NICTIMENE - RECREANDO EL MITO

(EXCERPT)

The Tenth Muses Lately Sprung up in the Americas: The Borders of the Female Subject in Sor Juana's First Dream and Anne Bradstreet's "Contemplations"

by SUZANNE SHIMEK


The first character the reader meets in Primero Sue no is Nictimene, a character from Greek mythology who for committing incest with her father has been changed into an owl by Athene (Harss 79). The message of Nictimene's story is ambiguous. Sor Juana could be interpreted as condemning this creature who "de las sagradas puertas los resquicios, / o de las clraboyas eminentes / los huecos mas propicios / que capaz a su intento le abren brecha" (28-31), "lurks, hidden, at the chinks in sacred doors / hovers at a high clerestory, / seeks the propitious rift / that will intrigue to open to her scheme" (Peden 129). However, the condemnation is qualified. According to medieval lore, owls were unholy creatures who "desecrat[ed] church altars by drinking the oils of the candles to extinguish the sacred flames" (Harss 79). But the owl in Sor Juana's poem is attempting to drink from a lamp lit with oilPed from Minerva's tree. Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom and reason; Nictimene (a figure for the poet?) is merel y attempting to gain wisdom. Nictimene is described not just as "sacrilegious" but also as "avergonzada," or "repentant." (Peden translates "avergonzada" as "humiliated," a term which shifts blame from Nictimene to her tormentors.) Also, Sor Juana uses the words "propicios" (propitious) and "capaz" (able or well-suited) to describe Nictimene, terms which have positive connotations: Nictimene is clever and patient.

Georgina Sabat-Rivers points out that the language Sor Juana uses to describe Nictimene and other female figures in the poem follows a consistent pattern: "Although all of these figures, the sinister companions of Night, are presented with negative connotations, we can perceive a tone of sympathy for the feminine characters" (147). Sor Juana uses many figures from classical mythology, a poetic device common in seventeenth-century English as well as Spanish poetry, but, according to Sabat-Rivers, her use of mythical characters is quite uncommon. As Sabat-Rivers points out, the night in Primero Sueno is a triple-faced female figure represented by Hecate, the sky, Proserpina, the underworld, and Diana, the earth: "Sor Juana establishes, from the beginning of the poem, a universe where woman rules as a cosmic force" (146). The shadow of the earth is stopped "del orbe de la Diosa" (13), "by the Goddess's orb." Just as three goddesses accompany the dusk, Sabat-Rivers suggests, so "three feminine characters precede the sun: Venus, the planet goddess representing intelligence, love, and female beauty; Aurora, the goddess of the dawn; and Night, also, like Aurora, presented as an Amazon" (154). These six characters that bookend the soul's journey are powerful and wise--and female.