The Answer / La Respuesta (Expanded Edition). Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
lovely light that in the past you gave.
Death to my hapless lyre from which you drew
these echoes that, lamenting, speak your name,
and let these awkward characters be known
as black tears shed by my grief-stricken pen.
Let compassion move stern Death herself
who (strictly accurate) brooked no excuse,
and let blind Love lament his bitter fate;
who boldly hoping at one time to woo you
wanted his sight restored that he might see you,
but finds his eyes are useless save to mourn you.
(OC 1.300–301, trans. Amanda Powell)
Mueran contigo, Laura, pues moriste,
los afectos que en vano te desean,
los ojos a quien privas de que vean
hermosa luz que un tiempo concediste.
Muera mi lira infausta en que influíste
ecos, que lamentables te vocean,
y hasta estos rasgos mal formados sean
lágrimas negras de mi pluma triste.
Muévase a compasión la misma Muerte
que, precisa, no pudo perdonarte;
y lamente el Amor su amarga suerte,
pues si antes, ambicioso de gozarte,
deseó tener ojos para verte,
ya le sirvieran sólo de llorarte.
This elegiac sonnet gives rein to Sor Juana’s grief, implying a literary as well as affectionate relationship. It is one of three sonnets that issued from her sorrow over the loss of the woman who her first biographer, Calleja, claimed, “could not live an instant without her Juana Inés.”
Similar terms were used to describe her next long relationship of devoted friendship. To Vicereine María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, Marquise de la Laguna, Countess de Paredes, who became “Phyllis” in the poems, Sor Juana wrote:
… like air drawn to what is hollow,
Like fire, to feed on matter,
Like boulders tumbling to the earth,
and intentions, to their goal;
indeed, like every natural thing,
—all united by the desire
to endure, which ties them tight
in bonds of closest love…
But to what end do I go on?
Just so, Phyllis, do I love you;
with your considerable worth,
this is merely an endearment.
Your being a woman, your being gone
cannot pose the slightest hindrance
to my love, for you know that our souls
have no gender and know no distance.
(OC 1.56–57:97–112, trans. Amanda Powell)
como a lo cóncavo el aire,
como a la materia el fuego,
como a su centro las peñas,
como a su fin los intentos;
bien como todas las cosas
naturales, que el deseo
de conservarse, las une
amante en lazos estrechos …
Pero ¿para qué es cansarse?
Como a ti, Filis, te quiero;
que en lo que mereces, éste
es solo encarecimiento.
Ser mujer, ni estar ausente,
no es de amarte impedimento;
pues sabes tú, que las almas
distancia ignoran y sexo.
María Luisa, Marquise de la Laguna, was a frequent visitor at the convent during the seven years she spent in Mexico, and she was an avid supporter of Sor Juana. It was she who took Sor Juana’s poems to Spain and arranged for her first book to be published. With the exceptionally successful appearance of Castalian Inundation in 1689, the poet’s celebrity grew in educated circles throughout Spain and its colonies (including the Philippines).18 To the chagrin of many of her superiors, spurred by her own great gifts and by María Luisa’s instrumental patronage, Sor Juana flourished as a literary figure of the Spanish-speaking world.
Gradually, however, other factors began to weigh more heavily than viceregal support and fame. As the seventeenth century reached its last decade, Sor Juana’s situation and that of New Spain veered drastically. Economic, social, and political crises engulfed the realm. Nature itself seemed bent on intensifying the troubles. A solar eclipse spread fear among the population, crops not devastated by rain in the countryside were eaten by weevils, and floods inundated Mexico City. Speculation and hoarding worsened the scarcity of fruit, vegetables, maize, bread, firewood, and coal. Rising prices touched off spontaneous protests. The viceregal palace and municipal building were set on fire. Punitive responses triggered panic, further rioting, penitent religious processions, and executions. Sor Juana’s most significant supporters had returned to Spain or had fallen out of favor. The pressures mounted—perhaps in her own mind as well as from without. Her writing, on religious and mundane subjects alike, came under more direct fire.
The Bishop, the Answer, and—Silence. If it was irreverent for a nun to write love poems, it was worse for her to meddle in theology. For Sor Juana’s biography and for the study of her writing, the significance of the “Letter Worthy of Athena,” this nun’s one incursion into theological argumentation—the only one in prose, written down and printed, that is—resides as much in its having heightened the envy and antagonism of the ecclesiastic establishment as in its admirable reasoning and style.
Piqued by Antonio Vieira’s claim to have improved on the arguments of the fathers and doctors of the church19 (viz., Sts. Augustine, Thomas, and John Chrysostom) concerning Jesus Christ’s highest favor to humanity, Sor Juana in 1690 had ventured to refute the famous preacher’s “Maundy Thursday Sermon” (written forty years earlier!). The refutation was heard in a conversation with guests at the convent, among them Bishop Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, who was on a visit to Mexico City. At his behest, she wrote down her critical disquisition disputing Vieira’s argument as to the highest example of Christ’s love. Three times she mentions her trust that the text will be seen only by the bishop’s eyes; she invites his correction and claims that, not having had the time to polish it, she remits it to him en embrión, como suele la osa parir sus informes cachorrillos (“in an embryonic state, just as the bear gives birth to her unformed cubs,” OC 4.434:904).
Her double-edged claims of humility did not obscure the virtuosity of her argumentation, or her skill at logic. Was the bishop conspiring to silence her when he requested a written copy? He had long been an admiring friend, but he was also an official of convent governance, known for inspiring nuns with fanatical piety. He, too, must have been distressed by this, in his eyes, arrogant and wayward daughter. For years Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas and Fr. Núñez had sought to command from Sor Juana behavior more befitting a nun. Now, they were poised for their chance. Wittingly or unwittingly, the bishop of Puebla joined forces with them.
With the viceroy and vicereine gone, ecclesiastics may have found it easier to instigate or fuel the storm of controversy that broke out over the “Letter Worthy of Athena,” as the bishop of Puebla titled her critique when he delivered it to the press, appending a letter signed “Sor Filotea” as a preface.