“Quien quisiere ser sabio hordene su coraçon segund el tiempo”. Séneca in the medieval sentencias literature

Abstract

The presence of Seneca is especially functional for the composition of sapiential compilations of proverbs in the Castilian Middle Ages: Flores de filosofía, Vida y costumbres de los viejos filósofos, and Floresta de philosophos. In some of these moral proverbs attributed to the Latin philosopher, various representations of time can be found (assimilated to the notion of time or age). The analysis covers Flores de filosofía (a 13th- century compilation that associates the concepts of time and reign) and, afterwards, Vida y costumbres de los viejos filósofos (a collection of biographies that intends to create a history of intellectuality). Finally, the article exposes the representation of time in the Senecan proverbs of Floresta, a work based on nobiliary ideology, according to the emerging humanist paradigms, which also continues the medieval sapiential tradition.