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The Labyrinth of Fortune
by
Juan de Mena
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | The Labyrinth of Fortune |
| Author: | Juan de Mena |
| Genre: | Epic |
| Written: | 1444 (Eng. 2025) |
| Length: | 235 pages |
| Original in: | Spanish |
| Availability: | The Labyrinth of Fortune - US |
| Laberinto de Fortuna - US | |
| The Labyrinth of Fortune - UK | |
| The Labyrinth of Fortune - Canada | |
| Laberinto de Fortuna - España | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) |
- Spanish title: Laberinto de Fortuna
- Translated and with an Introduction by Frank A. Domínguez and Ryan D. Giles
- This is a bilingual edition, with the Spanish original facing the English translation; the Spanish text has largely been modernized
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Our Assessment:
B+ : fine edition and translation of an impressive and significant work
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mod. Lang. Notes* | . | (20:3) 3/1905 | H.A.Rennert |
| Nueva Rev. Fil. Hisp.* | . | (44:2) 1996 | J.Santibáñez Escobar |
| RCEH* | . | (7:2) Winter/1983 | Dawn Smith |
(* review of an earlier Spanish edition)
From the Reviews:
- "While in a few cases it is hard to see why (in the absence of variants) the editor has chosen a particular reading, such an examination as we have been able to make shows that this text is a vast improvement upon the older printed ones. It is a very scholarly and painstaking performance, such as the known competency of M. Foulché-Delbosc and his intimate acquaintance with the poem would lead us to expect from him. Indeed it is not at all likely that we will have ever a better edition of the Laberinto than this one." - Hugo A. Rennert, Modern Language Notes
- "El Laberinto de Fortuna de Juan de Mena es, tal vez, la obra literaria más importante del siglo xv castellano. Varias son sus particularidades. Por un lado, constituye uno de los poemas cortesanos más logrados entre los que tienen una clara intencionalidad política. Valiéndose de la alegoría, Mena crea un texto de doble lectura: si abiertamente exalta al rey Juan II, entre líneas lo critica y levanta al condestable Alvaro de Luna, como el personaje central en el gobierno de Castilla. Por otro lado, el Laberinto marca el punto culminante en los intentos de renovación lingüística del momento. Mena, prefigurando al también cordobés Luis de Góngora, intenta elevar el castellano a la dignidad del latín, al incorporar cultismos, arcaísmos y construcciones latinizantes." - Julia Santibáñez Escobar, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica
- "Cummins also provides an expanded bibliography, more extensive textual notes and a useful selection of extracts from the main sources for the work, set out with cross-references to the text. The edition is both scholarly and practical and deserves to enjoy success not only as a text for students but also as a work of reference." - Dawn Smith, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
Translators Frank A. Domínguez and Ryan D. Giles note in their Introduction that Mena's The Labyrinth of Fortune is: "undeniably the most important [Castilian] work of the fifteenth century and has long been considered a classic"; remarkably, however, this is the first translation of the work into English (and it does not seem to have been translated widely into other languages either).
Domínguez and Giles suggest that: "Its length, complexity, and form are the probable reasons it has not been translated until now".
The Labyrinth of Fortune is a Dantesque tour, the poet guided by Divine Providence who reveals the world to him from on high, and then the wheels in the 'House of Fortune' "that represent the workings of fate in the past, the present, and the future", following then the seven successive planetary 'Orders' of the wheel of the past with its examples of human (mis)conduct and action (much like Dante's circles).
The poem has three hundred eight-line stanzas, of: "mostly twelve syllable verses that generally rhyme ABABBCCB".
As the translators explain:
The style and meter of The Labyrinth are impossible to reproduce. We have opted instead to create a prose translation that closely approximates the meaning of the stanzas but disregards Mena's meter and the hyperbata. We also do not attempt to replicate his rhyme scheme, line length, accentual pattern, or caesura, although we graphically distribute the translation over eight lines that, for the most part correspond to the sequence of verses in the Spanish text.As the translators also explain:
Already in the sixteenth century, readers criticized Mena's excessive Latinate diction, hyperbata (changes in word order), frequent allusions to classical or medieval figure, and stresses that often conflicted with the normal accentuation of a word.So their approach would certainly seem to be justified -- and, indeed, works quite well: if the poetry is lost, the meaning is largely clear, and reads well and fluidly enough; indeed, the work does not appear anywhere as daunting as the Introduction (and the work's reputation) might have led readers to fear. As to the poetry, having the Spanish text facing the translation gives readers a good sense of that (if not necessarily of the stresses and the like). Interestingly, the translators have also chosen to 'modernize' the original text, with some exceptions (for example: "Unusual words that are essential to the rhyme are kept"). (My Spanish isn't good enough to get a good sense of this, but the modernization does not appear to be strictly necessary; with some glossing, the original does not appear to be overly more challenging than the modern version, at least vocabulary-wise.)
Mena sums up already in the second stanza of what he will offer: "Tus casos falaces, Fortuna, cantamos" ('Of your ruinous cases, Fortune, we sing'). He notes Fortune's inconstancy -- "¿Pues cómo, Fortuna, regir todas cosas / con ley absoluta, sin orden, te place?" ('So how can you, Fortune, take pleasure / in ruling all things with an absolute law, without order ?') -- but as he makes his complaint he is whisked away by 'Mother Bellona' (the goddess of war) and deposited 'in a vast desert'. Here Providence ("you may call me Divine Providence") introduces herself; he beseeches her to be his guide, and she agrees -- at least to the extent that: "Mostrarte he yo algo de aquello que puede / ser apalpado de humano intelecto" ('I will reveal to you a measure of that which / can be grasped by the human intellect').
First up, they zoom into the heights -- "dónde podía ser bien divisada / toda la parte terrestre e marina !" ('from which one could well see / all the parts of the earth and the sea !'), with a neat little geographic tour of the world then presented in the following stanzas. Amusingly, Fortune seems concerned about the poet getting carried away, bringing things to a close here by telling him to: "Déjate d'esto, que non hace al hecho" ('Leave this be, for it is not pertinent').
In the House of Fortune, she then introduces him to the three wheels of past, present, and future -- though only the middle one, with those "confined to the present", turns. But it is the wheel of "those who belong to the past" which she draws him to, with most of the rest of the poem then describing what he is exposed to in its seven circles. These circles correspond to the (orbits of the) planets (whereby the Moon is included, as the first), each 'imprinting their action' on a successive ring/circle. Providence suggests that the poet will then be able make the connections between the lessons from the past and how they apply to the actors in the present.
The local nobility features prominently on this tour, as Mena not only dedicates his epic to: "Al gran rey de España, al César novelo" ('To the great king of Spain, to the new Casar'), Juan II, but includes figures from his court -- beginning with Juan II's first wife, "the very virtuous Lady Mary" --, and addresses events and issues facing the king, complete with the call that:
Sanad vos los reinos de aqueste recelo,Along the way the poet also sees many famous personages of the past, e.g.:
¡o príncipe bueno, o novel Augusto,
o lumbre d'España, o Rey mucho justo!
It is up to you to heal the kingdoms of this distrust --
Oh good prince ! Oh new Augustus !
Oh light of Spain ! Oh king ever just !
Vi más a Sócrates tal que lo temo,He also see Homer, Virgil, and a whole 'horde of Romans':
con la ponzoña mortal que bevía,
y vi a Pitágoras que defendía
las carnes al mundo comer por estremo.
I also saw Socrates as I feared,
with the poisonous draft he was drinking,
and I saw Pythagoras strongly forbidding
the world from excessive consumption of meat.
trágicos, líricos, elegïanos,The variety of classical figures is entertaining, and plays some into Mena's purpose, but the focus of this exercise is on the political, and then-present-day Spain. Occasionally, direct advice is offered to the king:
cómicos, sátiros, con heroístas,
y los escritores de tantas conquistas
cuantas nacieron entre los humanos.
tragic, lyrical, elegiacal,
comic, satirical, and heroic poets,
and the writers of as many conquests
as could be made by humankind.
Como las telas que dan las arañasAs is explained in the Introduction, the poem also has a clear objective: noting the failures to recapture the territories lost to the Moors, it puts its hopes in Juan II (and Álvaro de Luna) to finally succeed with the Reconquista (while criticizing the actions of many that Mena sees as playing a role in the continued failure to achieve these ends at the time). As the translators suggest:
las leyes presentes non sean atales,
que prenden los flacos viles animales
y muestran en ellos sus lánguidas sañas.
Las bestias mayores, que son más extrañas
pasan por ellas, rompiendo la tela,
así que non obra vigor la cautela
si no contra flacas y pobres compañas.
Let present-day laws not be
like the cobwebs spun by spiders,
for they capture the weak, vile animals
and inflict their languid cruelties on them.
The larger beast, which are rarer,
pass through them, tearing the web;
therefore, rigid regulation is ineffectual
except against weak and poor classes of people.
This may be one of the reasons why the message of The Labyrinth is couched in a style that Mena had used before but that here serves an additional purpose: the poem's unusual syntax, Latinisms, and neologisms shift the attention of its readers away from what is said to how it is said, thereby veiling its meaning and diffusing the virulence of Mena's censure.The extensive endnote-Notes to the Translation help guide contemporary readers through some of the politics and history at issue, which is certainly helpful, but the main appeal to contemporary readers is surely in the poetry and the wending of the poet's Providence-led path across geography and history. Even if the full effect of much of the writing is lost in translation -- no hyperbata ! -- enough comes across, and both in its parts and as a whole the work impresses. Having it finally available in English fills a significant hole -- and it is certainly particularly to be appreciated that it is available in a bilingual and well-annotated edition.
- M.A.Orthofer, 24 May 2025
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The Labyrinth of Fortune:
- Harvard University Press publicity page
- Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library publicity page
- Cátedra publicity page
- Laberinto de Fortuna - Spanish text
- Cantando sobre el atril (Spanish)
- Revista Cronopio (Spanish)
- See Index of Spanish literature
- See Index of Epics
- See Index of Poetry
- See Index of Books Written Before 1900
- Other books in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library
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Spanish author Juan de Mena lived 1411 to 1456.
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© 2025 the complete review
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