The largest square in Colombia is in the colonial town Villa de Leyvaa few hours north of Bogotá. It is a slightly wavy – we are here in the mountains – plain of 120 by 120 meters, paved with large boulders. In the evening twilight there is a flying time on the beach. Three blocks further, in the Parque Antonio Nariño, a small bookhouse has been placed on a wooden pole. ‘Casita del Saber’, it says: house of knowing.
What does this house know? There are two books by the Spanish author Carmen María Gaite, a translated Dostoevsky biography, a mountaineer book. I take the smallest of all, actually back to the old continent: a mini edition printed in Madrid in 1961 Romeo Y Julieta and lOs Dos Hidalgos de Verona. 12 by 8 centimeters, more than 400 pages in thin pressure, with reading ribbon.
Sometime in the last 64 years it has been possession of a certain Enrique, whose last name is difficult to read; He did, however, write a homemade vignette EG in black on the title page and managed to cram it on the back. Moreover, he has been underline in the book. If the underlines are indeed his, of course.
In that respect it is nice that the prologue of translator José Méndez Herrera starts with a reference to “the children’s magazines that we, well!, No longer read” with puzzles in which you had to connect numbered points, after which a drawing suddenly appeared. For example, the Shakespear study is also put together, Méndez Herrera explains: we know only, but an image can arise from the points.
This also applies to our Enrique, the mysterious Shakespeare rootreper. In the first place, he is a studious reader, who is a lot striking. In the prologue, he starts on dates and quotes – and for example at the place where the whole of each other contradicted quotes about Shakespeare a Mare Magnum is mentioned. And Romeo Y Julieta A definitive reality like a tree that is inevitable in the landscape.
Enrique also underlines in Romeo and Julia the names of connoisseurs that are referred to in the footnotes (Steevens, Ritson), just like the observation that the name Teobaldo, ‘King of the Cats’, has to do with Tibeert, the cat who in the story of Reinaart de Vos is chosen to clock play.
Although Enrique will have wanted to learn from the play, he seems to be getting rod in the course of the text. That becomes visible when the lips of Romeo and Julia touch each other for the first time. Under the direction of ‘La Besa’ (not the nowadays more usual ‘El Beso’) he not only put a line, he also circled the kiss. At Romeo’s insurance that he washes the sins of his lips to that of Julia (“Así Mis Labios, Por Los Tuyos, Vven Y Alimpios de Pecado”) is not only underlining, but also an exclamation mark in the margin. It happens here!
That’s how it goes. A thick line under “how I would like to be your bird!” Finally, there is the nasty ending, when Julia notes that the lips of the suspended Romeo are still warm, after which she grabs his dagger, “Esta Es Tu Vainina!” shouts and the author indicates: “y se la clava.” She stabs. Every sentence is now underlined. And rightly so.