Laberinto de Fortuna

Though the title implies an examination of Fortune, the work is essentially a propagandistic piece in favor of Castilian political unity behind Álvaro de Luna, the court favorite of King Juan II of Castilla.

The Labyrinth was much read during the 15th and 16th centuries, although its linguistic and structural complexity led to the publication of a "glossed" version (in which explanatory notes follow each stanza) in 1499.

There he sees not one Wheel of Fortune, but three, representing the past, present and future; each is composed of a series of Dante-like circles ruled by different planets.

In the seventh circle, he encounters only one figure – Álvaro de Luna, who is seen as a horseman dominating Fortune, a wild horse.

The poem is written in "castellano" (Castilian), thus the language is basically an antiquated version of the Spanish spoken throughout the Hispanic world today.

As medieval Spanish scholar Alan Deyermond states, "the precise meaning of some lines has baffled editors from the late-fifteenth-century…to the present".

Upon close analysis, we see that he does not follow the structural blueprint of wheels and circles that he outlines at the beginning of the work (Deyermond).

Political prudence led Mena to fill his wheel of the present with figures from the recent past, thus avoiding a backlash from offended power-brokers.

Undoubtedly the greatest inconsistency is that the Wheels turn out not to symbolize the blindness of Fortune at all; instead they represent the reward for virtuous action and the punishment for vice.

Scholars generally agree that the "labyrinth" is a reference to the political situation of Castile at the time (full of intrigue, difficult to navigate), but the work itself is silent on this point.

Considering the fundamental structural problems and the troublesome lexicon, we might wonder why this poem was so respected in its time and continues to be studied today.

Mena's difficult poem aims to flatter its very specific audience, thus winning over the king, convincing him to continue support for Álvaro de Luna.

Mena presented the poem to the king in 1444 at a time of crisis, when Juan II was being held under house arrest by his rival cousins of Aragón and Navarra.

Perhaps in part inspired by the poem, the king once again backed Luna, and this favorite reached his peak of power after the First Battle of Olmedo in 1445.