Spring 2006
Lisa Splittgerber :: Aphrodisiacs in the Libro de buen amor: Serranas’ Sexy Secrets.
The Libro de buen amor is a fourteenth-century Spanish narrative verse recounting the Archpriest of Hita’s spiritual and physical journey through life. In the exact center of the text, he writes about his adventures with four serranas or mountain girls while lost in the mountains and exhausted from hunger and cold. The serranas Chata, Gadea de Riofrío, Menga Llorente and Alda shelter, feed and entertain him. Known as the serrana episodes, this section of the Libro de buen amor has been studied largely from the perspectives of origin, structure and allegory. Yet no studies have considered the symbolism of the foods the serranas serve the Archpriest and the implications of this symbolism. When we consider the dynamics of feeding, eating and symbolic consummation, an ominous pattern emerges in the poem. I will show that while the serranas follow the traditional female models of feeding and sheltering the Archpriest, they also seduce him through the use of aphrodisiacs and pervert him through a reversal of Communion with the end of symbolically and physically consuming him.
The literary sources of the four serrana episodes are the subject of intense inquiry. Proposed models include the courtly French pastourelles (Le Gentil 133-141), medieval representations of Classical Amazons (Irizarry 53-66), hagiographic folklore (MacLennan 180-183), and misogynistic caricatures from the anti-feminist tradition (Nepaulsingh 13-18). Other scholars like Elisha Kane, Harriet Goldberg, Daniel Briere and Anthony Zahareas search for the origins of their portraiture within various traditions of medieval physiognomy.¹ Yet another line of inquiry is followed by critics like Thomas Hart, R.B. Tate, Steven Kirby, Marina Brownlee and James Stamm who address the function these episodes have within the rest of the Libro de buen amor and what they may mean on an allegorical level. Generally, these critics see the encounters with the serranas as a rite of passage for the protagonist who, having experienced the carnal perils of the world, can dedicate his life to God in the second half of the book (Casalduero 28).
But the serranas are actually practitioners of food magic, which falls under the larger category of love magic (Flint 231-239) . The rites of food magic involve not only the transformation and preparation of food and drink and the internalization of that transformation, but also the use of aphrodisiacs and philters to enchant and seduce. The foods the serranas serve are powerful aphrodisiacs that follow the Law of Similarity or the Doctrine of Signatures. According to this idea:
. . . if any plant or part of a plant resembled in shape, form or texture any part of the body, then that plant was indicated for the treatment of diseases affecting that organ. It was on this basis that many plants of phallic appearance, such as the carrot or asparagus, for example, gained reputations as aphrodisiacs (Taberner 56).
Similarly, the organs of animals were thought to hold aphrodisiacal power, particularly the genitalia. Recipes for aphrodisiacs typically call for ingredients from goats, asses, stallions, dogs, camels, elephants, rhinos, lizards and birds, among others. According to this tradition, the person who ingests the symbolic attributes of the food internalizes them. Not only do certain animal products have strong sexual symbolism, but the very act of eating has metaphoric implications. J.N. Adams writes: “The metaphor of eating has surprising ramifications in the sexual sphere in Latin. It occurs in graffiti, and must have had a place in low slang” (138). In fact, the metaphor of eating as a sexual act persists today in modern English. So the symbolism of the foods, the acts of feeding and eating, and sexual consummation is conflated to form a dangerous subtext in the serrana sequence of the Libro de buen amor.
The serranas seduce the Archpriest through food magic, serving him three symbolic meals. The Chata serves him food guaranteed to improve his libido:
Pússome mucho aína
en una venta con su enhoto,
diome foguera de enzina,
mucho gaçapo de soto,
buenas perdizes asadas,
fogaças mal amassadas
de buena carne de choto. 968 ²
(She put me very quickly
in her handy house.
She built a fire of oak
much woodland rabbit
good roast partridges
badly kneaded loaves
and good kid meat.)
In the Roman tradition, rabbit was highly valued “not only as the animal of Venus, goddess of love, but as a medical remedy for sexual deficiencies,” when used as food (Rowland 133). And partridge flesh is listed as a powerful aphrodisiac by Ad de Vries (359). The badly kneaded loaves represent genitalia, according to Camilo José Cela, who lists bollo (a roll) as a metaphor for penis or vulva (159). Following the same tradition, Italian pani dolci from Frascati represent the female body, particularly the breasts (Lederer 16). Because kneading is a metaphor for intercourse (Adams 153-154), the verse suggests she is sexually unfulfilled or inexperienced. And finally, by ingesting the flesh of a goat, the Chata hopes the Archpriest will ingest the sexual propensities of the goat itself. According to Rowland:
The goat has always had a reputation for lasciviousness, one buck allegedly being sufficient for one hundred and fifty females. It is, therefore, not surprising that the goat or the goat-god should be taken from earliest times as a symbol of the active male principle (81).
Rowland says eating goat flesh was part of the Dionysiac rites that “provided an escape from inhibitions” (81). Parts of goats are used, even today, as amulets to promote procreative powers (Rowland 86). The Chata’s menu continues:
De buen vino un cuartero,
manteca de vacas mucha,
mucho queso assadero,
leche, natas e una trucha.
Dize luego: “Hadeduro,
comamo deste pan duro,
después faremos la lucha.” 969
(A quarter of good wine
lots of butter
some smoked cheese
milk, cream and a trout
and then she said: “Oh unlucky sod!
Let’s eat this crusty bread
and afterwards we’ll wrestle.”)
The wine itself is considered an aphrodisiac and associated with sexuality:
The association of drinking and loose sexual morals has apparently a long history. It is a feature of all societies where the custom of drinking has been adopted, and there is also an awareness of the dangers and social problems that result from inebriety (Taberner 121).
Later in the Litro de buen amor, when the Archpriest brags of his sexual prowess to Menga, he says he “knows how to make a wineskin” (“e fazer el odrezillo,” verse 1000), further evidence of this association. The butter, milk and cream are all symbols of semen (Cela 587), and were considered foods necessary to promote male potency in the Hindu tradition, according to the Kama Sutra (Taberner 23). We know that this must have had a similar value in rural Castilian society of this time, for when the Archpriest brags to Menga, he also mentions that he knows how to “churn butter” (“Sé maçar e fazer natas” verse 1000). And de Vries writes that cheese making is “an activity related to sexuality” (94), further evidence of the sexual symbolism of the menu. The trout the Chata serves is also an ancient gynecic symbol (de Vries 94). Barbara Walker writes:
A worldwide symbol of the Great Mother was the pointed-oval sign of the yoni, known as the vessica-piscis, Vessel of the Fish. It was associated with the “Fishy Smell” that Hindus made a title of the yonic Goddess herself, because they said women’s genitals smelled like fish (313).
This admixture of male and female symbolic elements in the meals the serranas serve, suggestive of sexual intercourse, is ingested by the protagonist. And after the Archpriest eats, he sleeps with all three of the serranas who feed him. But the dynamic is even more dangerous, for he is seduced by their magic and once he has eaten, they will eat him in the act of physical consummation. The serranas’ compulsion to feed the Archpriest before their sexual encounters recalls the motif in folklore of witches who feed young children before devouring them. And this motif of a woman (usually old, ugly and marginalized) who devours people (usually men or boys) is a manifestation of the vagina dentate.
Throughout the serrana episodes, the female body is grossly exaggerated and made terrifying to demonstrate the dangers of sex—the greatest of which is castration in the form of being eaten by the female. The psychological fear of being physically and sexually consumed is the origin of the vagina dentate which pervades these texts. According to Jill Raitt, who has studied this motif in mythologies from around the world:
It does not take a great deal of sophistication to understand what is at work in these stories. Men fear women. They fear that in intercourse with women they may be castrated, that they may be laughed at, that they may die. The woman’s power must therefore be neutralized (418).
The use of humor to describe the encounters between the Archpriest and the serranas provides an effective buffer, but castration imagery is present in every episode. For example, Gadea, the second serrana, threatens the Archpriest and orders him to leave:
Dixo la endiablada:
“Asi apilan el conejo. . .
—Liévate, vete, sandio!” 991
(The devilish lady said:
“This is how they skin a rabbit. . .
get up and leave, you fool!”)
Because conejo or rabbit symbolically refers to the masculine member in this context (Adams 34), she is actually threatening to skin his phallus—to castrate him. The use of food imagery, of preparing a rabbit to eat, cements the connection between physical and sexual consummation.
Another aspect of symbolic castration may be found in the legend of the succubi. Succubi weaken their male victims and symbolically castrate them by consuming their male essence, and they have the ability to shift from beautiful alluring maids to frightening creatures in the blink of an eye. The fourth serrana, Alda, brings to mind a succubus who “copulated with men in their dreams and sucked out the essence of their souls, semen” (Walker 960). In the first of the two poems dedicated to her, she is described as large, strong and misshapen with a beard. She has animal characteristics like a beak for a nose, a dog-like mouth, asinine teeth, thrush-like brows and calf-like legs. In the second poem, however, she is described as a comely, well-formed serrana with beautiful color. Succubi, like Alda, clearly represent the dangers of being consumed during sex with experienced women, but there is another danger as well.
Not only do the serranas seduce the Archpriest with food and symbolically consume him; they pervert him with an ironic reversal of communion (Kirby 161; Brain 15-16; Neumann 60-61). Communion is a symbolic consumption of the male element where believers ingest the blood and body of Christ. This Christian rite involves a transformation, common in food magic. The transformation from grain into flour and then into cakes or breads, fertility symbols in many cultures, explains the association in the Middle Ages of mills and bakeries with brothels (Neumann 285). But the transformation can also be spiritual, as in the change from grass into grain into bread and then into the host (Neumann 61). The fermenting of grapes to make the wine that becomes the blood of Christ demonstrates the same transformative process. But in the serrana encounters we see a reversal of roles and rites: the same element of reversal found in the rites of a Black Sabbath, in which prayers are said backwards and icons are inverted (Brain 43-60).
Although women in Castilian society are normally responsible for preparing food for their families, only men may officiate the sacrament of communion, of spiritual feeding. In the serrana episodes, a lowly shepherdess administers bread and wine, the elements of communion, to an Archpriest in her hut:
Diz: “Yo levaré a casa
e mostrarte he el camino,
fazerte he fuego e blassa,
darte he del pan e del vino.
—Alaé! promed algo
e tenerte he por fidalgo.
—Buena mañana te vino!” 965
(She said: “I will carry you home,
and I will show you the road.
I will make you a fire and a brazier,
I will give you bread and wine.
Aha! Promise me something
and I’ll consider you noble.
This is your lucky day!”)
Like the Chata, Gadea and Alda also lodge him, build a fire and feed him the elements of communion. The transformative symbolism of the food is a constant, as we see in Aldas menu:
Diome pan de çenteno,
tiznado, moreno,
e dióme vino malo,
agrillo e ralo,
e came salada. 1030
Dióme queso de cabras:
“Fidalgo,” diz, “abras
ese blaço e toma
un canto de soma
que tengo guardada.” 1031
(She gave me rye bread
blackened, dark.
She gave me bad wine,
sour and watered-down
and salted meat.
She gave me goat cheese
and said: “Sir, you’ll have
this wedge, and take
a piece of bread
which I have tucked away.”)
All three meals include the basic aspects of the sacrament of communion: wine, bread and flesh; but perverted, reversed and unclean—the bread is tiznado and moreno, blackened and dark, instead of white and clean; the wine is malo, agrillo e ralo, sour and watered down, instead of sweet and strong. The flesh the Archpriest is served is salada, salted, instead of fresh. To top it off, he is fed goat cheese in the hope that he will gain goat-like potency. It is also interesting to speculate where, exactly, Alda has the bread quardado or tucked away, given the tradition of cockle bread which was described as:
. . . a small piece of dough which the girl would knead and then press against the vulva. The dough, moulded to this shape, was then baked in the normal way and the loaf presented to the man she sought to attract. If he ate it, he would fall beneath her spell and be powerless to resist. Similar types of charms have been used throughout Europe and indeed may still be used in primitive country regions (Taberner 46-47).
The serranas are preparing to consume the Archpries—the male element—in an unholy, sexual communion.
The serranas as strong, independent women who inhabit the margins of society, are really a representation of what patriarchal society fears most. Instead of following the Christian ideal of the chaste wife who keeps house and prepares food, the serranas are, for the most part, sexually experienced women who know how to control and manipulate male sexuality through feminine wiles. They seduce and pollute men while feeding and sheltering them, perverting their “normal feminine functions”. The serranas are sisters to the witches and evil female spirits of fairy tales and folklore who devour men, once they have fattened them up--incarnations of the dreaded vagina dentata. In the Libro de buen amor, the act of feeding is the act of seduction and the act of eating is the act of consummation on both sexual and physical levels. And the act of sexual consummation is the act of pollution or perversion, which leads us back to the original act of feeding magical food. On a symbolic level, the Archpriest is caught up in a dangerous cannibalistic cycle of eating and being eaten by the serranas that he must escape in order to continue his journey through life.
- Physiognomy is the study of the correspondences between physical features and character or temperament. Greek treatises like Aristotle’s Phvsioanomics were later contributions to physiognomy from earlier sources dating back several centuries. According to Rivers, “translations of both the ancient treatises on physiognomy and the important Arabic works on the subject began in the twelfth century (24).” For a historical overview, see especially Rivers’ introduction.
- I am using the Old Spanish edition by Anthony N. Zahareas.
- This apparent discrepancy troubles a many critics including Kirby, Goldberg, Dagenais and Willis.
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