Heroic epic and saga : an introduction to the world's great folk epics

fourth and sixth tratados. Sieber's analysis of the short fourth tratado is based on the symbolic meaning which he attaches to the new shoes with which the fraile provides Lazarillo. These are shown to be symbolic of Lazarillo's sexual initiation, and the fraile's "trotecillas" are linked to Trotaconventos and her activities as a procuress. Those who interpret Lazarillo's story as an incomplete, fragmented narrative may question this aspect of Sieber's study, although the homosexual interpretation of "otras cosillas que no digo" has already been expounded by such an eminent critic as Marcel Bataillon. Sieber's interpretation of the sixth tratado is based on the reasoning that if clothes make the man, then a parody of clothes makes the parody of the man! However, Lazarillo does not call himself an hombre de bien as a result of the "habito" that he is able to buy, as Sieber suggests (p. 74), but rather he states that he is dressed like one: "Desque me vi en habito de hombre de bien" (my emphasis). Lazarillo realizes, then, that he is not really an hombre de bien although he would like to be considered one.