Definitions

A rose is a rose is a rose.

~ Gertrude Stein

María Balteira really existed; she wasn’t just a figment of numerous writers’ imaginations. Writers who were mean and had their ideas about what women should be like, what they should and shouldn’t do. Men who never thought much about women as human beings with desires, needs, interests - and talents. She lived in the 1200s, which means a long time ago, and she wasn’t your everyday woman.

Balteira was a courtesan, and with that everything has been said. She played, danced, and slept with a lot of men, especially nobles, residents of the king’s court. She gambled and hated to lose. Most of all, she liked pleasure - the pleasure she derived from allowing her desires to be satisfies. She had been rewarded a hundredfold by the attention of society, and had been condemned accordingly. The result had been a rather tragic figure who had lived happily and been rebuked for her lifestyle, with those rebukes appearing in medieval song.

Later on, Balteira would be conceded some more positive characteristics, although not really any virtues. Nobody really made the effort to salvage her reputation, and we can surmise that this caused the woman a certain amount of pain. Then a writer came along with another approach: Marica Campo, from the Galician province of Lugo. Cold Lugo, with its antiquity, its living history moving along its Roman walls: an incredible feat of engineering and a very large poem to the architectural skills of the invaders from a land that was not yet Italy. 

This story that you are reading now does not pretend to present an honest portrait of Balteira from Armea, but it does try to look at what made the courtesan tick. Whether or not it is a true and faithful portrait is not for you to decide, but nevertheless you might want to consider it. Meanwhile, this might be the first time ever that Balteira has appeared in literature outside her native realm of Galician-Portuguese. It is an appearance that comes far too late, but it is still important. Trust me.

To accomplish this presentation, we have put aside the versions of her that were created by men and word of mouth during her time. She was judged and that was all. People had a right to their opinions. We don’t have to accept the veracity of those opinions, and personally I am devoting part of my scholarly work to sorting out the features of a (very) tarnished reputation. To do this sorting, I have decided to go with Marica Campo’s version, which consists to two stories and a play. I like the fact that Marica gives her a voice and I like that she had a woman back in her home locale of Armea, Eusenda. An indication both of female solidarity and a woman’s commitment to a life lived quite often on the road.

Only the road, despite the fact that Balteira went in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, had not quite led to absolution, redemption, conversion, or peace. Her road was not the Camiño de Santiago, the famous Saint James Way. Her road was her own. And she hadn’t chosen it to survive, out of poverty, starvation. She’d had all she needed - EXCEPT the freedom to chose her own path, her own life.

The story here, then, looks at the part of Marica Campos’ version, in which bold, brave, bedazzling Balteira reaches a point in life where the years catch up with her, when the body is considered lacking. The time where age defines the future, or lack thereof. The time when we are tortured by the end as it draws near. No amount of sorcery can cure the heaviness of the years, and the courtesan struggles to overcome her destiny. The destiny of all human beings. The universal destiny.

In Balteira’s case as per her author from Lugo, we see the friction between a woman’s desires and the teachings - or rather orders and discipline - imposed by the Church. She tried to adopt another set of beliefs through a pilgrimage to a land far from her native Galicia, and some parts of her life - courtly affairs of the sort that brought pleasure - but this failed. Her lovers from distant, dry, oppressive (for women) territories left her empty, and she came home. Her body had told her one thing; the doctrines of the Church in Galicia ordained something very different. On the other hand, those same doctrines - ostensibly - offered respite from social derision, could comfort her, provide hope of a life ever after if she could confess and repent, and of course mend her ways.

Balteira, poor thing, was caught between doing the right thing, which was something society condemned her for not doing, and enjoying life. She sought pleasure and, after pleasure, peace. She knew her personal deeds had never coincided with the teachings of the Church, knew she would be hard-put to claim Christianity and its practices as hers. Her spirit craved something else, and felt satisfied throughout a number of years when she satisfied that craving. Remaining true to herself might not be religious conduct, but it had a sort of spirituality to it.

Now neither was working, and poor Balteira, loved and scorned both, felt the anguish of the approaching end. She pleaded with Eusenda to give her a new potion, no longer to abort an unwanted pregnancy, but to continue to live in the land of youth. She didn’t fear Hell, exactly; she feared the loss of a way of life. Eusenda no longer can help her, or refuses to do so. There is a moment of crisis in “Confusión e morte de María Balteira” [Confusion and Death of María Balteira], and the resolution of the agony comes in an existential promise by the old sorceress that her customer (client, patient, friend, alter-ego) would find eternal life in the kingdom of nature, in the earth’s perpetual cycles.

Balteira does not give a clear response to old Eusenda, but in the end we no longer see her. She could be in the casket covered with heavy red cloth as it moves toward the cemetery where by rights she, a woman of the night as some said, should not be allowed burial. Since I don’t want to end this story the way Marica Campo ends hers, I propose to avoid plagiarism and write a new passage after courtesan and witch meet for one last consultation…

María Balteira heard the words of the blind witch who had treated and cured her so many times before, and decided she would indeed believe what she had heard. If, even after years of what most called a dissolute life, she would accept that she would return repeatedly in nature, in its grasses, trees, wild flowers and herbs, it wasn’t enough for the years she had left. She wanted more, and she wanted it in this life, not the next. As a result, she developed a plan to have her cake and eat it, too. That is a rather overused metaphor, so let’s say instead that she decided not to live her days out on the road. No, there was something else.

That something else was living outside the court, or in her case, the courts. Living without dancing to the tune of the men who played songs for her to dance and to seduce her. Living, not necessarily with her back to them, but with her mind open to doing more transcendental things. One night was one night. Nothing more. One game of dice, even if it ended in victory, was quite hollow, since she didn’t lack resources to live any more.

The plan was to create a community, not exactly like those created in other lands or like ones that would be organized in ensuing centuries. All she wanted was to create things, not to compete or entertain, not to have to endure scorn. Balteira decided to build a studio - not a small one, but a very large one that would accommodate anybody who approached it seeking safety, inspiration, solace. She would fill it with colors, songs, words, and would share it all freely. She wasn’t sure what would come out of her studio, but she believed she would be happy with it. 

Like she does in the play about her by Marica, she would define herself. And her definition would be that she was now a maker. She was going to make a world of colors, sounds, flavors, and textures that suited her. If others wanted to join her in the project, they could. What they all would make was a mystery, and that was the whole point. Balteira became extremely busy and smiled a lot. She hummed tunes and recited verses or told stories that amazed the ones fortunate enough to be present when she was humming and reciting.

Meanwhile, the walls of the studio began to fill up rapidly with works of art of various techniques. Balteira kept learning new things to do with paper, parchment, paints and things of that sort. All of her acts of creation came from a place deep within her, quiet and firm. The result was that she no longer was concerned about age, and instead thought about making things that would be left behind when she was gone. That was not upsetting to her, the end of her life, because she was enthralled by the way yellow and blue, copper and iridescent pink swirled and danced on the work space before her. Things she’d never had time for when she was younger and dancing to the tunes of men.

Then it began, although slowly at first, which was a good thing. Balteira began to have visitors, but they were not coming to use or abuse her. They came to watch and learn. They had questions and asked her for answers, seeing that she was competent in things like painting and playing a zanfona or hurdy-gurdy. They often stayed, and so the studio’s walls had to become elastic, accommodate additional persons. The space grew, nobody being responsible for their construction. In time, the former courtesan had her own court, but it was one where neither she nor any other woman (or man) was subjected to ridicule, cat-calling, pinches in soft places, or threats.

Whether or not the new world was better is not open to debate. It was, infinitely so. Making things, in a community that had grown up among like-minded people, was the explanation. Church doctrine had fallen by the wayside and there was no conscious attempt to ‘communicate with nature’ since that can become trite very quickly. Balteira forgot about the struggle to define her beliefs, to fit into patterns or types of behavior. She did as she felt she had to, astonished by all the others who were gathering around her. 

So, at the time of this writing, or actually rewriting, of the story of the soldadeira (a term meaning a woman paid a salary to behave in certain ways by the regent), the scene of the coffin, covered with heavy red cloth, has become a thing of the past. Marica’s story is a great one, but it still hurts the heart. The promise of rebirth every spring had left some of us readers with a bitter taste in our mouths, tearing up over the tragic life of a woman defined by others. We needed more.

Hence this story, which is no less plausible than the versions, in both prose and verse, that have gone before. I know I need a woman who has completely left behind the songs of escarnho e maldizer, songs of derision. She no longer feels guilty and dirty, yet clings to a lifestyle of incompleteness. I need a woman who uses her foul mouth to throw the words of men back in their faces and seeks men and women who are like her. Who know the definitions of the things that matter and know what legacy means. (That’s probably the right word, legacy, but there might be another, better one.)

If you were looking for a story with a clever twist, a surprise ending, or a great moral, it might not be here. Just know that my Balteira has turned her back on the people and institutions who defined her until it hurt. Now she is living a good life, however that might be defined, and others are learning from her. 

I am getting ready to go to Balteira’s immense studio now and you are welcome to come with me. Remember to leave any baggage at home. We are only taking love, laughter, and an appetite for luscious things. We’ll know what to do with these items, and she can help us.

A muse is a muse is a muse.