The Knight in the Blue Boots

In El caballero de las botas azules, Rosalía de Castro writes caught between the demands of the story, of literature as a form of fascination, and a constant reflection on the condition of her female characters.

Man: Since you have come to my call, O muse, listen attentively and propitiately to me, and cause my most fervent desire to be fulfilled.

Muse: (Hidden behind a thick cloud.) Speak, and let your language be that of sincerity. My sight is lynx.

Man: That way you can get to know better the idea that animates me. But I would like the dense smoke that surrounds you to dissipate. Why such modesty? Am I not to know you?

Musa: I am not demure, but prudent; So you get used to hearing me, you will get used to seeing me. Say in the meantime, what do you want?

Man: Even the muses are flirtatious!

Musa: Consider that I am a muse, but not a lady, and that we should not waste time in wanderings.

Man: What stupidity… but I will be obedient, in proof of the submission I owe you. I want my voice to be heard, in the midst of the multitude, like the voice of thunder that surpasses with its stampede all the tumults of the earth; I want fame to carry my name from town to town, from nation to nation, and to be repeated by generations to come, over many centuries.

Muse: Foolish desire for posthumous glory, whose light breath will pass as if such a thing on the scattered dust of your bones! Beware of the present and stop thinking about the future, which must be for you as if it did not exist.

Fragment of the work