Water, earth, air, fire

I first met Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (“Sor” means “sister”, as in a religious sister) in a high school Spanish class. (Along with Maimónides, Carlos V and some others, but those would be another post.) Born near Mexico City in 1651, she was the illegitimate daughter of a Spaniard and a mestizo, a polymath who learned to read and write at age three, and who was teaching Latin to other children by age 13. She asked her mother’s permission to disguise herself as a boy so she could go to university, but was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, by age 17 she impressed a convocation of theologians, philosophers, poets and jurists with her intellectual capabilities.

In 1667 she entered a convent of Discalced Carmelites (a very strict order); two years later she joined the monastery of the Hieronymite nuns largely because it allowed her to pursue her studies. Sor Juana’s writings got her into trouble with the male establishment of the Church and the state. The Bishop of Puebla famously told her to shut up and make sandwiches (more or less), and she replied that “one can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper.”

Well, she wasn’t going to win that one, and she was eventually forced into silence, selling all her considerable library and collection of scientific instruments and retreating into prayer. She died during a plague in 1694, but we are the better off for her body of work that she did leave us.

Here’s one of her less incendiary poems, translated by Alan S. Trueblood.

“Written for the Nativity of Our Lord, Puebla, 1689”

  Since Love is shivering
in the ice and cold,
since hoarfrost and snow
have ringed him round,
who will come to his aid?
 Water!
  Earth!
   Air!
No, Fire will!
 Since the Child is assailed
by pains and ills
and has no breath left
to face his woes,
who will come to his aid?
 Fire!
  Earth!
   Water!
No, but Air will!
 Since the loving Child
is burning hot,
that be breathes a volcanic
deluge of flame,
who will come to his aid?
 Air!
  Fire!
   Earth!
No, Water will!
  Since today the Child
leaves heaven for earth
and finds nowhere to rest
his head in this world,
who will come to his aid?
 Water!
  Fire!
   Air!
No, but Earth will!