Image Credit for Finders Guide Section
Fishburn and Hughes: "(1864-1938) An Italian poet, novelist and playwright. D'Annunzio's poetry, characterized by sensual language and neo-classical imagery, shows the influence of the Symbolist movement in Italy. He was an admirer of Nietzsche and exemplified the concept of the 'Superman' and the Dionysiac interpretation of human destiny. D'Annunzio was an eccentric and a showman with a fondness for extravagant language." (55)
French novelist, 1788-1856
Eugeni d'Ors, Catalan writer, 1881-1954
Brazilian military engineer, journalist and writer, 1866-1909, author of Os Sertões.
Fishburn and Hughes: "(1866-1909) A Brazilian writer, author of Os sertões (1902: trans. Revolt in the Backlands 1947), a fictionalised account of the uprising at Canudos, in the northern state of Bahía. The rebellion, which took a fanatical tinge, began as an act of defiance against the system of taxation and other centralising measures imposed by the new republican government. Da Cunha participated in the fourth of the expeditions (1896-7) sent to put down the rebels. Steeped in the positive rationalism of the time, he did not at first understand the movement's mystical dimension. But, as events developed, the spirit and bravery of the local peasants, or cabôclos, who preferred death to defeat, soon commanded his admiration." (55)
Argentine physician and writer, brother of Santiago Dabove
Argentine writer, 1889-1949, author of La muerte y su traje
French scholar and translator of the classics, 1654-1720, known as Madame Dacier
scientific periodical edited by Swedenborg in Upsala, 1716-1718
Chesterton story in The Incredulity of Father Brown
German historian and politician, 1785-1860, author of Politik, Geschichte Danemarks, Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte and other works
German pastor who arrived in Argentina in 1871, character in Borges story, grandfather of Juan Dahlmann
German Jesuit priest and scholar, 1861-1930, author of Buddha, 1898, Die Sprachkunde und die Missionen, works on the Mahabharata, Nirvana and related topics
character in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "A fictitious name, which may allude to the Danish historian Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (1785-1860). Borges quotes a passage from Carlyle's introduction to Early Kings of Norway (1875) which mentions Dahlmann (Lit. germ. 169)." (55-56)
German jurist and historian, 1834-1912, important in German nationalism and anti-Semitism
former name of the republic of Benin
Wenceslao de Morães book about Japan, 1897
Chicago newspaper
Hammett novel, 1929
capital of Senegal
leader of Tibetan Buddhism
British writer, c. 1626-1687, author of Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, 1680, and Ars Signorum, 1661
Fishburn and Hughes: "A Scottish philologist who devoted himself to the creation of a universal language and worked on perfecting a 'dactylogy', or language for the deaf and dumb, based on a universally acceptable ideographic system which seeks to express ideas through signs." (56)
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Spanish painter, 1904-1989
character in Ariosto
John of Damascus or Johannes Damascenus, eminent theologian of the Eastern Church, d. c. 754, author of The Fountain of Knowledge
Damascius, Neoplatonist philosopher, 480-c. 540, author of Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles and of various commentaries on Plato dialogues
Damascus, capital of Syria
Damascus, Syria
novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, 1848
character in Borges story
St. Peter Damian, Italian monk and theologian, Doctor of the Church, c. 1007-1072, author of Liber Gomorrhianus, Officium Beatae Virginis and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "An Italian ecclesiastic, whose writings are recorded in Migne's Patrology. Damiani was prominent in the eleventh-century reform movement for his attack on simony, his advocacy of celibacy of the clergy and his introduction of severe disciplinary practices, including self- flagellation. From his hermitage near Gubbio, Damiani distinguished himself on a political level by his support of Pope Alexander II in the schism against Honorius IV, and for persuading the Emperor Henry IV of Germany not to divorce his wife Bertha.
In his theological treatise De Divina Omnipotentia (1067), Damiani addresses himself to the question of whether God is able to undo the past. The argument springs from a statement by St Jerome, quoted in the first chapter, that virginity cannot be restored once it is lost through intercourse. Damiani's answer is that God can make a woman a virgin again if she so dedicates herself to the spiritual life as to wipe out the memory other previous actions. Equally God chose to destroy in the flood the men he had once created, for their evil removed them utterly from the sole source of being: though men may survive their bad actions, the negative part of their life is non-existent and can therefore be obliterated. Borges's reference to Canto XXI of Dante's Paradiso is to lines 124-5 in which Damiani refers to a confusion of identity after his death, when he was taken for another 'Pietro', who also founded a monastery near Ravenna and was known as Peccatore, the Sinner, on account of his public life before retiring into the Church." (56)
Italian chemist and agronomist, count, 1758-1819, author of Les Hommes nouveaux, ou moyen d'operer une regeneration nouvelle
Argentine poet, author of La tierra, character in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "In 'The Aleph', a fictional character whose surname may be a contraction of, and a parodic allusion to, Dante Alighieri, the poet whose presence underlies the story. Like the Florentine master, Daneri had a vision of the whole of the universe which he sought to encompass in his poem. See Beatriz Viterbo, Augural Canto." (56)
Hogben, 1940
Old English poem in the Junius Manuscript
cousin of Baltasar Espinosa, character in Borges story
character in Jewish story about truth and falsehood
pseudonym of Henri Petiot, 1901-1965, biographer of Rimbaud
US writer, 1905-82, co-author with his cousin Manfred Lee of the detective novels of Ellery Queen, and co-editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Portuguese writer, 1876-1962
Parodi: " fue un médico, escritor, diplomático, político y periodista portugués, miembro de varias academias, incluida la Real Academia Española; individuo de ideas arcaizantes y ultraconservadoras. De su vasta obra, alcanzó gran celebridad el drama La cena de los cardenales (1902)" (58).
Eliot essay in The Sacred Wood, 1928
Italian poet, 1265-1321, author of the Divina Commedia, the Vita Nuova, De Monarchia and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "Italy's foremost poet, born in Florence, where he held several political offices as a member of the Bianchi faction. When Charles de Valois, brother of the King of France, was called into the city by the Pope in 1302 and a new government was constituted under the Neri, Dante was exiled, never to return. He is best known for his Vita Nuova (1294), inspired by his love for Beatrice Portinari, and his Divine Comedy, published between 1310 and 1320. The Divine Comedy consists of a hundred cantos describing the poet's mystical journey through Hell and Purgatory to Heaven and salvation. Many mythological and historical figures illustrate the three kingdoms and are placed according to their deserts, following the principles of Christian theology and its system of punishment and retribution. Although Dante's sense of justice never fails, his opinions of his contemporaries and his civic experiences are given full rein.
Three Versions of Judas: the 'fiery grave' to which Dante would have condemned Nils Runeberg is a reference to Cantos IX, X and XI of Hell which describe the circles of the heretics.
The Wait: the last circle in Hell is the one in which traitors are punished.
See Ugolino, Ruggieri." (56-57)
Parodi: "“el Dante publicó la Divina Comedia”: poema teológico escrito por Dante Alighieri (1265−1321); las tres partes de la obra −Infierno, Purgatorio y Paraíso− fueron compuestas entre 1304 y 1321" (89).
Ozanam, 1895
Papini, 1933
Dante's son, author of commentary on the Divina Commedia
Dante's son, a Verona lawyer, d. 1364, author of a commentary on the Divina Commedia
Danube river in Europe
Fishburn and Hughes: "The second largest river in Europe after the Volga, rich in historical and political associations. Deutsches Requiem: the crossing of the Danube in 1916 probably refers to the German
counter-attack after the Brusilov offensives and the Russian attempt to regain lost territories." (57)
Study of argentinian folklore written by Carlos Vega
German literary historian, 1818-1850
the Dardanelles or Hellespont, strait between the Balkan peninsula and Anatolia
Roman province in the Balkans
Fishburn and Hughes: "The name given by the Romans to the territory now corresponding to southern Serbia, derived from its first inhabitants, the Dardani, an Illyrian tribe first mentioned in the Iliad (2.819, 15.425). Under Constantine Dardania became part of the Roman province of Illyria, and its inhabitants were converted to Christianity." (57)
region of the ancient world, now in Kosovo
Village in the North West part of England, part of the ceremonial county of Cheshire.
Saroyan short fiction, 1934
Darius or Darayavaush, Persian king, 521-486
pseud. of Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, Nicaraguan poet, short-story writer and critic, 1867-1916, author of Prosas profanas, Cantos de vida y esperanza, Canto a la Argentina and numerous other works
city in west Bengal in India
Bradbury science fiction book, 1947
Walpole, 1916
Sackville-West, 1934
English ornithologist, ecologist and writer, 1903-1979
restaurateur in Geneva, character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: "supuesto creador del primer tenebrarium en 1932 en Ginebra" (284).
street in Lomas de Zamora
town in the province of Buenos Aires near Bahía Blanca
Parodi:" “en la esquina de Darragueyra”: una calle de apenas cinco cuadras en el barrio de Palermo que lleva el nombre de José de Darregueyra [sic] y Lugo (1771-1817), jurisconsulto; diputado por Buenos Aires en el Congreso de Tucumán" (398).
part of port of Buenos Aires
Parodi: "“en la escalinata de la aduana de la Dársena Sur”: la dársena del puerto de Buenos Aires a la que llegan los barcos provenientes de Montevideo" (267).
plateau in Devonshire, England
Parodi: "“el horror del páramo de Dartmoor, bajo la neblina británica, el gran mastín fosforescente”: alusión a The Hound of the Baskervilles, tercera novela de A. Conan Doyle, publicada en 1902 y protagonizada por Sherlock Holmes. La historia se basa en una leyenda popular sobre un animal monstruoso, un perro, que rondaba en Cromer, una población de Norfolk, en la costa este de Inglaterra, y que Conan Doyle situó en Dartmoor, en la costa suroeste, en el condado de Devon, combinando el enigma policial con el relato de terror" (23).
street in Buenos Aires
English natural scientist, 1809-1882, author of The Origin of Species and Voyage of the Beagle
English physician and scientist, 1731-1802
English writer, 1817-1896, author of an Icelandic grammar and translator of the Njals Saga, the Prose Edda, the Gisli and other works
character in Borges story
French novelist and playwright, 1840-97, author of Lettres de mon moulin, L'Arlesienne and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "A French humorist, author of Les Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) whose protagonist personifies the good-natured bombastic hero. Famous in his home town for his exploits in the chase, Tartarin is sent to hunt the great lions of the Atlas. Once in Algiers, he first shoots a bourricot (little donkey) in a carrot field, which he assumes to be the desert, and eventually kills an old blind lion, whose remains he sends back to Tarascon. The novel concludes with his triumphant return to relate his exploits to ecstatic crowds. Its success led to a sequel, Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885)." (57)
Fishburn and Hughes: "Argentine society ladies, daughters of the patrician women who, during the wars of Independence, gave their jewels to help San Martín cross the Andes." (57)
French writer, 1898-1944, author of Le Contre-Ciel and of works on a variety of spiritual topics
magazine of the Argentine Jewish community
Biblical king of Israel, c. 1012-c. 972
Fishburn and Hughes: "The second king of Israel, first king of the Judaean dynasty.
Deutsches Requiem: the incident mentioned alludes to the sequel to the story of Uriah the Hittite, whom David sent to the front line so that he could marry his wife Bathsheba with whom he had committed adultery. The prophet Nathan tells David a parable of a rich man with many flocks who took a poor man's only ewe lamb to offer it to a visitor at his table. When David heard the story 'his anger was greatly kindled against the man', whereupon he was told: 'Thou art the man' (II Samuel 12:7).
Guayaquil: alludes to the description of David dancing, as he brought the Covenant into Zion: 'And David danced before the Lord with all his might...'(II Samuel 6:14)." (57-58)
Cukor film, 1934
Dickens novel, 1849-50
Anglo-French writer on Buddhism, 1868-1969, author of Voyage d'une Parisienne a Lhassa, Puissance du neant and Mystiques et magiciens du Thibet
philosopher, author of The Free Will Controversy, 1942
English classical scholar, 1679-1732, editor and commentator on Cicero
Welsh poet, 1871-1940
US film star, 1908-89
Ferber, 1911
Fishburn and Hughes: "A river crossed by Saravia on his way to the battle of Masoller." (58)
Vanini anti-religious work, 1616
Song written by Àngel G. Villoldo
Lactantius poem
Caesar's commentaries
Seis toros por domingo, Joseph Peyré book on bullfighting, 1938
St. Augustine philosophical and religious work, written 413-427
Swedenborg theological work, 1758, sometimes called El cielo y el infierno and Heaven and Hell
ballad formerly attributed to Zúñiga
Boethius philosophical dialogue
Fishburn and Hughes: "(1400-1464). A German cardinal, scientist and philosopher, influential in Renaissance thought for the doctrine of human knowledge expounded in Of Learned Ignorance (1440). Arguing that the essential nature of God, from whom everything flows and returns was unknowable, De Cusa concluded that all human knowledge was simply 'learned ignorance'. His philosophy was humanistic, with pantheistic tendencies. His cosmology, anticipating Copernicus, held that the earth moves round the sun. Reference is to De Cusa's preoccupation with straight lines which, according to him, were segments of a large circle." (58)
Cicero theological work, 44 B.C.
Parodi: "la última obra publicada por César Paladión, en 1919, se corresponde con el tratado filosófico en dos volúmenes, De divinatione, escrito en 45 a.C. por Marco Tulio Cicerón (106 a.C.-43 a.C.)" (255).
Erigena theological treatise
Nikolaus von Cusa treatise
Milton religious work, published posthumously in 1825
one of Plutarch's Pythian dialogues
The mother of Hilario Ascasubi
Cicero theological work
character in Bustos Domecq story
Parodi: "“ya hablé con De Filipo y con Camargo”: dos supuestos jugadores de Abasto Junior" (325).
character in Bustos Domecq and Suárez Lynch stories
Parodi: "personaje de Modelo, también mencionado en Nuevos cuentos, cf. “Salvación” viii §§1 y 2. Supuesto clérigo de alta jerarquía, además de una figura destacada en la cultura local; es conferencista en La Casa de Arte (cf. “Toros” i §1) y autor de una “novelita de primera comunión”. El apellido del Monseñor coincide con el del conde Angelo De Gubernatis (1840-1913), filólogo, poeta y fundador del orientalismo italiano. Entre sus obras se cuentan Dizionario biografico degli scrittori contemporanei (1878), Piccola enciclopedia indiana (1867), Fonti vediche (1868). El conde era una figura conocida en la Argentina: en 1897, De Gubernatis llegó a Buenos Aires enviado por el rey Humberto I con el proyecto de abrir un museo argentino en Roma. Dio conferencias en Buenos Aires, en La Plata y en Mendoza, y al regreso del viaje escribió L'Argentina; ricordi e letture (1898). Es dable conjeturar que Borges conocía al menos parte de su obra ya que De Gubernatis publicó en 1874 un célebre tratado sobre mitología zoológica y leyendas de los animales del agua, de la tierra y del aire (Mythologie zoologique ou les légendes animales), que sin duda no pasó inadvertido al futuro autor de El libro de los seres imaginarios (1967)" (171).
Copernicus popular treatise, the Commentariolus of 1530, a short version of his later major work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1543
15th century mystical work attributed to Thomas à Kempis
Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, 1531
Hrabanus Maurus treatise
character in Suárez Lynch novella
Parodi: 1) "Bimbo de Kruif, personaje sólo de Modelo; casado con Loló Vicuña. El término italiano bimbo, niño, se emplea aquí como sobrenombre cariñoso" (192).
2) "“el quiosco gratis de la frau Bimbo De Kruif”: se refiere a la glorieta que la señora Loló Vicuña destina a las “prácticas venusinas”" (222).
Carriego poem
Bruno treatise, 1584
Luther treatise, 1520
Borges text written for an exhibit catalogue of Juan Carlos Faggioli, 1966
Del sufrimiento a la plentitud, Keyserling book written in French, 1938
actor
Edmondo de Amicis geography book for children
Parodi: "relato breve incorporado a la novela Corazón, escrita por Edmondo De Amicis (1846-1908) y publicada en 1886. “De los Apeninos a los Andes” narra la historia de Marco, un niño que viaja desde Italia a la Argentina en busca de su madre. De los Apeninos a los Andes de César Paladión se publicó en el período 1911-1919" (255).
Περὶ τῶν Ἐκλελοιπότων Χρηστηρίων, Plutarch on the failure of oracles
Pérez Zelaschi, short stories, 1976.
Book by Ambrosio Juan Althaparro
Reyes brief essay in Reloj de sol
US film director, 1881-1959
Dante treatise, 1309-1312
Eliano
Cicero theological work
didactic treatise by Martianus Capella, c.420
Pietro Damiani
Anglada acrobatic poem
De las doctrinas fundamentales, Origen
Origen theological treatise
Fishburn and Hughes: "The most important dogmatic work of Origen (c.185-c.254). The original Greek text is mostly lost, and what remains is a Latin translation by Rufinus. The first three books are on the nature of God, the fall of the soul, anthropology and ethics; the fourth explains the divinity of the Scriptures. The text expounds the four main points in which Origen departed from orthodoxy: namely, the pre-existence of the human soul, the pre-existence of the human soul of Christ, the resurrection of the body into a purely ethereal being, and the final redemption of all men, and devils, through Christ's mediation.
CF 202: The passage comes from book 2 in which Origen professes the unceasing variety of all spiritual and physical events, arguing against those who assert that worlds 'will come into existence which are not dissimilar to each other' so that 'it will come to pass that Adam and Eve will do the same thing...there will be ...the same deluge... Judas will also a second time betray the Lord... Paul... will keep the garments of those who stoned Stephen...' (ch.3, sect.4)." (58)
Wilde autobiography and prison memoir, 1905
Plutarch's book about animals. Volume XII of his work Moralia (c. 100 AD).
English writer, 1785-1859, author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater, On Murder as one of the Fine Arts, Autobiographic Sketches, On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "An English essayist, remembered chiefly for Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821). De Quincey exerted a strong influence on Borges's fiction (see Christ, The Narrow Act, NY 1969). Though Borges never wrote specifically on De Quincey, he acknowledged his 'vast debt' to him (Biathanatos, Other Inq.) and often quoted from his collected Writings, generally citing the 1889/90 David Masson edition.
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius CF 70: reference to De Quincey's statement that the Lutheran pastor Johannes Valentinus Andreä (1586-1654) was the author of an anonymous text from which the community of the Rosae Crucis (Rosicrucians) derived (vol. 12, 405/10).
The Immortal CF 195: the 'interpolation' mentioned refers to the description of the City of the Immortals inspired by De Quincey's account of a set of plates by Piranesi. These plates, illustrating the visions of De Quincey's delirium, present images of 'gothic halls' and stairs which reach 'an abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who should reach the extremity' (vol. 5, 439). The plate called 'The Gothic Arch' from the Carceri set may be particularly relevant.
For Three Versions of Judas, see 'Not one but all things...'" (58-59)
Jordanes history of Gothic kings
Lucretius didactic poem
Fishburn and Hughes: "'On the Nature of Things': a didactic and philosophical poem in six books by the Roman poet Lucretius (c.95-55 BC) in which the universe is explained, from an Epicurean point of view, as the result of the chance encounter of atoms rather than the intervention of the gods.
The Faust-like traits found in De Rerum Natura refer to its challenge to religion, liberating man from the fear of death." (59)
actor
Juan de Panonia treatise
Carriego poem, published posthumously
Tertullian treatise, c.200
work condeming all three Abrahamic religions, published in 1598
lines from a Daniel Ibarra poem
Hrabanus Maurus treatise
Fishburn and Hughes: "An influential Argentine journalist born in Montevideo." (59)
Lhomond historical work
Fishburn and Hughes: "see Charles Lhomond Decline and Fall see Edward Gibbon." (59)
US astrologer, 1882-1960, author New Frontiers of Psychology and an Encyclopedia of Astrology
René Gérard Tavernier poem
Stevenson-Hedley play based on the life of an Edinburgh deacon, 1741-1788
Argentinian tango composer and director, 1890-1963. Known as "Bachicha".
Street in the city of Córdoba
street in Buenos Aires
Barrie, 1917
Langston Hughes, 1931
author of biography of Richard Burton, book on history of the tank, book on pirates, etc.
Innes mystery, 1936
Agatha Christie, novel, 1944.
Carter Dickson, novel, 1938.
Hemingway book on bullfighting, 1932
Browning poem in Dramatis Personae, 1864
Aldington novel, 1929
Arthur Miller play, 1949
James story
Milward Kennedy, 1931
Dickson Carr, novel, 1935.
Kipling's book, 1926.
poem on Portuguese conquests in Asia and Africa, begun by João de Barros and continued by Diogo do Couto
Essay by Oscar Wilde (1889).
Boccaccio tales, assembled between 1349 and 1351
Parodi: "un centenar de relatos, en buena parte eróticos, recopilados por Giovanni Boccacio (1313-1375) entre 1349 y 1351; dentro de la ficción, aparecen como narrados por un grupo de mujeres y hombres que huyendo de la peste de 1348 durante diez noches se reúnen en las afueras de Florencia, donde cada uno de ellos cuenta una historia" (265).
Wilde essay in Intentions, 1891
Farid ud-din Attar
Gibbon history, 1776-1788
André Gide booklet, 1941
Calvin treatise
Daedalus or Daidalos, architect in Greek myth
character in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses
Lugones verse preface to Poemas solariegos
English novelist, 1877-1950
Morris, 1858
Shelley essay, 1821
Name given in the Antología de la literatura fantástica to an excerpt from Joyce's Ulysses.
English writer, c.1660-1731, author of Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and other works
French painter and sculptor, 1834-1917
Betina Edelberg poem
Los grados del saber, Jacques Maritain, 1932
Excerpt of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) by Edgar Allan Poe.
Gustavo García Saraví book with Borges preface, 1968
Argentine theosophist, 1889-1967, Güiraldes's wife and Neruda's sister-in-law
Argentine painter, 1884-1989, Adelina Del Carril's sister and Neruda's third wife
title translated from the German of a 1660 version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Paul Groussac, 1925
Gioberti, 1840
Giuseppe Giovanni Luigi Enrico Lanza di Trabia, Italian philosopher, poet and nonviolent activist, 1901-1981
French painter, 1798-1863
state in United States
Peronist poster
Portuguese woman, partner of the caudillo Francisco Ramírez
French writer, one of the French translators of Faulkner
ancient city in India, now part of New Delhi, the capital
Fishburn and Hughes: "The capital of the state of Delhi, which borders on the Punjab. The old town is enclosed by stone walls, built in the seventeenth century, whose towers were made into bastions by the British in 1810.
In 1857 Delhi was besieged by rebels for five months during the Indian Mutiny. John Nicholson (1821-1857), an Irish soldier who had served in the Bengal Army and fought in Kashmir and the Punjab during the second Anglo-Sikh war, raised the siege; he died of wounds soon after." (59)
Camerarius anthology
hotel in Adrogué, inaugurated in 1872, now demolished
Salillas, 1896
Argentine writer, friend of Borges, b. 1923
Greek island
Sylvia Pankhurst, 1935
Parana delta west of Buenos Aires
Greek earth goddess
character in Martinez Estrada novel 'La inundación'
Neoplatonic creator
Democritus, Greek philosopher, c. 460-c. 360, author of the Mikros Diakosmos and other works, almost completely lost
the devil
Murena’s book of poetry, 1964.
devils of various kinds
Dostoevski novel, The Devils or The Possessed
Demosthenes, Greek orator and statesman, c. 384-322
Fishburn and Hughes: "The most celebrated ancient Greek orator, whose speeches against Philip of Macedon roused the Athenians to fight for the freedom of Greece. A proposal that a golden crown be awarded to Demosthenes for public services was contested by his rival Aeschines, whose speeches had facilitated Philip's entry into central Greece and the consequent capitulation of Athens. Later, while Philip's son Alexander was absent from Greece, Demosthenes attacked Aeschines in his oration On the Crown; to discredit him he described how as a boy Aeschines had helped his mother in her ritual initiations. From this passage (CF: 202) Borges derives the reference to the Orphic mysteries. Despite the success of On the Crown, Demosthenes' life continued full of strife. He was sentenced to death and committed suicide. The rivalry between Demosthenes and Aeschines is consistent with the theme of rivalry in 'The Theologians'." (59)
US boxer, 1895-1983
Fishburn and Hughes: "Borges was an admirer of old Danish sagas: witness his comments on the Gesta Danorum, a work in sixteen volumes by the twelfth-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus.
In his discussion of this book, Borges remarks on the cruelty and intrepid horsemanship displayed by the Danes in their conquest of Ireland (Lit. germ., 190)." (59-60)
mountain in the Alps
Parodi: "uno de los picos de la cadena montañosa Mont du Chat, que se extiende a lo largo de la costa occidental del lago del Bourget; alcanza una altura de 1390 metros" (345).
Lenormand play, 1924, here called by mistake El viento rojo (Le vent rouge)
capital of state of Colorado
Deodorus Siculus, Διόδωρος Σικελιώτης, Greek historian, fl. 60-30 B.C.
minstrel, character in the Old English poem Deor
Old English poem in the Exeter Book
Parodi: "“esa tarde se jugaba el desquite de Excursionistas contra Deportivo Español”: dos clubes de fútbol de Buenos Aires. El Club Atlético Excursionistas, afincado en el barrio de Belgrano, y Deportivo Español, con sede en la zona sur del barrio de Flores" (330).
borough of London
illustrated German dictionary, 1937
Ernst Jünger book on the First World War, 1926
Alfred Rosenberg, 1930
Irish writer, 1724-1769, friend of Johnson and Boswell
Borges essay, later included in Evaristo Carriego
Vicente Rossi, 1935
French mathematician, 1591-1661
ghost in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book
French philosopher, 1596-1650, author of Discours de la Méthode, Traité des passions de l'âme, Meditationes de prima philosophia, Principia philosophiae and other works
Fishburn and Hughes: "A celebrated French philosopher, regarded as the father of modern philosophy, whose method, enunciated in his Discours de la méthode (1637), is based on the principle that no statement is valid until proved to be so. Starting from a condition of total doubt, Descartes arrives at the initial proposition that, in order to doubt, one has to think and therefore to exist:'dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.' His methodological principle is that anything which we 'perceive clearly and distinctly' must exist. Since we think of God, the perfect being, he must exist, for such an idea could not originate from our imperfect nature unless it had been implanted there by God. Moreover the very nature of perfection involves, among other attributes, that of existence, which proves the existence of God: the Ontological Argument. Being perfection, God cannot deceive us; therefore we must believe any phenomenon true to which our consciousness testifies with clarity and distinctness: this implies that the world also exists. Descartes believed in the dualism of spirit and substance which he held to be reconcilable only through the influence of God.
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote: Descartes made a notable contribution to geometry, showing how geometrical problems could be resolved in algebraic terms. He proposed that this same method could be used to set out all existing knowledge systematically, in universally understandable symbols, which would lead to a universal language, a project that interested many other philosophers, such as Wilkins and Leibniz. See Characteristica Universalis, Pierre Chanut." (60)
Poe story, 1841
Gray translation of Baldrs Draumar
French scholar, 1881-1925, author of Flaubert, sa vie, son caractère et ses idées
Torres Villaroel sonnet in Correo del otro mundo
Alberto Hidalgo book, 1928
Maurice Abramowicz prose piece
Swift poem, 1709
Swift poem, 1709
According to Cuentos breves y extraordinarios short story by Martin Buber.
character in Shakespeare's Othello
Knud Holmboe book on Libya, 1931
Zane Grey novel, 1913
Desierto de los tártaros, Dino Buzzati, 1940
A short story written by José Sixto Alvarez.
Bloy autobiographical novel, 1886
tale by from the anthology Cuentistas de la Alemania libre
Ortega y Gasset essay, 1925
Apollinaire poem
Alfonso Reyes, 1944.
Excerpt from Private Army by Pekianoff (1950).
magazine edited by Borges and Bioy Casares in 1936
Parodi:" Destiempo fue el nombre de una revista fundada por Borges y Bioy en 1936. La Editorial Destiempo publicó en 1937 Luis Greve, muerto, de Bioy Casares y Marea de lágrimas de Ulises Petit de Murat; en 1938, Diez poemas sin poesía, de Nicolás Olivari y Mallarmé entre nosotros, de Alfonso Reyes. Recuerda Bioy en La otra aventura, “Libros y amistad”: “En 1936 fundamos la revista Destiempo. […] reunió en sus páginas escritores ilustres y llegó al número 3” (171)" (271).
personification of fate or destiny
Cancela and Pilar de Lusarreta, short story.
poem by Ildefonso Pereda Valdés
Ghazali treatise, Tahafut-ul-falasifa or The Incoherence of the Philosophers
Averroes treatise, Tahafut-ul-Tahafut or Incoherence of the Incoherence
Spender essay, 1935
Organization formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers. Its first president was Chesterton.
Carriego poem in Las misas herejes
João de Deus de Nogueira Ramos, Portuguese poet, 1830-1896
German philologist and philosopher, 1845-1919, whose chief work was Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, with sections on the India, Bible, and Western philosophy from the Greeks to Schopenhauer
Fifth book of the Hebrew Bible.
Jiriczek, 1902
Cornucopia del burgués alemán, Meyrink, 1913, date given here as 1904
German periodical edited by Sudermann in 1881-82
Borges story, 1946
Fishburn and Hughes: "Literally 'requiem in German', also understood as 'requiem for Germany': a choral work by Brahms composed upon the death of his mother and first performed in Vienna in 1867. In spite of its devotional and liturgical associations, it dwells upon problems of individual human destiny without mention of Christ." (60)
Sudermann, 1921
Heine work from 1844, translated into Spanish with Borges preface, Alemania. Cuento de invierno
Godhead in Buddhism
Buddha's cousin
French writer known for his use of slang, 1901-1960
Nicolson, 1927
Sternberg film, 1935
Ellery Queen novel, 1938
George Bernard Shaw play
region in western England
ghost in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book
monster in the Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians that eats the souls of liars
US critic and novelist, 1897-1955, author of Mark Twain's America, The Course of Empire, Across the Wide Missouri and other works
Powys, 1928
official of British Council in Buenos Aires, character in Borges story
Fishburn and Hughes: "A possible allusion to John Dewey (1859-1952), a leading pragmatist philosopher and exponent of 'instrumentalism'. This theory qualifies the traditional notion of 'truth', suggesting that propositions are to be judged not by whether what they describe is true but by their effectiveness. Instrumentalism could be illustrated by the tale told by the 'old man' to the narrator, whose value lies not in the truth of its content but in its effectiveness in delaying the investigation until justice is done. At the beginning of the final paragraph, when the tale has achieved its purpose, the whole event comes to an abrupt end and the narrator feels dismissed, as if he 'no longer existed'." (60)
US philosopher, 1859-1952
biographer and editor of Dickens, including a 3 volume edition, 1938, of Dickens's letters
town in Mallorca
collection of the sayings of the Buddha
celestial buddha, of whom the historical buddha was just a projection, according to Mahayana Buddhism
US translator, b. 1933, for a time the translator of Borges
Carriego lunfardo poem
Anglada essay
Parodi:" desde 1900 se celebra el 29 de agosto. El almanaque argentino está tan plagado de efemérides que varios días del año concentran tres y cuatro festividades, algunas tan inesperadas como el “Día del acoplado y el remolque”; el “Día de la refrigeración”; el “Día del remero”, el “Día del aluminio”, entre muchas otras. Borges y Bioy no omiten referencias a estas fechas en su obra en colaboración, haciendo que algunos personajes les concedan una importancia desmedida. Se mencionan el Día del kilo, el Día del reservista, el Día del Mar, el Día del Vigilante, el Día del Suboficial, el Día del Colectivero, el Día de la Primavera, el Día de la Raza" (42).
Newspaper from La Plata, Argentina.
the devil
mentioned in Suárez Lynch novella
Parodi: "supuesta marca de moda femenina" (187).
street in La Plata
Greek poet and sophist of Melos, 5th century B.C.
literary organ of the US Transcendentalist movement, 1840-1844
Diálogos de amor, León Hebreo, 1535
Plato dialogues: see also individual titles
Hidalgo poem
Berkeley philosophical dialogue, 1713
Hume, 1779
Santayana, 1925
Tacitus
Roman goddess of the hunt and of the moon, associated with the Greek Artemis
Fishburn and Hughes: "The Roman goddess of hunting, chastity, the moon and childbirth, identified with the Greek Artemis, twin sister of Apollo.
The Greek statue of Diana the Huntress in the Louvre is commonly regarded as a companion piece to the Vatican's Apollo Belvedere. Both statues were much copied as ornamental figures in Neoclassical formal gardens." (61)
Bioy Casares novel, 1969
newspaper
series of Soviet films on World War II
Spanish newspaper
Argentine newspaper
Boswell's London and European diaries, at least a dozen of which have been published
Leopoldo Marechal, 1926
Silvina Ocampo, short stories, 1970.
popular nickname for Michele Pezza, famous Italian brigand, 1771-1806
Papini, 1953
Spanish translator of St. Augustine, active in the early twentieth century
military officer and chronicler, born in Paraguay, 1558-1629, author of Historia del descubrimiento y conquista del Río de la Plata o La Argentina manuscrita (1612).
Argentine modernist poet, director of El Mercurio de América from 1898 to 1900
local thug in Buenos Aires
actress
Juan Díaz de Solís, Spanish navigator, d. 1516, discoverer of the River Plate for Spain, captured and killed by Indians somewhere on the Uruguayan coast
