Las fuentes de un episodio satírico-alegórico en El Bernardo de Balbuena: la seducción de Ferragut por la hechicera Arleta

Abstract

This article studies the literary sources of a meritorious satirical-allegorical episode recounted, mainly, in book VII of El Bernardo of Balbuena: the seductiveness of Ferragut by the enchantress Arleta. The complex exercise of imitatio multiplex with which Balbuena combines the texts of Amadís de Gaula with the romanzi of Boiardo and Ariosto, together with the myth of Psyche and Cupid in the Asinus aureus version and/or, more probably, the chivalric history of El Conde Partinuplés is studied. Likewise, the allegorical interpretation of the episode offered by Balbuena is examined in line with the traditional one attributed to the classical myth and with the contemporary proposals for the Ariostean episode.