] Juan de Luna. Title in Chandler, p. 402. 
 Luna was a protestant, and in 1623 became a preacher 
 in London, where he died. See Boehmer's article in 
 Zeitschrift fiir Vergleichenden Literatur, vol. XV, p. 
 423 flr. Luna's continuation is reprinted in the Novet- 
 istas anteriores d Cervantes. 
 
 Page xl.] some account. Titles for most of these are 
 given in Chandler. 
 
134 NOTES 
 
 Saugrain. Mentioned in Baudrier, Bibliographie Lyon- 
 naise, 4e sine, p. 327. I can trace no copy of this 
 edition. 
 
 L'Histoire plaisante. See Chandler, p. 403. 
 
 Page xli.] Viardot. This translation was published 
 with the Gil Bias ofl Gigoux, Paris, 1846. 
 
 German. For the German versions consult Rausse, Zur 
 Geschichte des Spanischen Schelmonromans in Deutsch- 
 land, Munster i. Westf., 1908, p. 41 ff. (In Miin- 
 sterschen Beitrdge zur Neueren Literaturgeschichte, 
 Heft VIII.) 
 
 Page xlii.] Coliuell. He printed for Rowland, "An 
 epytaphe of my lord of Pembroke." See article Row- 
 land in Diet. Nat. Biog. 
 
 Page xliii.] French translations. " I thought it no la- 
 bour evill bestowed, to occupy myselfe in the transla- 
 tion thereof. And being moved thereto the rather, per- 
 ceiving that in France many delighted therein, being 
 turned into their tongue, I fully detel-mined to bring 
 niy former pretence to end." Evidently Rowland had 
 taken up his translation again after a lapse of time. 
 
 Page xliv.] Roscoe, In his Spanish Novelists, vol. I, 
 pp. 51-126. 
 
 Page 1.] Pliny. " Dicere solebat Plinius senior nullum 
 esse librum tam malum, ut non aliqua parte prodes- 
 set." This quotation from Episi. Si ''^- 3 W3S popu- 
 lar. It is in the Prologo to the Comedia Selvagia, 
 1554, F. de Valles's Cartas familiares, 1603, Rojas, 
 Viaje Entretenido, 1604 and Don Quijote, Part II, Chap. 
 III. 
 
 Page 2.] Tally. " Honos alit artes, omnesque incen- 
 duntur ad studia gloria.'' Tusc, I, 2. (Cejador.) 
 
 desire for praise. Cervantes has some good things to say 
 about this in the Quijote, Part II, Chap. VIII. 
 
NOTES 135 
 
 Page 3.] gross style. Not significant. It is the tradi- 
 tional self-depreciation of i6th century prefaces. Cer- 
 vantes in the Prologue to Don Quijote, speaks of his 
 " sterile and ill-cultivated wit." 
 
 Your Worship. This formula, which occurs several 
 times (pp. II, X2, 19, 114, 130, 121, 125), we must 
 consider an artistic device, merely, unless we believe 
 it possible for the Lazarillo to be an autobiography. 
 
 Page 5.] denied not. John I, 20. 
 
 suffered persecution. Matthew V, 10, Douay version. 
 (How.) The phrase " for the Gospel calls them 
 blessed" is not in the Castigado. The passage is 
 quoted in the Celestina, Act VII. 
 
 Moors. The affair of Los Gelves referred to again on 
 p. 9, a disastrous expedition undertaken in 1510. 
 
 Comendador de la Magdalena. An officer of the order 
 of Alcantara, with a living in Salamanca. (Cejador.) 
 
 Page 7.] We need not wonder. This sentence is not 
 in the Castigado. 
 
 Page 8.] They flogged and larded. The practice of 
 basting runaway slaves with hot fat was well known. 
 Percivale-Minsheu, Dictionary in Spanish and English, 
 London, 1623, defines caguela para pringar as " a pip- 
 kin to keepe hot lard to drop upon Moores or Neagers, 
 and on other malefactors." Cervantes says in La 
 Gitanilla, " let them lard me like a runaway black." 
 
 La Solana. There was an inn of this name in Vallado- 
 lid, mentioned by Cervantes in the Casamiento En- 
 ganoso. It may not be a proper name here. A solana 
 was a sort of sun-parlor in the upper part of a house. 
 
 At this time. Here the Castigado, and Luna in his re- 
 vision, begin a new chapter. 
 
 Page' 9.] A stone animal. This bull, which is men- 
 tioned in the 13th century Fuero de Salamanca, was 
 
136 NOTES 
 
 still standing as late as 1S36. In 1869 the Comisi6n 
 provincial de monumentos rescued it, headless, from a 
 pile of debris near the bridge. Fuero de Salamanca, 
 ed. Sanchez Ruano, Salamanca, 1870, p. 33. A similar 
 episode is found in a German folk tale. R. Kohler, 
 Kleinere Schriften, vol. Ill, p. 610. 
 
 Page 10.] one point more than the devil. Compare this 
 passage with that on p. 56. This vsras the traditional 
 reputation of the blind man's boy, from the Xlllth 
 century down. See note to p. xxiv. 
 
 thieves' jargon. An illustration of this is given by a 
 contemporary: "talking jargon and changing the syl- 
 lables, coche comes to mean chogue." Seb. de Horozco, 
 Cancionero, p. 345. 
 
 Gold or silver. Acts III, 6. 
 
 Page 11.] prayers by heart. These prayers were a part 
 of the stock in trade of the blind beggars and those 
 who practiced magic. Luna in his Second Part, Chap. 
 II, mentions " the prayer of the Count, that of the An- 
 choress, the Just Judge, and many others that have 
 virtue against the perils of the water." Cervantes 
 knew the prayer of Santa Apollonia, D. Q., Second 
 Part, Chap. VII, which he may have got from Celes- 
 tina. Act 4. He mentions several others in Pedro de 
 Urdemalas. The prayer of the Count got into the 
 Index. See excellent notes in Cervantes's Coloquio de 
 los perros, ed. Amezua, pp. 592, 600, 631, 632. 
 
 Page 14.] make good. In the original, an untranslat- 
 able pun on the expression rehacer la chaea, which 
 means to play over a disputed point in the game of 
 pelota. 
 
 half-farthings. Small coins of white metal. 
 
 Page 15.] lift his voice. "The blind man steals the 
 half of every prayer he says; for having once received 
 the money of him who orders the prayer, when he 
 
NOTES 137 
 
 thinks the other is three or four paces away, he begins 
 in his first tone of voice to ask again that they bid 
 him pray." Garcia, Desordenada codicia d,e los bienes 
 agenos (1619), Madrid, 1877, p. 76. 
 
 little jug. See note to p. XXIV. 
 
 Page 17.] He <waihed ninth ivine. See also p. 28. A 
 current practice, mentioned in Don Quijoie, Part I, 
 Chap. XXXIV. 
 
 Page 19.] one of my oivn eyes. An allusion to the medi- 
 aeval tale of the avaricious man and the envious man, 
 which is found in Spanish literature as early as the 
 Poema de Alexandre. See Bedier, Les Fabliaux, p. 414; 
 Crane, Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, No. CXCVI. 
 
 Page 20.] Almorox. About twelve miles from Esca- 
 lona. (Markham.) 
 
 Page 22.] by threes. A version of this tale is given by 
 the Portuguese Antonio Vieira in his Arte de furtar 
 (1652), Lisbon, 1855, p. 18. Braga extracts it for his 
 Contos tradicionaes (vol. II, p. 138), but knows no 
 variants. 
 
 To •which.l This interpolation of Alcala is very awk- 
 wardly soldered to what precedes and what follows. 
 Those who consider these interpolations inferior to the 
 rest of the work should bear in mind what Menendez 
 y Pelayo brought out in connection with the longer 
 redaction of the Celestina, that such inferiority would 
 not prove a different authorship. Origenes de la no- 
 vela, vol. Ill, p. XXVII. 
 
 / speak the truth. A prophecy fulfilled in the interpola- 
 tion on p. I20. 
 
 Page 23.] anthoress. See note to p. 11, and the excellent 
 one in Cejador's Laearillo, p. 108 Si 
 
 bad dinners. Confirmed in the interpolation on p. 122. 
 
 Page 24.] Escalona. Eight leagues from Toledo on 
 
138 NOTES 
 
 the Valladolid road. Juan Villuga, Reportorio de 
 todos los caminos, 1546 (1902), fol. D Hi. 
 
 Page 29.] spirit of prophecy. See page 120: "I have 
 the job of crying the wines.'' This is the best sort of 
 evidence of the artistic unity of the work. 
 
 Page 31.] upon •which and upon others like it. Mark- 
 ham is wrong, then, when he says (Lazarillo, p. 29, 
 note) this was a stone cross in the centre of the 
 square. 
 
 Page 32.] Smell, smell! The Spanish ole, ole may be 
 the imperative of oler, or it may be an exclamation. 
 Cejador (p. 123) takes it the latter way. 
 
 Torrijos. A run of about nine miles. 
 
 Page 33.] Maqueda. Northwest of Toledo. 
 
 Alexander. The stock Spanish allusion to Alexander'^ 
 generosity. 
 
 Page 34.] / know not . . . habit. Not in the Castigado. 
 Passages might easily be adduced to show that this 
 apparently gratuitous insult merely reflects a current 
 notion. 
 
 •wheaten loaf. These were offerings made by the faith- 
 ful on certain occasions. 
 
 Page 35.] conserves of Valencia. Valencia is still fa- 
 mous for its sweets. 
 
 On Saturdays. Saturday was the day for slaughtering, 
 and on that day, though a fast day, it was allowable 
 to eat the heads, giblets, and feet of the slaughtered 
 animals. Lazarillo, ed. Cejador, p. 131, and my note 
 in Modern Language Notes, xxx, 1915, p. 88. 
 
 Page 36.] / became so feeble. There is a Spanish 
 proverb that comes pat. "When the curate licks the 
 knife, it's bad for his assistant." 
 
 confraternities. The word cofradias, as used in the text 
 
NOTES 139 
 
 means a reunion of the members of a eofradia, or lay 
 brotherhood. A Toledan proverb says: "Two co- 
 fradias and one cigarral carry a man to the hospital." 
 
 quach-doctor. These gentlemen had the reputation of 
 being drunkards, as we learn from Estebanillo Gon- 
 zalez, Cap. VI. Oddly enough the saludadores cured 
 by breathing upon the patient. 
 
 Page 38.] as it is said. Apparently an allusion to the 
 Lord's prayer. 
 
 continuous death. This whole passage should convince 
 every one that the author was a conscious artist. 
 
 Page 40.] Holy Ghost. Not in Castigado. Neither is 
 the passage below : " in the form ... as they say," 
 although the similar passage on p. 43 was allowed to 
 stand. 
 
 Page 41.] remedy I remedied. This repetition, which is 
 a literal translation, was not offensive in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 Page 42.] Saint John. Gervaise of Tilbury gives a 
 formula for restoring eyesight, in which St. John is 
 invoked. Perhaps here we have a mere exclamation. 
 Compare : " Saint Jehan ! monsieur, dit-il, il est vray." 
 Nicolas, Grand Parangon, No. 47. Also: 
 Goneaga. A ship! St. John, whither are we bound 
 now? Massinger, Maid of .Honour, Act IV, Scene IV. 
 The phrase ciigale Santanton, " blind him. Saint An- 
 thony," was current also. Covarrubias, Tesoro, s.v. 
 cegar. 
 
 nine ne<w pieces. The original has a pun on nueve and 
 nuevas. 
 
 Page 48.] King of France. See the explanation sug- 
 gested on p. XX of the Introduction. 
 
 Page 49.] old cuirass. Examples of these, showing 
 plainly the tacks, may be seen in A. F. Calverf s Span- 
 
I40 NOTES 
 
 ish Arms, and Armour, London, 1907, plates 17 to 17E. 
 The chest was probably leather-covered to begin with, 
 like the area encorada of Comedia Selvagia, p. 83. 
 
 if it be missing. The paronomasia is in the original. 
 
 Page 50.] sauces. " La mejor salsa del mundo es la 
 hambre." Hunger's the best sauce in the world. Don 
 Quijote, Part II, Chap. V. 
 
 Page 53.] <whistling of the snake. Geronimo de . la 
 Huerta, in his commentary on Pliny, says that the 
 snake makes a "fearsome sound" by vibrating its 
 tongue, and that certain varieties are so constructed 
 that as they crawl, their bellies make a "whistling 
 sound." Trad-vcion de los libros de Caio Plinio se- 
 gundo, Primera Parte, Alcali MDCII, fols. 187 and 
 188. 
 
 Page 56.] a healer. One who healed by prayers and 
 formulas. See note to page 11. 
 
 Page 67.] boy of a blind man. See p. 10 and note. 
 Priests' boys bore no better reputation if we may be- 
 lieve the Comedia Florinea (1554) : "for learning ras- 
 cality, it was of great advantage to me to have been 
 a student for a year, and a curate's boy for another." 
 Menendez y Pelayo, Orlgenes de la novela. III, 166. 
 
 Page 58.] Toledo. From here on the story is localized 
 in Toledo and its environs* 
 
 Page 59.] Charity. Cejador (Laz., p. 166, note) con- 
 siders this an allusion to Astraea. Not so the editor 
 of the Castigado, who cuts out the clause. 
 
 Page 60.] principal church. The Cathedral. 
 
 dark and dismal. Notice the artistic preparation for the 
 episode beginning on page 82. 
 
 Page 66.] constantly washed. Since suggesting a cor- 
 rection to the text in this passage {Modem Language 
 Notes, XXX, 1915, p. 88), I have learned that the editor 
 
NOTES 141 
 
 of the Castigado had already adopted the same read' 
 ing. In a number of cases the Castigado gives better 
 readings than any of the editions of 1554. 
 
 Page 68.] Antonio. There were at least four well- 
 known Toledan sword-makers of this name. See 
 Riano, Industrial Art in Spain, p. 93; Calvert, Spanish 
 Arms and Armour, plate 200A. 
 
 Page 69.] Count of Arcos. A local magnate. The 
 phrase "the chamberlain who handed him his 
 clothes," is a quotation from the ballad of Conde Claros, 
 which probably suggested itself to the author because 
 of the similarity of the names. See Mod. Lang. Notes, 
 3CXX, 1915, p. 88. 
 
 Page 70.] the river. The reference is to a promenade 
 along the Tagus, called the Vega, "which is very de- 
 lightful, and where the nymphs of the place go, at all 
 seasons, tq take their recreation, for in winter it is 
 sunny, and in summer cool." A. de Rojas, Viaje Entre- 
 tenido (1603), Madrid, 1901, vol. I, p. 296. 
 
 Page 71.] Macias. A Galician poet who must have 
 composed between 1360 and 1390, better known to tra- 
 dition as the type of perfect lover. He is supposed 
 to have met a tragic death as end to an illicit love 
 affair. Puymaigre, La Cour litteraire de Jean II, vol. 
 I, pp. 54-76; H. A. Rennert, Macias, namorado, 
 Philad., 1900; H. R. Lang, Cancioneiro Gallego-cas- 
 tellano, N. Y., 1902, nos. III-VIII, and pp. 161 ff. ; 
 Correas, Vocab. de Refranes, pp. 130-131. 
 
 Page 73.] God. That is, bread, as on pages 40, 41 
 "bread paradise," and 43. • 
 
 Page 77.] vuolfs head. "The excuse which one takes 
 for making his profit, like the one who having killed 
 a wolf, carries the head through the village, so that 
 people give him something for having delivered the 
 countryside of a pernicious and harmful beast." C. 
 
142 NOTES 
 
 Oudin, Tesoro de las dos lenguas, Paris, 1621, s. v. 
 cabe(a de lobo. 
 
 Page 79.] short of bread. The word fan in the text 
 here means wheat. For a long time I hoped that this 
 passage would help to date the Laxarillo, but I have not 
 been so fortunate as to find mention of any particular 
 sterile year between 1525 and 1553. The Ordenanzas 
 para el buen regimen . . . de Toledo, Toledo, 1858, 
 do not contain the ordinance referred to. The au- 
 thor has probably made literary material of his knowl- 
 edge of the very old ley de vagos, which had been 
 
 I current in Toledo since before Peter the Cruel, and 
 which provided that those vagabonds who did not 
 provide themselves with masters or leave within three 
 days, be given fifty lashes and be driven from the 
 city. The penalty for a second offence was to have 
 their ears cut off, and for a third offence, death. See 
 the Ordenanzas cited above, p. V, note i. 
 
 Quatro Calles. A square into which ran four streets, 
 Ancha, Hombre de Palo, Obra Prima and Cordonerias. 
 Martin Gamero, Hisioria de la ciudad de Toledo, To- 
 ledo, 1862. 
 
 Page 80.] naho made caps. The importance of this in- 
 dustry is shown by the attention given to it in the old 
 ordinances. See the Ordenanzas . . . de Toledo, p. 
 45 ff- 
 
 Page 82.] / fattened myself. The streets of Toledo 
 are notoriously narrow. 
 
 Page 83.] sad and unhappy house. Foulche-Delbosc has 
 found a version of this folk tale in the Liber facetiarum 
 {Remarques, p. 92), the form of which suggests that 
 it does not derive from the Lazarillo. Another ver- 
 sion is that of the Arte de Furtar of Antonio Vieira 
 (Lisbon, 1855, pp. 179-180), who gives the Gazetas de 
 Picardia as his source, and follows Lazarillo quite 
 
NOTES 143 
 
 closely. The expression " house of Lazarillo de 
 Tormes " was used in the 17th century to designate! a 
 wretched, ill-kept abode. Correas, Vocabulario de re- 
 franes, pp. 587 and 590. 
 
 Page 87.] God keep Your Worship. "God keep you" 
 was the classic Castilian formula. In the Cantor de 
 myo Cid we find " Dios vos curie de mal " ! In a 
 manual of politeness printed in 1532, the rules are 
 laid down as follows: "You shall address them ac- 
 cording to the deserts of each one, removing your cap, 
 and making a reverence if the person is of sufficient 
 importance, and you shall say ' I kiss the hands of 
 Your Worship,' or ' God keep Your Worship,' or, if 
 the person is not so important, ' God keep you.' " 
 (Gutierre Gonzalez, Libro de doctrina cristiana, in 
 Gallardo, Ensayo de una biblioteca espanola, vol. Ill, 
 col. 83.) By 1553 the besamano had come to be of 
 general use, as we learn from the Colloquios satiricos 
 of A. de Torquemada (Menendez y Pelayo, Origenes 
 de la novela, voL II, p. 538), 
 
 Page 88.] where I laas born. Perhaps Burgos, which is 
 just sixteen Spanish leagues from Valladolid, on the 
 main road. 
 
 frugal. Cervantes uses the same word, limitado, in con- 
 nection with the Duke's chaplain, whom he describes 
 as one of those clergymen who, in their effort to make 
 their charges frugal, only succeed in making them 
 niggardly. Don Quijote, Part II, Chap. XXXI. 
 
 manille. "Malilla, a card agree vpon, that he that 
 hath him may make of him, king, queene, knaue, ace, 
 nine, ten, or whatsoeuer other card." John Minsheu, 
 Pleasant and Delightfull Dialogues, London, 1623, p. 
 7, col. 2. See the description of the game of ombre 
 in Canto III of the Rape of the Lock, where this card 
 is called Manillio. 
 
144 NOTES 
 
 Page 90.] which are customary. The Castigado cuts 
 out several lines here, to " that I should behave." 
 
 Page 96.] TREATISE FOURTH. The chapter is strik- 
 ingly shorter than the preceding and the following. It 
 should be borne in mind that the headings were prob- 
 ably not by the author, for whom this chapter was 
 merely a transitional paragraph, all the more effective 
 for its reticence. This treatise and the next are not 
 in the Castigado. 
 
 La Merced. The order of La Merced, founded by 
 Jaime the Conquistador, had as its chief mission the 
 redemption of captives. Its rule seems not to have 
 been so rigid as some. In the Didlogo de Mercurio y 
 Caron, Valdes introduces a friar of La Merced (p. 19), 
 who asks Charon if his habit will not save him from 
 hell. Charon replies, " If you wore it in your heart 
 it would avail you ; but of what use is it to wear it 
 over your body, when there is no sign of it within ? " 
 There is a " fraire " of this order in the Lozana An- 
 daluza, " with a nose like a jug handle, and a foot 
 like the oar of a galley." Ed. cit., p. 21. Needless to 
 say that the older Spanish literature, like that of the 
 other European countries, contains many slurs on friars 
 in general, though perhaps nothing so uncomplimen- 
 tary as the anecdote in Chaucer's Somonour's Prologue. 
 There is a particularly outspoken poem (ca. 1492) in 
 Barbieri's Cancionero musical de los sighs XV y XVI, 
 Madrid, 1890, no. 435. 
 
 Page 97.] TREATISE FIFTH. Omitted from the Cas- 
 
 I 
 
 a pardoner. A seller of indulgences. These indulgences, 
 called bulas de la Cruzada, were printed slips grant- 
 ing full remission of sins to those who contributed 
 toward the expense of the campaign against the infi- 
 dels. They contained blank spaces in which were set 
 
NOTES 145 
 
 down the name of the purchaser and the amount paid. 
 An early example has been reproduced in the Revista 
 de Archi-Dos, Tercera epoca, vol. VIII, p. 162. 
 j The amount derived from the sale of the pardons in j 
 (1551 is supposed to have been 440,000 ducats, of which 
 the Church received only 20,000. The enormous profits 
 'accruing to the state from this source may account ' 
 largely for the abuses which arose and persisted in the 
 system. There can be no doubt that the pardoners 
 were often unscrupulous in their methods and that the 
 people suffered at their hands. Many texts of the 
 1 6th century show the ineffectiveness of the pragmatical 
 by which Charles V endeavored in 1524 to prevent 
 the agents of the Cruzada from forcing the indulgences 
 upon the people. 
 
 Threats of excommunication .were a favorite device 
 with them. Another was to keep the people in the church 
 listening to an endless sermon, while their work re- 
 mained undone. Often the bulls were sold on credit, 
 and the constable was used to collect the debt when 
 due, and to attach the property of those who could 
 not pay. 
 
 For a general discussion and special cases, see: H. C. 
 Lea, A History of Auricular Confession, vol. Ill, pp. 
 412-416; Paz y Melia, Sales espanolas, vol. I, p. 283; 
 Gallardo, Ensayo, vol. IV, p. 172; Lopez de Ubeda, 
 La Picara Justina, ed. Puyol, vol. Ill, pp. 161-164. 
 
 greenish pear. Oudin gives " Bergamote " for verdinal. 
 Tesoro, Paris, 1621. 
 
 Page 98.] in Latin. Thus Chaucer's Pardoner: 
 
 And in Latyn I speke a wordes fewe. 
 To saffron with my predicacioun, 
 And for to stire men to devocioun. 
 
 Pardoner's Prologue, C344-346. 
 
146 NOTES 
 
 Page 99.] Sagra of Toledo. "A county or shire about 
 Toledo." Percivale-Minsheu, Dictionary. 
 
 the constable. A constable regularly accompanied the 
 pardoners, to assist them in making their collections. 
 
 Page 101.] give up my staff. The emblem of his office. 
 
 Page 106.] Passion sermons. Sermons preached on 
 Holy Thursday and Good Friday to commemorate the 
 passion and death of Our Lord. (That they are still 
 made very moving in Spain we see from a referjence 
 In Valera's Comendador Mendoza: Madrid, 1888, p. 
 330: "Father Jacinto had, finally, the pathetic style 
 of Holy Week." [How.]) 
 
 Page 107.] the death of the sinner. "As I live, saith 
 the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
 wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and 
 live." Ezekiel XXIII, 11. 
 
 Page 108.] In another •village. Interpolation of Al- 
 cald. Lazarillo's reticence as to the name of the town 
 is strikingly like that of Cervantes in the opening line 
 of the Don Quijote. 
 
 There are two parallels known to me of the first of 
 these pardoner stories. The Massuccio version I have 
 mentioned already, the other is in Giacinto Nobili's 11 
 Vagabondo, Venice, 1627, and has been noted by Chan- 
 dler, op. cit, p. 203. Both involve the use of a false 
 relic, which is in one case the arm of Saint Luke, and 
 in the other the arm of Saint Sebastian. The common 
 detail suggests a common source. On the other hand 
 the Vagabondo story has the reference to Ezekiel -vihxA 
 is found in Lazarillo. 
 
 I have found no variant of the second pardoner tale, 
 the point of which is that the constable would in due time 
 collect the fees which the people had unwittingly bound 
 themselves to pay. 
 
NOTES 147 
 
 The third tale has a parallel in a story which Henri 
 Estienne (1566) takes from Jean Menard (XS4.0). 
 " He (Menard) recites in the same place that he heard 
 them say themselves (I mean these bearers of indul- 
 gences or collectors of Saint Anthony), that when they 
 had an opportunity, they would heat little crosses or 
 images of copper, while the goodwife went to get them 
 something from attic or cellar: and when on returning 
 she had made her offering, they had her kiss the said 
 cross or image. When she found this to be hot, they 
 made her terribly afraid by saying that Master Saint 
 Anthony was not content with the offering she made 
 him and was angry; wherefore the good woman would 
 go back to fetch wherewith to increase her gift, arid 
 on bringing it would find the image cold: which they 
 said was a sign that Saint Anthony was appeased." 
 Apologie pour Herodoie, Paris, 1879, vol. II, p. 398. 
 
 Page 112.] Licenciaie Paschasio Gomez. Probably as 
 mythical as the Bachelor Borreguero, whose name is 
 taken in vain in Velez de Guevara's Luna de La Sierra. 
 
 Page 116.] [Although . . . to preach. Addition of Al- 
 cala. 
 
 Page 118.] Ropa Vieja. A street devoted to trade in 
 second-hand clothes. Many of the Toledan streets 
 were named from the trades that flourished in them, 
 as Lenceria, Cordonerias, etc. Conde de Cedillo, To- 
 ledo en el siglo XVI, p. 140. 
 
 Cuellar. Famous, like Toledo, for its swords. Riaiio, 
 Industrial arts in Spain, p. 90. 
 
 imth garnished sleeves and open in the neck. A charac- 
 ter in Torqueraada's Colloquios (1553), speaking of 
 the styles of an earlier period, says: "The coats were 
 very long. . . . They wore them cut low in the neck 
 like a woman's chemise, and a very small puerta 
 
148 NOTES 
 
 ( ? flap, fly) in front, fastened with four tapes or laces." 
 Ed. cit., p. 528. 
 
 Page 119.] TREATISE SEVENTH. Viardot noted (p. 
 XLII) the discrepancy between the heading and the con- 
 tents of the chapter and suggested that " Mendoza de- 
 sired to disguise under the incomplete title the real sub- 
 ject of the chapter, which is the most delicate of all." 
 I have tried to show that the author did not make the 
 rubrics. 
 
 Page 120.] A royal office. If we substitute " a govern- 
 ment position " the satire is equally applicable to life 
 in Madrid to-day. The oflice in question was the very 
 lowest of all. " A pregonero . . . which is the basest 
 office there is." Peregrino Curioso, I, 390 (quoted by 
 De Haan in Picaros y ganapanes in Homenaje a 
 Menendez y Pelayo) ; "Because I know how base is 
 the office of town crier." Estebanillo Gonzalez, Cap. 
 V. Documents of 1494 and 1568 give Quatro Calles as 
 one of the squares where the criers made their proc- 
 lamations. Ordenanzas de Toledo, pp. 93 and 149. 
 
 this very day. See the note to page XIV of the Intro- 
 duction. The phrase " and reside. . . . Your Wor- 
 ship " is not in the Castigado. 
 
 In •which •vocation. Addition to Alcala connected with 
 the passage on page 22. 
 
 Page 121.] Archpriest. The situation must have been 
 bad indeed which enabled Fr. Pablo de Leon to say 
 in 1553 {Guia del Cielo): "Hardly will one find a 
 cathedral or collegiate church where the greater part 
 have not their concubines." (Quoted by Menendez y 
 Pelayo, Heterodoxos espaholes, vol. II, p. 29.) Much 
 later Cervantes called the slavey-heroine of La fregona 
 illustre, " a rare bit for an archpriest or a Count." 
 
 San Salvador. This parish apparently did not exist in 
 
NOTES 149 
 
 1554, as Pedro Alcocer does not include it in the list 
 of churches in his Historia de Toledo (1554). Mark- 
 ham says that this parish " has been joined to that of 
 San Pedro since Lazarillo's time." Lazarillo, p. 98, 
 note. Is it not likely that the author would use the 
 name of a non-existent parish, to avoid offence? 
 
 great feast days. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, 
 Epiphany. 
 
 Page 122.] although at this time. Interpolation of Al- 
 cala, referring to the passage on page 23. 
 
 Page 123.] had lain in thrice. A proverb and a popular 
 song are sufficient commentary on this passage. 
 
 En Toledo no te cases compaiiero: no te daran casa ni 
 vina, mas darte han mujer prenada 6 parida. 
 
 Correas, Vocabulario, p. i2i. 
 Chapiron de la Reynay 
 Chapiron del Rey, 
 
 Mogas de Toledo, ya se parta el Rey. 
 Quedareys preiiadas, no sabreis de quien, 
 Chapiron, &c. 
 
 Covarrubias, Tesoro, s.v. chapeo. 
 Page 124.] anything that luould sadden me. I cannot 
 forbear to quote a contemporary English story which 
 leads me to think that the Lazarillo episode may have 
 been built up from a folk anecdote. 
 
 "A certayne man, whose wyfe (as the voyce wente) 
 was nat very chaste of her bodye: was warned of his 
 frendes to loke better to the matter. The man wente 
 home and sharpely rebuked his wyfe: and tolde her 
 betwene them bothe, what his frendes had sayde. 
 She knowynge that periurye was no greatter offence 
 than adoutry, with wepjoige and swerynge defended 
 her honestie ; and bare her husbande on hande, that 
 they feyned those tales for enuye that they hadde to 
 
150 NOTES 
 
 se them lyue so quietly. With those wordes her hus- 
 bande was content and pleased. So yet an other tyme 
 agayne, his frendes warned hym of his ■wyie, and badde 
 hym rebuke and chastice her. To whome he sayd: I 
 pray you trouble me no more with suche wordes. Telle 
 me, whether knoweth better my wiu?s fautes, you or 
 she? They sayde: She. And she (quod he) whom 
 I beleue better than you all, sayth playnly, that ye lye. 
 
 " That was well and wysely done : For one ought nat to 
 gyue light credence to those thinges, wherin resteth 
 perpetuall grefe of mynde." Tales and guide an- 
 siueres, XLIIII (Hundred Merry Tales, London, 183 1, 
 p. 44). 
 
 Cortes. See Introduction, pp. XVIII-XX. Lively pic- 
 tures of the life in the capital may be found in the 
 works of Sebastian de Horozco, especially in the Can- 
 cionero, pp. 182 ff. 
 
■: 
 
 ;' I