Sancho Panza: Compendio de Refranes y Fábulas

Abstract

The title continues para ejercicios de lectura elemental. This is a fine little book for those getting their first experience of Spanish poetry. The first 90 pages offer stories exemplifying popular aphorisms or proverbs. Some are easily recognized. Speech is silver but silence is golden. All that glitters is not gold. Tell me who you go with and I will tell you who you are. Then follow, as the closing T of C shows, twelve fables from Samaniego and Iriarte. The author is given by the T of C in each case. Several are Aesopic borrowings, like LM (99) and TB (107). Each story or fable gets one or two full-page black-and-white illustrations. And where does Sancho Panza fit into this lovely offering? The last paragraph of the introduction hails him as profundo conocedor de la ciencia popular española, caudal inagotable de dichos y proverbios (6).