Help with Sor Juana Poem: ...al niño que pone el coco?

Question

In the fourth stanza of her redondilla, "Hombres necios que acusais" what does Sor Juana mean when she says:
Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.

I'm getting:
The perserverence of your mad semblance seems to want to appear as like the child that "turns on the coconut" (obviouslly wrong) and then is afraid of it.

Please help! Thank you.

Answer 1

OK so this it's what she is trying to say:

el coco: the boogey man.
this is a very coloquial way of speaking.

To appear wants the brave
of thou mad reason, (what this whole part means that there is actual fear, and also desire to hide it)
to the kid that invents (creates) the boogey man
and then fears it.

It will make a bit more sense if you read the last two lines first.

Answer 2

El coco in this sense means "bogeyman." El coco is an imaginary hairy monster in Spanish mythology that eats misbehaving children. He is much like the Anglo-American bogeyman and the Irish puca. Most cultures in the world have something similar to it.

You can find several English translations of this poem paralleling Sor Juana's Spansih original on the internet.
However, they all give just one translation of it which is a free translation:

al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.

You're the child that makes the bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries

A more literal translation is:

"to the child that makes (acts like) the bogeyman
and then is afraid"

It is obviously a putdown of male valor and swashbuckling bravado. After all, Sor Juana apparently was a lesbian woman and an early feminist according to all contemporary accounts of her. .

See also:

http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/~n_maher/Sor%20Juana's%20Poetry.htm


http://www.poems-and-poetry.com/sor-juana-ines-de-la-cruz/you-men-poem.html

Answer 3

Parecer Translation

Answer 4

denuedo means bravery.. vuestro parecer loco means "your apparent craziness"... and the last line means the kid is scared of the coconut... everything put together doesnt make sense though.. it must be an idiom exclusive to spanish or something only spanish speakers would understand