Lazarillo De Tormes

“Pliny says there is no book, however bad it may be, that doesn’t have something good about it, especially as tastes vary and one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

Once again, the author comes through via the narrator, Lázaro. This is made clear because an uneducated rogue like Lázaro would not know of Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman author and philosopher best known for writing Naturalis Historia, the prototypical encyclopedia of ancient knowledge. The quote endorses the democratic ideal of free speech and implies that people should have the right, without suffering persecution, to hold and express opinions that may differ from the power establishment, a right that was denied to the Spanish citizenry at the time.

“Who thinks that the soldier who reaches the top of the scaling-ladder first hates life the most? No, of course he doesn’t; it’s desire for praise that makes him expose himself to danger and it’s the same case in the arts and literature.” 

For the third time, and still in the first paragraph of the Prologue, the author reveals his opinion through the narrator’s voice. Here, the anonymous author argues that artists, writers, and soldiers all seek praise over humility. And in the seeking praise, adoration, and love from the masses, they are willing to put themselves in danger. Through the symbol of the scaling ladder (in medieval times such ladders were used to climb walls to penetrate the defenses of a fortification), the anonymous author is saying that even the prospect of dying is not enough to deter the soldier’s quest for adoration. The soldier who goes first knows that if he doesn’t die, he will be the one to receive praise. The implication is that when someone is after only recognition, they might forget that such a quest could kill them.

“I’d also like people who are proud of being high born to realize how little this really means, as Fortune has smiled on them, and how much more worthy are those who have endured misfortune but have triumphed by the dint of hard work and ability.”

This is a complicated moment in the Prologue because, on one hand, Lázaro breaks all the rules by suggesting a radical idea in a country that prioritizes high-born individuals. To suggest that being born into the aristocracy means little is practically blasphemous. Yet he continues by suggesting that those who are worthy (i.e., those like himself) are the ones who have worked hard and who have demonstrated their ability. The irony here is that Lázaro’s achievements are really nothing to boast about, as readers learn at the end of his story.

“How many people must there be in this work who run away from others in fright because they can’t see themselves?” 

Lázaro is still in a stage of life where he has not yet learned one can live in denial. He is still innocent enough to recognize the harm that such a life can bring. This quote represents the opinion of the author and shows that as the novel begins, author and narrator are in close agreement about the state of the world in which they live. It’s an important quote to remember and compare to the ending of Lázaro’s story, when he benignly acquiesces to living his life in denial, as described in the quote.

“Seeing that love forces a poor slave to do this we ought not to be surprised that a priest robs his flock and a friar his convent for the benefit of his female devotees and others.” 

Again readers are meant to take this moment as the author’s opinion about the corruption of the church. The opinion is filtered through Lázaro’s viewpoint. The scene unfolds when the employer of Lázaro’s stepfather Zaide learns that Zaide is stealing from him while he is courting Lázaro’s mother. Unlike the priests who betray their flock and give goods away to their mistresses without repercussion, Zaide is whipped and basted with hot fat for doing far less.

“And he cackled with glee. At that moment I felt as if I had woken up and my eyes were open.” 

When Lázaro’s first master, the blind man, tells him to put his head against the stone animal so that he might hear something, the blind man smashes Lázaro’s head. The master thinks this is hilarious and tells Lázaro that unless he sharpens up and gets smarter, he will never be able to serve him. When Lázaro equates this moment with waking up, it’s the first time readers realize that Lázaro will have to adopt some of the trickery he has seen in others, in order to survive.

“Of course, to do so I had to use all sorts of sharp practices. I shall tell you a few of them although I don’t always come out of the story well.” 

Lázaro admits to his “Honour” that he has resorted to low tricks and other manipulative and contemptible practices to attain comfort and security. After he tells the honored recipient that he isn’t as honest as he might have seemed in the Prologue, he delves into stories about how he was able to steal bread. He also admits that the blind man was manipulative and filled with tricks when it came to making enough money to survive. This moment foreshadows Lázaro’s transformation from naïve child to someone who understands the corrupt ways of the world and recognizes that being ignorant and corrupt himself is the only way he can survive.

“Of course I had to lead him and got wet myself, but to change a proverb, I enjoyed cutting off my nose to spite the eyes that he didn’t have.”

This quote perverts the old adage about cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face. The meaning of the traditional saying is clear: In doing something to hurt someone else, you are actually hurting yourself. In this case, Lázaro is saying the opposite. He comes to enjoy the tactics he must employ to cheat the blind man, even if they are a detriment to his soul. He so loathes his master that he doesn’t care that in hurting the blind man, Lázaro is probably hurting himself. For Lázaro, it’s worth it.

“Shut up boy. One day this thing that I’ve in my hand will give you an ill-deserved day’s meal.” 

This is an important foreshadowing moment. The blind man is holding onto the horns attached to the wall of the inn that are used to tie up mules. When this book was written, an animal horn was a symbol of being cuckholded. In terms of literary devices, this quote employs both a symbol and a metaphor and is used to foreshadow Lázaro’s fate. An “ill-deserved day’s meal” is the author’s way of saying that one day, Lázaro will be served up a nice helping of infidelity on the part of his wife. Indeed, at the end of the novel, Lázaro is a cheated on by his wife. He chooses to deny it happens to continue living with the comfort he enjoys.

“I must say, Lazarillo, you ought to be more grateful to the wine than to your father because he only begot you once but wine’s brought you back to life hundreds of times.”

Wine is an important symbol in Lázaro’s story. Often wine is used to refer to the church, or to finding comfort, but in this instance wine is literal salve on Lázaro’s wounds. The blind man, who says this to Lázaro, realizes the truth. Later, after Lázaro is again beaten by the blind man, the compassionate neighbors use the wine intended for the blind man to drink, to treat Lázaro’s wounds. In this instance wine demonstrates the healing and restorative powers of compassion.

“In all the time I stayed with the priest, which would be about six months, only twenty people passed away and I’m sure that it was I who killed them, or rather that they died at my request.” 

Lázaro has moved on to the priest, a greedy man who hoards, steals, and hides his food from others. When Lázaro attends the funerals of people the priest knows, he is given a full meal. Lázaro realizes that he hopes more people die around the priest because more funerals mean more food for him. He was never someone who hated humankind, but in his hunger, he prays to God that someone will die so he can eat at their funeral. This shows how willing Lázaro is to sacrifice his principles for food. Sometimes morals are far less important than survival.

“In any case, misers never lack sharp minds.”

Lázaro is starving, and he knows how miserly the priest is. When he gets the bread out of the box with the key, Lázaro believes his hungry days are over. But as he soon discovers that the priest has covered all the holes in the box, he realizes how useless his key is. This metaphor of a useless key is ironic because a key is inherently a useful tool. However, this useless key reveals the dire consequences the poor and vulnerable face in a society like Lázaro’s. The quote also shows that those who hoard and stash food (or money or sex partners, etc.) develop a sharp ability to watch everything around them, lest their stockpiles are stolen and they are caught. The implication is that greed makes people more cunning, calculating, and sneaky.

“Still, necessity’s a good teacher, so all the time, night and day, I thought of nothing but how to keep myself alive. I’m convinced the hunger was my guiding light in finding these solutions to my troubles. After all, they say it sharpens the wits, whereas a full belly does the opposite.” 

When Lázaro is servant to the priest, he experiences even worse hunger than he did with the blind man. Hunger is what drives him to find solutions to counter his miserly master’s cleverness. When Lázaro says that necessity is a good teacher, he means that new ways of solving old problems are invented or perceived when there is a strong and special need for them. But Lázaro is also saying that having a full belly—a symbol of someone who has money and power—makes people stupid. In essence, he means that rich and powerful people are often also dumb.

“Still when disaster has to come, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Lázaro has managed to outwit his stingy master, the priest, and thus avoid starving to death. But when he falls asleep, the key hidden in his mouth whistles with his breath. Lázaro is caught, then mercilessly beaten. Here Lázaro admits defeat and shows that he is resigned to disaster. He speaks like one who has known only aversity, and though he is young, he has the wisdom of his experiences to know when he must accept his lot in life. In some respects, Lázaro consigns himself to suffering because that is all he’s known.

“I can’t find any way of combating your craftiness and I’m quite positive you couldn’t have been anything else before you came to me than a blind man’s boy.”

The priest has had enough of Lázaro. He acts as if Lázaro has bested him, when in reality, he beats Lázaro at the game of food and starvation quite simply because he can tell Lázaro to leave. The priest can’t stand that Lázaro is clever, quite possibly more so than the priest, and so he wants Lázaro gone. Even after admitting a kind of defeat, however, the priest tells Lázaro that despite his cleverness, he is nothing but a blind man’s servant. It is an insult, one designed to put Lázaro in his place as a low-class scoundrel.

“We stretched the mattress out and pummeled it a bit to soften it, but that was near enough impossible because you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” 

As Lázaro assists his master the squire in making his bed, he grows suspicious. Though the man looks well dressed, if not slightly skinny, he seems like he never eats, and his house is empty of furniture. Most odd is the man’s bed, which contains no mattress or blankets. Lázaro begins to realize that the squire, though of noble birth, is poor. The adage at the end of the quote, which dates back to the time this novel was written, means that no matter what you put on your outsides, the truth about you will still show through. Lázaro discerns that despite the squire’s fine clothing and noble birth, he is still a pauper.

“Who would not be deceived by his demeanour and his smart cloak and jacket, and who would think that this noble gentleman spent all day yesterday without taking a bit of food except that crumb of bread that his servant Lázaro had carried for a day and a half under his shirt and where it couldn’t have kept very clean, and today, when he washed his hands and face and didn’t have a towel, he used his shirt-tail? Nobody would dream that was the case.”

This quote shows how much suffering a noble person (meaning someone who is born into nobility) will endure to appear wealthy, even if they have not a penny in their pocket. The level of detail makes this quote satirical, another feature of the picaresque novel. The bread isn’t just old, it’s been carried around for a day, under a beggar’s shirt, which was likely unclean. Beyond that, as Lázaro notes, the man doesn’t even have a towel. Such details reveal the absurdity of the squire’s quest to keep up appearances.

“And how many men like him must be scattered around the world, who suffer for the sake of their absurd honour what they certainly wouldn’t suffer for your sake?”

When Lázaro first goes out into the world, he is too young and innocent to understand the ways of his culture, where the powerful will maintain their power at any cost, even if it means lying and cheating. The author uses Lázaro’s naivete to reveal his message. It is important to note the use of repetition in the chapter’s opening pages, as Lázaro is repeatedly characterized as a young man who is astonished by the trickery and ridiculousness that goes into maintaining high-birth honor. The continued emphasis on Lázaro’s naivete sets up the irony of the conclusion, as Lázaro transforms into someone just like those he once scorned.

“I wished he wasn’t quite so vain and that he would come down to earth and face facts a little more. Still, as far as I can see, people like him have an old and well-kept rule. They may have a penny in their pocket but they’ve got to keep up appearances. There’s nothing that anybody can do about it. They’re like that until they die.”

Lázaro is still on the outside looking in at the strange ways of people. He hasn’t yet adopted the habits of those around him who don’t work because trade is not valued in his culture. He has not yet become a man capable of keeping up appearances like the squire. This quote signals Lázaro’s contempt for the squire’s behavior, even though he feels sorry for him. The man’s vanity is particularly repugnant to Lázaro, which sets up the ironic conclusion, because soon enough, Lázaro assumes many qualities similar to this man he once pitied and disliked.

“And to satisfy that ridiculous honour of his he took a straw (there weren’t even enough of them in the place) and went and stood in the doorway picking his teeth which had nothing stuck between them.” 

In Chapter 3 it takes a little while for Lázaro to figure out what’s going on with the squire. Little by little, he comes to understand that the squire will do anything to keep up appearances. And he realizes this in the context of the society in which he lives, which prizes noble birth. Here the squire pretends to be picking the food from his meal, as if he has just had a delicious repast. The truth is that it’s all for show, as Lázaro sees. The squire hasn’t eaten at all.

“I was only a boy then, but his trick impressed me very much and I said to myself: ‘I wonder how many others are like him swindling innocent people.’”

The importance of this quote rests in its literary value. The author uses many devices to reveal his intention through the narrator. With the use of repetition, the reader deduces the important themes that the author conveys. This quote reflects the author’s deliberate use of repetition. After Lázaro realizes that the indulgence seller is really just a scam artist, he wonders how many other powerful people are swindlers. This thought echoes his thinking in Chapter 1, when he wonders how many people live in denial about their own wrongdoing. As in the first chapter, Lázaro is still a boy, by his own admission. This means he is still naive and hasn’t stepped into the world where trickery and denial are survival tactics employed to live a comfortable life.

“After I left the priest I went to work for a constable as it seemed a good idea to get in with the law.” 

Though Lázaro immediately quits his position with the law because it turns out to be too dangerous, Lázaro is choosing a lifestyle that he believes will come with comforts. His goal, as he has learned through his experience with his masters, is to get by with as little conflict and drama as possible. To be on the side of the law would, at least in his mind, protect him from the indignities his mother, father, and stepfather endured.

“Mind you, at the time I always had a nagging little suspicion and had a few bad suppers because some nights I waited for her until early-morning lauds or even later. I remembered what the blind man said to me in Escalona when he was holding the horn. Mind you, I think the Devil brought that to my mind deliberately to upset my marriage…” 

This quote harkens back to Chapter 1, when the blind man predicted that Lázaro would be cuckholded. Now Lázaro faces the possibility that the blind man was right. Note that when the blind man predicted infidelity, he did so through the metaphor of being served a bad meal. Here Lázaro admits to having a “few bad suppers” while waiting for his wife to come home. The quote also shows Lázaro’s denial when he blames the devil for trying to trick him, even though all the clues point to his wife cheating on him. So while the scene brings the foreshadowing in Chapter 1 to fruition, it also underscores the transformation in Lázaro’s character: He has become like everyone else in his decision to deny reality in exchange for comfort.