The Sepultura de Macías by San Pedro – But Which San Pedro?

Summary

A poem written to the tomb of Macías, Sepultura de Macías, long accessible in Caroline B. Bourland's partial edition of PN6 (Paris Esp 228) where it is attributed to Juan de San Pedro, is attributed in SA10b (Salamanca MS 2763, published in Dutton 1990–91) to our old friend and possible plagiarist Diego de San Pedro. I say possible plagiarist because Joseph J. Gwara has recently cast doubt on some of the attributions to this poet, alleging that he expropriated La Pasión trobada from a relative, specifically from the Pedro de San Pedro cited as its author in the original Cancionero de Oñate version. Gwara believes that his authorship of Arnalte y Lucenda may also be suspect because the style of that sentimental romance is so radically inferior to that of Cárcel de Amor that it could scarcely be explained by later authorial maturity and expertise. Whether Diego himself wrote those pieces or whether he was the literary heir to a long family tradition which he expropriated, the Sepultura de Macías poem is another piece of the puzzle of Diego de San Pedro's apparently boundless versatility.

Although both MS texts of the poem are available in Brian Dutton's transcriptions (1990–91: III, 377–78 and IV, 272–73), these are paleographic, and do not make for easy reading, especially in the understanding of the dialogue. I therefore provide a reading text, giving quotation marks and other punctuation, accents, etcetera. My text is that of SA10b, and it is based on Dutton's transcription; where there is a significant (i.e. not merely orthographic) variant in PN6, it is given in the right margin, and the corresponding words of SA10b are printed in bold.

The poet greets the tomb in the first stanza and is abruptly challenged by the tomb:

1. ‘Sepultura de Maçías,

salue os Dios;

ayáes alegres días’

‘¿Quién soys vos?’

‘Vn onbre desconsolado

que lo ando a buscar, vengo

et sope n’este logar quen

que vos lo tenéys guardado’. lo teníades