Con un menino del padre

English translation: By a servant of the pimp

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

Spanish term or phrase:	Con un menino del padre
English translation:	By a servant of the pimp
Entered by:	Lydia De Jorge

00:56 Jun 30, 2019

Spanish to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / poesía barroca española -JÁCARA DE LA MÉNDEZ

Spanish term or phrase: Con un menino del padre

Reply from La Méndez (prostitute) to a letter received from Escarramán (her lover/pimp) from jail. He is asking for 'contributions'. She is in a hospital with syphilis and can't help.

*Con un menino del padre,*
(tu mandil y mi avantal),
de la cámara del golpe,
pues que su llave la trae,
recibí en letra los ciento,
que recibiste, jayán,
de contado, que se vían
uno al otro al asentar.

http://www.poesia-inter.net/fq48094.htm

Lydia De Jorge KudoZ activity Questions: 705 (none open) (28 closed without grading) Answers: 8502 United States
Local time: 12:10

By a servant of the pimp

Explanation:
This, as I'm sure you know, is La Méndez's reply to Escarramán's letter to her, recounting his arrest while drunk and the hundred lashes he received. So the first lines basically mean "I received your letter".

"Con un menino del Padre [...] recibí en letra los ciento, que recibiste" means that "un menino del Padre" brought me your letter with your account of your hundred lashes.

"Menino" meant a very young page at court in the service of a child of the royal family. As John Stevens (1706) defines it:

"Menino, a very little page at court; so called, because they are meer children, kept there only for their education and for grandeur. There are bigger pages, whom they call pages."

The word is best known from Velázquez's very famous painting Las Meninas, showing the Infanta Margarita Teresa with her "meninas".

"El padre" means "padre de mancebía", i.e., pimp. It's defined in the "Vocabulario de germanía" (glossary of underworld slang) which Juan Hidalgo included in his Romances de germanía de varios autores (Madrid, 1779), in which he reproduces this very poem ("padre" could also mean a cloak, but not here):

"Padre, Padre de mancebía" (foot of p. 185)
https://books.google.es/books?id=oZoKAAAAQAAJ&dq=juan hidalg...

"Al encargado de regir una mancebía se le conocía como « Padre Putas» o «Padre de la Mancebía»"
https://educalingo.com/en/dic-es/mancebia

See Elena di Pinto, "El peso de la tradición escarramanesca: un «mínimo» soneto escarramanado", p. 66, n. 6 (you may find this article useful):

"«Con un menino del padre, | tu mandil y mi avantal | de la cámara del golpe, | pues que su llave la trae». «Menino» es, en germanía, el criado del padre de la mancebía. Esta voz está registrada en el Vocabulario de Juan Hidalgo; «mandil» es el criado de rufián o de mujer pública (en este caso es el criado de Escarramán); «avantal», «delantal, mandil». O sea, metafóricamente, de nuevo «criado de una marca», el criado de la Méndez. La Méndez hace una metáfora por la que el sinónimo –sensu stricto– de «mandil» («avantal») se convierte también en sinónimo –sensu lato–. «Cámara de golpe» es el prostíbulo."
http://repositoriodigital-la-semyr.es/index.php/rd-ls/catalo...

So she knew that the pimp's servant who brought the letter came from the brothel (cámara de golpe) because he had the key to it.

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Note added at 3 hrs (2019-06-30 04:06:22 GMT)
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I didn't say, but I'm sure it's obvious, that applying the word "menino", with its royal associations, to the servant of a pimp is a typical germanía joke usage.

Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 19:10

Grading comment

You did it again! Thank you!!!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +4

By a servant of the pimp

Charles Davis

(AmE) Conveyed by a little urchin/ (BrE) whippersnapper/ from Big Mack Daddy

Adrian MM.

Summary of reference entries provided

A courtier?

Cecilia Gowar

Discussion entries: 8

Answers

3 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

By a servant of the pimp

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 19:10
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 296

Grading comment

You did it again! Thank you!!!

Notes to answerer

Asker: It's a whole new language! Fascinating and so confusing. Thank you once more!

8 hrs confidence:

(AmE) Conveyed by a little urchin/ (BrE) whippersnapper/ from Big Mack Daddy

Explanation:
Velázquez's famous painting of Las Meninas, as Charles D. refers to, had also been my first thought. Perhaps speculatively, menino also struck me as derogatory or pejorative. I am unsure 'whippersnapper' works across the pond from the Brit. Isles.

My predicament with this question is what is the TL: AmE, BrE (ponce vs. pimp, urchin vs. little runt - reportedly changes meaning to a male organ Transatlantically) or 'offshore English'.

The other trouble with 'Big Daddy' for UK consumption is that this had been the fighting name of a legendary English wrestler who had certainly led a 'clean' private life.

Anyway, thanks to Charles for doing the spadework.

Example sentence(s):

(street) urchin: a mischievous and often poor and raggedly clothed youngster

Reference: http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whippersnapper
Reference: http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/mack-...

Adrian MM.
Austria
Native speaker of:

English

Reference comments

8 hrs

Reference: A courtier?

Reference information:
There is no doubt that "menino" here refers to a servant of the pimp, as Charles said. However, since the word "servant" is used immediately after (mandil: 5. m. germ. Criado de rufián o de prostituta.) I wonder if you should not keep it as such, since the text plays not only with words but with comparisons between the brothel and respectable counterparts (like the royal chambers).

4 Su llave la trae: el mandil, como criado, puede tener el encargo de abrir la puerta del prostíbulo: trae la llave del establecimiento. Pero hay que señalar el juego alusivo a los gentileshombres de la cámara, cuya insignia era una llave dorada, llamada capona porque era honoraria y sin ejercicio (capona: "... se dice de la llave honoraria de gentilhombre de la cámara del rey, a quienes concede este honor sin ejercicio", Aut.). Es una asimilación burlesca del mandil
a gentilhombre y de la mancebía a la cámara real.

I do not know which would be the right word for ¨menino¨, defined as:
1. m. y f. Niño de familia noble que entraba en palacio a servir a la reina o a sus hijos.
I found ¨gentleman of the bedchamber¨but it seems a mouthful. I would also use another word instead of pimp, to keep the derisive style. Manager, perhaps?
Padre is defined as ¨regente de un burdel (Léxico).¨

This is the link I found, which you might find useful. There is a glossary at the end:
file:///C:/Users/Dell/Downloads/poesia-burlesca-tomo-ii-jacaras-y-bailes--0.pdf

Cecilia Gowar
United Kingdom
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

Spanish
PRO pts in category: 227

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English translation: By a servant of the pimp

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English translation: By a servant of the pimp

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