ancient Semitic fertility god

Fishburn and Hughes: "The Semitic for 'Lord': the name of many ancient near-eastern fertility gods. In Babylon, Baal was identified with the planet Jupiter and later became one of their chief gods. Though used at times to designate the god of Israel, the name is normally associated in the Old Testament with lesser, more local gods and condemned by the Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah associates the cult with heathen practices of a violent and cruel kind. Given the fluidity of the worship of Baal, it is difficult to establish the mysteries alluded to. The cult was based on magic, on violent and ecstatic exercises and on human sacrifice." (20)

founder of Hasidism, 1700-1760

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Hebrew word, meaning 'master of the Name' the person who knows how to use God’s name. Israel ben Eliezer (c.1700-1760) was known as Baal Shem Tov. He originated from Podolia and was the founder of eighteenth-century Polish Hasidism. The title Baal Shem is based on his belief in the miraculous power of the Sacred Name, which he invoked to work miracles. 

Any biography of Baal Shem would necessarily be highly fictional, since he left no writings and the little we know of him is interwoven with legend. Borges may, however, be referring to Martín Buber's Die Legende des Baalschem (1908: trans. 1955)". (21)

monster which helps devour the dead in Egyptian mythology

Lewis satirical novel, 1922

character in Lewis novel

Dunsany

Tower of Babel in the Bible

Fishburn and Hughes: "Assyrian word, Bab-ili, meaning 'the gate of the God', the original name of Babylon; cf. Hebrew balal, to 'confuse'. The story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) seeks to explain the diversity of mankind. Man's presumption in building a tower to reach heaven is frustrated by God, who confounds the language of those who built it, dividing their speech. The story was probably inspired by the pyramidal temple-tower in Babylon." (21)

in Spanish, "estar en babia" is to be in the clouds, but Babia is also a place in León, Spain

ancient Babylon

Fishburn and Hughes: "Greek form of Babel. An ancient city on the Euphrates, first mentioned in a tablet of 3800 BC, famous for its astronomical and astrological practices. From 2250 BC Babylon was the capital of an extensive commercial empire periodically fighting for supremacy with the neighbouring Assyrians. After the fall of Nineveh in 606 BC Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt the town, fortifying it with towers and a wall which joined the Tigris to the Euphrates. When the western regions of the empire rose in revolt, led by Egypt, Babylon retaliated, destroying Jerusalem and enslaving the Jews. The decay of Babylon began in 500 BC with King Belshazzar, who saw the 'writing on the wall'. It was occupied first by Cyrus of Persia and then by Alexander of Macedon, after whose death in 323 BC it dwindled to a group of villages.
Among the Babylonians all transactions were carried out on clay tablets, many of which survive, along with documentation of their religion, magic and astrology. A complex system of gods involved a hierarchy of priests and many liturgical rites, including the making of horoscopes. A vast legal organisation governed the life of individuals: capital punishment was applied for theft, and the judicial system was based on the Lex Talionis ('an eye for an eye')." (21)

character in Bustos Domecq story

Spanish writer, 1895-1931

German composer, 1685-1750

character in Borges story, to whom "Le jardin du centaure" is attributed

Shaw play, 1921

Bacchus or Dionysus, ancient god of wine and ecstasy

US writer, 1811-1859, leading proponent of the idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon

English philosopher and writer, 1561-1626, author of The Advancement of Learning, The New Atlantis and numerous essays

Fishburn and Hughes: "An English courtier, jurist and philosopher, best known for his Novum Organum (1620) and Essays (1625). The Novum Organum sets out his plan for restructuring scientific knowledge. The Essays deal with family life, virtues and vices, religion, education, health, politics, friendship and beauty.

In Essay 58, 'Of Vicissitude of Things', Bacon begins with Solomon's dictum 'There is no new thing under the sun'. He then discusses the recurring calamities in human experience - earthquakes and deluges, religious discord, wars and the fall of empires -and ends by warning us not to 'look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitudes lest we become giddy'." (21-22)

English philosopher and scientist, c. 1220-1292

French scholar of Tibet, 1877-1965, author of La Vie de Marpa le traducteur

character in Borges story

ancient Greek kingdom in central Asia, the capital of which is now the city of Balkh in Afghanistan

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: abuela materna de Eisengardt, de sangre ‘cartesiana’ ya que, al igual que el filósofo René Descartes (1596−1650), era de origen francés.

character in Bustos Domecq story

German philosopher, 1887-1968, who used Nietzsche to legitimize Nazism

Argentine educator, author of bio-biographical note on Honorio Bustos Domecq

Parodi: la profesión de este personaje no sólo se revela en la palabra “educadora” sino especialmente en su estilo de escritura, el tono, los comentarios, el léxico que emplea, los lugares comunes, que permiten identificarla como modelo exacerbado de la maestra de escuela primaria. La aposición de su nombre al sustantivo “educadora” deja entrever que Badoglio fue tal vez la única encargada de la educación de Bustos. El calificativo de “señorita” que precede al nombre no necesariamente alude al estado civil o a la edad de Badoglio; el autor de las dos primeras líneas de la página −Bustos− emplea la forma de tratamiento tradicional en las escuelas argentinas, donde ‘mi señorita’ es sinónimo de ‘mi maestra’. El apellido de este personaje podría haber sido elegido al azar ya que carece de alusiones particulares; se trata de un apellido típicamente piamontés, más frecuente en las provincias de Santa Fe y de Córdoba, donde históricamente se dio una mayor concentración de inmigrantes de esa región de Italia. No obstante, debe tenerse en cuenta que, especialmente en los años treinta y cuarenta, ese apellido se mencionaba con frecuencia en las noticias internacionales: el Mariscal Pietro Badoglio (1871−1956), Marqués de Sabotino y Duque de Addis Abeba, fue un célebre militar italiano que participó en las guerras de Etiopía, de Tripolitania y en la Primera Guerra Mundial, en la que actuó como Comandante en Jefe del Ejército italiano. Al instaurarse el fascismo, fue nombrado Mariscal y Jefe del Estado Mayor; entre 1924 y 1925 se desempeñó como embajador en Brasil. Fue además gobernador de Tripolitania, comandó las tropas italianas en Etiopía y conquistó Addis Abeba. Cuando en 1943 el rey Víctor Manuel III destituyó a Mussolini, puso a Badoglio al frente del gobierno monárquico con el cargo de Primer Ministro. Hasta entonces miembro del Partido Nacional Fascista, durante su ministerio Badoglio disolvió el partido y firmó un armisticio por el que Italia se ponía del lado de los aliados y aceptaba una rendición incondicional. Ese mismo año, el gobierno italiano declaró la guerra a Alemania y Mussolini habló por radio a los italianos proclamando la “traición de Badoglio”, que dimitió en 1944. Por sus vinculaciones con el fascismo, en la posguerra fue privado de cargos y honores hasta que la Democracia Cristiana lo rehabilitó en 1948.

https://www.borges.pitt.edu/book/borges-bioy-en-contexto-una-lectura-gu…

son of Shahriman, character in the Arabian Nights

Fishburn and Hughes: "A German publisher, famous for the guide books bearing his name." (22)

Baghdad, capital of Iraq

town in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

English journalist and literary critic, 1826-1877, here mentioned for his 1859 book on Milton

character in Borges story

Bombay lawyer, author of The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim

Arabian monster related to the Behemoth

state in northeastern Brazil

port city in southern part of the province of Buenos Aires

French name for Bahia de Todos os Santos, Brazil

German philosopher, 1830-81, author of Philosophie und Nationalitat, Zur Philosophie der Geschichte and other works

Hauptmann novella, 1888

Austrian playwright and writer, 1863-1934

Tichborne family friend, 1830-1918, ally of the Claimant

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: Juan Pedro Baigorri (1892-1972), “el mago de Villa Luro”, fue un argentino o, tal vez, uruguayo, graduado de ingeniero en Milán que inventó una máquina para producir lluvias. Recorrió todo el país con su artefacto y, aunque su suerte fue dispar, se convirtió en un personaje célebre. En “El perjurio de la nieve” (Historias 61), Bioy lo recuerda como “el señor Baigorri, que fabricaba tormentas en Villa Luro”; en ese barrio del oeste de Buenos Aires, en el altillo de su casa, Baigorri había instalado su laboratorio.

Marcelo del Mazo poem, 1910

A poem by Marcelo del Mazo

American writer (1836-1907).

English author of detective fiction, 1878-1961, whose stories often featured a detective named Reggie Fortune

character in Arnold Bennett novel The Old Wives' Tale

French historian and journalist, 1879-1936, a founder of Action Française and an anti-Dreyfusard

avenue along edge of port in Buenos Aires

lower part of Rhine valley

street in London, famous as the residence of Sherlock Holmes

US specialist in modern theater, 1866-1935, teacher of Eugene O'Neill at Harvard and later a founder of the Yale School of Drama

Lugones poem in Las horas doradas

Abu-l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Jabir al- Baladhuri, Arabian historian born in Persia, d. 892, author of Ansab ul-Ashraf or Genealogies of the Nobles, and of the Futuh ul-Buldan or Conquests of Lands, an account of the early conquests of Mohammed and the early caliphs

Banchs poem

hillls near Mar del Plata

street in Buenos Aires

Argentine poet, 1818-1839

Parodi: “El cigarro” es una canción que el poeta Florencio Balcarce (1818-1839) escribió en Francia, en la localidad de Boulogne-sur-Mer, en una de sus visitas al General San Martín en su lugar de exilio en Francia. En Memorias 13-14, Bioy comenta: “Cuando yo era chico [...] de Florencio Balcarce mi padre me recitaba el un tanto machacón “Cigarro””. En sus conversaciones con Sorrrentino (cf. Siete 146-147), evoca Bioy: “Mientras me preparaban el baño, mi padre me tenía en brazos y me recitaba a Estanislao del Campo, el Martín Fierro y poemas de Ascasubi. […] También “El cigarro”, de Florencio Balcarce.”

vista point near Bariloche

Protean creature in Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus

Norse god of summer

Work by James George Frazer (1913).

a mythological lay about the god Balder, associated with the Elder Edda

Balearic Isles in Spain, Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza

British politician, 1848-1930, whose Balfour Declaration established a Jewish homeland in Palestine

Balkan countries of southern Europe, sometimes Balcanes

city in Afghanistan, the ancient city of Bactria or Zainaspa

Old English poem

Old English poem

old Scottish ballad

Wilde poem, 1898

Countee Cullen book, 1928, here called La balada de la muchacha morena

Chesterton poem

Fort collection of poems in some thirty volumes

whale in various myths and legends

Uruguayan writer, 1888-1971, author of Montevideo y su cerro, 1928

town near Lerida, Spain

Spanish cleric, philosopher and political journalist, 1810-1848, author of El criterio, Cartas a un escéptico en materia de religión, Filosofía elemental and other works

Parodi: Jaime Luciano Balmes (1810-1848), sacerdote, filósofo y teólogo español graduado en el seminario de Vich, su ciudad natal, en Cataluña. Entre sus obras: El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización europea (1842-1844), El Criterio (1845), Cartas a un escéptico en materia de religión (1846), Filosofía fundamental (1846), Curso de filosofía elemental (1847). Mencionado también infra §26.

beach area in Buenos Aires

Parodi: Balneario Municipal de Buenos Aires que, desde 1918 hasta fines de los años sesenta, estuvo ubicado a orillas del Río de la Plata, sobre la avenida Costanera Sur.

Baltic Sea

city in Maryland

neighborhood in Buenos Aires

French novelist, 1799-1850, author of Recherche de l'absolu and numerous other works

Luis López Jordán text

Parodi: “La Bambina y La mula de Luis María Jordán”: el escritor argentino Luis María Jordán (1883-1933) es autor de La Bambina, una novela ambientada en la ciudad de Mar del Plata y publicada inicialmente como folletín en el diario La Razón, en 1926. En la cuantiosa obra de Jordán, que registra novelas, cuentos y poemas, no se ha encontrado La mula. Sobre este escritor comenta Borges en uno de sus diálogos con Osvaldo Ferrari (En diálogo 144): “Y hay un poeta, a quien sólo se recuerda cuando se habla de Lugones −no sé si habrá muerto o no−, Luis María Jordán, autor de una pieza de teatro que no conozco, titulada La Bambina y, según Mallea, Jordán iba todos los días a conversar con Lugones. Y es lo único que yo sé de él, y he leído y he olvidado debidamente algunos versos suyos en alguna antología.” En Borges 1371, dice Bioy: “Comento que tenemos una insólita erudición acerca de escritores oscuros. Borges: “El mejor amigo, o el más próximo, de Lugones fue Luis María Jordán, el autor de La Bambina”.

town north of Buenos Aires

Parodi: una localidad del Partido de San Fernando, al norte de la Capital. Hacia la fecha de publicación de Seis problemas, Bancalari era una población menor, aunque contaba con estación del ferrocarril.

Argentine poet, 1888-1968, author of sonnet collection La urna

US film actor, 1882-1956

Fishburn and Hughes: "The name given to all Spanish possessions east of the River Uruguay. Today it is an old- fashioned name for the Republic of Uruguay. The Banda Oriental was settled by Spanish colonialists in the eighteenth century and was hated by its neighbours on either side. In 1776 it was annexed to the viceroyalty of La Plata and in 1821 to Brazil. Only in 1828, after much fighting, was it declared an independent state. It then acted as a buffer between the two contending nations and maintained the balance of power.

The dominating role of Buenos Aires in the Plate area during the campaigns of Independence was resented in the Banda Oriental. Hence the terms used in Uruguay to describe an inhabitant of Buenos Aires: literate ('highbrow'), cajetilla ('city slicker') and porteño ('dude')." (22)

Icelandic saga

Italian bishop and novelist, 1485-1561, author of the Novelle

town in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires near General Villegas

Parodi: pequeña localidad del Partido de General Villegas, ubicada en el límite noroeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires; colinda con la provincia de La Pampa y dista unos 500 kilómetros de la ciudad de Buenos Aires.

town in the province of Buenos Aires

Asurbanipal, Assyrian king, name inverted here for purposes of the rhyme

Spanish classical scholar, author of various works on ancient Greece

Pérez Zelaschi, short story.

Scottish general, character in Shakespeare's Macbeth

supernatural being of Ireland and Scotland, known for howling by the window of a house where someone is about to die

reference to the Abbasid dynasty, opposed to Al-Moqanna

French poet, dramatist and writer, 1823-91

sketch of the tracker, famous section of an early chapter of Sarmiento's Facundo, usually spelled El baqueano

bar in Buenos Aires

town in Parana delta in Argentina

Spanish poet, 1548-95, author of Las lagrimas de Angelica and other works

Venezuelan critic and poet, 1810-60, author of a Diccionario de galicismos, Historia de Venezuela and an unfinished Diccionario matriz de la lengua castellana

poem by Alfonsina Storni

Federico Barbará (1828-1893) was an Argentinian writer and a military officer. Author of "Manual de la lengua pampa"

major in the Salvation Army, character in Shaw play

Michaux book, translated into Spanish by Borges

Friedrich I , Barbarossa, 1122-1190, Holy Roman Emperor

Parodi: el vino Barbera, un tinto de gran cuerpo, procedente del Piamonte.

character in Don Quijote, see Nicolas el Barbero

Argentine poet, 1903-1956

name used here as interpellation

Parodi: “No te hagas el cine mudo, Barbone”: ‘no te hagas el cine mudo’ se emplea aquí como incitación a que hable, que diga algo. El apellido ‘Barbone’ se emplea aquí como mote, con el significado de ‘barbudo’; cf. “Limardo” i §13.

French writer, 1874-1935, author of L'Enfer

Torres Villaroel satire, 1731

street in Buenos Aires

Banchs book of poems

city in Spain, capital of Catalonia

Spanish actress, 1890-1977

Spanish lexicographer, 1823-1885, author of a Diccionario general etimólogico de la lengua española and a Diccionario de sinónimos

Parodi: Roque Barcia Martí (1823-1885) fue un filósofo, lexicógrafo y político español, autor del Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, en cinco volúmenes publicados en 1880. Barcia es también autor de un Diccionario de sinónimos, de 1863.

minor character in Bustos Domecq story

dog in Don Quixote

character in Borges story

character in Borges story

Salvador Reyes book of poems, 1923

Beatriz Portinari's husband

Tibetan Book of the Dead

city in southern Italy

French writer, pseudonym of Mme. Charles Yincens, 1840-1908

British historian, 1874-1960, author of The Crusades

holy man in legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, Christianized version of the Buddha legend

Christian adaptation of a legend of Buddha

Icelandic version of the Barlaam and Josaphat story

author of Urkunden zur Geschichte der Zahirsage, 1899, perhaps a relative of the writer and sculptor Ernst Barlach, 1870-1938

Argentine author, 1902-1975, member of the Boedo group

Buzzati novel, 1933

Dickens novel, 1841

translator of Bergson's Les Données immédiates de la conscience

US showman known for the circus he founded, 1810-1891

Spanish novelist, 1872-1956, subject of one of Borges's first publications

Argentine poet, author of Se alquila

Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and church historian, 1538-1607, author of Annales Ecclesiastici and the Martyrologium Romanum

Barabbas, Jew of Malta in Marlowe's play

Barabbas, in the Bible, Jewish prisoner released in exchange for the crucifixion of Jesus

Buenos Aires neighborhood

poem from Carlos Muñoz de la Púa’s book La crencha engrasada

Kipling book of poems, 1892

cliff and mirador in Mar del Plata

place in province of Cordoba where Facundo Quiroga was killed

French actor and director, 1910-1994

character in Suarez Lynch novella, nicknamed Potranco, Pestalozzi, Estatua de Garibaldi, etc.

Parodi: 1) personaje de Modelo, Ladislao Barreiro es abogado y asesor legal de la A.A.A. Los motes que recibe se relacionan o bien con su ‘cara de caballo’ –“potranco”; “nuestro centauro”; “Estatua de Garibaldi”; “Tracción a Sangre– o con su fuerza física y presteza para golpear: “el Pibe Fuerza Bruta”; “el Pibe Pestalozzi”.

2) “Ladislao Barreiro, […], alias Estatua de Garibaldi Barreiro”: el mote de Barreiro alude a la estatua ecuestre de Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) que se instaló en 1904 para la inauguración de la Plaza Italia, ubicada en el acceso al Parque 3 de Febrero, en los bosques de Palermo. El monumento -−réplica del erigido en Brescia, Italia− es obra de Eugenio Maccagnani (1852−1930) y fue donado a la ciudad de Buenos Aires por los residentes italianos.

3) “el Potranco Barreiro, alias Tracción a Sangre”: el mote de Barreiro, que equivale a ‘tracción animal’, lo equipara a un caballo.

French novelist, essayist and politician, 1862-1923

pseud. of Carriego

Scottish writer, author of Peter Pan and numerous other works, 1860-1937

Text written by Alfredo Taullard.

Abasto neighborhood near old market building

neighborhood in Buenos Aires

name given in the 19th century to the neighborhoods of Concepción and Monserrat because of the strong Afro-Argentine presence in them

Quartier Latin in Paris

neighborhood in Buenos Aires

neighborhood in Buenos Aires

Parodi: referencia a Parque Avellaneda, un barrio ubicado al suroeste de la capital.

part of Buenos Aires south of Rivadavia

Text written by Ignacio Braulio Anzoátegui.

river in Ireland

Pseudonym of the British writer Philip Atkey (1908–1985).

editor of book on childhood with E. J. R. Heyward, V. R. Montesinos V. and C. Safilios-Rothschild, 1972

German-language publisher of Freud, here publisher of Hladik's translation of the Sefer Yetsirah

Argentine critic, editor of Cien poesias rioplatenses, 1954, and works of Lugones and Borges

character in Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener

Melville story, 1853, later included in the Piazza Tales, translated into Spanish by Borges

artist, second wife of E. E. Cummings

English poet, 1784-1849, friend of Charles Lamb and father-in-law of Edward FitzGerald

Argentine artist, 1894-1976

Bassanio, character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Basil the Great of Caesarea, Greek church leader, c.330-379, author of De Spiritu Sancto, Moralia and Regulae

Basel, Switzerland

Gnostic theologian, fl. c.130 A.D.

Fishburn and Hughes: "An early Gnostic from Alexandria who integrated Pythagorean and Cabbalistic principles and Oriental traditions with the Christian faith.
Three Versions of Judas: Basilides held that, according to Greek numeration, the sum of the numerical values of the letters composing the name Abraxas, his name for God, came to 365. Abraxas created 'Understanding' and this in turn created 'The Word'; by a successive hierarchical process the different orders of angels (365 in fact) were created. The lowest of these -to which the god of the Jews is included - created the world: an attempt by Basilides to resolve the problem of evil. To redeem creation from corruption, Abraxas sent his own son ('Understanding'), who became one with the man Jesus. Basilides rejected the doctrine of the resurrection, since the body was made of evil matter. His followers, therefore, unable to reconcile themselves to the resurrection of Jesus, were compelled to deny the physical aspects of the crucifixion. Some said that Jesus was only a phantom in the moment of death; others that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in his stead.

The Library of Babel: “A commentary on a commentary on the gnostic gospel of Basilides may refer to Borges’s essay “Basilides the False”." (23)

handwriting expert invoked in preface to Suárez Lynch novella

Parodi: el hecho de que el supuesto calígrafo lleve el nombre de ‘Basilio’ no es casual sino una referencia implícita a un personaje histórico, San Basilio Magno (330-379), conocido también como Basilio de Cesárea. Basilio es santo de la Iglesia Ortodoxa, Padre de la Iglesia Griega, y santo y doctor de la Iglesia Católica. Además de autor de escritos teológicos y célebre predicador de sermones morales, es el creador de una serie de reglas orientadas a la reforma de las órdenes monásticas. Los monasterios basilianos, que siguieron esas reglas, fueron activos centros de la vida intelectual y artística de su época. Los monjes se dedicaban allí a la orfebrería y principalmente a la caligrafía y la copia e ilustración de manuscritos.

Quevedo

horrid monster of the ancients

city in lower Mesopotamia, now in Iraq

place in Italy

Argentine tango composer, 1890-1950

sponsor of Borges's Anales de Buenos Aires, literary magazine that published an early Cortázar story

Anglada essay

Battle that took place in El Tala during the Argentine civil wars (October 27th, 1826).

A battle during the Argentine Civil Wars, July 6 1827

Rimbaud poem, c.1870

Buenos Aires neighborhood

US educator, 1879-1939, editor of The Bible Designed To Be Read as Literature

The Bates Brothers wrote La historia del tango published in Buenos Aires in 1936.

English writer, 1899-2000, author of The Lean Men, The Olive Field, Fields of Paradise

ancient city in western England

capital of Louisiana

minor character in Bustos Domecq story

Kafka tale about an animal's burrow, 1923-24

French poet and critic, 1821-1867, author of Les Fleurs du mal, Spleen, Petits poèmes en prose and other works

journalist mentioned in Bustos Domecq story

Austrian-Argentine writer and physician, b. 1924, translator of Heine

German writer, b. 1915, author of anti-Semitic children's book, Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid, 1936

Hedwig Baum, Austrian musician and author, 1888-1960

German expressionist, subject of a portrait by Kurt Schwitters, "a leading advocate of proletarian liberation" according to a Guggenheim exhibit catalogue

Parodi: la óptica Bausch y Lomb, fundada en Nueva York por dos inmigrantes alemanes, John Jacob Bausch y Henry C. Lomb, inició su producción en 1853 con la manufactura de monóculos.

Bavaria, region in southern Germany

Argentine poet, 1919-1990, here misspelled Bailey

Spaniard writer and translator (1859-1939)

city in France

ship on which Darwin circumnavigated the globe

James story

Nicholas Blake mystery, 1938

Saki’s collection of short stories, 1914.

Bestias, hombres y dioses, Ferdinand Ossendowski novel written in English, 1921

Beatrice Portinari, 1266-1290, woman who leads Dante in the Purgatorio and Paradiso

Horace ode

street

Parodi: calle en la zona central de Lausana, próxima a la Place Saint-François (cf. supra §3) y a la estación ferroviaria.

poet associated with Ultraísmo

Parodi: “Bourgogne y del Beaujolais”: dos denominaciones de origen de vinos franceses, producidas en las regiones de Borgoña, al centro-noreste del país, y Beaujolais, situada al sur de Borgoña y al norte de Lyon.

Commune in the Somme department in Picardy in the northern France which was almost totally destroyed during World War One.

Saroyan play, 1941

medieval French writer, d. 1264, author of Speculum

Argentinian Historian

German expressionist poet, 1891-1958, later Minister of Culture of the German Democratic Republic and author of its national anthem

English politician, bishop and saint, 1118-70

English writer, 1760-1844, author of Vathek

German Orientalist, 1874-1939, author of Buddhismus: Buddha und seine lehre

pseud. of Gustavo Adolfo Dominguez Bastida, Spanish poet and painter, 1836-1870, author of Rimas and Leyendas

the Venerable Bede, English historian, c.672-735, author of the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

knight in Arthurian legend

Henry Max Beerbohm (1872-1956). English essayist and caricaturist.

German composer and pianist, 1770-1827

London novel about life of prehistoric savages, 1906

Francis Iles, novel, 1932.

Yeats poem in The Winding Stair, 1933

monster mentioned in the Bible, often identified with the hippopotamus

Parodi: la palabra hebrea Behemot es un plural que se concuerda con un verbo en singular. Se lo traduce con el significado de ‘bestia o animal grande’ o ‘el más grande’. Este caso, como el de otros similares en la lengua hebrea, se interpreta como un ejemplo de plural cuantitativo (también llamado ‘de excelencia’) en el cual una palabra toma la forma plural para significar la grandeza de un objeto.

Tras las barricadas españolas, John Langdon-Davies book on the Spanish Civil War, 1936

English dramatist, novelist and spy, 1640?-1689, author of Oroonoko, The Forced Marriage, The Amorous Prince and other works

Bering Strait

Kafka short story about the Great Wall of China, written in 1917

Elías Metchnikoff work in collaboration with B. Michailoski (1908)

Novel by Guy de Maupassant (1885).

Beelzebub, lord of the flies, one of the principal devils

Spanish novelist and humorist, 1880-1935

Parodi: según Formento, a la etapa modernista de Anglada sigue la emulación de la obra de Joaquín Belda (1880−1935), el novelista, periodista y humorista español, autor de novelas eróticas cortas, algunas consideradas pornográficas, muy populares en el primer tercio del siglo XX. Entre muchos otros títulos, Belda publicó El pícaro oficio (1912), Una mancha de sangre (1913), La Coquito (1915), Aquellos polvos (1916), Más chulo que un ocho (1917), Las noches del Botánico (1917), Las chicas de Terpsícore (1917), Carmina y su novio (1921), etc. En “Pornografía” (TR3: 254), al hablar de la censura como “un mal [por ahora] necesario”, Borges menciona “la pornografía de un Joaquín Belda (a quien no recuerdo haber leído)”.

Bethlehem, now in the West Bank

Bellerophon, Greek mythological hero, son of Glaucus, king of Corinth, who killed the chimera and flew on Pegasus

Belgium

Buenos Aires neighborhood

avenue in Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes: "A street in the vicinity of Barrio Sur, some three blocks from Chile and Tacuarí." (24)

Parodi: 1) “al 1300 de la calle Belgrano”: a fines de 1930 se concretó el ensanche de la calle Belgrano, un proyecto aprobado en 1904 por la Municipalidad de Buenos Aires. Los edificios que obstaculizaban el trazado de la futura avenida fueron demolidos; supuestamente, también la casa de don Alejandro. Cf. infra §14.

2) “Poco antes de la calle Belgrano”: referencia a la Avenida Belgrano (cf. “Testigo” §7), ya en las cercanías de la Plaza de Mayo.

university in Buenos Aires

parodic novel by Hilaire Belloc, 1928

Belisarius, Roman general, c.505-565, in whose honor medals were struck; according to legend, Belisarius later wandered the streets of Constantinople a blind beggar

queen in the Arabian Nights

town in the province of Córdoba in Argentina, formerly called Fraile Muerto

Scottish mathematician and science fiction author, 1883-1960, who lived in the US for most of his life and published some of his work under the pseudonym John Taine, author of Men of Mathematics

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty fairy tale

French poet, 1530-1585, compiler of the Histoires tragiques

character in James's The American

personification of beauty

anthology of Talmudic writings in Spanish translation by Rafael Cansinos-Asséns

title invented for a poem in an anthology by G. B. Harrison

Venezuelan philosopher, grammarian and poet, 1781-1865

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Chilean politician, poet and grammarian, considered a master of the Spanish language. In his Gramática de la lengua castellaña (1847) Bello systematised Spanish grammar according to common usage rather than Latin rules. The work is still influential. A Neoclassicist, Bello engaged in a protracted polemic against Sarmiento's Romanticism and introduced Locke, Berkeley and Mill to South America.

Examples of Bello's proposed spelling changes may be found in Borges's quotation from Sarmiento's Recuerdos de provincia (Pról. 131)." (25)

Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc, English writer, born in France, 1870-1953

character in Bustos Domecq stories

Parodi: “aquel Lambkin, fantoche de fantasía, que dio su augusto nombre a una sátira de Belloc”: sobre Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (1870-1953) escritor inglés nacido en Francia, dice Borges que tiene “la fama de ser el mejor prosista y el más diestro versificador del idioma inglés” (“Stories”, TC1 407). En Cautivos 371-372, “Hilaire Belloc”: “Se habla demasiado sobre él. Se dice que es un francés, un inglés, un universitario de Oxford, un historiador, un soldado, un economista, un poeta, un antisemita, un filosemita, un hombre de campo, un farsante, un aventajado alumno de Chesterton, un maestro de Chesterton”. Escribió más de cien libros entre ensayos de política, economía, historia, biografías, poemas infantiles, poesías, novelas y reflexiones. Asimismo, escribió biografías, entre otras, las de Robespierre, Richelieu, Jaime Segundo, Juana de Arco, Cromwell, Napoleón, María Antonieta, Guillermo el Conquistador. En opinión de Borges, “Belloc ensayista es insignificante o imperceptible; Belloc novelista pasa de lo mediocre a lo intolerable; Belloc juez literario prefiere aseverar a persuadir; Belloc historiador me parece admirabilísimo” (“Stories” TC1 407). En 1900 publicó su octavo libro: Lambkin’s Remains, que presenta como edición de las obras no publicadas de “J. A. Lambkin, M.A. sometime Fellow of Burford College”. Belloc dota a Josiah Lambkin de una genealogía, le inventa una biografía que extiende entre 1843 y 1899, reproduce textualmente y comenta sus poemas, sus ensayos, su correspondencia, sus discursos y sermones, sus artículos periodísticos, analiza minuciosamente los rasgos retóricos de su prosa, su caligrafía, sus gestos, el tono de su voz, sus lecturas y hasta incluye en el capítulo final una entrevista que supuestamente tuvo lugar en casa de Lambkin poco antes de su muerte.

French lawyer, father of Hilaire Belloc

Poe poem

Luis Antonio de Belluga y Moncada, 1662-1743, bishop of Murcia and cardinal during the War of the Spanish Succession

Flavius Josephus history of the Jewish revolt against Rome, appeared c.75-79

town where Buzzati was born in northeastern Italy

Benda essays, 1920

mythical character in Dunsany

One of the names given to Notes of Ben Johnson´s Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (circa 1619).

holy city on the Ganges in India, now Varanasi

character in Cansinos Assens' novel Las luminarias de Hanukah

Spanish playwright, 1866-1954, winner of the Nobel Prize for LIterature in 1922

Argentine painter and scene designer, 1916-1982

knife-fighter in Buenos Aires

French critic and essayist, 1867-1956, author of La trahison des clercs and other works

poem by Luis L. Franco

character in Don Quixote, supposed author of the manuscript on which the novel is based starting with chapter 9

city in Italy near Naples

Bengal, now in India and Bangladesh

Bay of Bengal

Baulito Perez's mother's maiden name

member of a socially prominent Buenos Aires family, mentioned in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: el “Tigre Bengolea”: el apodo de ‘Tigre’, define a Bengolea como persona muy hábil, muy capaz en alguna actividad. Para ‘tigre’, cf. “Doce” i §29.

character in Gustaf-Janson's novel Gubben Kommer

Melville story, included in the Piazza Tales, 1856

German essayist, novelist and expressionist poet, 1886-1956

Enoch Arnold Bennett, British novelist, 1867-1931

French Orientalist, 1904-1992, author of La doctrine supreme selon la pensée zen

Van Dine mystery, 1926

English poet, 1875-1956, inventor of the clerihew

editor of Milton's Paradise Lost

German poet, 1869-1926, editor of two anthologies of German poetry, Die moderne deutsche Lyrik, 1904, und Die deutsche Ballade, 1913

Boeotia, region of ancient Greece

Parodi: “yo también he estado en Beocia...”: referencia a la región de Grecia que fue cuna de las Musas, de Hesíodo, de Píndaro, de Plutarco. No obstante ese brillo, desde la antigüedad clásica los beocianos eran reputados como un pueblo necio, insensible al conocimiento. En francés, el adjetivo beociano continúa designando a la persona tosca e inculta.

Old English epic poem

hero of Old English epic poem

character in Byron's poem Beppo: A Venetian Story

Borges's cat

Byron poem, 1818

French poet and song-writer, 1780-1857

French writer on questions of international law as well as on Homer and other literary subjects, 1864-1931

town between Buenos Aires and La Plata

Parodi: 1) “lechero a Berazategui”: el tren lechero que va a la estación Berazategui. ‘El lechero’ transportaba los tarros de leche desde las zonas de ordeño a la ciudad; iba descargándolos en las estaciones del trayecto.

2) “Merlo […] Berazategui”: dos localidades del Gran Buenos Aires, situadas respectivamente al noroeste y al sureste de la capital, separadas entre sí por una distancia de unos 60 km. Berazategui aparece mencionada también en “Signo” §2; Modelo iii §4; “Fiesta” §1 y §8. Un pueblo agrícola y ganadero que a principios del siglo xx se transformó en ciudad industrial dedicada a la producción de vidrio, y también de fibras textiles artificiales y de cerámicos. Berazategui está ubicada a unos 20 km al sudeste de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, sobre el ramal ferroviario Constitución−La Plata. Cf. Modelo III §4.

3) “alias Berazategui”: el mote se debe a que las industrias de vidrio y cerámicos instaladas en esa zona de la provincia de Buenos Aires causaban un olor desagradable (cf. “Limardo” I §7).

4) el escenario de “Fiesta” es el sudeste del conurbano que rodea a la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Los personajes se desplazan desde Tolosa (cf. infra §1), ciudad donde viven el narrador y Diente de Leche, a la Plaza de Mayo (cf. “Vilaseco” §1); en el trayecto de 55 km avanzan hacia el norte, pasando por Berazategui (cf. “Limardo” i §7), Ezpeleta (cf. infra §4); Quilmes (cf. “Limardo” i §26); Don Bosco (cf. infra §8); Wilde (cf. infra 397); Sarandí (cf. infra §8) y la ciudad de Avellaneda (cf. “Goliadkin” i §20); una vez cruzado el Riachuelo, que marca el límite entre la Provincia y la ciudad de Buenos Aires, siguen rumbo al centro de la capital y al lugar del acto, la Plaza de Mayo.

Spanish poet, c. 1180-1264, author of Milagros de Nuestra Señora and other works

Uruguayan military leader, 1778-1837, involved in struggles against Buenos Aires centralism and against the Brazilian occupation

ancient seaport on Red Sea in Egypt

English author, 1873-1947, famous for his early science fiction stories and his ghost stories

Döblin, 1924

city in Norway

Swedish actress, 1915-82

French philosopher, 1859-1941, author of Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience, L'Evolution creatrice and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "A French philosopher and Academician, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1927, whose ideas were influential in the years leading up to World War I.
Bergson argued against the mechanistic determinism prevalent in the late nineteenth century, and proposed a doctrine of 'vitalism' stressing the open flow of time. During his early reading of Positivist philosophy he became conscious that scientific time does not endure, and attempted to establish the notion of duration (durée): time apprehended by intuition - an inner, or lived, time - which he opposed to the concept of chronometric or spatial time used by science. His ideas on duration led him to oppose the Darwinian interpretation of evolution, and to propose an evolutionary theory based on élan vital, a vital impulse resulting in a dynamic generative process." (25)

Njal's wife in the Njals Saga

Swiss writer on religious topics, 1873-1945, professor of religious psychology at the University of Geneva

port town near La Plata and Ensenada

one of several pseudonyms of Anthony Berkeley Cox, English crime writer, 1893-1971

Character in Borges story

Fishburn and Hughes: "Character mentioned in The Shape of the Sword.No record exists in the British Army List of a General Berkeley serving in Bengal during the autumn of 1923, but the choice of name is convincing. An Irish officer, James Berkeley (1839-1926), joined the British forces in 1857 and became a Major-General in the Indian Army. In 1862 he entered the political service and after serving a number of Indian princes became agent to the Governor-General at Baroda." (26)

Irish philosopher, 1685-1753, author of Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Principles of Human Knowledge, Siris, Alciphron and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "An Irish bishop, exponent of the idealist philosophy and author of, among other works, The Principles of Human Knowledge, in which he denied the independent existence of matter. The world, Berkeley maintains, is precisely as we perceive it and does not exist outside our perception: 'esse est percipi.' Berkeley does not suggest, however, that objects jump in and out of existence, but believes that they are sustained by God's own continuous perception of them. Borges, who quoted Hume's aphorism that Berkeley's arguments are completely irrefutable and completely unconvincing (The Postulation of Reality, TL:59), acknowledges his debt to Berkeley: 'What are all the nights of Scheherezade compared to one argument of Berkeley?'

CF 78: Berkeley and others planned a new university in America, and the University of California at Berkeley was later named after him." (26)