which, do you happen to know if a book published by a certain M. Borrow in
chipi calli
, the language of the
Gitanos
, titled
Embeo e majarò Lucas
can still be found in Madrid? It is the Gospel of Saint Luke. This Borrow wrote a very amusing book called
The Bible in Spain
. It is a shame that he lies like a tooth-puller and that he is outrageously Protestant. For example, he says that clandestine Muslims still exist in Spain, and that recently there was an archbishop of Toledo who was, in fact, of this religion. About Bohemians he says some very curious things, but because of his Englishness and his piety he did not see or did not want to mention several traits that were worth the effort he put forth in his research. He claims that Bohemian women were very chaste and that a
Busno
, that is, a man who is not of their race, could not get anything from them. In Seville, Cadiz and Granada, there were, in my day, Bohemian women whose virtue could not resist a
douro
. There was a very pretty one in the
mazmorras
close to the Alhambra who was wilder than the others, but still seemed susceptible to domestication. Most of these women are horribly ugly; it is one of the reasons they are chaste—all the better! In Paris at themoment there are a dozen Indians from the Rocky Mountains, and some women. The men are very big and very strong; some are fairly handsome. The women are hideous. In this savage state, the woman is a beast of burden, and is mistreated to such an extent that they are necessarily ugly from misery. It is for this reason, I think, that the gypsies are so ugly. They sleep under the stars, they carry their children on their backs, they eat only what is left by their husbands, and on top of this they ignore the use of soap and water. That’s enough to make monsters of them.
Adieu! dear countess. I hope that your voyage to Salamanca does not keep you from making the other one. With tenderness and love for your girls.
—
A
letter from Mérimée to the Countess Montijo , excerpted from
Lettres de Prosper Mérimée à Madame de Montijo
(trans. Jean-Patrick Grillet). In 1830, Mérimée spent six months traveling around Spain, during which time he began a lifelong friendship with the aristocratic Montijo family, especially the countess, an intelligent, cultured, and ambitious woman. (The countess’s younger daughter, Eugenia , would marry Emperor Napoleon III in 1853, and on her recommendation Mérimée was made a senator of the French Empire.) Between 1831 and 1833, Mérimée published a series of four
Lettres d’Espagne
in the
Revue de Paris.
These letters recount bullfights, bandits, Spanish customs, and encounters with Gypsies, and the story Mérimée tells in the third letter, about the bandit José Maria , is another direct precursor of
Carmen.
Scholarly Pursuits
I had always suspected the geographers of not knowing what they were talking about when they placed the battle-field of Munda in the country of the Bastuli-Poeni, near the modern Monda, some two leagues north of Marbella. According to my own conjectures concerning the text of the anonymous author of the
Bellum Hispaniense
, and in view of certain information collected in the Duke of Ossuna’s excellent library, I believed that we should seek in the vicinity of Montilla the memorable spot where for the last time Caesar played double or quits against the champions of the republic. Happening to be in Andalusia in the early autumn of 1830, I made quite a long excursion for the purpose of setting at rest such doubts as I still entertained. A memoir which I propose to publish ere long will, I trust, leave no further uncertainty in the minds of all honest archaeologists. Pending the time when my deliverance shall solve at last the geographical problem which is now holding all the learning of Europe in suspense, I propose to tell you a little story; it has no bearing on the question of the actual location of Munda.
—
From the opening lines of
Carmen.
A
chipi calli
, the language of the
Gitanos
, titled
Embeo e majarò Lucas
can still be found in Madrid? It is the Gospel of Saint Luke. This Borrow wrote a very amusing book called
The Bible in Spain
. It is a shame that he lies like a tooth-puller and that he is outrageously Protestant. For example, he says that clandestine Muslims still exist in Spain, and that recently there was an archbishop of Toledo who was, in fact, of this religion. About Bohemians he says some very curious things, but because of his Englishness and his piety he did not see or did not want to mention several traits that were worth the effort he put forth in his research. He claims that Bohemian women were very chaste and that a
Busno
, that is, a man who is not of their race, could not get anything from them. In Seville, Cadiz and Granada, there were, in my day, Bohemian women whose virtue could not resist a
douro
. There was a very pretty one in the
mazmorras
close to the Alhambra who was wilder than the others, but still seemed susceptible to domestication. Most of these women are horribly ugly; it is one of the reasons they are chaste—all the better! In Paris at themoment there are a dozen Indians from the Rocky Mountains, and some women. The men are very big and very strong; some are fairly handsome. The women are hideous. In this savage state, the woman is a beast of burden, and is mistreated to such an extent that they are necessarily ugly from misery. It is for this reason, I think, that the gypsies are so ugly. They sleep under the stars, they carry their children on their backs, they eat only what is left by their husbands, and on top of this they ignore the use of soap and water. That’s enough to make monsters of them.
Adieu! dear countess. I hope that your voyage to Salamanca does not keep you from making the other one. With tenderness and love for your girls.
—
A
letter from Mérimée to the Countess Montijo , excerpted from
Lettres de Prosper Mérimée à Madame de Montijo
(trans. Jean-Patrick Grillet). In 1830, Mérimée spent six months traveling around Spain, during which time he began a lifelong friendship with the aristocratic Montijo family, especially the countess, an intelligent, cultured, and ambitious woman. (The countess’s younger daughter, Eugenia , would marry Emperor Napoleon III in 1853, and on her recommendation Mérimée was made a senator of the French Empire.) Between 1831 and 1833, Mérimée published a series of four
Lettres d’Espagne
in the
Revue de Paris.
These letters recount bullfights, bandits, Spanish customs, and encounters with Gypsies, and the story Mérimée tells in the third letter, about the bandit José Maria , is another direct precursor of
Carmen.
Scholarly Pursuits
I had always suspected the geographers of not knowing what they were talking about when they placed the battle-field of Munda in the country of the Bastuli-Poeni, near the modern Monda, some two leagues north of Marbella. According to my own conjectures concerning the text of the anonymous author of the
Bellum Hispaniense
, and in view of certain information collected in the Duke of Ossuna’s excellent library, I believed that we should seek in the vicinity of Montilla the memorable spot where for the last time Caesar played double or quits against the champions of the republic. Happening to be in Andalusia in the early autumn of 1830, I made quite a long excursion for the purpose of setting at rest such doubts as I still entertained. A memoir which I propose to publish ere long will, I trust, leave no further uncertainty in the minds of all honest archaeologists. Pending the time when my deliverance shall solve at last the geographical problem which is now holding all the learning of Europe in suspense, I propose to tell you a little story; it has no bearing on the question of the actual location of Munda.
—
From the opening lines of
Carmen.
A
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