User:Alexrr222/sandbox

Hombres Necios (Sátira Filosófica) or You foolish men (Philosophical satire)
''Sor Juana’s Hombres Necios (Foolish men), written in the 1680s, is one of the first feminist literary works in the Americas that explores the double standard of men but also accuses them of trying to diminish a woman’s honor. In seventeenth-century Mexico, it was dominated by a patriarchal society, yet Sor Juana had the courage to accuse men at a time when her work could get her in trouble. Sor Juana had the courage to speak out on men's acts when a woman’s mind was regarded as irrelevant. Erin Elizabeth mentions how Sor Juana structured this poem to be centered on accusations from men against women that elevate the meaning behind the poem. Sor Juana emphasizes the male irrationality along with a man’s ability and behavior to harm a woman by making her 'toxic" and ruining her honor and reputation. Sor Juana does this by casting the blame on men as they are the root cause of their mistakes and creating problems for women to avoid their mistakes. Elizabeth argues that by utilizing the impurity/whore and the concept of “Fall from Grace,” Hombres Necios implores the double standards present in men, creating a path for women that leaves them in situations they can't escape from. Hombres necios explored the idea of why women were constantly held guilty for the sins that men incited onto them. This poem expresses her voice through the use of the Baroque literary style which was prevalent at her time but does so in an easily understandable way. Today it is often seen as a pro-feminist love letter, however, in a "machista" Latin American society has been popular amongst the population. '' You mulish men, Philosophical Satire Poem 92. Hombres Necios, Satira Filosofica Poema 92

Translated by David Frye

You mulish men, accusing

woman without reason,

not seeing you occasion

the very wrong you blame:

since you, with craving unsurpassed,

have sought for their disdain,

why do you hope for their good works

when you urge them on to ill?

You assail all their resistance,

then, speaking seriously,

you say it was frivolity,

forgetting all your diligence.

What most resembles the bravery

of your mad opinion

is the boy who summons the bogeyman

and then cowers in fear of him.

You hope, with mulish presumption,

to find the one you seek:

for the one you court, a Thaïs;

but possessing her, Lucrecia.

Whose humor could be odd

than he who, lacking judgment,

himself fogs up the mirror,

then laments that it's not clear?

Of their favor and their disdain

you hold the same condition:

complaining if they treat you ill;

mocking them, if they love you well.

A fair opinion no woman can win,

no matter how discrete she is;

if she won't admit you, she is mean,

and if she does, she's frivolous.

You're always so stubbornly mulish

that, using your unbalanced scale,

you blame one woman for being cruel,

the other one, for being easy.

For how can she be temperate

when you are wooing after her,

if her being mean offends you

and her being easy maddens?

Yet between the anger and the grief

that your taste recounts,

blessed the woman who doesn't love you,

and go complain for all you're worth.

Your lover's grief gives

wings to their liberties,

yet after making them so bad

you hope to find them very good.

Whose blame should be the greater

in an ill-starred passion:

she who, begged-for, falls,

or he who, fallen, begs her?

Or who deserves more blame,

though both of them do ill:

she who sins for pay,

or he who pays for sin?

So why are you so afraid

of the blame that is your own?

Love them just as you have made them,

or make them as you seek to find.

Just stop your soliciting

and then, with all the more reason,

you may denounce the infatuation

of the woman who comes to beg for you.

With all these arms, then, I have proved

that what you wield is arrogance,

for in your promises and your demands

you join up devil, flesh, and world.