“to reduce and bring something to memory”
translation and selection by janet hendrickson
from the tesoro de la lengua castellana o española
of sebastián de covarrubias
feeling
ABORRECER. Abhor. It means to love a thing badly, with the fear and horror or annoyance one feels toward it.
ANSIA. Longing. The distress and squeezing of the heart.
ENVIDIA. Envy. A pain conceived in the breast from others’ good and prosperity; the envious one nails his woeful, glowering eyes on the one he envies, and he looks at him, as they say, with an evil eye. Envy’s poison is a neighbor’s prosperity and good fortune; its sweet food is his hardship and calamity: envy cries when others laugh and laughs when everyone cries. The worst part is that this venom tends to be begotten in the breasts of those who are our greatest friends.
ESPIRAR. Exhale. To expel the spirit; if it is taken for the air we respire, it is to breathe, more commonly, it means to die, to surrender the soul, the spirit. Aspire, to have the heart to ascend to a greater place; respire, to rest; respiration, the act of gasping. Conspiracy, the conjuration. Inspire, to reveal in spirit, to put some good thought into the heart and soul to carry it out. To sigh, to tear the spirit and breath from the breast with pain and grief of mind, because in its distress, the heart burns and feels the need to breathe and draw air in with greater strength, with which it forms the sigh.
YUNQUE. Anvil. To be an anvil means to suffer and be quiet. The anvil always remains in its being.
thinking
ACORDAR. To remember. To reduce and bring something to memory.
PENSAR. To think. To imagine or turn something over in one’s memory. He who thinks weighs things.
moving
ENTRAR. Enter. To enter a house, to enter religion, to enter a game, to enter the dance.
SALIR. To go out. To leave the house and leave one’s huts, to go out to the country, go out to the cause, go out to the bullring, etc.
VOLAR. To fly. It is proper to the birds.
light
ESPEJO. Mirror. The consulted mirror answers each person with what he is directly and with truth. Some have used mirrors to compose and moderate their actions and the movement of their body and face. Women seek counsel from mirrors to adorn themselves; uglies and beauties all use mirrors to amend faults. In the art of fabricating mirrors there are wondrous things. The good friend is a mirror of man.
LANTERNA. Lantern. The little tower of leaves of horn or plates of glass or sheets of tin, where we carry a lit and enclosed light, so that the air does not kill it on us.
MARIPOSA. Moth, butterfly. A little animal counted among the winged little worms, the most imbecile of all that can be. This has an inclination to enter the light of the candle, persisting again and again, until at last it burns.
water
LICOR. Liquor. Every liquid thing, liquid and fluid thing.
NADAR. To swim. Swimmer, he who knows how to swim and the teacher who teaches swimming, a very important thing in the places where swimming can be practiced, because it is so necessary for war and for peace.
PROFUNDO. Deep. Like the depth of the sea.
PUERTO. Port. A place on the seashore, fitted for ships to retire without being exhausted by tempests.
TEMPESTAD. Tempest. The fortune in the sea.
encounters
ENJAMBRE. Swarm. The assembly of bees that populate a hive, often clinging to each other like a cluster of grapes.
ESCALA. Ladder. One of the war machines propped against enemy walls.
ESPAÑA. Spain. In the past, Spain must have been for other nations what the Indies now are for us.
PEPINO. Cucumber. Bang, the blow dealt with the cucumber.