“Mas Sabed Que Lo Dixo El Papagayo”: A Comparison of the Female Figure in an Enxemplo From Calila E Dimna and Sendebar

Abstract

Calila e Dimna and Sendebar, besides being two representative collections of the 13^th century Hispanic exemplary genre, share a common origin in Eastern folk tales. As a result of this encounter, both works are characterized by a notorious antifemina didactism that portrays women as the sin’s root and a constant threat to men’s virtue; however, in some exceptional cases, these works present virtuous women.

This work proposes a comparative reading of the female characters in the tales “Los papagayos acusadores” en el Calila and the “Enxemplo del omne e de la mujer e del papagayo e de su moça” en el Sendebar. Comparing the female characters both within the enxemplos, as well as according to the narrative frameworks in which they are inserted, will demonstrate how these two collections of exemplary tales, produced and disseminated almost simultaneously, adopted the same tale from the eastern world but gave women different rhetoric and didactic functions.