The Crotalon

The Crotalón is a testimony of the Erasmist reading of Lazarillo de Tormes. Cristóbal de Villalón considered that the Lazarillo contained the same message as the Dialogues of Alfonso de Valdés. That is why he adopted that point of view in two songs of the Rooster. It is not known when The Crotalon was written. The reference to the second anonymous part of the Lazarillo, published in 1555 in Spain, does not serve as a post quem date. It is only in one of the two Manuscripts that have transmitted the work to us—with the expanded version—. It could, therefore, be a later addition.

For anyone into whose hands this our work falls (if by chance it were worthy of being of any read) has understood the intention of the author, know that because he is the enemy of idleness, because he has experience being the cause of all malice, wanting to occupy himself in something that was worthy of the time that could be consumed in it, He thought of writing something that in a gentle style he could take advantage of. And so he imagined how, beneath a gentle crust and some taste, he would give to understand the malice in which men employ their life today. For at no time can the truth be more true than at present those words which Moysen wrote in the Genesi: “That every mortal flesh has corrupted and erroneous the career and rule of its life.” Everyone twists the law of their obligation. And because I understand the common taste of men, that it postpones them more to read things of the donaire: couplets, chanzonetas and sonnets of pleasure, before hearing serious things, especially if they are made in reprehension, because none postpone that in their weaknesses they tell the truth, therefore, I tried to give them a way of doctrinal abscondone and underneath under facicias, fables, novels and donaires, in which, taking flavor to read, come to take advantage of what my intention wants. This style and order had in their works many ancient sages straightened to this same end. Like Ysopus and Cato, Aulus Gellius, John Bocatius, John Pogius Florentin; and many others that would be long to count, until Aristotle, Plutarch, Plato. And Christ taught with parables and examples the people and his disciples the heavenly doctrine. The title of the work is Crotalón: which is Greek word; which in Spanish means: game of rattles, or terreñuelas, according to the intention of the author.

Fragment of the work