Finder's Guide: R

Capek play about robots, 1921

Egyptian sun god

character in Bustos Domecq story

English abridgement of a German work by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, with a prefatory study by John Peter Stehelin, 1748

French writer and physician, c. 1490-1533, author of Gargantua and Pantagruel

Prussian spy in Borges story, also known as Viktor Runeberg; perhaps kin to the German satirist Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener, 1714-1771

Leonhard Frank novel, 1914

owner of Grandes Sastrerías Inglesas Rabuffi, in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi :  “Grandes Sastrerías Inglesas Rabuffi”: el nombre de la sastrería encierra una broma, surgida de la incongruencia entre el atributo de ‘inglesas’ y el apellido Rabuffi, notoriamente italiano. En una nota al pie ( Borges 203), Daniel Martino aclara que el nombre de la sastrería parodia el de la “famosa sastrería inglesa Spinelli”; Bioy y otros elegantes porteños de la alta burguesía se vestían en la sastrería de la familia Spinelli que, desde principios del siglo xx, hacía trajes a medida, siguiendo la escuela británica de alta costura. Este efecto humorístico se repite en Bustos Domecq, en casos como el de “el vasco Speciale” o del “tano Potasman” (cf. “Fiesta” §8); también en el caso del sumo hispanista Mario Bonfanti o de Tulio Savastano, de quien se destaca “su flema inglesa” (cf. Esse §22). Un recurso similar consiste en atribuir a personajes con apellidos decididamente judíos la profesión de sacerdote católico, como en el caso del “padre Abramowicz” (“Goliadkin” i §20) o de “Simón Fainberg” (mencionado como “el P. Fainberg”, en “Penumbra” §5 y “Testigo” §4), un personaje “que siempre está en la Casa del Catequista” (cf. “Limardo” i §7). Miguel de Torre, sobrino de Borges, cuenta que, su tío y Bioy Casares “planeaban escribir un sainete, cuyos impracticables personajes serían el Inglés Rabuffi, el Gallego Keegan, el Turco Duvernois, el Tano Muñagorri, el Ruso Sampaio y el Vasco Fainberg” (cf. “Jorge Luis Borges” 230); nótese que la mayor parte de los apellidos mencionados aparecen en la obra escrita en colaboración.

French writer, pseud. of Marguerite Vallette-Eymery, 1860-1953

French dramatist, 1639-99, author of Phèdre, Andromaque and other works

Parodi : uno de los clubes de fútbol de Avellaneda, apodado ‘la Academia’, lleva en su camiseta los colores de la bandera argentina.

English pirate captain, c. 1682-1720, known as Calico Jack

Argentine poet, critic and editor, author of Hombre callado, editor of Correspondencia and co-editor of anthology La novísima poesía argentina, 1931

Parodi : “los infolios de Gandía, de Levene, de Grosso, de Radaelli.”: Enrique de Gandía (1906−1995), fue historiador y miembro de diversas academias. Autor de más de cincuenta títulos, en buena parte relacionados con la historia colonial, es uno de los cinco redactores de la Historia de la Nación dirigida por Ricardo Levene. En Borges , Bioy y Borges se ocupan de él varias veces: lo mencionan entre quienes al hablar se esfuerzan por remedar el acento español y, en 1969, comentan: “El que sigue vivo es Gandía; pero es un peligro para historiadores y políticos, no para nosotros.” (1262). Gandía vuelve a ser mencionado en la crónica de Bustos Domecq “Enfoque” §2. Ricardo Levene (1885−1959), fue un historiador y jurista argentino, miembro de la Academia de la Historia; autor de múltiples obras sobre la historia argentina y director de Historia de la Nación Argentina ; desde los orígenes hasta la organización definitiva en 1862 , publicada en 14 volúmenes entre 1936 y 1950. Borges y Bioy tampoco muestran aprecio por Levene, de quien dicen: “y ya se sabe lo que valen nuestros historiadores, llámeles finado Levene o diligente Gandía” ( Borges 774). Las obras didácticas del historiador Alfredo Bartolomé Grosso (1867−1960), fueron los textos escolares en que varias promociones de estudiantes argentinos aprendieron la historia nacional, especialmente su Nociones de Historia Argentina (1893) y Curso de Historia Nacional (1898), conocidos como el Grosso Grande y el Grosso Chico , que siguieron empleándose en la enseñanza hasta fines de los años cincuenta. Sobre el historiador Sigfrido Augusto Radaelli cf. “Doce” i §1.

Rhadamanthus, in Greek mythology one of the judges in Hades

Parodi : “un Radamante en el Parnaso”: alusión al Radamante mitológico, renombrado por su sabiduría y ecuanimidad; juez justo del reino de los muertos. El Monte Parnaso, la residencia sagrada de Apolo y de las Musas, es el lugar mitológico de poetas y artistas.

Indian philosopher, 1888-1975

Parodi : una de las emisoras de radio que podían sintonizarse en la época. 

Parodi : el nombre de la supuesta radio coincide con el de la novela del escritor ecuatoriano Jorge Icaza (1906 - 1878). Publicada en 1934, Huasipungo es una obra característica del indigenismo literario. 

Martínez Estrada book on Argentine culture, 1933

king of the Angles, mentioned by Venerable Bede

Rafaello Sanzio, Italian painter and architect, 1483-1520

US actor, 1895-1980

French writer, author of Le Métier de vivre and Sens unique

of Aceite Raggio, in Bustos Domecq story

Scandinavian myth of the twilight of the gods

Viking hero of Icelandic saga

Icelandic saga, c. 1100

hotel in Suárez Lynch novella

Parodi : el nombre del supuesto hotel insinúa una calidad muy inferior a la del mencionado Alvear (cf. supra v §2).

Gautama Buddha's son

island mentioned in Lane translation of Arabian Nights, perhaps Borneo

French writer, translator of Faulkner

D. H. Lawrence novel, 1915

British character actor, 1889-1967

Antero de Quental poems, 1892

Fernández Moreno

Ralegh, English soldier, explorer, courtier and man of letters, 1552-1618

English scholar, poet and author (1861-1922).

Gernsback science fiction novel, 1950

hero of Ramayana

Hindu religious leader, devoted to Vishnu, 1017-1137

Hindu sacred book

Italian commentator on Dante, d. 1390, author of Comentum super Dantis Aligherii Comediam

the boardwalk in Necochea

Parodi : “la vieja rambla de madera”: se trata de un edificio de madera construido sobre pilotes que se hundían en la arena de la playa, a pocos metros del mar. La construcción contaba con una amplia terraza delantera sobre la que paseaban los turistas. Esa “Rambla Municipal”, centro de reunión y esparcimiento de los visitantes, existió hasta 1939, ocasión en que fue ampliada y modernizada. Actualmente recibe el nombre de ‘rambla’ el paseo que bordea la costa de un extremo a otro de la ciudad.

composer of waltzes including Vals Boston

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

friend of Borges, Hugo Rodríguez Moroni in some editions

Argentine caudillo, 1786-1821, governor of Entre Ríos

Argentine general and politician, 1884-1962

Parodi : Pedro Pablo Ramírez (1884-1962), fue presidente de facto durante la llamada ‘revolución del 4 de junio de 1943’; ocupó el gobierno siete meses, entre 1943 y 1944; fue depuesto y se retiró de la vida pública.

João de Deus book of poems, 1869, here called Camino de flores

town in western Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes : "A part of Buenos Aires in which the rich had weekend houses containing an English colony It is now an industrial suburb." (163)

Argentinian Historian. Author of Historia de la Nación Argentina.

Argentine historian and psychiatrist, 1849-1914, author of Rosas y su tiempo

Swiss writer, 1878-1947

Icelandic sea goddess

Camba humorous articles, 1920

Parodi : La rana viajera (1920) es una compilación de más de setenta artículos breves publicados en los grandes periódicos de la época. En esas columnas, con humor, ironía y fino sentido de la crítica Camba refleja el malestar de la sociedad española en aquellos momentos.

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : “para evitar el préstamo de Rancherita”: para no tener que prestar las cerillas de la marca Rancherita, los fósforos más populares de la época, producidos por la Compañía General de Fósforos Sud América.

Silva Valdés poem

Langon, former name of capital of Burma or Myanmar

German editor and translator of Eddas

German historian, 1795-1886

printer mentioned in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : Manuel Lorenzo Rañó fue un editor español radicado en la Argentina que administraba un pequeño taller de imprenta en un conventillo en el barrio de Boedo. En una misma vivienda, ubicada sobre la calle Boedo, funcionaban la imprenta de Rañó más tres editoriales ( Claridad, Victoria y Las Grandes Obras ), las redacciones de las revistas Dínamo, Extrema Izquierda y Los Pensadores , tres órganos del llamado grupo de Boedo, y sobre el frente del edificio, la cigarrería, librería y papelería de Francisco Munner. Fue un lugar de encuentro de escritores y el nombre del barrio y de la calle en que se reunían dio nombre al grupo.

character in C. S. Lewis's Perelandra

US poet, critic and editor, 1888-1974

town near Genoa, Italy

Cocteau, 1926.

US film director, 1898-1999, director of The Now Voyager

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

Rashidu'd-Din Fadlu'llah, Persian vizier and historian, d. 1318, author of the Jami'u't- Tawarikh, a history of the Mongols which also includes summaries of the history of India, China and Europe

Akutagawa story, later adapted as a film by Kurosawa

main character in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

Fishburn and Hughes : "The protagonist of Dostoievsky's novel Crime and Punishment (1866): a poor student in love with Sonia, a prostitute, who becomes the means of his spiritual regeneration. The crime of the title is the murder of an old woman, a repulsive money-lender; the punishment is the gradual racking of his conscience. In part 5, chapter 4 Raskolnikov confesses his crime to Sonia, saying that he committed it as a test of his daring because he wanted to become a Napoleon." (163)

section of Sarmiento's Facundo

Work by Ramón Gómez de la Serna, 1915.

Bianco novella, 1944

British playwright

Lenormand play, 1920

Organization founded in the United Kingdon in 1885 by a group of free thinkers. It was originally called the Rationalist Press Association. In 2002 it chaged its name and it currently publishes a bi-monthly magazine, the New Humanist .

Lovecraft story

Argentine poet, 1903-1992, president of the SADE (Sociedad Argentina de Escritores) in the 1970s

character in Wells's The Brothers

German translation of classical Chinese novel

Friedrich Rauch, German soldier and Indian fighter in Argentina, 1790-1829

Abba ben Joseph bar Hama, rabbi, 270-350, mentioned in Talmud

Poe’s collection of poems, 1845.

Poe poem, 1845

Ravenna, city in Italy near Venice

Fishburn and Hughes : "A city in northern Italy 100 km south of Venice which in Roman times was a port and is now connected to the Adriatic by a four-mile canal. Ravenna was made the capital of the Western Empire by the Emperor Honorius in 402; it was conquered by Justinian's general Belisarius in 540 and became the seat of the governors of Byzantine Italy. The poet Dante spent a large part of his exile in Ravenna and was buried there. In 728 the Lombard king Luitprand took and destroyed Ravenna's suburb Classis. In 752 his successor Aistulf entered and sacked the city but, overcome by its beauty, spared its monuments." (164)

Cortázar, 1963.

Francisco Espínola stories, 1933

Silvina Ocampo’s short story published in La Furia (1959).

goddess Reason during French Revolution

Buenos Aires afternoon newspaper

Uruguayan newspaper

character in Conrad's Under Western Eyes

Fishburn and Hughes : "The protagonist of Under Western Eyes (1911), a novel by Joseph Conrad. As in Lord Jim , the theme is cowardice and the story centres on the duplicity of the main character, who meets his just deserts. During his students days in St Petersburg Kirylo Sidorovitch Razumov has betrayed to the police the revolutionary Victor Haldin who took refuge in his lodgings. Sent to Geneva as a police agent to check on Haldin's contacts, he is welcomed as a fellowrevolutionary by Haldin's family and friends in exile. He succeeds in keeping up appearances until, weighed down by the guilt of his betrayal and shamed by the innocence of Haldin's sister, Natalia, and the undeserved trust and affection he is receiving, he confesses his treachery. To punish him, one of Haldin's comrades bursts his eardrums; the deaf Razumov is run over by a tram and remains permanently crippled." (164)

Uruguayan folk and tango musician, 1887-1960, best known for his work in collaboration with Carlos Gardel

Parodi : los conocimientos musicales de Larrea se limitan a la obra del uruguayo José Razzano (1887-1960), compositor y cantante de melodías criollas y de tangos que, entre 1914 y 1925, formó un célebre dúo con Carlos Gardel (cf. “Enfoque” §2).

English pirate, c. 1690-c. 1714

Spanish Academy, founded in 1713, which publishes the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española and the Gramática de la Real Academia Española (among other things)

Liddell Hart book, 1930, later republished as A History of the World War (1914-1918)

knife-fighter, character in Borges stories

knife-fighter

Santayana book, part of The Realms of Being, 1927-40

Santayana book, part of The Realms of Being, 1927-40

Santayana book, part of The Realms of Being, 1927-40

scene designer

Santayana, 1903

Santayana, first volume of The Life of Reason

Santayana, third volume of The Life of Reason

Santayana, fifth volume of The Life of Reason, 1906

Santayana, second volume of The Life of Reason, 1905-06

French writer (1619-1692) known for his Historiettes. 

Last name of a commission agent of whom one of the characters (Molineros) expected to get some discount (in Spanish: “rebaja”, cf. the play on words). (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

French writer, author of Un Grand precurseur des romantiques, Ramond, M. Bainville contre l'histoire de France, Notes sur la morale d'une "annonciatrice," and other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "Perhaps ar oblique allusion to the writer Jean Reboul (1796-1864) who came from Nîmes, where he was known as 'the baker of Nîmes'." (164)

Bonfanti

Parodi : obra atribuida a Mario Bonfanti. Julio Cejador y Frauca (1864−1927) filólogo aragonés, catedrático de lengua y literatura latinas, autor de trabajos sobre filología clásica y comparada, crítico literario e historiador de la literatura española, lexicógrafo, epigrafista, orientalista y cervantista. Cejador osciló entre la escritura de obras monumentales en varios volúmenes ( Tesoro de la lengua castellana , 5 tomos; Historia de la lengua y literatura castellanas en 14 tomos; El lenguaje , 6 tomos; Fraseología y estilística castellana , 4 tomos; Floresta de la antigua lírica popular , antología de la lírica castellana , 6 tomos) y breves ‘notículas’ ( Pasavolantes, De la tierra..., Cintarazos, Cabos sueltos ), publicadas en periódicos y revistas. Su vasta obra filológica y crítica fue muy cuestionada, al igual que algunas de sus ediciones anotadas de clásicos castellanos; de la edición en dos volúmenes que Cejador hizo de Los sueños de Quevedo, dijo Américo Castro: “Las ediciones que el Sr. Cejador ha publicado en Clásicos Castellanos aparecen muy por bajo el nivel medio de esmero e interés que caracterizan a esta importante colección. […] La introducción carece de toda novedad, salvo algunas frases como éstas: “Ni liras ni cítaras ni formingues son para los callosos dedos de este gañán de la sátira”. […] casi todo lo que en esta obra aparece como obra personal de C. y F. es un plagio cínico […] Es muy de lamentar que obras fundamentales de la literatura española vengan siendo editadas en Clásicos Castellanos por este ‘gañán’ de la filología” (“Notas” 200). Cejador y Frauca es mencionado también en Crónicas , “Loomis”.

Puga y Calsanz

Parodi : supuesta obra breve, publicada en Zaragoza a mediados de 1972, en la que Puga y Calasanz rehúsa al Molinero la autoría de su obra.

character in Borges story

Clodomiro Ruiz's first book

Balzac philosophical novel, 1834

German publisher, 1807-1896, editor of the Universalbibliothek

cemetery in Buenos Aires, also the name of the surrounding neighborhood

Parodi : “el que hace nono en la Recoleta”: el que duerme en la Recoleta. En lenguaje infantil, ‘hacer nono’ equivale a ‘dormir’ (cf. supra i §5). El cementerio de La Recoleta, ubicado en el barrio de ese nombre, ocupa el predio de lo que había sido la huerta de la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar perteneciente a los frailes recoletos. Inaugurado en 1822, fue el primer cementerio público de la ciudad; allí están enterrados personajes de la historia argentina y de la oligarquía local.

street in central Buenos Aires

old arched building in the center of Buenos Aires, destroyed in the building of the Plaza de Mayo

Reyes essay in Reloj de sol

Horacio Eduardo Rosales book of poems, 1966, written at age nine

Sarmiento autobiography, 1850

Novel by Elena Garro (1963).

Baron de la Roche poem

Baudelaire sonnet, 1861

Crane novel, 1895

river in Michigan

Hammett novel, 1929

character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass

"repetida viuda," widow of several gangsters

Heinlein science fiction, 1949

Steinbeck short novel, 1937

Phillpotts novel, 1922

river in Louisiana

Fichte nationalist treatise, 1808

Buber, 1910

Excerpt from de Indian Antiquary 1, 1872.

designer

Parodi : “traje de montar de Redfern, ponchillo de Patou, botas de Hermés, maquillaje pleinair de Elizabeth Arden”: marcas de ropa y de cosméticos, todas de lujo y alta moda.

Refr Gestsson, 11th century Icelandic poet, son of Steinunn

Ascasubi poem in Paulino Lucero

Parodi : En Descanso 250, aclara Bioy el origen del verbo ‘refalar’ que da el título al poema: “ Idiomáticas. Refalar, resbalar por resbalar . Argentino rural in [sic] Refalosa ” y agrega en 460-461 un recuerdo de su infancia en la localidad de Pardo, en la estancia de Rincón Viejo, propiedad de su abuelo paterno: “Cuando yo era chico, todavía se oía tanto refalar como resbalar . Si resbalar viene de resvarar , por la ley de Grimm la f sustituyó a la v , la s cayó y apareció en nuestro campo (¿en Pardo, precisamente?) refalar .” 

Spanish avant garde magazine edited by José de Ciria y Escalante, 1920

Marcus Aurelius autobiography written in Greek, Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, English title Meditations

Lugones book on Argentine school reform, 1903

Argentine poet and writer, 1899-1957

Lugones poem in Romances del Río Seco

city in Bavaria in Germany, ancient Ratisbona

character in the Volsunga Saga

pseudonym of José Maria dos Reis Pereira, Portuguese writer, 1901-1969

French symbolist poet, 1864-1936

Uruguayan physician, poet and playwright, 1860-1929, author of El gaucho and La tapera

Fishburn and Hughes : "A song-writer from the province of Entre Ríos who combined the aggressive spirit of the montoneros with a vein of sweet sentimentality or, to use Borges's words, 'united the ornamental with the heartless - like the tiger' ( Ev. Carr. 35)." (164)

Parodi : (1861-1929) médico, docente, escritor y político uruguayo. Su escritura se inscribe dentro del regionalismo literario. Es autor de obras teatrales y poemarios de estilo criollo.

Julien Benda memoirs, 1937

Marcus Atilius Regulus, Roman general in the First Punic War who sacrificed himself to the Carthaginians for the sake of Rome, d. c.250 B.C.

C. S. Lewis book, 1939

seat of German government in Berlin

German editor and translator, mentioned here à propos of his edition of Jean Paul's Traumdichtungen

Reykjavik, capital city of Iceland

Mehring treatise on rhyme, 1891

city in northern France

Russian-Argentine physician, friend of Alberto Gerchunoff's

Parodi : la marca de cigarrillos “Reina Victoria” organizó un concurso en el que se premiaría al hombre que quedara embarazado. 

four brothers, Jose Vicente, 1782-1837, Francisco Isidoro, 1796-1840, Jose Antonio, 1798-1837 and Guillermo, 1799-1837, Argentine caudillos in Córdoba in the time of Rosas and Facundo Quiroga

Austrian-born US film director and actor, 1873-1943

underworld

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

author of a book on Anatole France published in Buenos Aires in 1944

Jubilate Agno, Christopher Smart poem used by Benjamin Britten as the text for a festival cantata

Hsi Yu Chi, Wu Ch´eng-en's Journey to the West or Monkey, classical Chinese novel, 1590s

Murena’s book of poetry, 1962.

Defoe, 1706

popular book about Einstein, by author who signed with initials C. W. W., published by the Technical Press in London in 1937

Kafka anthology

Browne work on religion, science and philosophy, 1642

Koeppen, 1857

Vandier study (with Henri-Charles Puech and René Dussaud), 1944

Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Pure Reason, 1793-94

George Bernard Shaw speeches, edited in 1965 by Warren Sylvester Smith

Percy anthology of ballads and other poems, 1765

Eça de Queiroz satirical novel about Catholicism, 1887

Antonio Guevara, 1529

Reyes book of short essays, 1926, the fifth series of Simpatías y diferencias

German novelist, 1897-1970, author of Im Westen nichts Neues

Dutch painter and engraver, 1606-69

Fishburn and Hughes : "A Dutch painter, born at Leyden, renowned for his versatile portraiture. In his search for realism, Rembrandt made dramatic use of light and shade to emphasise the shape and movement of the human form and contrasts in the landscape." (164)

Parodi : ‘Remedios’ es alusión a la estación de ferrocarril Remedios de Escalada, cf. supra § 1. 

brand of typewriter

Parodi : “mi certera Remington”: referencia a las famosas máquinas de escribir de esa marca, que comenzaron a producirse industrialmente en 1874. 

Remus, in Roman legend, twin brother of Romulus

fabulous fish mentioned by Pliny

Borges poem in Fervor de Buenos Aires, 1923

Borges poem in Luna de enfrente

French philosopher and writer, 1823-1892, author of Averroes et l'Averroisme, Vie de Jesus, Les Origines du Christianisme and numerous other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "A French orientalist, famous for his sceptical writings on the history of Christianity. His doctoral thesis, Averroès et l'averroïsme , was published in 1852. The epigraph is a quotation from this essay. Renan asserted that Averroes, in his paraphrase of the Poetics of Aristotle, shows an extensive knowledge of Arab literature but 'the most complete ignorance' of Greek literature, since no representative Greek poetry had been translated into Arabic. According to Renan, Averroes's knowledge was confined to the work of philosophical and scientific writers, and he was incapable of appreciating Greek poetry. Developing the theme of cultural gaps, Renan showed that the Latin version of Averroes's Commentaries , the one most widely used in medieval Europe for the propagation of Aristotelianism, was itself 'barbaric', being a translation of a Hebrew translation of a commentary on an Arab translation of a Syrian translation of a Greek text. Renan states that Averroes's fame was confined mainly to the Jewish and Christian world, where he was acclaimed for introducing and elucidating the work of Aristotle; in the Arab world, however, he was suspected of unorthodoxy and known chiefly for his refutation of Ghazali. This view is disputed by Arab scholars. Regarding the history of ‘Averroës’, Renan discusses the number of changes undergone by Averroes's name from the original Arabic 'Ibn Roschd' and lists sixteen different transcriptions: Ibin Rosdin, Filius Rosedis, Ibn Rusid, Ben Raxid, Ibn Ruschad, Ben Resched, Aban Rassad, Aben Rois, Aben Rasd, Aben Rust, Averrosd, Averryz, Adveroys, Benroist, Averroyth, Avenroysta." (164-64)

Parodi : Ernest Renán (1823−1892), historiador, filólogo, filósofo, arqueólogo y crítico francés, autor −entre muchas otras obras− de una Prière sur l'Acropole ( Oración sobre la Acrópolis , 1865) incluida en sus Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse ( Recuerdos de infancia y de juventud , 1883), en la que evoca su descubrimiento de Grecia en un viaje de 1865.

French writer, 1864-1910, author of Poil de Carotte, a Journal and other works

Short Story written by Roberto Artl. Early version of "Judas Iscarioti", the fourth part of El juguete rabioso .

French painter, 1841-1919

French philosopher, 1815-1903, author of Essais de critique générale, Les dilemmes de la métaphysique pure, Histoire et solution des problèmes métaphysiques and other works

soccer player, character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : “congratulélo sobre la tramitación del último goal que, a despecho de la intervención oportuna de Zarlenga y Parodi, convirtiera el centro-half Renovales, tras aquel pase histórico de Musante”: los apellidos de los supuestos jugadores de Abasto Juniors corresponden a los propietarios del Hotel El Nuevo Imparcial (cf. “Limardo” i §3), según lo narrado en “La víctima de Tadeo Limardo”. Para Zarlenga, Renovales y Musante, cf. “Limardo” i §§3 y 8. La investigación de la muerte de Tadeo Limardo (cf. §10) estuvo a cargo del detective Parodi (cf. “Palabra” §9), otro de los apellidos mencionados.

thug in Buenos Aires

half-owner of the Hotel El Nuevo Imparcial in Bustos Domecq and Suárez Lynch

Parodi : copropietario de El Nuevo Imparcial . Personaje mencionado también en Modelo II; en Crónicas (“ Esse ”) aparece el apellido.

highway in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : el nombre propuesto para la autopista evoca una circunstancia varias veces repetida en una historia nacional como la argentina, en la que se reiteraron los exilios, las muertes de personajes célebres alejados del país y la subsiguiente repatriación de los restos. Algunos de los casos vinculados con personajes que Bustos y Suárez Lynch mencionan en su obra son: en 1857, se repatriaron los restos de Bernardino Rivadavia, el primer presidente argentino, muerto en Cádiz, en el exilio, en 1845; sus restos fueron enterrados en el cementerio de La Recoleta y en 1932, depositados en el mausoleo de Plaza Miserere (cf. “Toros” ii §4). En 1880 llegaron desde Francia los restos del general José de San Martín (cf. “Signo” §4; “Vestuario I” §5), que actualmente yacen en la Catedral de Buenos Aires. En 1989 fueron repatriados y enterrados en el cementerio de La Recoleta los restos de Juan Manuel de Rosas (cf. “Formas” §35; “Fiesta” Epígrafe), muerto en Southampton en 1877. Domingo F. Sarmiento (cf. “Goliadkin” i §12) murió en Asunción (Paraguay) en 1888 y sus restos fueron enterrados en La Recoleta ese mismo año. Considerando la fecha de publicación de los Nuevos cuentos , es probable que la referencia a la repatriación esté motivada por el retorno al país de los restos de Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita), muerta en Buenos Aires en 1952; en 1957, su cadáver fue sacado secretamente del país y enterrado en el Cementerio Mayor de Milán; en setiembre de 1971, poco antes de que Borges y Bioy comenzaran a idear “La salvación por las obras”, se puso en marcha el “Operativo retorno” de los restos de Evita: su cuerpo pasó a Madrid, a la residencia de Juan Perón en el barrio de Puerta de Hierro; en 1974, después de la muerte de Perón en Argentina, se trasladaron los restos de Evita al país y finalmente fueron enterrados en el cementerio de La Recoleta en 1976.

“se parecía un poco a Repetto, pero con barba”. This last name evokes an important figure of the period; Nicolás Repetto (1871-1965) was a politician, a doctor and one of the most relevant leaderships of the Socialist Party. He was a representative and a candidate to the Vice-Presidency. In 1946, he was associated with Spruille Braden in the Unión Democrática created against President Perón. (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

Parodi : “se parecía un poco a Repetto”: el apellido mencionado evoca el de un personaje público: Nicolás Repetto (1871−1965), médico y político, uno de los dirigentes más relevantes del Partido Socialista, del que fue presidente en diversos períodos; diputado, opositor al gobierno de Perón, estuvo encarcelado durante el primer peronismo.

Descanso de la tripulación, Joseph Kessel novel, 1935

Elvira de Alvear book

Lugones, section of Las montañas de oro

Emerson essays on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Goethe, 1850

US artist, poet and writer, 1895-1990, author of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Plato dialogue on political philosophy

Fishburn and Hughes : "Plato's most famous dialogue. Beginning as a discussion of the nature of justice, the Republic develops into a description of the perfect state. It is thus the earliest Utopia. The Platonic model refers to Plato's famous theory of 'forms' discussed in books 5-8, according to which there are two levels of reality, the higher level of 'forms' (or ideas) and the lower level of 'images' (or likenesses). The 'form', made by God, has an absolute existence independent of our minds, whereas its particular appearance or manifestation of it in the world, being an imperfect copy and subject to change, has inferior status. Plato does not say that the appearance is unreal: since it is a copy of a form it can partake of its reality, but it can never be fully identified with it. Differentiating between 'knowledge' and 'opinion', Plato asserts that the philosopher who is in love with truth may have knowledge of a form, since it is changeless and divine, but only 'opinion' of the changing world of appearance and sensation. This distinction gains particular relevance in its application to the Koran." (165)

book by Gustavo Thorlichen

Dominican Republic

family in Balvanera neighborhood

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : uno de los hijos naturales del Commendatore y hermano de leche de Ricardo Sangiácomo; es el factótum de las obras de Ricardo. Escribe La espada al medio día , cf. infra iv §4.

grill in Suárez Lynch novella

Parodi : el nombre del restaurante evoca los tercios de voluntarios vascos y navarros que, durante la Guerra Civil Española, combatieron en el bando franquista.

Stevenson poem that later served as his epitaph

Faulkner, novel, 1951.

Georges Simenon novel, 1938

Carriego poem in Las misas herejes

city on the Paraná River in northern Argentina, capital of Chaco province

Parodi : ‘Resistencia’ es la capital de la provincia del Chaco, situada al noreste Argentina, a unos 1000 km de Buenos Aires.

González Lanuza poem

Darío poem in Prosas profanas, 1896

According to Cuentos breves y extraordinarios e xcerpt from chapter XXIX from the Ta'anit .

Fernando Namora memoir, 1949 and 1963

train station in Buenos Aires and the surrounding neighborhood

Fishburn and Hughes : "A district in the centre of Buenos Aires, made up partly of the fashionable Barrio Norte and partly, in the low-lying areas near the docks, of the rougher Bajo." (165)

Parodi : una de las centrales ferroviarias de Buenos Aires; inaugurada en 1915, está integrada por tres estaciones terminales (Mitre, Belgrano y San Martín) que cubren los servicios ferroviarios metropolitanos e interurbanos hacia el norte y el oeste de la Capital. Hasta principios de 1990 también cubrían en esas direcciones una densa red de servicios interprovinciales que fueron cancelados en su mayor parte.

ranch

Aristotle's Rhetoric

Fishburn and Hughes : "A treatise by Aristotle dealing with the various aspects of oratory and setting out its functions and methods. In the Rhetoric Aristotle compares the activity of a good speaker to a theatrical performance, using terms such as 'acting' and 'stage' as well as 'tragedy' and 'comedy', whose meaning eludes Averroes. Book 3, referred to by Borges, deals specifically with delivery. In chapter 1, 'The Parts of Rhetoric', Aristotle states that 'even writers of tragedy... have abandoned all those terms which are foreign to the style of conversation' (1404a, 30-5). In the same chapter, referring to the art of delivery, he writes that it 'was long before it found a place in tragic drama', adding that at first poets 'acted their own tragedies' (1403a, 20-5). Chapter 3, 'Frigidity of Style', points to the use of inappropriate metaphors by 'writers of comedy, because they are ridiculous' (1406b,5-10). Finally, chapter 14, 'Exordia', advises that the start of a speech should be 'equivalent to the opening scenes of plays' where 'the commencement is an intimation of the subject' (1415a, 5-10), and concludes by addressing the orator in theatrical terms: 'Bring yourself on the stage from the first in the right character...' (1417b,7)." (166-67)

Gerchunoff essay on Cervantes, 1951

López Velarde poem

Jean François Paul de Gondi, 1613-1679, archbishop of Paris

Baudelaire poem

Revelation of St. John in the Bible, sometimes called Apocalipsis

Baldomero Fernández Moreno poem

French poet, 1889-1960, associated with cubism and surrealism

periodical published in Buenos Aires, 1868-1872, 1880-1882

Mexican literary magazine of the modernist movement, 1894-1896, edited by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera

Parodi : el nombre completo de la publicación era “ Letra y Línea, Revista de cultura contemporánea. Artes plásticas. Teatro. Cine. Música. Crítica” . Aparecieron sólo 4 números entre octubre de 1953 y julio de 1954. Bioy ( Borges 108) destaca que Oliverio Girondo era “el secreto director” de la revista y su “mecenas” (1167). 

Journal published by Universidad de Buenos Aires

Spanish literary review, founded by Ortega y Gasset in 1923

magazine edited by Hilario Ascasubi and José Arenales

Buenos Aires periodical, 1871-1877, to which José Hernández was a contributor

Play by Villiers de l'Isle Adam, 1870.

Fishburn and Hughes : "A rebellion against President Juárez Celman in July and August 1890. The rebels, mainly lawyers, students and recent immigrants, were protesting against the oligarchy of landowners who controlled the government and its inflationary policies. The rebellion was planned by the 'Unión Cívica' under Leandro Alem and supported by Mitre and the clergy. After two days the rebels ran out of ammunition and asked for an armistice and a general amnesty, which were granted. After a few days Celman resigned; his successor, however, was from his own party and followed the same policies." (165-66)

French scholar of Japanese literature, 1867-1947

periodical published in Paris, 1922-1932, previously Le Bulletin de l'Amérique Latine, 1910-1922

Parodi : la Revue de l’Amérique Latine fue una publicación mensual que, entre 1922 y 1932, ofreció un panorama político, económico, social, literario y artístico de la actualidad latinoamericana. La calidad de las colaboraciones y de los colaboradores −especialmente en la sección dedicada a obras y autores de América Latina− la convirtió en la más prestigiosa de las revistas culturales de entreguerras. Se editaba en francés, en París.

French literary magazine published in Montpellier since 1870 in which Pierre Menard published several articles in 1909

Fishburn and Hughes : "A literary review published from 1870 to 1945 in Montpellier, and, at intervals, in Paris, by the Société pour l'Etude des Langues Romanes. Borges refers to two separate issues, one of October and one of December 1909, but there seems to have been only one issue that year, covering May to December; it contained specialist articles such as ' Notes sur Ie vocabulaire de Maupassant et de Merimée ' by A. Schiuz, but no debate on the 'metric laws of French prose'." (166)

French periodical in the 1920s and 1930s

Geneva periodical in the early twentieth century, often cited for an Ernest Ansermet article on jazz in 1919

periodical edited by Lugones in Paris, 1911-1914

king of the dead in Buddhism

Ecuadorean historian, author of Campaña del Ecuador

Farid ud-din Attar

in the Bible, the two books of Kings, sometimes also the two books of Samuel

Fernando II de Aragon, 1452-1516, and Isabel I de Castilla, 1451-1504

Mexican man of letters and diplomat, 1889-1959, author of Reloj de sol, Visión de Anáhuac, Capítulos de literatura española, Simpatías y diferencias, El suicida and numerous other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "A Mexican poet and essayist who was ambassador to Buenos Aires 1927-30 and 1936-7. Reyes was a long-standing friend of Borges, who considered him his master in matters of style and often paid tribute to him. As a poet he participated in the 1920s modernist movement in Latin America." (166)

Cortázar, poetry, 1949.

Chilean writer, 1889-1970, who participated in the first Proa; mentioned in Inquisiciones for his 1923 book of poems Barco ebrio

place in Iceland, residence of Snorri Sturluson

Uruguayan novelist, 1868-1936, author of El embrujo de Sevilla and numerous other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "A Uruguyan writer interested in rural life. Reyles was influenced by contemporary scientific and psychological theories and his books often dwelt on the effects of human and animal inbreeding in isolated environments. The assertion that Reyles's son told Borges the story upon which he based 'The Other Duel' is correct." (166)

son of the novelist

English progressive writer, 1905-1958, co-editor of Prison Anthology, 1938

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

a poultry farmer in a Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : “depósito de forrajes Buratti, cuando no en el criadero de aves Reynoso”: dos supuestos comercios de Burzaco.

António Benedito de Castro, Portuguese nobleman, friend of Eça de Queiroz

Rhine River

state in United States

pseudonym of Cecil Street, British officer and writer of crime fiction, 1884-1965

British scholar, 1843-1922, author of Buddhist India and Dialogues of the Buddha

British author, 1859-1946, the founding editor of Everyman's Library

small river which flows into the River Plate at Buenos Aires, at La Boca

Fishburn and Hughes : "A shallow stream marking the southern boundary between the city of Buenos Aires and Greater Buenos Aires. It was the site of the first foundation of the city in 1536 before the early Spanish settlers moved up-river to Paraguay. For many years the mouth of the Riachuelo served as a second port, attracting nascent industries and a large immigrant population, which lived in crowded and unsanitary conditions." (167)

Parodi : “en la otra banda del Riachuelo”: una banda del Riachuelo es territorio de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; la otra, de la Ciudad.

Nickname of Fingermann´s sister. Fingermann is the Jewish character of the story. The sound of the name plays with the Jewish pronunciation of the name “Rebeca”. (Character mentioned in Suárez Lynch novella.)

Parodi : “una Ribecas desorejada”: ‘una Ribecas’, se usa aquí con el sentido de ‘una judía’, recurriendo al nombre ‘Rebeca’ deformado por una supuesta dicción yiddish.

Portuguese writer, 1885-1963, author of Terras do Demo

Portuguese writer, 1482-1552, author of Menina e moça

Tomás Antonio Ribeiro Ferreira, Portuguese poet, politician and journalist, 1831-1901

street in Buenos Aires near the River Plate, perhaps the present street 25 de mayo

Parodi : “las librerías del Paseo de Julio y de la Ribera”: ‘Paseo de Julio’ y ‘Paseo de la Ribera’ son dos de los nombres que recibió en el siglo xix la Avenida Leandro N. Alem, la principal calle de la zona de Buenos Aires conocida como ‘El Bajo’, que se extiende a lo largo de la costa del Río de la Plata. Cercano al puerto, El Bajo fue tradicionalmente un lugar ‘mala vida’, de bares y prostíbulos, muy concurrido por marineros. En el poema de Borges “El Paseo de Julio”, de 1929, la estrofa final sintetiza las características de esta zona de la ciudad: “Tu vida pacta con la muerte; / toda felicidad, con sólo existir, te es adversa. / Paseo de Julio: Cielo para los que son del Infierno.” ( TR 1: 379). Cf. “Tai An” i §3.

doctor in Borges story

Spanish painter, 1591-1652, here mistakenly spelled Riera

British soldier mentioned in Chesterton's poem Lepanto

study by Giovanni Previtali, 1963

Richard the Third, king of England, 1452-1485, subject of a Shakespeare play

Richard the First, the Lion-Hearted, king of England, 1157-99

British political economist, 1772-1823

Italian publisher, b. 1931, publisher of FMR

Italian Jesuit missionary to China, 1552-1610, author of theological and polemical works in Chinese

US playwright, pseud. of Elmer L. Reizenstein, 1892-1967

Arnold Bennett, 1923

Baptist minister and translator from the Chinese, 1845-1919

friend of T. E. Lawrence from university days, 1886-1968, author of Portrait of T. E. Lawrence

English actor, 1902-83

English novelist, 1689-1761, author of Pamela, Clarissa and The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Belloc, 1929

Armand Jean du Plessie de Richelieu, French clergyman and political figure, 1585-1642

French poet, novelist and dramatist, 1849-1926

park in London

German physician who argued for extraterrestrial origin of life, the panspermia theory, author of Der Darwinische Lehre, 1865

German novelist usually called Jean Paul, 1763-1825, author of Hesperus and other works

British critic, 1866-1931, author of Oscar Wilde, Recollections, 1932

Synge short play, 1904

US writer, 1901-91

German mathematician, 1826-66

Roman popular leader, c. 1313-1354

soldier in the Trojan War, character in the Aeneid and Paradiso

mountains where the hippogriff comes from

one of the four sacred Vedic books of the Hindus

character in Bustos Domecq, "el hombre torpedo"

Parodi : Bustos compara la rapidez de Suárez con la de Raúl Riganti (1893-1970), un famoso corredor argentino de automovilismo deportivo, que participó con relativo éxito en dos carreras en Indianápolis y en 1926 ganó las 500 Millas Argentinas de Rafaela. Para Rafaela, cf. “Testigo” §1.

actor

Verdi opera, 1851

Parodi : “en Rigoletto y en Fedora ”: dos óperas que fueron parte del repertorio de Caruso. La primera, basada en Le Roi s’amuse , de Víctor Hugo, lleva música de Giuseppe Verdi y libreto de Francesco Maria Piave. Fue estrenada en 1851 en Venecia; Caruso la cantó ese mismo año en Nápoles. Fedora, con música de Umberto Giordano y libreto de Arturo Colautti, fue estrenada en el Teatro Lírico de Milán en 1898. En el estreno, Caruso cantó el papel del Conde Loris Ipanoff, una soberbia interpretación que dio comienzo a su gran carrera artística.

character in Verdi opera of the same name

Parodi : el personaje de Modelo confunde dos personajes de la ópera italiana: Rigoletto, el bufón jorobado de la corte del Duque de Mantua, protagonista de la ópera Rigoletto del compositor Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), y el payaso Canio, personaje de la ópera “Pagliaci”, de Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919), a la que pertenece el aria “Ríe, payaso” (“Ridi, Pagliaccio”), aquí evocada como ‘reíte, Rigoletto’. Esta ópera es mencionada también en “Amistad” §18.

the Lay of Rig, in a manuscript of the Prose Edda

Maurice Betz collection and translation, 1937

Austrian poet and novelist, born in Prague, 1875-1926, author of Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, Duineser Elegien, Sonette an Orpheus and other works

Parodi : “la 'muerte propia' de Rilke”: alusión a uno de los grandes temas de la poesía de Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), el de la muerte individual, concebida como maduración y remate de una vida auténtica. Rilke, nacido en la Praga del Imperio Austrohúngaro, expresa este concepto en su única novela Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge ( Los cuadernos de Malte Laurids Brigge , 1910) y especialmente en las tres últimas Duineser Elegien ( Elegías de Duino , 1923).

a long didactic poem by Pedro López de Ayala, c. 1380

Roland de Renéville, 1929

French poet, 1854-91, author of Une Saison en enfer, Les Illuminations, Le Bateau Ivre and other works

town in Italy

ranch belonging to Adolfo Bioy Casares in Pardo, Partido de Las Flores, Province of Buenos Aires

Cervantes exemplary novel

Browning long poem, 1868-69

Wagner cycle of operas, 1848-74

former capital of Brazil

Cunninghame Graham stories in Spanish translation, 1914

the Rajatarangini or River of Kings, a Sanskrit chronicle of the kings of Kashmir by Kalana, 1148 A.D.

one of the marvels of the realm of Prester John

verse in Cansinos-Asséns poem Crepúsculo

state in southern Brazil

Fishburn and Hughes : "The southernmost state of Brazil bordering Argentina and Uruguay. An area characterised by smuggling and contacts with neighbouring countries, its prosperity was largely due to the progressive agricultural methods introduced by European immigrants." (167)

hot springs area in Santiago del Estero

Fishburn and Hughes : "A river in Uruguay which crosses the country from north east to south west; also the name of a department in western Uruguay on the river, on the opposite side of the Argentinian province of Entre Ríos, the capital of which is Fray Bentos. Funes, His Memory: the reference is to the uprising of Quebracho in 1886. The Other Death; before the fighting between the Blancos and Colorados in 1904 Saravia was south of Río Negro, keeping watch over a government battalion which had been posted there." (167)

port town near La Plata in the province of Buenos Aires

Department of the Province of Córdoba, Argentina.

town in Argentina near Córdoba

Parodi : río que recorre la zona central de la provincia de Córdoba.

street in Buenos Aires, named for city in Ecuador

Parodi : “me aventuré a la esquina de Río Bamba [sic]”: referencia a la calle Riobamba que recorre la ciudad de Buenos Aires de norte a sur, desde el barrio de Palermo hasta el Congreso. La calle recibió esta denominación en honor a la ciudad ecuatoriana de Riobamba, la capital de la provincia de Chimborazo.

Argentine province

a knife-fighter in Buenos Aires

Argentine painter, 1874-1968

Spanish conquistador (s. XVI)

Garfias haiku

Saki’s work, 1900.

Uruguayan writer and diplomat, 1904-1981, author of Arquitecturas del insomnio: cuentos fantásticos

projected book of Borges's ultraísta poems, never published, also called Himnos rojos or Salmos rojos

German Protestant theologian, 1822-1889

German philosopher, 1791-1869, co-author with Ludwig Preller of Historia philosophiae graecae et romanae ex fontium locis contexta

German geographer, 1779-1859, author of Die Erdkunde

Fishburn and Hughes : "A German geographer and professor of history at the University of Frankfurt, author of Die Erdkunde im Verhältnis zur Natur und Geschichte des Menschen (Geography and the Study of Nature and History of Mankind). Ritter is regarded as the father of modern geography. There are two editions of his monumental work (1817-18, revised 1822), which has remained incomplete. The book presents the topography of a country as a leading element in its historic development." (167)

Dürer engraving

Spanish publisher, 1805-1872, founder and editor of the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles

Parodi : Manuel Rivadeneyra (1805-1872), editor e impresor español, entre 1846 y 1888 imprimió una colección de clásicos españoles, la Biblioteca de Autores Españoles desde la formación del lenguaje hasta nuestros días, conocida mundialmente como la BAE . Con la intención de hacer fortuna para financiar su empresa, emigró dos veces a América. En Valparaíso montó una imprenta; compró el diario El Mercurio , e introdujo las técnicas modernas de impresión de libros. Desde 1846 impulsó en Madrid la edición de la BAE , que reimprimió, en cuarto y en versión completa y con estudios preliminares, las obras clásicas de la literatura española, añadiendo a veces obras inéditas o recuperando otras olvidadas. En esta biblioteca se forjó toda una generación de críticos y editores de literatura clásica española. Desde 1905 y hasta 1918, la colección fue ampliada por Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, con el título de Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles . A partir de 1954 la continuó la Editorial Atlas llegando a editar más de 300 volúmenes. Rivadeneyra fue también el editor de la famosa edición del Quijote de 1863, con prólogo del poeta, dramaturgo, filólogo y crítico español Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch (1806-1880).

street in Buenos Aires that marks the division between the northern and southern parts of the city

Fishburn and Hughes : "Named after the nation’s first president, the longest street in Buenos Aires, dividing the city into north and south. All the intersecting streets change their name as they cross it." (167)

Parodi : “Rivadavia y Jujuy”: esquina del barrio de Once en que estaba ubicada la Confitería La Perla (cf. “Limardo” i §26).

tomb of and monument to Bernardino Rivadavia in the Plaza Miserere, by the Once train station in Buenos Aires

Parodi : mausoleo inaugurado en 1932, obra del escultor Rogelio Yrurtia, ubicado en la Plaza Miserere, conocida como Plaza del Once o Plaza Once (cf. “Limardo” i §11). En el monumento se guardan las cenizas de Bernardino Rivadavia (1780−1845), político argentino que ejerció la presidencia del país (1826−1827); muerto en Cádiz, sus restos fueron repatriados en 1857; cf. “Salvación” viii §1.

hospital in Buenos Aires

gambler mentioned in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : un jugador fullero; tal vez el apodo se deba a que, durante el juego, nada escapaba a su vista.

character in Borges story

Spanish poet and critic, 1893-1960, brother of José Rivas Panedas

Spanish poet, 1898-1944

city in Uruguay on the Brazilian border, adjoining Sant'Anna do Livramento

street in Buenos Aires, now called Córdoba

Argentine poet and political writer, 1814-1844, author of Tablas de sangre

Mexican painter, 1886-1957

Uruguayan general and politician, 1788-1854

Mediterranean coast of France and Italy

neighborhood in New York City, site of a gang battle involving Monk Eastman

character in Radclyffe Hall's The Sixth Beatitude

Whale film, 1937

Frost poem

Agatha Christie, poetry, 1925.

Padraic Colum, 1926

Ellis study of death in Old Norse literature, 1943

Camino a Mandalay, Kipling poem

Lowes book on Coleridge's Kubla Khan, 1927

Aldington stories, 1930

the Lost Colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in North Carolina

Untermeyer poems, 1923

Chesterton study, 1905

Walter Raleigh essay, 1895.

Chesterton study, 1927

character in Bustos Domecq story

English writer, 1892-1976, author of Twenty-Six Poems, 1917, here the author of a review of The Approach to Al-Mutasim

Fishburn and Hughes : "An English writer, author of poems, plays and novels set largely in the 1920s. He was reputed for his 'special gift for easy-going, light-hearted romance'." (168)

English divine, 1816-1853, author of five volumes of sermons and an Analysis of Tennyson's In Memoriam

Fishburn and Hughes : "Probably an allusion to the theologian Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853). After his ordination Robertson developed a form of asceticism so severe that it endangered his life. Haunted by innumerable doubts, he clung devoutly to the one principle of the 'unequalled nobleness of the humanity of the Son of God'." (168)

British journalist and politician, 1856-1933

British merchant, traveller and writer on Argentina and Paraguay, 1792-1843

Scottish churchman and historian, 1721-1793, author of histories of Scotland and the English colonies in America

US actor and singer, 1898-1976

Belloc, 1928

French revolutionary leader, 1758-1794

legendary hero of 12th century England

Defoe romance, 1719

Fishburn and Hughes : "The protagonist of Defoe's adventure story Robinson Crusoe (1719). The allusion to the footprint refers to the horror and fear felt by Crusoe as he realises that the island on which he has been shipwrecked is inhabited. Fear shatters his faith in God. At first he thinks the footsteps may be Satan's; then that they belong to someone even more dangerous, such as a savage; and ultimately that they may be his own. In the end his faith prevails and he prays to God and 'was no more sad - at least, not on that occasion'." (168)

US poet, 1869-1935

fabulous bird in the Arabian Nights and other texts

Lugones biography of Julio A. Roca, 1938

here, a mistake that Borges notices in a French dictionary which meant to refer to Julio A. Roca

Argentine general and president, 1843-1914, leader of the "Conquest of the Desert"

Spanish chemist (1873-1941)

Argentine politician and writer, 1838-1921

Parodi : “cine-salón Dardo Rocha”: una vieja sala teatral de La Plata, que en ocasiones funcionó como teatro lírico.

Don Quijote's horse

Eliot verse play, 1934

here a reference to the Rockefeller Foundation

Rhone river

island of Rhodes in the Aegean

French sculptor, 1840-1917

Conan Doyle, novel, 1896.

Uruguayan essayist, 1871-1917, author of Ariel and Motivos de Proteo

Parodi : “Bien dijo nuestro José Enrique Rodó que renovarse es vivir”: sobre Rodó, cf. “Sangiácomo” iv §10. Las palabras con que Rodó comienza el primer capítulo de Motivos de Proteo (1909) son: “Reformarse es vivir”.

place mentioned in the Orlando Furioso

Visigothic king of Spain at the time of the Moorish invasion in 711

Spanish literary scholar, 1855-1943

Uruguayan scholar, 1921-1985, author of Jorge Luis Borges: A Literary Biography and many other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "A Uruguayan literary critic, a friend of Borges and the author of Jorge Luis Borges: A Literary Biography of Borges (1978), the best biography to date. Between 1966 and 1968 Monegal edited the journal Mundo Nuevo in Paris. He also edited the two-volume Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature ." (168)

Spanish writer, 1848-1922, author of a Diccionario completo de la lengua española, Cría de gansos, Estudio de tecnología, Pedagogía social and other works

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi : “el cruce de Rodríguez Peña”: una calle del barrio de Recoleta.

Greco tango celebrating the dance hall "Salón San Martín" on Rodríguez Peña street

knife-fighter in Buenos Aires

baron, character in Jaromir Hladík's Los enemigos, name based on that of town in the Czech Republic now known as Rymarov

"Beautiful Cigar Girl," murder victim, 1820-1841, model for Poe's Marie Rogêt

English poet, 1763-1855, author of a volume of Recollections

character in Poe story

seems to refer to Ari Thorgilsson, Icelandic writer, b. 1067, co-author with Hallr Thorarinsson of the Hattalykill or Aettartala

Hugh Walpole novel, 1930, a chronicle of the Herries family, first of a four volume series that culminates in Vanessa, 1933

Wilkie Collins

Argentine writer, 1893-?

German author, author of Argentinien, 1937, and of Die La Plata Länder: Argentinien , Paraguay, Uruguay, 1963

German literary scholar, 1885-?, responsible for lamentable second edition of Vilmar's history of German literature

town in the province of Buenos Aires near Pergamino

Fishburn and Hughes : "A small town in the southern province of Buenos Aires south of Pergamino. The incident alluded to figures obliquely in Martín Fierro (pt 1, canto VIII, 11.1265-1318)." (168)

Argentine poet and essayist, 1896-1956, author of La metáfora y el mundo, El perfil de nuestra expresión and other works

Argentine poet, at some point a director of propaganda for the Argentine army

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

Spanish writer, c. 1465-1541, author of the Celestina

Argentine literary historian, critic and poet, 1882-1957, author of Historia de la literatura argentina and numerous other works

Red Sea

Konrad's Middle High German translation of the Chanson de Roland

Argentine poet, dramatist and orator, 1873-1922

Parodi : (1873−1922) célebre orador argentino, que también fue abogado, poeta, dramaturgo y político. Sus discursos, exuberantes de palabras e imágenes poéticas, lo hicieron célebre en el Congreso y como conferenciante.

leader of Norse invaders of Normandy

French poet and essayist, 1903-1962

French writer, 1866-1955, known for writings on pacifism and Indian philosophy

Rome, capital of Italy, here sometimes "la Ciudad de los Césares," "Romeburg" and so on

Fishburn and Hughes : "The saying 'All roads lead to Rome', based on the transport system of the Roman Empire, can be taken to mean that all avenues of thought eventually lead back to their original source. In its literary sense the saying later became true of the Catholic world, whose centre is the Vatican." (168)

French poet and writer, pseudonym of Louis Henri Jean Farigoule, 1885-1972

French allegorical romance in two parts: first part, c.1240, by Guillaume de Lorris; second part, c.1280, by Jean de Meung

Queen mystery, 1930

Laurence Echard, 1696

Argentine writer and journalist, 1908-1981

Maurice Abramowicz prose piece

Alonso Lopez e Bayão, 15th century

Lugones poem in Romancero

Book written by Vicente Rossi in 1944

Lugones poem in Romancero

traditional Spanish ballads

Lugones book of poems, 1924

Spanish ballads

Spanish ballads about the Cid

Spanish ballads with Moorish themes

Lugones posthumous book of poems, 1938

Jacques Chardonne, 1937

perhaps refers to Pliny's Naturalis historia

Paul's Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament

Mowat, 1935

Lugones poem in Los crepúsculos del jardín

Lugones series of poems in Las horas doradas

Heine book of poems, 1851

Argentine police officer and historian, co-author of the Diccionario histórico argentino, author of histories of Chascomús, Monserrat and of the Argentine police

Anglo-Saxon name for Rome. See Roma

character in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare tragedy, c. 1595

author of article on Mach in Proa

Argentine historian, 1909-77

a gunfighter mentioned in popular verses

Romulus, in Roman legend, the founder of Rome and twin brother of Remus

town in northern Spain in which Charlemagne was defeated and Roland lost his life

co-editor of El tema del tango en la la literatura argentina, 1969

town in southern Spain

Argentine general and politician, 1773-1844

French poet, 1524?-1585

Virginia Woolf essay on women's intellectual work, translated by Borges

Forster novel set in Florence, 1908

US political leader, 1884-1962

U. S. president, 1882-1945

U. S. president, 1858-1919

Emil Ludwig, 1938

fabulous animal of North America

Argentine merchant ship on which Ascasubi worked in 1819

Hauptmann play, 1903

Zorrilla, 1857.

Gerardo Diego poem

the canonical book of Hakim, "al-Moqanna," the Veiled Prophet of Khorasan

Borges book of poetry, 1975.

Borges poem in El otro, el mismo

Portuguese writer and painter, b. 1924, here surnamed Roa by mistake

Fishburn and Hughes : "A secret society, named after the emblems of the rose and the cross, which were taken to be symbols of Jesus's resurrection and redemption. Its practices were based on ancient occult beliefs. In the seventeenth century two anonymous books in Germany told the story of a fictitious Christian, Rosencrutz, and of the society he founded. Now generally believed to be by Johannes Valentinus Andreä, they aroused the curiosity of many eminent men, such as Spinoza and Descartes, who tried to meet members of the society. In time societies were actually founded and Rosicrucianism spread to London and later to Vienna, Russia and Poland. Its history seems to provide a perfect example of a Tlönian hrön - an idea which, when believed, materialises." (168)

Argentine poet whose book Los recuerdos de la tierra, published at age nine, had a preface by Borges

Spanish poet and literary critic, 1910-1992

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

Rosalind, character in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

second city of Argentina, in province of Santa Fe

Unamuno sonnet sequence

Parodi : nombre de la principal de las estaciones ferroviarias que había en la ciudad de Rosario. A Rosario Norte llegaban los trenes desde la Estación Retiro Mitre de Buenos Aires. A partir de 1977 se inició el desmantelamiento y clausura de los servicios de trenes en todo el país; la estación se cerró al público; a partir de 1997, el edificio fue utilizado por la municipalidad con fines administrativos. En Borges 1383 - 1384, evoca Borges: “El barrio que en el Rosario correspondía a Lavalle y Junín [la zona de prostíbulos en Buenos Aires] era el Rosario Norte; pero en el Rosario era mucho más grande. Los mejores prostíbulos tenían francesas de cinco pesos. Después venían los de waleskas (rusas y polacas) de tres pesos. Los había de cincuenta centavos, de viejas criollas, y aun uno de treinta centavos […] No hubo nunca criollas entre las putas de lujo; las criollas eran chinitas de prostíbulos baratos. Dos golpes recibió aquel mundo de guapos, cafishos [cf. “Signo” § 3] y prostitutas: la creación de la Zwi Migdal, poderosa sociedad en que los cafishos y las prostitutas eran judíos y que barrió a la criollada; y la ley contra los prostíbulos (justificada, porque los médicos recibían coimas, de modo que la revisión médica era una pantomima y los prostíbulos, focos de blenorragia y sífilis). Cerca del Rosario, en Baigorria, hay un cementerio judío, donde están enterrados como doscientos cafishos y prostitutas. Muchas prostitutas se casaron con ferroviarios, que fueron sus clientes; a un cafisho le dieron jubilación de ferroviario. Todos los hechos de armas de estas historias corresponden a los primeros veintitantos años del siglo; son diferentes a los anteriores de Muraña y de Flores; los de éstos eran de guapos desinteresados, o interesados por el honor; los de aquellos rosarinos se parecían más a los hechos de mañosos sicilianos o gangsters irlandeses de Norteamérica, pero en pequeña escala: en definitiva eran gangsters solitarios que se disputaban, generalmente a cuchillo, una sección del Rosario.” La Zwi Migdal alcanzó un alto grado de organización: en 1906, en Avellaneda, un grupo de rufianes de origen polaco conformó la Sociedad de Socorros Mutuos Varsovia, que ocultaba el funcionamiento de una gigantesca red de prostíbulos y controlaba la trata de blancas. En ocasiones, las jóvenes eran traídas desde Europa Oriental y entregadas a determinados rufianes; en otras, eran subastadas al mejor postor. Pese a los obstáculos y a la complicidad de la policía, en 1930 fueron procesados 108 miembros de la Zwi Migdal. Sobre esta asociación mafiosa, cf. también “H.B.D.” § 3. Para cafisho “Signo” § 3. 

Book written by the general officer Tomás de Iriarte

Ramos Mejía historical study, 1907

Juan Pablo Echagüe historical play

Argentine general and politician, governor of Buenos Aires and dictator of the Argentine confederation, 1793-1877, sometimes spelled Rozas, also known as "Héroe del Desierto" and "Restaurador de las Leyes"

Fishburn and Hughes : "The governor of the province of Buenos Aires from 1829 to 1831 and dictator of Argentina for almost two decades (1835-52). Although he fought as champion of the Federalist cause, presenting himself as a self-styled gaucho and drawing much of his popularity from the gauchos , Rosas came from an old-established Spanish family whose fortune he multiplied to become the richest landowner in the country. As such, his interest was to pacify and eventually to unify Argentina in order to establish an export-oriented, land-based economy. To this end he began a reign of terror. He killed or exiled most prominent members of the Unitarian party and ruled at home with the help of his private army, the Mazorca. Having silenced opposition from the Unitarians, he systematically attacked other Federalist caudillos , until he was left to rule supreme. Eventually he was brought down by his staunchest supporter, the Federalist general Urquiza, who, in alliance with Brazilian and Uruguayan forces, defeated him at the battle of Caseros (1852). At his downfall his arch-opponent Sarmiento dubbed him the 'Unitarian' Rosas, meaning that through his ruthless campaign of dictatorial self-aggrandisement he had achieved the Unitarian aim of putting an end to civil war and uniting the country under one banner. Rosas was exiled to England and died in Southampton. Borges, who shared an ancestor with Rosas through his great-greatgrandfather, wrote a poem on him recalling the ferocity of his rule and setting it against the annihilating effect of forgetfulness (Sel. Poems 15). In accordance with a decree of 1840, Rosas confiscated all property and goods belonging to the Unitarians and their families in order to finance his army and popular support." (169)

Fernández Moreno poem

Roscellinus, French scholastic philosopher, c. 1045-c. 1120

county in Ireland

Fishburn and Hughes : "A county and town in central Ireland." (169)

Quain story in Statements, 1939, a source of "Las ruinas circulares"

Williams play, 1950

French Catholic magazine of the early twentieth century

rose garden in Palermo Park, Buenos Aires

German Nazi leader, 1893-1946

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : supuesta (?) actriz del teatro yiddish de Buenos Aires.

here given as an example of a German-Jewish surname

character in Shakespeare's Hamlet

David Jerusalem poem

US journalist and music critic, 1890-1946, one of the editors of The American Caravan in 1927

character in Nazi children's book

Fishburn and Hughes : see Christian Knorr, Baron von Rosenroth.

character in Borges story

pianist, character in Borges story.

Fishburn and Hughes : "A fictional Jewish character in a footnote in "Deutsches Requiem". The name coincides with that of the founder of a school for girls, established in Beirut in 1878." (169).

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi : una calle que recorre los barrios de Chacarita y Villa Ortúzar, fue llamada Roseti (con una sola t) en homenaje al Coronel Manuel Roseti (1832−1866), militar que participó en la guerra contra el Paraguay.

Parodi : “su reloj del sistema Roskopf”: hacia 1860, el proyecto del suizo Georges - Frédéric Roskopf (1813 - 1889) era producir relojes para la clase obrera , abaratando los costos de fabricación sin afectar la calidad del producto. su primer reloj de bolsillo fabricado con el nuevo sistema llevó el nombre de “El Proletario ” y su precio equivalía al salario semanal de un obrero . 

Joseph Henri Honoré Boex, 1856-1940, Belgian-born writer of science fiction, here misspelled Rosney

Scottish divine, one of the chaplains of Charles I , author of Virgilius Evangelizans, 1634

Fishburn and Hughes : "A Scottish divine, author of poetical, philosophical and theological works in Latin and English. His most ambitious book, A History of the World , was intended as a continuation of the work begun by Sir Walter Raleigh. In his preface Ross claimed to be more conversant with the dead than with the living, a fact that Borges may well have had in mind when quoting him in the context of 'The Immortal'. Among Ross's Latin books are the eight volumes of Virgilius Evangelizans (1634), which presents the life of Jesus in the words of Virgil. The first five books refer to biblical episodes and their allusion to the figure of Christ. Book 6 describes Christ's birth; book 7 the prophecies of his life and miracles; book 8 to 12 the life, death and resurrection; book 13 his ascension to Heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Each passage is referred to the Aeneid , Eclogues or Georgics by book and line number. Composed of phrases from the writings of another author, Virgilius Evangelizans is an example of a 'patchwork' text alluded to in Nahum Cordovero's Coat of Many Colours ." (169-70)

Another pseudonym of Frederic Dannay (Daniel Nathan, 1905-1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (Manford Lepofsky, 1905-1971), creators of Ellery Queen.

Canadian journalist and art critic, 1869-1918, Wilde's literary executor

English poet, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1830-1894

English poet and painter, 1828-82, author of The Blessed Damozel, Eden Bower, The House of Life, Sudden Light and other works

Italian painter, 1909-1994, author of Buenos Aires en tinta china, 1951

Italian critic, editor of the Discorso di Giacopo Mazzoni in difesa della "Commedia" del divino poeta Dante, 1898

Uruguayan critic and historian, 1871-1945, author of Cosas de negros and Folletos lenguaraces

Argentine poet and tango composer, b. 1925

character in Kafka's Amerika

French poet and dramatist, 1868-1918, author of Cyrano de Bergerac, Chantecler and other works

Ruckert poem on the struggle between father and son, drawn from the Shah-nama, 1838

Henry Miller trilogy of novels, Sexus, Plexus and Nexus

character in Borges story

German Lutheran theologian, 1799-1867, author of Theologische Ethik, Die Anfange der christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, Dogmatik and other works

English painter, 1872-1945

may refer to any of a series of European financiers and noblemen

French writer, 1613-80, known for his maxims

city in France, ancient capital of Normandy, called Rudhaborg by the Vikings

Twain memoir of life in California and Nevada, 1872

series of Zola novels, 1871-1893

pseudonymous author of Tyrant of the Andes, 1936, about Juan Vicente Gómez

British teacher who pioneered new method of teaching Greek and Latin, 1863-1950, author of works on Homer, Shakespeare and Indian folktales and one of the early editors of the Loeb Classical Library

Swiss-French philosopher, writer, political theorist and composer, 1712-1778, author of Emile, the Nouvelle Heloïse, Confessions and many other works

pharmacist, character in Borges-Levinson story

character in Borges-Bioy filmscript

Uruguayan writer, 1861-1926, author of a vast Historia de la literatura uruguaya

hotel or restaurant in Borges-Levinson story

London

restaurant in Buenos Aires much frequented by the modernist writers

Parodi : “en el sótano alfombrado del Royal Keller”: un elegante restaurante y café de Buenos Aires, situado en la esquina de Esmeralda y Corrientes. El sótano del local fue lugar de reuniones y tertulias literarias a las que, en los años veinte, asistían escritores y artistas plásticos vanguardistas, entre muchos otros, Borges.

famous tango bar in the 1920's, on Corrientes

Parodi : “el bacanazo del Pigall y de La Emiliana”: ‘bacanazo’, superlativo de bacán (cf. Modelo iv §10), es empleado aquí con el significado de ‘gran señor’. El Royal-Pigall fue un lujoso cabaret de estilo parisino, instalado desde fines del siglo xix en Corrientes al 800; funcionaba en el edificio del Teatro Royal, de ahí su nombre completo; cerró sus puertas en 1924, cuando en el mismo lugar se inauguró otro famoso cabaret, el Tabarís. El edificio fue demolido en 1936, al ensancharse la calle Corrientes. El restaurante “La Emiliana” fue inaugurado en el barrio del Once en 1882; a partir de 1934 funcionó en la calle Corrientes, en un elegante edificio neoclásico con mobiliario importado de Viena; en 1992 cerró definitivamente y en el lugar funciona Colegio Público de Abogados.

US philosopher, 1855-1916, author of The World and the Individual and other works

character in Hudson's The Purple Land

Spirit, in Hebrew, as in Ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God

FitzGerald translation, 1859, translated into Spanish by Jorge Guillermo Borges

Flemish painter, 1577-1640

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : productor de películas en la S.O.P.A.; lleva el mismo nombre que otro de los demonios mencionados por Dante en la Divina Comedia (cf. “Fiesta” §12).

shallow river of northeastern Italy, crossed by Julius Caesar in 49 B. C. in defiance of the Senate

Parodi : alusión al río del noreste de Italia que, en tiempos del Imperio Romano, no debía ser atravesado por los ejércitos ya que constituía la frontera entre el territorio de Roma y la Galia Cisalpina, región ubicada al norte del Rubicón, habitada por los galos.

German expressionist poet, critic and essayist, 1881-1920

character in Borges story

character in Borges story

character in Borges story

German Orientalist scholar and poet, 1788-1866, author of Liebesfruhling, Ostliche Rosen, Ghaselen, Rostem und Suhrab and other works

It might be an extravagant way to refer to “rowing club” (“club de remo”) by playing with German words. (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

Parodi : “las walkirias del Ruderverein contra las colombinas del Neptunia”: las asociaciones mencionadas son dos existentes clubes de remo; el primero, el ‘Ruderverein Teutonia’, es un club privado alemán fundado en 1890, que sigue en actividad en la zona del Delta del Paraná, sobre la ribera del río Luján. El segundo, el Club Neptunia, fue fundado en 1935 en la ciudad de Gualeguaychú, en la provincia de Entre Ríos, y continúa organizando travesías y competiciones náuticas en el río Gualeguaychú.

Rüdeger, character in the Nibelungenlied

George MacMunn study, 1937

Enrique González Tuñón poems, 1928

German literary scholar, author of Jenseitsvorstellungen vor Dante, Dantes Divina Commedia and works on Cervantes, Shakespeare, Camões, Homer and Keyserling

character in Borges story

character in Borges story

town in Warwickshire, England

character in Dante

Fishburn and Hughes : "An archbishop of Pisa whose name appears among the traitors in Dante's Divine Comedy ( Inferno 33). In 1289 Ruggieri betrayed the trust of Ugolino della Gherardesca, then Mayor of Pisa, accusing him of treason; as a result, Ugolino, his sons and grandchildren were starved to death in a tower now known as torre della fame , 'the tower of hunger'." (170)

character in Ariosto's Orlando furioso and Orlando innamorato

character in Ellery Queen novel

Old English poem in the Exeter Book

Borges story, 1940, included in Ficciones

Volney book, 1791

Spanish priest and writer, 1861-1934

Argentine writer, 1900-1974, author of popular fiction associated with the Boedo group

character in Bustos Domecq and Suárez Lynch stories, later Mariana Ruiz Villalba de Anglada

Parodi : 1) “la gran dama católica, de poderosa sensibilidad”: alusión a Mariana Ruiz Villalba, personaje de “El dios de los toros” y de otros cuentos, cf. “Toros” i §5.

2) sus íntimos la conocen por los apodos de “Moncha” y “Barcina”. Esposa de Manuel Muñagorri en “Toros”; en adelante, casada con Carlos Anglada, esta “señora argentina” es personaje de “Toros”, “Sangiácomo”, Modelo y en los Nuevos cuentos , reaparece en “Hijo”. Asidua asistente a las conferencias de la Casa de Arte, inicia su labor literaria con una breve incursión por la poesía (sonetos), bajo la inspiración de Anglada; el grueso de su creación lo compone la “prosa de ideas”; los títulos de los ensayos revelan su interés por gran variedad de temas: “ Un día de lluvia, Mi perro Bob, El primer día de primavera, La batalla de Chacabuco, Por qué me gusta Picasso, Por qué me gusta el jardín , etc.” Ocasionalmente, Mariana contribuye con breves advertencias, comentarios y acotaciones al pie de las páginas de Bustos Domecq y Suárez Lynch.

Pumita, character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : hermana de Mariana, casada con Ricardo Sangiácomo; la gente de su mismo rango social le da el apodo de ‘Pumita’, diminutivo de ‘puma’, el felino americano.

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi : poeta apócrifo nacido en Gualeguaychú (cf. infra §8), en 1919. Autor del poemario nativista Querencias judías (cf. infra §29) y de Recado para don Martiniano Leguizamón (cf. infra §21).

Savastano doctoral dissertation, 1971

Parodi : en el título de la tesis de Savastano (h), “las colonias” es alusión a las colonias judías creadas por iniciativa del barón Hirsch en Entre Ríos; cf. supra §32.

"el Remiendo," character in Bustos Domecq story

Arcipreste de Hita, c. 1293-c. 1350, author of El libro de Buen Amor

Mexican writer, 1917-86, author of El llano en llamas and Pedro Páramo

Swedish theologian, character in Borges story, author of Kristus och Judas and Den hemlige Fralsaren, perhaps kin to the Swedish-Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, 1804-1877

German spy in Borges story, also known as Hans Rabener

Kipling poem

Fishburn and Hughes : "Runes were the characters of an early alphabet current in parts of northern Europe (Scandinavia in particular). The word is often used now to describe something secret and mysterious. The Theologians: the crosses which Borges defines as 'runic' are in fact wheeled crosses, the result of the fusion of Viking culture with Celtic Christianity. The wheel was a prominent symbol in early Norse mythology, where it represented the sun." (170)

Latin poem about the fabulous adventures of a young man named Ruodlieb, written c. 1030-1050 by a monk of Tegernsee

character in Tulio Herrera's novel Hágase hizo, also known as Alberto

semi-legendary Varangian warrior, founder of the princely dynasty of medieval Russia, d. 879

Fishburn and Hughes : "Also Ryurik, Rorik or Hrorikr: a semi-legendary ninth-century Varangian Viking prince, supposedly the founder of the Rurik dynasty which ruled Russia up to 1598. Rurik is thought to have come from Scandinavia at the invitation of the people of Novgorod to settle their internal wars." (170)

Parodi : “¡Voto a Rus que este lance patentiza muy a las claras que vusted se sabe de coro el vigésimo capítulo de la primera parte de la obra del Quijote !”: la amenaza de Parodi (cf. supra § 46) despierta en Bonfanti el recuerdo de los acontecimientos narrados en ese capítulo del Quijote . La fórmula de juramento “¡Voto a Rus!”, empleada por Sancho en ese mismo capítulo, contiene la alusión a un santuario manchego, la Ermita de Rus, ubicada sobre la ruta de don Quijote, en San Clemente, Cuenca, donde se encontraba la patrona de San Clemente, la Virgen de Rus. La ermita estaba ubicada junto a la venta donde transcurre la aventura de Maese Pedro y su retablo de maravillas (cf. Parte II, Caps. xxiv - xxvi ). ¡Voto a Rus! es uno de tantos juramentos eufemísticos para no profanar el nombre de Dios al nombrarlo. 

Phoenician settlement in northern Africa, in the area of the Spanish enclave Melilla in northern in Morocco

Fishburn and Hughes : "Present-day Melilla, a port in Spanish Morocco, founded by the Phoenicians and eventually occupied by Rome. In the fifteenth century it was taken by the Spaniards. A revolt of Spanish officers in Melilla in 1936 marked the start of the Spanish Civil War." (170)

Russia. See also Unión Soviética

Fishburn and Hughes : "Slang term for Ashkenazi Jews, from ruso, 'Russian' (as opposed to immigrants from the Middle East, who were known as turcos, 'Turks'). Most early Jewish immigration to Argentina was from Russia. According to the historian R.B. Scobie (Buenos Aires: From Plaza to Suburb, 1974, 230), most Russian Jewish immigrants were victims of anti-Semitism. Children thereupon tended to adopt criollo speech and customs, and reject the language and ways of their parents. The English version uses 'Sheeny', a slang word for 'Jews', which does not specifiy their origin." (170-71)

Work by Ramón Gómez de la Serna, 1913.

English critic and social theorist, 1819-1900, author of The Stones of Venice, Modern Painters, The Political Economy of Art and other works

street in Buenos Aires

Fishburn and Hughes : "A short passageway in what used to be a rough part of Palermo, not far from Serrano, where Borges lived as a child." (171)

British philosopher, mathematician, writer and social reformer, 1872-1970, author of Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, The Analysis of Mind, Free Thought and Official Propaganda, Let the People Think and numerous other works

Fishburn and Hughes : "An English mathematician and philosopher. Russell's Principia, Mathematica (1910-13) develops the principle that pure mathematics is an extension of logic and that every authentic mathematical statement can be translated into a logical one. The most important stage of his philosophical thought is represented by Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) in which, having discarded both the idealist and realist positions, he replaces 'physical' entities (whose nature is problematical) with logical constructions which we feel to be intelligible. Thus we can avoid reference to the 'unobservable', except as something unknown which we can postulate. This theory is further illustrated in Analysis of Mind (1921) See Analysis of Mind . Later, Russell rejected this programme, though other philosophers continue to work in his tradition. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, CF 89: in Our Knowledge of the External World , Russell dedicates a chapter, 'The Problem of Infinity...', to the historical analysis of philosophical questions associated with the concept of infinity. He presents the four arguments against motion produced by Zeno of the Eleatic school, which are based on the principle that time and space are infinitely divisible. The second of Zeno's arguments is the contest of Achilles and the tortoise, which Borges refers to in this story and elsewhere. CF 93: Borges's reference to Russell in connection with 'the curious discourse of Don Quixote on arms and letters' is a humorous allusion to the philosopher's political position. A pacifist and a conscientious objector during World War I, Russell was sent to prison for campaigning against conscription." (171)

US stage and screen actress, 1907-1976

Wells travel book in the newly formed Soviet Union, 1920

character in the Persian epic poem Shah-nama who fights against his son Suhrab

Azorín book, 1905

Moabite widow in Bible

British physicist, 1871-1937

town in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, famous for the Ruthwell Cross, an Anglo-Saxon cross from the 8th century

character in Herbert Quain's The Secret Mirror

US historical figure, alleged fiancee of Abraham Lincoln, 1813?-1835, later the subject of a poem in Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology

Jan van Ruysbroeck or Ruusbroec, Roman Catholic mystic, born in Brabant, 1293-1381, author of Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love and The Spiritual Espousals

Parodi : Jan van Ruusbroec o van Ruysbroeck (1293−1381) fue un místico flamenco, autor entre otros títulos de Los siete grados de la escala del amor espiritual , La joya de las bodas espirituales .

once known for its Moorish gardens build by Abd Allah al-Balansi in the ninth century, now part of the city of Valencia

Fishburn and Hughes : "Also Al-Rusayfah: a village in Jordan, near Amman." (171)

character in Borges story

French orientalist (1580-1660 or 1672), known as the third Western translator of the Qu'ran.

Zen garden, Temple of the Dragon at Peace, in northwest Kyoto