I was born naked, and to prove that I’ve not fallen for anything nor have myself fallen, but expose the many that have, you see me here naked, which is to say poor, yet so full of virtue that others have taken it from me effortlessly. And though I’ve shared my virtue freely and impulsively, ending up without it, I wasn’t so mindless as not to demand in exchange the silver that fortune’s denied to many. This was the first lesson taught me by my mother, who’s gone to where heaven only knows. It’s a lesson I’ve embraced enthusiastically, since it’s assured my wellbeing, if not down from heaven, then up from hell.

The townswomen insisted that my saintly mother was known to be a duenna. I asked my godmother, who reassured me that my father was a real father, like those to whom my mother bared her breast as if they were her confessors, holding nothing back from them. I received proof of this when I saw a crowd of men at a burial who, while busily digging up my procreator, stared at me laughing, and said: “There goes Andrea, she’s such an innocent.” One murmured: “I made her mouth”; another: “I, her eyes, which shine bright like mine.” Each one claimed a part of me, and the nastiest rogue of all swore and said: “Well, I also contributed and I think I made her mother and the opening with which she earns her living, and damn it all, I want her to give me what’s mine, or at least, lend it to me. And it won’t be incest, since one part is just as good as another when you consider the total amount of labor all your graces have put in.”

de quien era, con que me pasé lindos ratos, aunque no sin innumerables sobresaltos, que los tenía por mi ejercicio y por mi oficio, por mi deleitable ocupación y por delincuente. Quien debe, siempre teme; en fin, deste modo procuré juntar algún dinero y según los filósofos que dicen que cada agente procura hacer su semejante, yo también con mis cuartos agenciaba otros, y en los más secretos cuartos demi casa, todo por conservar en lo aparente la honrilla, como usa el mundo, pues como haya lucimiento exterior no repara en los maleficios ocultos.