Musinsky Rare Books

OUDIN, César (ca. 1560-1625).

Refranes o Proverbios Españoles traduzidos en lengua Francesa. Proverbes Espagnols traduites en François. [Part 2:] GARAY, Blasco de. Cartas en Refranes. Lyon: Pierre Rigaud, 1614.

12mo (132 x 70 mm). [2], 376 pages (last 3 blank leaves removed). 2 parts, separately titled but continuously signed and paginated. Spanish text in roman types, French translation in italic. Pagination errors, signatures with crooked sorts on h4r and h6r. Woodcut printer’s device on general title, a metalcut headpiece, woodcut initials. Upper margins cut close, shaving a couple of headlines. 19th-century brown morocco, bound for William Stirling Maxwell, with two different blind-stamped monograms on covers, spine gilt lettered, gilt edges, red endpapers (joints & extremities rubbed). Provenance: William Stirling Maxwell (1818-1878), supralibros, Keir House “Proverbs” collection bookplate (rear pastedown), small armorial bookplate with his “I am ready,” etc. mottos (front pastedown); with Quaritch, collation note 1958; with Maggs, 1993, catalogue 1160, no. 27; Kenneth Rapoport, bookplate.***

Only Lyonese edition of a popular collection of over 2000 Castilian proverbs with French translations, first published in 1605, by a lexicographer, royal interpreter, and the first translator of any part of Don Quixote into French (part 1, published the same year as this edition). For each proverb the Spanish and French texts are printed together in one paragraph, differentiated by their type fonts. Gratet-Duplessis praised Oudin’s proverb collection as the best French source for Spanish proverbs, noting the precision of the French translations, and the utility of Oudin’s short explanatory notes.

Pierre Rigaud, the printer of this edition, did not do the text justice; frequent incorrect spellings and weird punctuation occasionally render either the translations or the originals nonsensical (e.g., “La mujer que poco hila, sempre trae mala camisa” is translated as “La femme qui peut filer [instead of peu file], toujours, porte meschante chemise” - p. 95).

This edition follows the Brussels 1608 edition in adding a second part, containing a 16th-century epistolary jeu d’esprit by the inventor Blasco de Garay: a series of letters composed entirely of proverbs and aphorisms. It concludes with the Dialogo entre un viejo e amor, a dramatic poem first published in 1511, attributed to Rodrigo Cota de Maguaque, in which Love persuades an old man who had been resigned to his solitude to try again, and then proceeds to mock him cruelly.

An appealing copy of a scarce edition. USTC, OCLC and NUC give 4 US locations (Hispanic Society, UC Berkeley, NYPL and U. Penn).

Palau 207295; USTC 5005619 & 6901883; Gratet-Duplessis, Bibliographie parémiologique 495 (1659 edition). Item #4207

Price: $1,950.00