Fénix 10, 188-202

THE INFANTE DON PEDRO DE PORTUGAL IN LIMA 193 of the Don Pedro was later changed from "four parts" to "seven parts" because of it. 11 This seems to me to be a better suggestion than the influence of Alfonso el Sabio's Siefe Partidas, an explanation accepted by the late Pro- fessor Entwistle. 12. Perhaps there is a slightly different explanation. In the Nliddle Ages there were traditionally seven parts of the world. Alfonso el Sabio has himself provided us with the reason: E touieron [los omnes] que estas siete estrellas [los planetas] eran ya mas arriba, e mas celestiales, e dela natura de Dios quelos ele- mentos; e dexaron de aorar aquellos e aoraron a estas. E fizieron los ende siete partes del mundo, siete templos muy grandes e muy onrrados, segund los gentiles a que les uinien las yentes a orar e en romeria de todas las tierras. E por onrrar las mas pusieron les nombres dellas a los siete de la semana. 13. Bn another occasion, after mentioning the seven planets, seven Ereavens, and seven days of the week, he writes: E t los sabics departieron por este cuento de siete las partes de toda la tierra á que llaman climas. 14. There mras also a inedievel tradition which considered the world as com- poced of three parts. After the discovery of the Americas the number was raised to four -Europe, Asia, Africa, America- and Camoes could write of Portugal, "esta pequeña casa Lusitana": De Affrica tem rnaritimos assentos, He na Asia mais qce todas soberana, Na quarta parte noua os campos ara, E se mais mundo ouuera la chegára. 15. And so Gómez de Santisteban had Dom Pedro visit the four parts. We would thus seem to have s bit of evldence concerning the dating of the original 11 Theophilo Braga, Curso de Ñisforia da LiZteraíura Portrigueza (Lisbon, 1885), p. 260; O povo porfuguez nos scus cosfurnes, crencas e tradicoes (2 vols., Lisbon, 1885), 11; 462. 12 Wiiliam J. Entwistle, "The Spnrlish Mandeviiles" (The lI4odei.n Lnrig~age lieview, XVII, 1922, 251-257), p. 255: "The ntunber of Partr cf the World was hter raised to Seven by a blundering rerniniscence of the Siete Partidas of Alfonso the Wise". Francisco Rodríguez Marín aclvanced this suggestiofi in his edition of Don Quijote; sce ClSsicos Castellanos edition (8 vols., Madrid, 1911-13), VI (1913), 112, and latnr editioris. See also his edition of Vélez de Guevaia, E1 Diablo Cojuelo, Clisicor\ CasteIlanos (Ma- drid, 1918), p. 91. Schevill and Bonilla disagreed with Rodríguez Marín in their edition of Don Quijote ( 4 vols., Madrid, 1925-41), 111 (1935), 495. García Soriano agreed with Schevill and Bonilla against Rodríguez Marín in his edition of the Cartas Filoló- gicas of Francisco Cascales in the Clásicos Castellanos ( 3 vols., M,adrid, 1930-41), 11 1940), 10; see also 111, 42. 13 Alfonso el Sabio, General Estcria, primera parte, ed., Antonio G. Solalind': (Madrid, 1930), p. 66. 14 Las Siefe Partidas del Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio, coíej~dascon varios &dices antiguos por la Real Academia de la Historia ( 3 vols., Madrid, 1807), 1, 7, i. e., the prologue. 15 Luis Camoes, Os Lusiadas (Lisbon, 1572, Ee edition), fol. L15v., i. e., VII, xiv, 5-8. Fénix: Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú. N.10, 1954