Finder's Guide

He was a chemist, and the author of "Zur Frage der Wirkung steriler Nahrung auf die Darmflora" (1907)

Chesterton study of allegorical painter, 1904

Chesterton, 1929

Solomon ibn Gabirol, Spanish-Jewish poet and philosopher, 1021-c.1058, also Abengabirol

Ibsen character

French writer of detective novels, 1835-73, author of Monsieur Lecoq and L'Affaire Lerouge

archangel

Hauptmann play, 1912

Spanish poet, 1870-1905

José Gabriel López Buisán, Spanish-born Argentine novelist and critic, 1896-1957, author of Evaristo Carriego, su vida y su obra, 1921

character in the film The Petrified Forest, 1936

park in Benares in Buddhist legend, also called "Parque de los Ciervos"

magazine

Argentine dramatist and essayist, 1891-1966, author of Glosario de la farsa urbana, Baile y filosofía and other works

Parodi: el dramaturgo y ensayista argentino Roberto Gache (1891-1966) que en 1928, obtuvo el primer lugar en el Premio Municipal, sección prosa, con su obra París, glosario argentino; Borges, que había presentado al concurso El idioma de los argentinos, resultó segundo.

port city in Italy north of Naples

Fishburn and Hughes: "A country of North Africa extending from the Atlas Mountains to the Atlantic coast. In the second century BC the people of Gaetulia joined Jugurtha (d.104 BC), king of Numidia, in his resistance to Rome. After the Mauretanians became Roman subjects in AD 40, the Romans made frequent sorties in Gaetulia. There was no proconsul in Gaetulia (the region was not entirely subordinated), yet the Gaetulians served in the auxiliary forces of the Roman Empire. The Inmortal." (75)

kinsman of Roland and husband of Charlemagne's daughter Melisenda, subject of many Spanish ballads

Parodi: 1) un personaje legendario, presente ya en los romances viejos y retomado por Cervantes en el Quijote (Segunda parte, capítulo xxvi), que se lanza al rescate de su esposa Melisendra, cautiva entre los moros. Mencionado también en “Enfoque” §1.

2) “señor Gaiferos”: el apellido del delegado chaqueño al Congreso coincide con el de un personaje de la Segunda Parte del Quijote. En el Capítulo XXVI (“Donde se prosigue la graciosa aventura del titerero, con otras cosas en verdad harto buenas”), se narra la historia -sacada de las crónicas francesas y de los romances castellanos-, de la liberación de Melisendra, hija del emperador Carlomagno, que estaba cautiva en España en poder de los moros. Rescatada de su cautiverio por su esposo don Gaiferos, rey de Burdeos, pudo regresar a Francia. En la crónica de Bustos, Gaiferos es delegado al Congreso de Historiadores por “el Chaco”, nombre que se da a la región geográfica de Sudamérica, que se extiende por parte de los actuales territorios de la Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil y Paraguay, entre los ríos Paraguay y Paraná y el Altiplano andino. En Argentina, una de las 23 provincias que componen su territorio lleva el nombre de “Chaco” y está situada en esa región geográfica, en el nordeste del país. Gaiferos es mencionado también en “Sangiácomo” vi §11.

Pied Piper of Hamelin, legendary figure who became the subject of a Browning poem

ancient region in Asia Minor, in Anatolian mountains of Turkey

knight in Arthurian legend

in Greek mythology, a nymph beloved of the cyclops Polyphemus

Cervantes pastoral novel, 1585.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Cervantes's first book, an eclogue, written in 1583 and published in 1585. It is said to relate indirectly to the story of the author's courtship of Catalina de Palacio, whom he married in 1584, and to include among its characters many contemporary writers disguised under pastoral names." (75) 

character in Chesterton story

knife-fighter in Buenos Aires

art nouveau shopping arcade in central Buenos Aires

art gallery in Paris in the 1930s

Wales

city in Illinois

ancient Gaul, now France

northwestern region of Spain

Galilee, ancient province in Palestine.

Fishburn and Hughes: "A region in northern Israel, the northernmost district of ancient Palestine, extending from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan. Christ spent most of his early life in Galilee, where the greater part of his public ministry and most of his miracles took place." (75) 

Italian astronomer and philosopher, 1564-1642

Favaro, 1949

Argentine poet associated with avant garde movements, author of Apuntes de tres revoluciones

Spanish publisher of manuals

Parodi: 1) el “Instituto Gallach de Librerías y Ediciones”, fundado en Barcelona en 1899, se especializaba en la publicación de obras sobre arte, historia universal, geografía, enciclopedias, muchas veces en varios volúmenes, pero también desarrollaba una línea editorial de manuales sobre temas prácticos: Manual del pintor decorador, Manual de Motores industriales de combustión interna, Manual del electricista práctico, etc. Aunque no vinculado con los manuales, el apellido Gallach se menciona también en “Gremialista” §2 y en “Fiesta” §12. En Descanso 299, en el apartado sobre “los libros que más asiduamente manejaba en mis albores de escritor”, menciona Bioy “un Prontuario del idioma, de los Manuales Gallach”.

2) “Gallach y Gasset”: supuesto escribano, cuñado de Baralt. El nombre del personaje está creado por combinación de los apellidos Gallach, el editor de Manuales (cf. “Signo” §4) y el segundo apellido de José Ortega.

French Orientalist, 1646-1715, translator of the Arabian Nights

priest mentioned in Suárez Lynch novella, a parody of Leonardo Castellani, Argentine priest and writer, 1899-1981

Parodi: probable alusión al sacerdote Leonardo Castellani; cf. “Sangiácomo” i §18.

French publishing house founded by Gaston Gallimard in 1911

Tomlinson, 1927

Chinese creature

Argentine intellectual, Trotskyist associated with the Boedo group

Spanish jurist and orator, 1833-88

Parodi: “el orador de segunda fila José Gallostra y Frau”: (1833-1888), fue un abogado y político liberal español, autor de varias obras de jurisprudencia.

British playwright and novelist, 1867-1933, author of the Forsyte Saga and other works

Argentine translator

English scientist, 1822-1911

Argentine actress

Argentine novelist, 1882-1962, author of El mal metafísico, Nacha Regules and many other works

Spanish poet, 1882-1940, evoked in several early Borges poems

city in the Connaught in western Ireland

Portuguese navigator, c.1469-1524

subtitle of Mir Bahadur Ali's The Conversation with the Man Called Al'Mu'tasim

Short story from The Old Man and Other Stories, 1927, work attributed in the Antología de la literatura fantástica to Holloway Horn.

Argentine intellectual associated with the Ministry of Culture

Argentine writer, 1903-1977, full name Carmen Rodríguez Larreta de Gándara, nicknamed la Nena

Vedic mythological figures

Indian politician and writer, 1869-1948

Argentine historian, 1906-95, author of Historia de la conquista del Río de la Plata y del Paraguay and the ten volumes of Historia de las ideas políticas en la Argentina

Parodi: 1) “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.

2) Enrique de Gandía (1906-1995) fue un historiador argentino, autor de más de un centenar de obras, algunas vinculadas con la región del Chaco (Historia del Gran Chaco (1929); Historia de la conquista del Rio de la Plata y del Paraguay 1535−1556 (1932); Los derechos del Paraguay sobre el Chaco Boreal en el siglo XVI (1935), etc. Gandía es mencionado también en “Sangiácomo” i §15. Para este uso del ‘etcétera’ en Bustos, cf. “Sangiácomo” i §20.

river in India, sacred to the Hindus.

Fishburn and Hughes: "The sacred river of the Hindus, who believe that bathing in its waters washes away all sins. The Ganges rises in the Himalayas, runs through the northern plain of India (now Bangladesh) and flows into the gulf of Bengal." (75) 

assumed name of Gylfi in the Gylfaginning, part of the Prose Edda

Asbury study, 1927

Anglo-Argentine writer, journalist and cattleman, 1901-77, author of Poets of the Rhymers Club and editor of the Argentine Anthology of Modern Verse

Alain epigrams

Ghent, city in Belgium

main character in Sinclair Lewis novel

street in Buenos Aires

Parodi: “Lope de Vega y Gaona”: intersección de dos avenidas en el barrio de Villa Luro, al oeste de la ciudad.

street in Ramos Mejía

street in Buenos Aires.

Fishburn and Hughes: "The name of a street intersecting with Plaza Constitución in the unfashionable southern part 76 of Buenos Aires." (75)

architect, character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: supuesto joven escultor provinciano.

thug in Buenos Aires

Spanish explorer, 1528-83

plaza in Buenos Aires

Parodi: ubicada en el barrio de Constitución, rodeada por las calles Pavón, Solís, Presidente Luis Sáenz Peña y la Avenida Garay, a pocas cuadras de la Estación Constitución (cf. “Signo” §8).

German scholar, 1857-1927, author of works on the Bhagavadgita, the Mahabharata, and of Contributions of Buddhism to Christianity, 1911

Swedish film actress, 1905-90

Peruvian critic and writer, 1885-1959

Portuguese poet and editor, 1470-1536, compiler of Cancioneiro Geral

Spanish poet, 1592?-1651, author of Rimas, Ariadna and other works

Spanish poet and playwright, 1898-1936

Spanish rhetorician, pedagogue and writer, 1768-1849, author of El catecismo de la Doctrina cristiana explicado o explicaciones del Astete que convienen también al Ripalda, 1837, and others

Argentine poet, 1920-1974

Argentine writer, 1901-1972

Argentine composer of tango and pianist (1914-2006).

Spanish poet, 1501?-1536, important for popularizing the new Italian style in Spanish

French scholar of Asian languages, 1794-1878, translator of Farid ud-din Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr.

Fishburn and Hughes: "A French orientalist, a specialist in Arabic, Persian and Hindustani, who translated the Parliament of Birds in two volumes in 1857 and 1863." (76) 

medieval kingdom founded in Russia by Norsemen

Argentine tango singer, composer and film actor, born in Uruguay or France, 1887-1935

Parodi: “la controversia sobre Carlos Gardel, Morocho del Abasto para los unos, uruguayo para los menos, tolosano de origen, como Juan Moreira, que se disputan las progresistas localidades antagónicas de Morón y Navarro, para no decir nada de Leguisamo, oriental mucho me temo”: Bustos agrega a los ejemplos anteriores algunos locales: el del cantante de tangos Carlos Gardel de quien algunos sostienen que nació en Toulouse, Francia, en 1890 (de ahí el reclamado origen ‘tolosano’) y otros, en Tacuarembó, Uruguay, en 1887; se lo conocía como “El morocho del Abasto”, por su vinculación con la zona del Mercado de Abasto (cf. “Doce” i §29) y los bares y cantinas de las inmediaciones.

Sackville-West, 1946

El jardinero, Kipling story, 1925

true name of Carlos Gardel according to some accounts

Robert Francis novel, 1937

US novelist, 1889-1970, writer of detective novels about Perry Mason

US mathematician and science writer, 1914-2010, editor of Lewis Carroll

pseud. of Zuñiga

Parodi: pseudónimo bajo el cual el Molinero publicó su Aviso respetuoso al Señor Alcalde de Magallón. La garduña es un animal carnicero que destruye las crías de otros; a esta acepción añade DRAE que también tiene el significado coloquial de “ratero que hurta con maña y disimulo”.

Spanish poet, 1901-1967

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: “el capo de nuestra carrada, Garfunkel”: toda la ‘carga’ del camión, responde a las órdenes de Garfunkel, ‘el capo’, el que impone orden. ‘Carrada’: en Argentina, equivale a lo que en castellano ibérico se llama ‘carretada’, la carga que lleva un carro.

part of Iguazú Falls

Rabelais’s work, 1534.

Italian patriot, 1807-82, of whom there is a statue in Plaza Italia in Buenos AIres

“el Garibotto”. The Garibotto Café was one of the favorite hangouts of tango musicians. It was located at Pueyrredón and San Luis, in Buenos Aires. (Mentioned in Suárez Lynch novella.)

Parodi: el Café Garibotto, un bar al que asistían figuras del tango, ubicado en el barrio de Balvanera, en la esquina de Pueyrredón y San Luis, propiedad de Carlos Garibotto.

character in Borges story

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: abogado, personaje sólo en “Bonavena”.

Scandinavian mythological dog

city in Kansas

English translator of Russian novels, 1861-1946

British writer, 1892-1981, part of Bloomsbury Group, author of Lady into Fox

English literary scholar, 1835-1906, author of books on Carlyle, Milton, Blake, Dryden and others

French publisher of Spanish works

Dante Garófalo was a famous pianist and tango orchestra conductor. (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

Parodi: Garofalo, pianista y director de la orquesta “Los rítmicos”.

street in London where David Garnett had a bookstore

US sheriff who befriended and later killed Billy the Kid, 1850-1908

Mexican writer (1920-1988), author of Los recuerdos del porvenir (1963) and Testimonios sobre Mariana (1981) among other works. 

British literary critic, 1878-1960, author of studies of Keats, Collins, Housman and others

Hindu mythological bird

Hindu traditional book, the 17th Purana

Frisian prince

Argentine lexicographer, author of Diccionario argentino, 1910

Parodi: La celebración del Centenario de la Revolución de Mayo en 1910 estimuló la publicación de léxicos y diccionarios del idioma nacional. En ese año, el educador y escritor argentino Tobías Garzón (1849-1914) publicó en Barcelona, bajo los auspicios de la Comisión Nacional del Centenario, un Diccionario argentino, que fue premiado en 1913 por la Sociedad Patriótica Española. Se trata de un volumen ilustrado, de más de quinientas páginas a doble columna, y constituye el léxico más completo de los publicados hasta el momento. Tobías Garzón es también autor de dos obras de carácter didáctico, Gramática castellana y Gramática argentina, además de fundador del diario La Opinión.

Portuguese Dominican friar, c. 1520-1570, author of Tratado das cousas da China

Kipling story, 1888

Murena’s short story.

character in Fitzgerald novelThe Great Gatsby

equestrian sculpture by Donatello in Padua, 1453

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa novel, 1958

Fishburn and Hughes: "The name for horsemen of Spanish, Negro and/or Indian blood who lived in the River Plate provinces and were known for their poverty, bravery and love of freedom. Traditionally nomadic, the gauchos worked in open cattle-ranching, but with the advent of wire fencing in the nineteenth century their free-roaming life came to an end. Today the term has connotations both of extreme bravery and laziness; the gaucho has become a literary, almost a mythical, figure. The etymology of the word is uncertain, and its interpretation can be taken as a barometer of the political climate. According to one theory, the word was originally guacho, from the Mapuche huacho, meaning orphaned, destitute. More recent research maintains that it originated in the border area between Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and means a deserter and cattle thief; it is still pronounced 'gaúcho' there, and may stem from the Guarani caúcho, meaning a drunkard. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." (76)

Essay by Jorge Luis Borges

first part of Hernández's Martín Fierro, 1872, sometimes called the "Ida"

Parodi: “que se hiciese llamar por los familiares el Gaucho Martín Fierro”: el éxito del poema de Hernández fue tan sin precedentes, que el público identificaba al poeta con su personaje. Cuando Hernández fue elegido senador nacional, la prensa y los conciudadanos aludían a él no como ‘el senador Hernández’ sino como el ‘Senador Martín Fierro’, y el 22 de octubre de 1886, cuando se publicó la noticia de su muerte, un titular de la prensa anunciaba: “Ayer murió el Senador Martín Fierro”.

Coni, 1945

book with preface by Borges, text by J. L. Lanuza and photographs by Burri, 1968

Elías Regules poem

subtitle of Ascasubi's Paulino Lucero

Gerchunoff short story collection, 1910

Fishburn and Hughes: "A novel by the Russian-born Jewish Argentine writer Alberto Gerchunoff (1833-1949), published in 1910 as part of the centenary celebrations of independence. The novel is a paean to work, fraternity and man's ability to rise above life's obstacles, as experienced in Argentina. Set in a Jewish colony in the province of Entre Ríos, it tells of the hardships suffered by the early colonists and their eventual triumph over natural and cultural difficulties. Its overidealised portrayal has led to the saying that it depicts neither Jews nor gauchos. CF 353: ‘There were never any Jewish gauchos. We were merchants and small farmers’." (101)

French literary scholar, co-author with René Etiemble of various works on Rimbaud

Argentine poet, 1900-1983

movie theater in Buenos Aires

Parodi: se trata de una sala de cine fundada en 1912 con el nombre de ‘Cinematógrafo de la Plaza del Congreso’; el edificio actual, ubicado en el mismo predio, data de 1946. En 2003 el gobierno nacional cedió la sala al Espacio INCAA (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales) destinado a la proyección y fomento del cine nacional por parte del Estado.

character in Bioy Casares's El sueño de los héroes

maiden name of Aarón Loewenthal's wife.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Perhaps an allusion to the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), whose theory of numbers influenced Kantor. See Mengenlehre." (76)

German mathematician and scientist, 1777-1855

family name of Siddhartha, called the Buddha after his enlightenment

the "dame aux camélias," character in Dumas novel

French poet and critic, 1811-1872

Cf. "Duco". (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

knight in Arthurian legend, hero of Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Lugones poem in Romancero

2nd century roman jurist. Author of Las Institutas.

city and surrounding area of Palestine

Rudolf Steiner, 1920

Kafka short story about a vulture

king in the Elder Edda

Aulus Gellius, Roman writer, c.130-180, author of Noctes Atticae

Gelo, ruler of Gela and Syracuse in the fifth century BCE

Georgius Gemistus Pletho, Greek Platonic philosopher and scholar, c.1355-1450

Milestone film, 1936

Haslam

avenue that marks the limits between the federal capital of Buenos Aires an

avenue that marks the limits between the federal capital of Buenos Aires and the province of Buenos Aires

Parodi: “un éxito […] que rebasó la General Paz”: desde 1941, la Avenida General Paz conforma la casi totalidad del límite entre la ciudad y la provincia de Buenos Aires. El éxito de Recado para don Martiniano Leguizamón “rebasó la General Paz” es decir que desde la provincia de Entre Ríos pasó a la ciudad de Buenos Aires.

d the province of Buenos Aires

Borges poem in Luna de enfrente

train line

Lindsay, 1913

Guyau, 1890

first book of Bible

Germanic poem

Gide story, 1936

Mongol emperor of China, 1162-1227, also called Jenghiz, Jingis or the Gran Khan.

Fishburn and Hughes: "The great Mongol warrior and ruler of genius who, after subduing the nomadic tribes of Mongolia, turned his attention to neighbouring states. Genghis led a series of expansionist military campaigns of extraordinary atrocity and plunder which resulted in the establishment of the Great Mongol Empire." (76)

Chateaubriand work of Christian apologetics, 1802

Parodi: “que por la parte baja te representa cero treinta en Genioles”: desde 1927 hasta mediados de los años cincuenta, “Geniol” fue la marca dominante y más popular del mercado de las aspirinas; el nombre de fábrica se convirtió en un genérico para cualquier analgésico.

genies in Arabian Nights

Dreiser novel, 1915

Tale of Genji, classic Japanese novel of the eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu

Genoa, port city in Italy.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Genoa, a city and fortified port in north-west Italy which came under Roman rule in the third 77 century BC and prospered as a port. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was invaded first by the Lombards and then by the Moors. By the twelfth century it was one of the most important maritime republics of the Mediterranean, promoter of the Crusades, coloniser of the Levant and a bitter rival of Venice." (76)

See White People

Italian philosopher, 1875-1944

woman in New York gang

El caballero en la sala, Maugham novel, 1930

German scholar, 1878-1959, translator of Elder Edda

English chronicler, c.1100-1154, author of Historia Regum Britanniae

George Kimble, 1938

Marie-Louis Pailleron book, 1938

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Christian martyr who was adopted as patron saint of England under Edward III in about 1348; crusaders returning from Antioch had made him popular. CF 246: The reference is to the medieval legend of the triumph of St George over the Dragon, symbol of the Devil. The Zahir." (77)

German poet, 1863-1933

state in United States

character in the film The Gold Rush

Frank Swinnerton, 1935

Virgil poems on agriculture

Parodi: “Las geórgicas (traducción de Ochoa)”: el libro publicado por César Paladión en 1918 remite a las Geórgicas, una de las obras del poeta latino Virgilio (cf. “Toros” iii §5). En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, la obra completa de Virgilio fue traducida al castellano por Eugenio de Ochoa (1815-1872) escritor romántico español, narrador costumbrista, poeta, crítico, bibliógrafo, editor y traductor. Paladión, que “ignoraba las lenguas muertas”, publica las Geórgicas en castellano reproduciendo la traducción de Ochoa. En Borges 290-291, Bioy recuerda: “Borges dice que la traducción española de la Eneida, de Eugenio de Ochoa, que publicó Ureña, es excelente: ‘Reproduce muy bien los versos latinos’.”

character in Stevenson's New Arabian Nights

French poet and playwright, 1885-1983

Benedictine monk of St. Gall, later bishop

Giraldus Cambrensis, medieva Welsh historian, c.1146-1220, author of Topographia Hibernica, Expugnatio Hibernica and Itinerarium Cambrense

French Jesuit missionary in China, 1654-1707

Argentine writer, 1884-1950, author of Los gauchos judíos and other works

German Lutheran divine, 1582-1637, author of numerous polemica and exegetica works

19th century German translator of the Eddas

Geryon, monster with three bodies or three heads, slain by Hercules

town in the province of Buenos Aires

Title of a tango song.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Also called the Second Reich to indicate its descent from the First (the medieval Holy Roman Empire). The German Reich was initiated by Bismark in 1871. Kaiser Wilhelm II was Emperor during the latter period up to the end of World War I. Following the tradition, Hitler called his regime the Third Reich.The Garden of Forking Paths." (77)

Hugh Walpole story

Capelle, 1939

De origine et situ Germanorum, Tacitus monograph on the territory and the tribes east of the Rhine and north of the Danube

ancient name for Germany; see also Alemania

Fishburn and Hughes: "A varying symbol in the context of different stories. The Garden of Forking Paths): the defiant and hostile attitude of the Chinese spy Yu Tsun, who acted as a German agent, appears justified in the light of events of the previous halfcentury. The German empire, established in 1870, joined the nineteenth-century scramble for China during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), and seized the port of Kioo-chow as a reward for supporting China. A German fleet was sent to patrol Chinese waters. In 1900 Germany joined the other European powers in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion, a formidable nationalist uprising against foreign penetration led by the Dowager Empress and her Manchu advisers. Kaiser Wilhelm II exhorted the German troops embarking for the east to emulate the Huns of the fifth century in putting down the enemy. Though the German forces reached Peking after the rebellion had been defeated, the Kaiser demanded that the young Prince Chum, half-brother of the Emperor, be sent to Berlin on a penitential mission and even asked that he perform 'kow-tow' in front of him. Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden: in the context of Droctulft's story, the marshes of Germany are the sign of a country still in the stage of barbarism, contrasted with the civilisation embodied in Ravenna. In 'Deutsches Requiem' Germany is used in two sets of conflicting images. Uppermost lies the representation of the spirit of pure Germanism (Kerndeutsch) as expounded in the Third Reich ideology of the master race. Briefly, this argued that the Nordic Aryans were the bearers of the highest form of civilisation and culture and that their purity had to be preserved for the salvation of mankind. Yet this image is offset by the wider, humanistic tradition exemplified by Hegel, Brahms and Goethe and even by their appropriation of Shakespeare. The Garden of Forking Paths; Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden; Deutsches Requiem." (77)

character in the Nibelungenlied

US science fiction writer, 1884-1967

Eliot poem

Danish queen, Hamlet's mother

Tasso poem, published without his consent in 1580, later revised under the title Gerusalemme Conquistata, published in 1593

Vilmar history of German literature revised by Rohr in 1936

Winternitz, 1905

Frauwallner, 1953

Work by Gustav Weil, 1860-62

Niedner translation of Eyrbyggja Saga, 1920

German translation of Genji Monogatori

Un linaje, von Unruh play, 1917

Fishburn and Hughes: "A misprint for Gesenius. Deutsches Requiem." (78)

here a misprint for Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, German orientalist and Biblical critic, 1786-1842, author of numerous works on the Hebrew and Maltese languages, on the Samaritans and Syrians, as wel as commentaries on the Pentateuch and Isaiah.

Fishburn and Hughes: "(1786-1842). A German orientalist and biblical scholar famous for his rationalist methods of exegesis. In 1830 he was subjected to violent attack in the Evangelical press under the editorship of Hengstenberg. Gesenius was a friend of Thilo, with whom in 1820 he travelled to Paris, London and Oxford to examine oriental manuscripts. Deutsches Requiem." (77)

German-Swiss writer and naturalist, 1516-1565, author of Enchiridion historiae plantarum, Bibliotheca universalis, Historia animalium and other works

Eckermann memoir, 1836-1848

Saxo Grammaticus 13th century history of the Danes, sometimes called Historia Danica

collection of Latin chronicles and historical documents on the Crusades, published in 1611

early Borges poem later called Gesta maximalista

Fishburn and Hughes: "An abbreviation for the German Geheime Staatspolizei (German secret police) responsible for 'security' within the Third Reich. Founded by Goering, and later controlled by Himmler, it had the power of arbitrary arrest of anyone considered to be an enemy of the state, and its decisions were not subject to judicial examination. It was declared a criminal organisation by the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1946. The Secret Miracle." (78)

Excerpt from Le grand Écart by Cocteau.

village near Jerusalem

town in Pennsylvania, site of important battle in U. S. Civil War

Persian theologian and mystic, sometimes called Algazel, 1058-1111, author of the Tahafut-ul-Tahafut or Incoherence of the Philosophers

Fishburn and Hughes: "A famous Persian theologian. After a nervous breakdown, Ghazali suffered a spiritual crisis and for a time became a Sufi mystic. He tried to reconcile the tensions between theology and philosophy. His anti-rationalist Tahafut-al-falasifa (Destruction of Philosophy) attacked the Neoplatonism of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), holding that the world was deliberately created by God and not simply an emanation of a First Being. His use of the word Tahafut (destruction) implies something like the collapse of a house of cards. The same concept was used by Averroes in his refutation of Ghazali." (78)

French poet, 1862-1925, author of Traité du verbe

Fishburn and Hughes: "The third letter of the Hebrew alphabet with a numerical value of three. See Aleph. The Lottery in Babylon." (78)

city in Egypt near Cairo, site of Pyramids

Uruguayan painter, 1887-1965

Ferber novel, 1950

English clergyman and writer, 1636-1680, author of a famous book on witches and witchcraft, 1666

English historian, 1737-94, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "An English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88). The first three volumes cover the history of Rome from the Antonines in the second century to the fall of the Western empire in the fifth; the last three take it to the sack of Constantinople ('New Rome') by Mahomet II in 1453. Though Gibbon shocked some contemporaries by the scepticism displayed in his account of the rise of Christianity, his work was much admired by others, such as David Hume, and remains a classic of English historiography. See 'Terribilis visu facies...' " (78)

Parodi: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), historiador británico, autor del célebre Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; cf. “Teatro” §3.

Parodi: en 1787, en una casa con jardín cercana a la Plaza Saint-François, de Lausana, el historiador inglés Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) completó los quince años de redacción de su monumental The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (1776-1788). Desde 1839 a 1920, un hotel frente a esa plaza llevó el nombre de Gibbon.

British possession in southern Spain

British poet, 1878-1962

French writer, 1869-1951, author of Les Faux-Monnayeurs, L'Immoraliste, a Journal and other works

O. Henry story

nickname for character in Bustos Domecq

place in the Sierras de Córdoba

singer

Parodi: “se cree Gardel. Es más, se cree Gotusso. Es más se cree Garófalo. Es más, se cree Giganti-Tomassoni”: En cuanto a los dos apellidos mencionados en último lugar, insinúan que se trataría del nombre de una de las muchas orquestas que actuaban en los años cuarenta, la época de oro del tango, cuando los cantores se hicieron tan populares y famosos que las grandes orquestas se identificaban por el apellido del director seguido por el del cantor (como D’Arienzo-Fiorentino, Francini-Pontier, D’Agostino-Vargas, etc.).

character in Bustos Domecq story

Swiss classical philologist, 1912-1998, author of Ursprang der griechischen Philosophie

Lesage picaresque romance, 1715-1735

Parodi: novela de Alain−René Lesage (1668−1747) publicada en 1715, una obra que, siguiendo el modelo de la picaresca española, ofrece una visión satírica de la sociedad francesa de su época.

Pseudonym of Miguel Toledano de Escalante (1870-1937).

Argentine writer, author of Silvano Corujo, 1938

English literary scholar and translator, 1883-1969, author of various books on Joyce

British historian, called "The Wise," d. 570, author of De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae

British scholar of China, 1845-1935, author of Chuang Tzu, a Short History of Chinese Literature and other works

Sumerian epic

fabulous bird of North America

French philosopher and scholar, 1884-1978, author of studies of medieval philosophy, Descartes, Aquinas and other subjects

James Curtis novel, 1936

supposed Argentine film

Reyes anecdote in Reloj de sol

Geneva, city in Switzerland where Borges lived during the First World War and where he died in 1986.

Fishburn and Hughes: "A Swiss city. Throughout World War I Borges lived with his family in Geneva where he attended the College Calvin. He often visited the city, and he died there on 14 June 1986. Geneva was a focal point in the Reformation as the home of Calvinism, a branch of the Protestant Church associated with strict moral codes. " (76)

Guinevere, British queen of Arthurian legend

English Hebrew scholar, born in Warsaw, 1831-1914, author of a critica study of the Massorah, as wel as Facsimiles of Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible and The Text of the Hebrew Bible in Abbreviations

alias of Scharlach in Borges story, the name being derived from that of Christian David Ginsburg.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Ginzberg - Ginsburg - Gryphius: Three aliases of the character Scharlach in 'Death and the Compass'. The first two are common Jewish surnames: Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953) was an American Talmudic and Rabbinic scholar who wrote extensively on Jewish subjects and edited the Jewish Encyclopaedia; David Ginsburg (1831-1914), who converted to Christianity in 1846, was the author of The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development and Literature, first published in 1863. The narrator of The Unworthy Friend' is said to own books on the Cabbala by Ginsberg. Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664) was a leading German lyric poet and dramatist with a predilection for 'sanguinary themes and the terrors of the supernatural'. His delight in the absurd is exemplified by the title of one of his comedies, Horribilicribifax. " (79)

character in Bustos Domecq story

Parodi: sobre este personaje, comenta Bioy en 1967: “Los otros días apareció en Primera Plana una nota sobre Crónicas de Bustos Domecq. Además de la idea general –que estamos viejos, vale decir chochos−, afirma que uno de los personajes absurdos allí descritos puede ser Oliverio Girondo. Esto es falso: en ningún momento pensamos en Oliverio cuando inventamos nuestros cuentos. No somos personas tan desprovistas de caridad como para satirizar a un enfermo que se debate con la muerte.” (Borges 1167). En una nota al pie, Daniel Martino reproduce unas líneas del artículo en cuestión, “Los fuegos fatuos”, aparecido en 1967, en el número 213 de la revista Primera Plana: “Ahora, bajo la máscara de la interpretación artística, del comentario de costumbres, vibra el disparate. El disparate forzado, para especialistas. Quizá haya que rastrear esta caída en la edad de Bustos Domecq”. La reseña en cuestión supone que el personaje de Santiago Ginzberg “acaso sea Oliverio Girondo.” En la obra personal de Borges, en su relato “La muerte y la brújula” (Artificios, 1944), uno de los alias del detective Red Scharlach es “Ginzberg (o Ginsburg)” (501). El segundo alias deriva del apellido del erudito anglo-polaco Christian David Ginsburg (1831-1914), autor de varios volúmenes dedicados a estudio y traducción de tratados bíblicos. Su obra más célebre es un estudio crítico de la Biblia rabínica, la Masora, en tres volúmenes, publicados entre 1880 y 1886, que continuó en 1894 con Massoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible. En cuanto al primer alias, Ginzberg, Martino lo vincula con Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953), erudito norteamericano autor de Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte (1922), “donde estudia, según el llamado Documento de Damasco, la existencia de una secta radical desconocida del s. II a.C.” (“Notas” 62).

Italian philosopher and politician, 1801-52, author of De primato morale e civile degli italiani and other works

Huxley story, 1921

French author, 1895-1970, author of Naissance de l'Odysée

Parodi: referencia a Jean Giono (1895−1970) escritor francés, autor de más de treinta novelas, muchas de las cuales tienen por escenario el paisaje campesino de su pueblo natal en la Provenza francesa, y de algunos dramas. Bioy (Borges 1317−1318) apunta: “Ha muerto Jean Giono. He leído muy poco a Giono y de eso hará treinta años. Su estilo, su amor por la naturaleza me parecían afectados; me confirmaron en la animadversión un artículo en La Nación, elogioso y confuso, de la pobre Carmen Gándara, su tendencia a favor de Vichy (durante la guerra) y la circunstancia de que Borges, no sé si con fundamentos más serios que los míos, lo menospreciaba. Exacerbó el menosprecio de ambos la admiración que le profesaba Guillermo de Torre; nunca se le caía de la boca el nombre, que pronunciaba Sancionó. Para peor, el mismo Giono era autor de un libro titulado Accompagnés de la flûte, lo que dio motivo a que pasara directamente al corpus de H. Bustos Domecq, en carácter de grosera broma de la familia de “Bartolo tenía una flauta con un agujerito solo”.” [Aparentemente Bioy y Borges acordaron no incluir esta broma, ya que no aparece en ninguno de los cuentos escritos en colaboración.]

Carriego's mother's maiden name

Italian painter, c.1226-1337.

Fishburn and Hughes: "An Italian painter who abandoned the stylised forms of Byzantine art, aiming at a more realistic representation of the human figure, and was thus an important forerunner of the Renaissance. CF 383: Giotto's Circle is also a pun, alluding to an incident recounted in Vasari's Lives of the Painters (1550). When Pope Benedict IX was seeking proof of Giotto's artistic capability before employing him to decorate Saint Peter's, Giotto 'with the turn of the hand produced a circle so perfect... that it was a marvel to see'. " (79)

street in Buenos Aires

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

Ferber, 1924

Argentine man of letters, 1848-1931

Argentine poet, 1891-1963, author of Veinte poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía, Calcomanías and other works

Argentine poet and translator, 1919-91

character in the Nibelungenlied

Cervantes exemplary novel

character in a Cervantes exemplary novel

Tagore prose poems, 1913

Argentine essayist and critic, 1887-1978, co-founder and editor of the periodical Nosotros

Parodi: “que Bianchi o que Giusti habrían rechazado la colaboración”: Alfredo A. Bianchi (1882-1942) y Roberto F. Giusti (1887-1978) dirigieron la revista Nosotros casi sin interrupciones entre 1907 y 1943. [...] Roberto F. Giusti, ensayista y crítico literario, nacido en Italia; fue profesor universitario y, como miembro del Partido Socialista, ocupó cargos políticos. Junto con Bianchi fundó Nosotros; fue presidente de la Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (1934-1937) y miembro de la Academia Argentina de Letras. Publicó obras de gramática castellana, de literatura argentina e hispanoamericana, antologías y gran cantidad de ensayos y artículos sobre temas literarios. Ni Bioy ni Borges tuvieron opiniones favorables sobre Giusti: Bioy, Descanso 479: “Me ignoró siempre en sus artículos críticos; en su Historia de la literatura argentina se limita a citarme como autor de género fantástico; y desde luego no votó por mí cuando fue miembro del jurado, para el premio nacional.”; en Borges 378, comenta “Borges: “Giusti sí, escribió mucho. Conoce la literatura italiana, pero no desprecia la española. Tan acostumbrado está a leer por obligación que, si algo le gusta, desconfía, sospecha que no ha de ser bueno.” Bioy: “Confunde lo ingrato con lo serio”. Agrega Borges en el año 1960: “Qué lamentable: en la Academia, el lacrimoso Marasso y el cocoliche Giusti han enviado una comunicación a las profesoras recomendándoles la sustitución del vos por el tú. El ambiente está hecho y yo no puedo hacer nada.” (690). “[…] En otro discurso, alguien dijo: “Esos maestros inolvidables: Giusti y Bianchi”. Borges: “¿Cómo serán las personas para quienes Giusti y Bianchi fueron maestros?”” (853). Sobre el calificativo “cocoliche” que Borges aplica a Giusti, cf. “Signo” §4.

Snorri Sturluson's estranged son-in-law who assassinated him

German prince in the Volsunga Saga

British political figure, 1809-1898, prime minister on several occasions

character in the Egils Saga

British divine and writer, 1636-1680, author of The Vanity of Dogmatizing, Lux Orientalis and Saducismus Triumphans

City in Scotland

Hesse novel, 1943

Hammett detective novel, 1931

Williams play, 1945

John Cowper Powys, 1932

Jewish scholar, author of In Time and Eternity and other works

Glaucus of Anthedon in Boeotia, a Greek mythological figure who wooed Scylla in vain

Glaucus of Corinth, son of Sisyphus and father of Bellerophon

Russian-born Argentine publisher, 1889-1966.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Librarian, publisher and editor. His bookshop was a meeting point for young writers, Borges among them." (79)

French painter and art critic, 1881-1953

general, ancestor of Clara Glencairn de Figueroa in Borges story

character in Borges story

Scottish military man in India, character in Borges story, perhaps descended from the earls of Glencairn

character in Borges story, president of the "Congreso"

author of Teach Yourself Icelandic

town in the province of Buenos Aires

Dunsany, 1914

theatre in London of which Shakespeare was a part owner

Planes

Lorikus's wife in the Prose Edda

Larreta historical novel, 1908

name for Elizabeth I in The Faerie Queene, see also Isabel de Inglaterra.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Spenser's name for Queen Elizabeth in The Faerie Queene." (79)

mythical character in Dunsany

Du Cange, 1678

Excerpt from Mystiques et les Magciens du Tibet (1929), by Alexandra David-Neel.

Becher, 1938

winged race in Paltock's Peter Wilkins

Possible joke related to Samuel Glusberg’s last name. (Mentioned in Bustos Domecq story.)

place where the dragon Fafnir lives in the Fafnismal.

Fishburn and Hughes: "The place to which Fafnir is said to have removed the stolen treasure in the Norse Fáfnismál." (79)

race of diminutive spirits that live in the earth, described by Paracelsus

Zorrilla, 1886.

gnosticism.

Fishburn and Hughes: "From the Greek gnôsis, knowledge: the collective term designating a number of early Christian sectarian doctrines. Because of its emphasis on direct knowledge of God and the secret of salvation, and its adherents' claim to possess this knowledge, Gnosticism was declared heretical by the Church Fathers. For the Gnostics, knowledge meant not rational 80 cognition but a revelationary experience 'transforming the knower himself by making him a partaker in the divine existence' (H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, Boston 1958). The essential feature of Gnosticism was its dualism. God is 'absolutely transmundane', alien to the universe, which he has not created and does not govern and to which he is as opposed as light is to darkness. The world is the creation of 'lower powers', Archons (rulers), who, though descended from God, do not 'know' God and obstruct knowledge of him. The earth is the domain of the Archons, whose leader is the Demiurge, or World Artificer. It is likened to a prison surrounded by cosmic spheres. Each Archon rules the earth and his particular sphere and bars the passage of souls wishing to escape and return to God. Mirroring the composition of the cosmos is the composition of man, whose origin is similarly twofold, his earthly body being bound by (seven) cosmic spheres, whereas 'pneuma', a spark of dormant divinity, is enclosed in his soul. The aim of Gnostic thinking is to liberate this imprisoned spark through 'knowledge'. Of particular relevance to Borges's work is the Gnostics' use of the labyrinth as a metaphor of a universe encompassing a plurality of worlds. Each section of the labyrinth corresponds to a different world through which the soul loses its way and wanders about, but whenever it seeks an escape 'it only passes from one world into another that is no less world'. Little was heard of the Gnostics after the second century, but their beliefs survived among other heretics, notably the Albigensians in the twelfth century. Because their beliefs implied that Jesus was not the Redeemer of humanity, the Gnostics were looked upon as Antichrist." (79)

spiritual

city in India on the Malabar coast, formerly a Portuguese colony

Burton, 1851

travel book by Frederico Diniz D' Ayalla

Campo poem in Poesias, 1870

Lafcadio Hearn story about Japan

Jack London

Chesterton story in The Wisdom of Father Brown

Quain mystery novel, 1933

Wells, 1917

Caldwell novel, 1933

Cummings poem

Argentine poet, 1900-?, author of Nacimiento de fuego, childhood friend of Borges

Godfrey of Bouillon, medieval Frankish knight, c. 1060-1100, character in Tasso's Gerusalemme poems

street in Buenos Aires

Argentine poet, 1793-1866

Saxon warrior in the Battle of Maldon

Dunsany, 1905

Nazi propagandist, 1897-1945

Latinized version of the surname of Goethe

Nazi leader, 1893-1946