Finder's Guide

Portuguese poet, 1481?-1558

Portuguese writer, 1890-1916

Buenos Aires street and neighborhood

Fishburn and Hughes: "Probably a descendant of Cornelio de Saavedra, president of the historic Junta which deposed the Spanish Viceroy on 25 May 1810, declared the emancipation of the River Plate Province and established itself as the first criollo government in Argentina. Employment in the Ministry of Finance is considered prestigious and consistent with the status of a member of an old and well-established family." (171)

Parodi: barrio de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, ubicado en el extremo norte.

Spanish political writer and diplomat, 1584-1648, author of Idea de un príncipe político christiano, Corona gótica, castellana y austríaca, Locuras de Europa and other works

Queen of Sheba in the Old Testament

Uruguayan poet, 1887-1982

Argentine novelist and essayist, 1911-2011, author of El túnel, Sobre héroes y tumbas, Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "An Argentine scientist and writer, author of novels, such as The Tunnel (1948) and On Heroes and Tombs (1961), and of critical work such as Uno y el universo (1945) and Heterodoxia (1953). Sábato focuses on the condition of modern man, whose alienation often leads to despair. The psychological and philosophical concerns of his writings do not, however, detract from the depth of characterisation in his fiction. Sábato has always shown respect for Borges and interest in his work. When, at the annual literary competition of 1942, Borges failed to receive the first prize for his collection The Garden of Forking Paths Sábato was one of the twenty-one writers who protested and contributed to 'Reparation to Borges'. In 1968 he published Tres aproximaciones a la literatura de nuestro tiempo (Three Approximations to the Literature of Our Time) in which he wrote on three leading literary figures: Robbe-Grillet, Borges and Sartre." (172)

Uruguayan composer and musician, 1877-41, author of the tango "La Morocha," sometimes mistakenly called José Saborido

Hitchcock film, 1937

Parodi: El sabueso de los Baskerville de César Paladión fue publicado en el período 1911−1919.

Italian-born US anarchist, 1891-1927, executed in Massachusetts after famous trial

German poet, shoemaker and guild master, leading Meistersinger of Nuremberg, 1494-1576

character in Borges story

English writer known as Vita, 1892-1962, author of The Land, The Edwardians and other works, wife of Harold Nicolson and lover of Virginia Woolf

vast collection edited by Max Müller, published by Oxford in the late 19th century

James novel, 1901

Wheeler, 1952

French priest of Port-Royal, theologian and humanist (1613-1684), best known for his translation of the Bible, the most wide-spread French Bible in the 18th century (Bible de Port-Royal)

Egyptian political figure, 1918-81

Donatien Alphonse François, 1740-1814, French writer

British novelist, 1888-1957

Saemund "the Wise," Icelandic historian formerly thought to be the author of the Elder Edda, 1056-1131

author of preface to Bernabé Pérez Ortiz's Haciendo patria

Argentine writer, 1888-1976

Argentine politician and president, 1851-1914

prominent family in 19th century Buenos Aires

Argentine Historian.

Argetinian writer and historian (1892-1970).  Author of Equitación gaucha en la pampa y en la Mesopotamia

Sappho, Greek lyric poet, fl. early 6th century B.C.

Parodi: “un fragmento de Safo o una sentencia inagotable de Heráclito”: Safo de Lesbos (c. 650/610 a.C.-580 a.C.) fue una poetisa griega; de su obra sólo se conservan textos fragmentarios, al igual que de la obra del filósofo griego Heráclito de Éfeso (c.535 a.C.-484 a.C.).

Morris and Magnusson collection, 1892

Burns biography, 1925

Icelandic prose narratives

Momigliano, 1952

Sagittarius, centaur with bow and arrow, constellation in zodiac

Gómez de la Serna miscellany, 1918 and 1924

Holy Family, St. Joseph, Virgin Mary and Jesus

Franciscan missionary to Mexico, 1499-1590

desert in northern Africa

Kipling story about the Boer War

Yeats poems in The Tower, 1928

David Garnett, 1925

town in Minnesota, now part of the city of St. Paul

 Commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.

Phillpotts, play, 1919.

church and surrounding neighborhood in Paris

town in Cornwall

Shaw play on Joan of Arc, 1924

St. Louis, city in Missouri

famous jazz song by W. C. Handy first recorded in 1917

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: “Jean Pees y Carlos o Carlota Saint Pe”: Bustos transcribe este dato, aunque admite que los nombres pueden estar “trabucados” o ser apócrifos. El primer nombre ya fue mencionado en Modelo v §59; coincide con el de un personaje real conocido de Bioy. Los dos apellidos mencionados son vascos, de la región francesa de los Pirineos atlánticos; en esta región abundan las localidades cuyo nombre comienza por Saint-Pé, Saint-Pe o Saint-Peé, formas que también se encuentran como apellidos familiares.

hill in Geneva

Max Jacob book, 1911

pseudonym of Paul-Pierre Roux, French symbolist poet, 1861-1940

Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, 1675-1755, French diplomat and memoirist

Fishburn and Hughes: "A French soldier, diplomat and writer, the author of posthumously published memoirs of the reign of Louis XV and Louis XIV. Saint-Simon's flair for character-drawing, love of gossip, combination of prejudice and superstition and talent for catching the atmosphere of the historical moment make him unique among French diarists. These qualities, however, are not matched by style and grammar, which hardly make him a suitable candidate for an 'examination of the essential metric laws of French prose'." (172)

French literary historian and critic, 1804-69, author of Portraits littéraires, Volupté and numerous other works

English critic and historian, 1845-1933, author of a Short History of English Literature, a History of Criticism and numerous other works

Rimbaud work, mixture of poetry and prose, 1873

Alain, 1937

Saxony, region of Germany

Hector Hugh Munro, also frequently known as H. H. Munro. British writer (1870-1916).

Gautama Buddha's family

Silvina Ocampo, play.

Chesterton story in The Wisdom of Father Brown

Saladin or Salah ad-Din, Muslim warrior and Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, 1137?-1193

river in province of Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes: "A river in the province of Buenos Aires subject to frequent flooding." (172)

university city in Spain

Parodi: “esas Salamancas”: alusión a la Universidad de Salamanca, la más antigua de España y una de las más antiguas de Europa.

fabulous animal, a little dragon that can live in fire

Battle of Salamis, 480 BC

Flaubert novel about ancient Carthage, 1862

Fishburn and Hughes: "A novel by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), published in 1862, which reconstructs the life and culture of Carthage at the time of the Punic wars. Rich in action and 'local colour', it probably originated during Flaubert's visit to Tunis in 1850. It is the story of the love of Hamilcar's daughter, the priestess Salammbô, for Mathô, a leader of the rebel mercenaries. After Mathô's defeat and execution, Salammbô dies of grief. The allusion to Salammbô should be considered in the light of Borges's comment that, no matter how rich Carthaginian literature may have been, it could never have included a novel like Flaubert's, for 'every writing belongs to its own time' (second prologue to Luna de enfrente, O.P.). Pierre Menard's rewriting of Quixote as a 'document' of Nîmes in the twentieth century reflects that view by way of parody." (172)

Argentine man of letters, 1890-1975, translator of Joyce's Ulysses

Argentine essayist, 1873-1940, author of Tierra argentina and El Poema de la pampa

Argentine historian and politician, 1850-1914, author of Historia de la Confederación Argentina

English Orientalist, c.1697-1736, author of an English translation of the Koran

town in Massachusetts, home of Hawthorne

city and province of Campania, Italy

Italian writer, 1863-1911, author of various travel books and novels of adventure

Spanish physician and criminologist, 1854-1923

city in California

blind musician to whom Fray Luis de León dedicated an ode

character in Bustos Domecq stories

Parodi: un personaje al que se valora por su semejanza con los “vigorosos mestizos”, los compadres orilleros. Es ‘pardo’ −mestizo probablemente de blanco y negra− y posible integrante del grupo de Jugo de Carne. Mantiene una larga relación con Savastano comenzada cuando ambos eran jóvenes pensionistas en el Nuevo Imparcial y frecuentaban el Mercado de Abasto, amistad que se retoma en los Nuevos cuentos (“Salvación”). En otra de las obras en colaboración, El paraíso de los creyentes, reaparece Salivazo como parte del grupo de ruidosos compadres “un poco anacrónicos” que están reunidos en una confitería (cf. OCC 259).

the lines quoted here are: "Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl"

Lugones poem in El libro de los paisajes

Lugones poem in Las montañas de oro

Biblical psalms, sometimes spelled Psalmos by Borges

character in Bullrich novel

Wilde play, written in French, 1893

Solomon, Biblical king of ancient Hebrews, d. c. 932 BC

bishop of Constance, to whom Otfried dedicated his De universo

a night spot in Buenos Aires much frequented by Gervasio Montenegro

city in Macedonia, in northern Greece, now Thessaloniki

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Greek port north west of Athens, once Macedonia's natural outlet to the sea. The Spanish spoken in Salonika was probably Ladino (a mixture of old Spanish and some Hebrew). Salonika's Jewish colony was greatly augmented in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by an influx of Sephardic Jews from Spain." (172-73)

capital of Utah

city and province in northern Argentina

street in Buenos Aires

city and department in Uruguay, sometimes called Salto Oriental

Fishburn and Hughes: "A town on the Uruguayan side of the River Uruguay which Borges used to visit in his youth. There is also a department of the same name. See Amorim." (173)

waterfall that is part of Iguazú Falls

Unamuno sonnet

Poem by Hilario Ascasubi.

Whitman poem, 1856

Bloy, 1892

Lugones poem in Poemas solariegos

Darío poem in Cantos de vida y esperanza

Argentine unitario persecuted by Rosas, mentioned in Mármol's Amalia and the subject of a Borges story

Uruguayan judge involved in the trial of Avelino Arredondo

article that appeared in the Revista Martín Fierro in 1925

Salzburg, city in Austria

German scholar of alchemy and hermetic science, 1669-1728, editor of eight volume edition of Raimon Llull

French poet, 1858-1900, author of Au jardin de l'infante and other works

Spanish fabulist, 1745-1801

Parodi: “Ni la sesuda plana de Samaniego sería poderosa para pintar mi alborozo”: Félix María de Samaniego (1745-1801), escritor español célebre por sus Fábulas en verso castellano para el uso del Real Seminario Bascongado (1781-1784). Podría aludirse aquí a otra obra de Samaniego, El jardín de Venus, una colección de cuentos en verso, cómicos y obscenos, que circuló en forma clandestina hasta su tardía publicación en 1921.

Samarkand, city in Uzbekistan (Samarkanda)

Fishburn and Hughes: "A city in the USSR, the oldest city of Central Asia, whose origin can be dated between 4,000 and 3,000 BC. Occupied by the Arabs and the Persians, Samarkand reached its height in the fifteenth century, as capital of the empire of the Islamic Mongol ruler Tamerlane. Playing chess in Samarkand is plausible: the game, known among both the Arabs and the Persians, was introduced into Islam from Persia and was given patronage at the court of Tamerlane." (173)

ancient city of Palestine

Argentine feminist, born in Chile, 1901-1981

coastal resort on a bay at the mouth of the River Plate in the province of Buenos Aires

Samarang, city in Java, Indonesia

Parodi: posiblemente por ‘Semarang’, una ciudad de Indonesia, situada en el norte de la isla de Java.

Jacobo Samet (1898-1981) was an independent book publisher. His bookshop, which also functioned as a publishing company, was known as “La cripta de Samet” (“Samet´s crypt”). It was placed in a very small alleyway at 1242 Avenida de Mayo. (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

Parodi: según Bustos, se trata del editor del fascículo de Ginzberg y quien propuso el título de la publicación. El Jacobo Samet real (1898-1981), nacido en Rusia y emigrado a la Argentina, transformó un pequeño negocio de cigarrería y venta de libretos de zarzuelas y operetas ubicado en la Avenida de Mayo, en una librería y editorial, lugar de reunión de los jóvenes escritores y poetas argentinos, conocido como la ‘Sagrada Cripta de Samet’. A partir de enero de 1930 publicó la revista Cartel, de la que en un año aparecieron sus once únicos números. La editorial de Samet funcionó de 1924 a 1932.

archipelago in the South Pacific

ruler of Calicut, character in Os Lusíadas

Samothrace, Greek island in the northern Aegean sea

character in Bustos Domecq story

minor character in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

author of Concise Cambridge History of English Literature

Gunnar's dog in the Njals Saga

the world of appearances in Buddhism

Milton dramatic poem, 1671

two books in Bible, sometimes called Reyes

town in province of Buenos Aires, home of Ricardo Güiraldes

site of a battle in 1872 between Ignacio Rivas and the Indians under Callfucurá

mountain resort in Argentina

beach resort in the province of Buenos Aires

neighborhood in Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes: "A department and city in the province of Santa Fe, founded as a colony on land granted by the government to a London-based banking firm, Murrieta y Cía." (173)

suburb in northern Buenos Aires

Parodi: 1) “sofismas de Ciudadela y de San Fernando”: dos elegantes zonas residenciales, ubicadas respectivamente al oeste y al este de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, que se oponen aquí a la sureña Avellaneda, industrial y popular.

2) zona residencial del norte del Gran Buenos Aires situada a unos 30 km de la capital; en su territorio incluye una sección de islas del Delta del río Paraná; cf. “Goladkin” ii §2.

city in California

ranch in Borges story

Fishburn and Hughes: "A small town in Uruguay where the Haedo family owned a ranch. As a child Borges used to spend his summer vacations there with his family." (173)

St. Gall or St. Gallen, monastery and city in northeast Switzerland

town in the province of Santa Fe, site of battle in 1853

basilica in León, Spain

suburb northwest of Buenos Aires, in province of Buenos Aires

Parodi: San Isidro es una ciudad ubicada en la provincia de Buenos Aires, sobre la costa del Río de la Plata, a unos 30 km al norte de la ciudad de Buenos Aires.

site of battle in 1836 between the Mexican and Texan forces

town in the province of Tucumán

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi: “visité en la calle San Juan”: la mención de esta calle revela que la baronesa Puffendorf−Duvernois también está encarcelada. Sobre la calle San Juan se encontraba la entrada de la Cárcel de Mujeres del Buen Pastor, que funcionaba en el barrio de San Telmo, en un edificio construido en 1760. Siguió ubicada en ese lugar hasta 1978, en que fue trasladada a las afueras de la ciudad. Desde entonces, en el edificio funciona un museo.

Argentine province

town in the province of Buenos Aires

Franciscan church north of Rosario, known as the place where a battle for Argentine independence took place

Argentine province and its capital

street in Buenos Aires

town in Orense, Spain

friend of Borges, sometimes Delia San Marco Porcel

street and plaza in Buenos Aires

Parodi: estación ferroviaria de la ‘Ciudad del Libertador General Don José de San Martín’, conocida como San Martín, situada al centro−norte del Gran Buenos Aires, a unos 20 km de la terminal de Retiro.

church in Buenos Aires

Argentine general and statesman, liberator of Chile and Peru, 1778-1850, sometimes referred to as the Libertador or Protector del Perú

Fishburn and Hughes: "Argentina's greatest military leader, hero of the Wars of Independence and liberator of Chile and Peru.
Guayaquil: Once the Spaniards had been defeated in Argentina, San Martín foresaw that his country's independence would not be won unless the royalist forces were expelled from the sub-continent. He set off from Buenos Aires to enlist soldiers for his famous Army of the Andes, which in 1817 he led into Chile. Here, after the battles of Chacabuco and Cancha Rayada, he finally defeated the Spaniards at Maipú. He then led an expedition into Peru, where the Army of the Andes was joined by Chilean forces. On 9 July 1821, after securing several victories over royalist forces, he entered Lima — not, in his words, as a conqueror but as liberator of the Peruvian people -whereupon he was proclaimed Protector of Peru. Spanish troops remained in the Sierras, and San Martín realised that neither he nor Bolívar was sufficently powerful to defeat the Royalists on his own. Accordingly he sent troops to Bolívar in Quito and arranged a meeting, which finally took place in Guayaquil on 26 July 1822. The conference clearly indicated the clash of personalities between the two men, as Bolívar distrusted both San Martín's military ability and his monarchical leanings. Fully aware of the predicament, San Martín conceded the leadership of his troops in Peru to Bolívar, returned briefly to Argentina and then, leaving the camp to his rival, departed for Europe, where he lived in self-imposed exile in Belgium. When he tried to return to Buenos Aires in 1829, he found Argentina torn by the strife between the Federalists and the Unitarians (respectively represented by Rosas and Lavalle). He refused to take sides and returned to Europe without even landing on Argentine soil. He died in Boulogne. CF 395;the masonic lodge referred to is the Logia Lautaro, of which San Martín was a member and where he exchanged revolutionary ideas.
The Elderly Lady: San Martín remains to this day a sacred name in Argentine history, an example of bravery and abnegation. On this point Borges ironically recalls that when a Venezuelan writer once wrote that San Martín 'tenía un aire avieso' ('had a sly look'), this was solemnly denied by an Argentine writer, who claimed that to say avieso and San Martín together was nonsensical: You may as well speak of a square triangle.'" (173-74)

Octavio González Roura book, 1972

town in the province of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires neighborhood, following old denomination of parishes

São Paulo, largest city in Brazil and capital of state of São Paulo

one of Paul's epistles

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi: “por San Pedrito o por Giribone”: dos calles de Buenos Aires; la primera corre por el barrio de Flores; la segunda, por Villa Ortúzar (cf. “Doce” i §14).

city on the Paraná river between Buenos Aires and Rosario

Russia's second-largest city after Moscow.

Fomer names: Petrogado, Leningrado.

national park in Argentina which Shirley Temple visited in the company of Hortensia Montenegro in Suárez Lynch novella

Parodi: “Parque Nacional de San Remo”: el nombe alude a un inexistente parque nacional de la ciudad de San Remo, situada en el noroeste del litoral mediterráneo italiano.

dog in Borges-Bioy filmscript, reference to a saint who is usually shown in company of a dog

church in Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes: "A street in the district of Palermo." (174)

Xul Solar mystical work

old neighborhood in Buenos Aires, south of the Plaza de Mayo

Fishburn and Hughes: "One of the oldest districts of colonial Buenos Aires, founded by the Jesuits in the early eighteenth century. San Telmo has several fine buildings but is now considered a rough district. During the British invasions of 1806 and 1807 it was the centre of fierce resistance; its fighting spirit is illustrated in the popular song: Soy del barrio de San Telmo / donde llueve y no gotea / a mí no me asustan bultos / ni grupos que se menean ('I come from San Telmo, where it rains and does not drizzle. I am not frightened by bullies nor by gangs which move around'). This song would give an ironic twist to the last sentence of the story, 'Rosendo's Tale'." (174)

suburb in southern Buenos Aires

Parodi: una línea de ómnibus que hacía el recorrido entre Plaza Constitución y el entonces pueblo de San Vicente, ubicado a unos 50 km al sur de la Capital.

fortress in Khorasan where Al-Moqanna held out against the caliph Mahdi

Raúl E. Fitte book, 1936

Italian poet and humanist, 1458-1530, author of Arcadia, written in the 1480s and mentioned in Don Quijote

Argentine intellectual, 1786-1868, famous for her letters

Argentine literary critic, author of De hombres y libros, 1966

Spanish poet, anarchist and feminist, 1895-1970, one of the founders of Mujeres libres

Uruguayan playwright, 1875-1910

Parodi: Florencio Sánchez (1875-1910) fue un periodista y dramaturgo uruguayo. Entre sus obras dramáticas se destacan M’hijo el dotor (1903), La gringa (1904), Barranca abajo (1905).

Italian critic, 1817-1883, author of a Storia della letteratura italiana

Faulkner novel, 1931

pseud. of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, 1804-76, French novelist and feminist

US poet and biographer, 1878-1967, author of Chicago Poems, Good Morning America and other works

French novelist, 1811-83

English actor, 1906-72

La condesa de la arena, Gustav Frenssen, 1896

Argentine actor, 1905-80, known for his work in film comedies

Bloy, 1932

river in central Illinois, tributary of the Illinois River

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: nacido en Calabria, emigró de niño a la Argentina a fines del siglo XIX; hizo fortuna en diversos negocios; recibió del gobierno italiano el título de Commendatore. Vive en la localidad de Pilar, en la Villa Castellammare, ubicada junto a La Moncha. Padre de Ricardo Sangiácomo y de Eliseo Requena.

character in Bustos Domecq story, son of the Commendatore

Excerpt from Los muertos, las muertas y otras fantasmagorías, 1935, by Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

book of the Talmud

Sanin, Artsybashev novel, 1907

Spanish grammarian and literary critic, 1880-1947

Sankara Acharya, Hindu theologian, c. 789-820

Samson, judge of Israel in Bible

Papini’s work, 1931.

Brazilian town on the Uruguayan border where José Hernández wrote part of the Martín Fierro

Fishburn and Hughes: "A town in Livramento, Brazil, near the Argentinian-Uruguayan border, a rough area characterised by fighting and smuggling, mainly of cattle. Borges visited Sant' Anna with Amorim and recalls his shock on seeing the violent shooting of a drunkard by a capanga. The incident was reflected in several of his stories: 'Tlön, ...', 'The Shape of the Sword', 'The Dead Man',' The Other Death' and obliquely in 'The South'." (174)

beach resort in the province of Buenos Aires

character in Hudson's The Purple Land

A military colonel. He was the son-in-law of Justo José Urquiza.

Argentine province

Fishburn and Hughes: "A province north west of Buenos Aires.
The Aleph: 'alfajores', a typical Argentine sweetmeat made of sugared pastry, filled with chocolate, nuts or fudge, and manufactured in Santa Fe, differ from more traditional sweets by being larger, concave and more brittle. Regarded as a regional delicacy, they are difficult to obtain in Buenos Aires." (175)

Parodi: el “Granero de la República”: nombre que se daba a la provincia de Santa Fe, donde está ubicada la ciudad de Rosario. Para Rosario, cf. “H.B.D.” §3

avenue in Buenos Aires

Capdevila book

ranch

Francisco de Sá de Miranda poem about the courtesan and saint St. Mary of Egypt

Sonnet by Luis de Tejeda dedicated to Santa Rosa de Lima.

beach resort in the province of Buenos Aires

Pemán dramatic poem, 1934

finance minister to the Reyes Católicos, d. 1498, a baptized Jew or "marrano"

US philosopher and poet, born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás in Spain, 1863-1952, author of The Life of Reason, The Realms of Being and other works

policeman, character in Suárez Lynch novella

Parodi: “el comisario Santiago”: un personaje tristemente célebre en los años veinte y treinta, Eduardo Santiago, comisario jefe de la Sección Investigaciones de la Policía, responsable de represiones obreras y paradigma de corrupción. En 1927, año de la ejecución de Sacco y Vanzetti, la casa de Santiago fue objeto de un atentado por parte del grupo anarquista liderado por Severino Di Giovanni (cf. “Doce” i §5).

capital of Chile

city in Galicia in Spain, pilgrimage center

town in Jamaica, now St. James

Groussac study of the viceroy, 1907

oldest city in Argentine, capital of province of same name

street in Buenos Aires

town in Calabria in northern Spain, mentioned in poem by Baldomero Fernández Moreno

port city near São Paulo, Brazil

Fishburn and Hughes: "The busiest port in Brazil, in the south-eastern state of Sao Paulo." (175)

Brazilian aviator, 1873-1932

Parodi: “Para mí que se va a mandar cada mongolfiero que ni Santos Dumont”: la frase modifica la expresión popular ‘mandarse un globo’ que equivale a decir una mentira. En la frase citada, ‘globo’ es remplazado por el nombre que recibió el primer globo aerostático impulsado a aire caliente, creado por los hermanos Joseph-Michel y Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier a fines del siglo XVIII. Frogman sostiene que las mentiras (‘los globos’) son de tal magnitud que ni siquiera podría igualarlas el pionero de la aviación brasileña Alberto Santos Dumont (1873-1932), famoso por sus diseños de globos y dirigibles, muchos de ellos de gran tamaño. Para ‘mandarse’, “Toros” v §9.

gaucho-outlaw, killer of Facundo Quiroga

legendary gaucho in 19th century Argentina only outsung by the Devil, subject of works by Obligado and Ascasubi

Obligado poem

Ascasubi gauchesque poem, 1872

gaucho in Lussich's Los tres gauchos orientales

A pseudonym of Antonio D. Lussich

Italian literary critic and historian, 1901-1990, author of a Compendio di storia della letteratura italiana and of a commentary on Dante

Swedenborg treatise, 1764

character in Bustos Domecq stories

Parodi: el tratamiento de ‘doctor’ permite conjeturar que Saponaro es un abogado. Vuelve a ser mencionado más adelante (cf. vi §18) y en Modelo i §12.

Santiago Fischbein's aunt in Borges story

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi: Sarandí es una localidad del partido de Avellaneda lindante con Villa Domínico.

street in Montevideo

character in Shaw's Arms and the Man

battlefield in upstate New York during the US Revolutionary War, 1777

resort in upstate New York

Ferber novel, 1941

Uruguayan politician, born in Brazil as Aparício Saraiva, 1855-1904

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Uruguayan landowner and caudillo, uncultured and politically unsophisticated, whose magnetic personality secured him a following among the gauchos of the Interior. In 1897 he led the revolt of the Blancos, a nationalist group demanding free elections and representation of all parties in the government, against the dictatorship of Idiarte Borda. Borda was assassinated in 1897 and the armed conflict ended in a peace pact, but the nationalist faction under Saravia was left isolated and on 1 January 1904 Saravia again led his troops against the Government of Batlle in an attempt to prevent elections in which his party was not represented. After a series of battles his side was finally defeated at Masoller. Saravia was wounded and died in Brazil. After his death a legend sprang up that he would return. See Illesca, Tupambaé." (175)

Swiss sculptor, Norah Borges's art teacher in Geneva

street in Buenos Aires

Argentine writer, educator, politician and president, 1811-88, author of the Facundo, Recuerdos de provincia, Campaña del Ejercito Grande and many other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "An Argentine writer, historian and educationalist, and the country's President from 1868 to 1874. Sarmiento was born in the Andean province of San Juan and spent his early years in an atmosphere of growing caudillism - rule by local strong men on horseback - which, for him, epitomised barbarism. Sarmiento was largely self-taught. He admired European values, particularly English, and was influenced by the progressive ideas of liberal political and economic thinkers. He was a Unitarian, fighting for the unification and Europeanisation of Argentina, and as such became an indefatigable opponent of Federalism, which he considered retrograde and barbaric. His opposition to the caudillo Quiroga forced him into exile in Chile. Here he wrote his most famous book, Facundo, in which he launched an outright attack on Federalism, using a 'barbaric hero', Facundo Quiroga. The ultimate target of his attack was Rosas, to whose downfall the book contributed. Borges's admiration for Sarmiento and his ideas can be construed from his prologue to Facundo, where he says that the history of Argentina would have been different and better if, instead of 'canonising' Martín Fierro, they had 'canonised' Facundo. During his exile Sarmiento was sent by the government of Chile to Europe to study school systems. While in Paris, he paid several visits to San Martín in his retreat on the outskirts of the capital. The General confided many details of the meeting at Guayaquil. These conversations were the subject of Sarmiento's inaugural speech when he was elected a member of the Institut Historique de France on 1 July 1847 in the presence of San Martín. A copy of the speech, which shed new light on the Guayaquil controversy, was found in the archives of the Museo Histórico Sarmiento by the historian Antonio Castro, who disclosed his findings on 13 August 1947 in a lecture entitled 'Sarmiento y San Martín'. Sarmiento also wrote a series of articles under the title Escritos sobre San Martín, which includes a short biography of San Martín." (175-76)

Parodi: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811−1888) político, pedagogo, escritor, periodista y militar, presidente de la República entre 1868 y 1874, destacado por su acción en favor de la educación pública. Durante su gobierno se crearon en todo el país escuelas elementales y superiores e instituciones para la formación de maestros.

river in Paraná delta

place in Asia Minor mentioned in Herodotus

Sharon, plain in central Israel

US author, 1908-81, author of My Name is Aram and other works

Carlyle satirical and philosophical narrative, 1833

Faulkner novel, 1929

French philosopher, playwright and novelist, 1905-1980, author of La Nausée, Huis-clos, L'Être et le Néant and other works

province in western Canada, here spelled Saskatchawara

Argentine film director and writer, 1903-1995

author of Psico-zoología pintoresca, 1927

English poet, 1886-1967

Uruguayan writer, 1809-1887

Parodi: escritor, periodista, pintor y educador, Marcos Sastre nació en Montevideo en 1809 (m. 1887). Su obra más conocida es El Tempe argentino (1848), una descripción de la región del delta del río Paraná (cf. supra §2), su flora y su fauna. Los epigramas que menciona Bustos posiblemente son las advertencias y exhortaciones contenidas en los libros que Sastre destinó a la educación de los niños, en especial de Consejos de oro sobre la educación (dirigidos a las madres de familia y a los institutores (1859), sentencias del tipo: “No consintáis […] que una extraña os arrebate las primeras caricias de un ser que os cuesta tantos cuidados y dolores”; “sólo vosotras recibiréis el dulce nombre de madre, y ninguna otra mujer tendrá derecho para llamarlos sus hijos”, etc.

fallen angel, the adversary of man and God in Judeo-Christian tradition

name given to Satan by Bogomil Manichean believers

French composer, 1866-1925

Juvenal satirical poems

Satyricon, Petronius satirical narrative, the adventures of Encolpius and Giton, preserved only in part

Fishburn and Hughes: "An allegory in prose and poetry in nine books, the chief work of the fifth-century Carthaginian Martianus Capella, which was influential in the Middle Ages. Its full title (in English) is 'Satyricon, in which two books describe the marriage of Mercury with philology and the rest are each dedicated to one of the seven liberal arts'. The reference is to Jupiter's sphere in which 'the entire world is reflected as in a shining mirror' where one can see all the 'variety of the earth', its cities and its different living species, and all that 'each and all nations are doing'. In the mirror Jupiter marks 'those he wants to raise and those he wants to repress, those to be born and those to die'." (176)

Capella, see De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae

satyrs in classical mythology, half-man, half-goat

Satornil or Saturninus of Antioch, early Christian gnostic leader

Fishburn and Hughes: "A second-century Syrian Gnostic, known also as Saturninus of Antioch, who held that the angels, archangels, powers and dominions were created by the Supreme Unknown, the Father, but that the world and everything in it, including man, was created by seven of the lowest angels. Among these was the God of the Jews, whom the Divine Father sought to destroy by sending the Saviour. Satornilus held that Christ the saviour was a man only in appearance but did not possess a physical body. He also believed that man is not a complete human being until the Father gives him the 'spark of life', which at death returns to the divine fountain of life." (176)

province of Japan

Fishburn and Hughes: "A ferry which plied between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It had an effigy of Saturn on its prow." (176)

Macrobius philosophical dialogue

Fishburn and Hughes: "More correctly known as Saturnalia: a Latin work by the fifth-century author Macrobius. It consists of seven books. The first describes the origin and history of Roman festivals and tries to prove that all pagan theology, whether Roman, Greek, Egyptian or Assyrian, leads to the cult of the sun. Heliopolis is mentioned in this context. Books 2 and 3 comment on various Roman writers, especially Virgil. The remaining four books deal with assorted topics, from table conversation and the digestibility of foods to vertigo, whitening of the hair, blushing and the voice of eunuchs." (176)

Saturn, in Roman religion, the god of harvests, later identified with the Greek god Cronos

the planet Saturn

Argentinian Illustrator and writer (1891-1955). Author of Vocabulario y refranero criollo.

town in France, site of battle in 881

town in Minnesota

San Pablo or St. Paul, apostle to the gentiles

character in Bustos Domecq story

Anglo-French scholar, 1890-1957

character in Bustos Domecq and Suárez Lynch stories

Parodi: 1) señalado aquí como prototipo de los ‘compadritos’ (cf. “Limardo” i §1) que, con la inmigración y la modernización de la ciudad, fueron desplazando al compadre, el originario habitante de las orillas. Tulio Savastano es el narrador y personaje principal de “Limardo”. Su lugar de trabajo parece ser el Mercado de Abasto (cf. “Doce” i §29), aunque pasa largos períodos escondido en el Hotel El Nuevo Imparcial tratando de eludir todo encuentro con otro compadrito, Jugo de Carne. Savastano es un individuo servil, temeroso, amigo de difundir chismes. Por Bustos sabemos que, cuando eran jóvenes, él y Savastano fueron “compinches” (“Esse” §1) y en una ocasión lo identifica como “colega” (“Salvación” §1); en una de las Crónicas, “Los inmortales”, Savastano es uno de los pacientes del doctor Narbondo y en “Esse”, presidente de un club de fútbol; hacia mediados de los años cuarenta, se desempeña como secretario del Subsecretario de Cultura y es candidato a embajador (cf. “Salvación”).

2) protagonista y narrador de “Limardo” (cf. “Palabra” §11). En este nuevo cuento, ha pasado a llevarle los libros al Baulito y a ser “colega” de Bustos Domecq.

Bustos Domecq character, Argentine literary critic, author of a 1971 Harvard dissertation on Clodomiro Ruiz, evidently the son of Tulio Savastano

Story from Chinese Ghouls and Goblins by G. Willoughby-Meade.

Praetorius culinary treatise, 1891

German jurist and legal historian, 1779-1861

Parodi: el apellido de este abogado coincide con el del jurista y catedrático alemán Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779-1861), uno de los iniciadores de la jurisprudencia moderna y fundador de la Escuela Histórica del Derecho.

Romanized version of the name of George Bernard Shaw

Fishburn and Hughes: "As is made clear in the English translation of Borges's story, the term refers to Xavier de Maistre (1763-1852), born in Savoy and author of Voyage autour de ma chambre (1795), which he wrote at the age of 27 while confined to his bed through injuries sustained in a duel. The Voyage is a light work in which each object perceived by the author in his bedroom prompts humorous reminiscences and small confidences." (177)

Saxo Grammaticus, Danish historian, c.1150- c.1220, author of the Gesta Danorum or Historia Danica

line from Tennyson's Welcome to Alexandra, 1863, slightly misquoted here

English writer, 1893-1957, author of numerous detective stories and polemical writings, translator of Dante, editor of anthologies of detective stories, etc.

Fishburn and Hughes: "An English author, remembered chiefly for her detective novels featuring the character Lord Peter Wimsey. She regarded the detective story as a useful exercise of pure analysis which demanded no commitment to its subject matter. She is also known for her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy." (177)

Spanish priest and scholar, 1834-1910, author of a Diccionario de refranes, Ambigú literario and many other works

Argentine intellectual, 1898-1959, associated with the FORJA group and author of El hombre que está solo y espera

pharmacy in downtown Buenos Aires

Parodi: “la farmacia Scannapieco”: una farmacia de Buenos Aires que estuvo ubicada en la esquina de Esmeralda y Tucumán.

Van Dine novel, 1929

Hawks film, 1932

film gangster based on Al Capone

Sternberg film, 1934

Hawthorne novel, 1850

Santayana, 1923

character in Bustos Domecq story, sometimes Sevola

Parodi: en “Penumbra y Pompa” aparece un Lucio Scevola, a quien Bustos califica de “ese compañero de todo momento” (cf. §5), un homónimo, con el apellido escrito según la ortografía italiana.

Kafka story, 1917

gangster, character in Borges story

Fishburn and Hughes: "The master-criminal in 'Death and the Compass'; in German the name means both 'scarlet' and 'scarlet fever'." (177)

Journal to which Feuchtwanger contributed

German philosopher, 1775-1854, author of Philosophie der Kunst, System des transzendentalen Idealismus, Ideen zur Philosophie der Natur and other works

German translator of Strindberg, here the supposed German translator of Runeberg's Den hemlige Frälsaren

Fishburn and Hughes: "From the Italian, meaning 'joke': the third movement of a symphony, quartet or sonata in which one or more of the motifs reappears in a lighter tone and at a faster tempo." (177)

Argentine artist and intellectual, 1858-1935, founder of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

Argentine pianist and musicologist

Italian astronomer, discoverer of the so-called canals on Mars, 1835-1910

librarian who worked with Borges in library in Almagro Sur

German dramatist, poet and historian, 1759-1805, author of Wallenstein, Über das Pathetische, Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung and numerous other works

character in The Last Command

Nazi youth leader, 1907-74

Batalla de la Marne, poem by Wilhelm Klemm, 1914

German writer, 1862-1941

German philosopher, critic and writer, 1772-1829, author of numerous plays, the novel Lucinde, and critical works on classical and Indian literatures and on Goethe

character in Bustos Domecq story

region of West Germany on Danish border

German priest, 1831-1912, inventor of the artificial language Volapük, author of numerous grammars and other works about the language

German businessman and archeologist, 1822-1890

Kafka unfinished novel, published posthumously in 1926

French writer, 1877-1968

Sudermann play, 1895

German soldier, c. 1510-c. 1579, who spent many years in the River Plate in the employ of a German bank, author of a detailed diary of the conquest of the River Plate region from 1534 to 1554

German poet and writer, 1862-1926, author of Nietzsche der falsche Prophet, 1914, often called just Otto Ernst

German scholar of Buddhism

He was a chemist, and conducted experiments with Embden and Baldes on Lactic Acid.

German-Jewish scholar, 1897-1982, author of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and other works

character in Conrad's Victory, hotelkeeper in Sourabaya

Argentine journalist born in Berlin, 1932-1989

Ludwig Goldscheider, 1934

Walter Pater study, 1877, added to the third edition of Studies of the Renaissance, 1888

Escuela de la Noche, underground school that taught atheism and the infinity of space associated with Sir Walter Raleigh, mentioned in the late sixteenth century

medieval scholastics

German philosopher, 1788-1860, author of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and Parerga und Paralipomena

Fishburn and Hughes: "A German philosopher of the post-Kantian school, whose best-known books are The World as Will and Idea (1818; 2nd edn. 1844) and two volumes of essays entitled Parerga und Paralipomena (1851). Schopenhauer is the philosopher most quoted by Borges (about fifty times) in his stories and criticism. Solitary and retiring, Schopenhauer was relatively unnoticed until the publication of his essays, which brought him worldwide recognition. His philosophy is based on the principle that all that exists is a manifestation of the Will and is comprehensible only through the constructs of man's intellect engendered by the Will itself, such as time, space and causality. The Garden of Forking Paths, CF 127 : the reference to Schopenhauer's belief in a uniform absolute time follows: time, being like the rest of experience a representation of the Will, is not subject to variations connected with individual and particular states. Schopenhauer insists that through the constructs of our mind only the appearances of the world are revealed to us, and not its reality. Guayaquil, CF 393: with reference to Schopenauer's 'disbelief of history', it follows that history, resting on the category of time, belongs also to the world of phenomena. On this point Borges adds that, since for Schopenhauer 'the universe is a projection of our soul', 'universal history lies within each man' (Other Inq. 58). Outside the world of phenomena, only the reality of the self is knowable to man, as being part of the primary essence of all things, the Will. The Shape of the Sword, CF 141: this last point, however, eliminates the concept of individuality, as suggested in 'I am all other men': all individuals are but a form or manifestation of the Will which moves and organises everything from the blind impulses of inorganic nature to the 'rationally' guided actions of man. Deutsches Requiem, CF 230; Guayaquil, CF 395: yet, because man is the Will's prime manifestation, it can be said paradoxically that no human action is involuntary (since it is also a manifestation of the Will). Man can escape from the control of the Will, partially through the uplifting effect of the arts and, totally, by complete abnegation of the self through asceticism. For Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, CF 76 and Deutsches Requiem, CF 231see Parerga und Paralipomena. For A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain, CF 109, see Kantian categories." (177-78)