La letre English translation by __________ and __________ students at CCISD, one of a French translation reputed to be of a letter written by Sor Juana in Spanish, Latin, maybe Hebrew or even Arabic; the other of a German translation reputed also to be of a letter from Sor Juana. Both French and German copies begin:
This is a translation of a letter believed to have been sent by Sor Juana --
The English translations from the French and the German are similar enough for us to be convinced both are translations of the same original letter, or that one is a French translation of the German or vice versa; but we cannot deduce in what language Sor Juana originally wrote it.
This is a small play written by the French girl waiting upon the Vice Reina. She was
rescued from the natives who killed her mother and adopted her and her
brothers
Her skin is covered with strange
pictures that cannot be removed, which she treats as sacred markings of
the natives’ religion.
She is a clever girl and with my encouragement
has recreated two of the religious stories told her by natives. One with
their writing--which does not resemble that of the Aztecs nor Mayans,
but is with pictures -- as they draw it in sand. I asked her to write the
native words as they sound using our latin letters under the natives’
picture writing. The other which resembles the exchange between jacob
and laban from our Genesis, I had her write as she recounted it to me
in what French she remembers and the Spanish we are teaching her.
This
little play is based upon her recollection and her brothers’ of what
their mother and father told them about how they happened to leave
France the first time for what they refer to as New France to the far
far north of New Spain where she and her brothers were born. The
mother herself was born in the New World, on the island the French call
Martinique, where her father fled with other protestants and died. She
was sent back to Paris with the daughter of another French
protestant, herself but a girl, both ending up in a Catholic convent.
The older girl, whom Marie Madeleine calls Tante Franciose, left the
convent to marry a cripple but esteemed man of letters. When the crippled writer died, his friends found her employment as the nanny for some extraordinary children, so extraordinary that the king himself often visited them. Thus the Tante, who was not really the aunt of Marie Madeleine merely an older girl girl who had cared for her mother, was able to find employment for their mother, Isabel, as a parlor maid. And guess in what parlor? That of the musician with whom the King composed what she calls "ballets"
I confess to have encouraged her in the humor at the expense of the King of the French. I knew it would delight the court in Mexico and surely will the court in Madrid. Perhaps our dear King's daughter, whom you report the French king so badly serves, will take an interest in reuniting Marie Madeleine with her brothers.
Your eternal friend
---Sor Juana
Act I scene 1
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