1 As Martín de Riquer points out, Leonela says “us” because she was complicit in their affair.
2 The four Ss that a lover needed to be were sabio (“wise”), solo (“alone”), solícito (“solicitous”), and secreto (“secretive”). This conceit was popular during the Renaissance, as were the ABCs of love cited by many authors. The W is omitted from Leonela’s ABC because it is not part of the Spanish alphabet.
1 The phrase in Spanish, ciertos son los toros, is equivalent to “the bulls are certain”—that is, “there’s no doubt about the outcome.”
2 A cuartillo is one-fourth of a real.
3 A cuarto, a coin of very little value, was worth four maravedís.
4 This appears to refer to the battle of Cerignola, in 1503, when the defeat of the French made the kingdom of Naples a Spanish province.
1 In what seems to be another oversight on the part of Cervantes or his printer, the first part of this epigraph actually belongs to the previous chapter.
2 These were worn to protect travelers from the sun and dust.
3 It was believed that nobility was inherited exclusively from the father.
4 Another apparent oversight: it was indicated earlier in the chapter that the two men had already seen each other.
1 An extremely variable liquid measure, ranging from 2.6 to 3.6 gallons (it is also a dry measure equivalent to twenty-five pounds).
2 Martín de Riquer indicates that Dorotea uses this term mockingly.
3 It seems likely that the earlier description of the character as a “Christian recently arrived from Moorish lands” means that he could only be a former prisoner, although the story of his captivity—another interpolated novel—does not begin until chapter XXXIX.
4 The word means Señora, or “Lady.”
5 The debate between arms and letters (that is, the life of a soldier compared to the life of a cleric or scholar), a frequent literary topic in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, was at least as popular as the theme of the Golden Age, the subject of Don Quixote’s discourse when he shared a meal with the goatherds.
6 A phrase that means going to convents and monasteries for the soup that is distributed to the poor.
1 This is the second of the “interpolated novels.” Cervantes himself had been a captive for some five years, and many of the elements in the story may be autobiographical, but it should also be noted, as Martín de Riquer points out, that it was a fairly common practice to insert a romantic tale with Moorish themes into works that otherwise seemed to have little to do with either romance or the Moors.
2 An amount worth approximately thirty-three thousand reales.
3 A fortified town on the Tenaro River, near Milan.
4 The duke of Alba reached Brussels on August 22, 1567.
5 Belgian noblemen who fought against the French in the Spanish army and were executed by the duke of Alba on June 5, 1568, for rebelling against the Inquisition.
6 Cervantes fought under this captain at the battle of Lepanto, in 1571.
7 Cervantes, who was not an officer, apparently joined the fleet in Messina on September 2, 1571; it set sail on September 16, and the battle of Lepanto, the definitive defeat of the Turks by the Christian alliance, took place on October 7.
8 The naval crown, made of gold, was awarded to the first man to board an enemy ship.
9 Uchalí, or Uluch Ali, the viceroy of Algiers in 1570, did in fact take part in the actions described by Cervantes. He commanded the Ottoman fleet from 1571 to 1587 and defeated the flagship of the Order of Malta during the battle of Lepanto.
10 Giovanni Andrea Doria, a Genoese, commanded the Spanish galleys.
11 An insignia that indicated the flagship of an admiral.
12 Muley Hamet, or Muley Mohammad, took possession of Tunis in October of 1573; the following year, he was captured by the Turks. His brother, Muley Hamida, or Ahmad-Sultán, attempted to join the attack on Tunis in 1573 by Don Juan of Austria, and died in Palermo in 1575.
13 The fortress that protected Tunis.
14 A span (palmo) is approximately 8 inches; a vara, about 2.8 feet.
1 Nicknamed El Fratín (“the Little Friar”), Jacome Paleazzo fortified a number of garrisons for the Spanish monarchy.
2 The historical Uchalí died suddenly on June 21, 1587, in Constantinople.
3 The four Ottoman family names are Muhammat, Mustafa, Murad, and Ali.
4 Hasán Bajá, king of Algiers between 1577 and 1578, was born in Venice in 1545; he was captured by the Turks, renounced Christianity, and led the Turkish landings at Cadaqués and Alicante; Cervantes met him during his own captivity.
5 The allusion is to Cervantes himself; his complete surname was Cervantes Saavedra.
6 A historical figure, Agi Morato, or Hajji Murad, the son of Slavic parents, renounced Christianity and became an important personage in Algiers.
7 La Pata is al-Batha, a fortress-city.
8 According to Martín de Riquer, the daughter of Agi Morato (see note 6) was in fact named Zahara; in 1574 she married Abd al-Malik, who was proclaimed sultan of Morocco in 1576 and died in the battle of Alcazarquivir, against the Portuguese, in 1578. She was remarried, to Hasán Bajá, and after 1580 lived in Constantinople. In other words, some characters in this story of the captive are historical, although the action is fictional.
9 Bab Azún, the Gate of Azún, is one of the gates to Algiers.
10 This was the name for perfectly bilingual Moors, usually converts to Christianity, who had lived among Christians; they often came from the ancient kingdom of Aragón, which included present-day Aragón, Cataluña, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands.
1 This was the name of the pirate who captured Cervantes.
2 A gold coin worth approximately six silver reales.
3 A coin worth approximately seventeen reales.
4 In this context, the word means a Moor who knew a Romance language.
5 This is an allusion to the legend of Don Rodrigo, the last Visigothic ruler of Spain, whose illicit love for Florinda, the daughter of Count Julián, caused her father to seek his revenge by betraying Spain to the Moors at the battle of Guadalete, in 711.
1 Martín de Riquer indicates that this lyric (and other poems inserted in the text) was composed by Cervantes years before he wrote Don Quixote and set to music in 1591 by Salvador Luis, a singer in the chapel choir of Philip II.
2 These were common coverings for windows before glass was in general use.
3 The reference is to Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus.
1 According to Martín de Riquer, Sancho invents the word both as a sarcastic comment on Don Quixote’s misperception and in order not to contradict Don Quixote openly.
1 Certificates were issued by the trade guilds to indicate a member’s skill.
2 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was not unusual for innkeepers to belong to the Holy Brotherhood; the staff was a symbol of authority derived from the king.
3 The dispute, which became proverbial, was described by Ariosto in Orlando furioso.
4 Traditionally, the disputed items in Agramante’s camp were a sword, a horse, and a shield emblazoned with an eagle; the helmet is an invention of Don Quixote’s.
1 In the first edition, this is the first indication that Sancho has recovered his donkey.
2 The phrase is based on the one used when the excommunicated return to the Church. The Latin that follows is equivalent to “as it was in the beginning.”
3 The allusion is to Apollo pursuing Daphne, as well as to the sun crossing the sky and passing various constellations.
4 The name is based on the verb mentir, “to lie.”
1 It was a mark of great dishonor for a knight to ride in so humble a vehicle; in medieval tales, for example, Lancelot incurred great shame by riding in an oxcart.
2 “Catholic” is used by Sancho metaphorically to mean “trustworthy” or “legitimate,” much as we would use “
kosher” today; Don Quixote responds to the literal meaning of the word.
3 This is the title of one of the novellas in Cervantes’s collection, Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels), which was published in 1613, eight years after the first part of Don Quixote.
4 A treatise on logic, written by Gaspar Cardillo de Villalpando and used as a text at the University of Alcalá.
5 A kind of sensual, supposedly decadent writing associated with the ancient Ionian city of Miletus.
6 Sinon persuaded the Trojans to admit the wooden horse, filled with Greek soldiers, into their city, thereby causing the defeat of Troy. According to some accounts, he was a Greek who allowed himself to be taken prisoner by the Trojans; according to others, he was a Trojan in the service of the Greeks.
7 Euryalus was well-known for his friendship with Nisus. They accompanied Aeneas to Italy following the Trojan War and were killed in battle.
8 Zopyrus proved his loyalty to Darius during a revolt by the Babylonians: he mutilated himself severely, then went over to the Babylonian side, claiming to be a victim of Persian cruelty; he gained their confidence, was made leader of their armies, and eventually betrayed Babylon to Darius.
1 “The tailor who wasn’t paid” is the first part of a proverb (the second part usually is not cited) that roughly translates as “The tailor wasn’t paid, and had to supply his own braid,” meaning that one can lose twice: by not being paid a fee for a service and by not being reimbursed for the expenses incurred in performing the service.
2 The reference is to Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, who tended to write in the classical style of the early Renaissance (clearly favored by Cervantes) in contrast to the more effusive complexities of the Baroque that were popular in the theater of the time.
3 La ingratitud vengada, by Lope de Vega.
4 Numancia, by Miguel de Cervantes.
5 El mercader amante, by Gaspar de Aguilar.
6 La enemiga favorable, by Francisco Agustín Tárrega.
7 At the time Cervantes wrote this, the classical rules of drama were not followed anywhere in Europe, at least not in Italy, France, or England. Martín de Riquer wonders if Cervantes might actually have been thinking of prescriptive treatises that were widely published but adhered to by no playwright of significance.
8 The description is of Lope de Vega, who wrote hundreds of comedias; the exact number is not known, but a legendary two thousand plays have been attributed to him (not to mention numerous works in other genres). He and Cervantes, his senior by some fifteen years, had a highly competitive relationship. Lope apparently took great offense at this passage.
1 Viriato led a Lusitanian (Portuguese) rebellion against the Romans.
2 Count Fernán González declared the independence of Castilla from the Moors in the tenth century.
3 Gonzalo Fernández was the Great Captain, so called for his military exploits during the reign of the Catholic Sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella.
4 Diego García de Paredes was a military hero who fought with Gonzalo Fernández.
5 Pérez de Vargas, a historical figure mentioned in chapter VIII, broke his sword in battle, then tore a branch from an oak tree and used it to kill countless Moors.
6 Garcilaso de la Vega, not to be confused with the Renaissance poet of the same name, fought in the war to capture Granada from the Moors.
7 Don Manuel de León entered a lion’s cage to recover a glove that a lady had thrown inside in order to test his courage. When he returned the glove, he slapped her for endangering the life of a knight on a whim.
8 The two anecdotes appear in a history of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers ( La historia del emperador Carlomagno y los doce pares de Francia) published in Alcalá in 1589.
9 A book entitled Crónica del nobre caballero Guarino Mesquino was cited by Juan de Valdés, an important humanist of the early sixteenth century, as being very poorly written and even more absurd than other novels of chivalry.
10 A figure associated with the Lancelot story who passed into popular ballads and became part of the folk tradition in Spain.
11 The Provençal story of Pierres de Provence and the beautiful Magalona was extremely popular in the sixteenth century; its Spanish translation was published in 1519.
12 These lines were cited previously, in chapter IX.
13 A Castilian knight of Portuguese descent who served under Juan II.
14 The deeds of these two knights, who were cousins, are narrated in chapter 25 of the Crónica de Juan II (The Chronicle of Juan II).
15 Don Fernando de Guevara was also cited in the Crónica de Juan II.
16 In 1434, with the permission of Juan II, Suero Quiñones, for the love of his lady, jousted with sixty-eight challenging knights at what is called the Honorable Pass.
29. Another fictional hero of chivalric literature.
30. The name may be an invention of Cervantes’s or a misprint for Solimán, the emperor of Trebizond.
1. Cervantes describes typical aspects of the ordinary life of the rural gentry. The indications of reduced circumstances include the foods eaten by Don Quixote: beef, for example, was less expensive than lamb.
2. The author of several novels of chivalry; the phrases cited by Cervantes are typical of the language in these books that drove Don Quixote mad.
3. The allusion is ironic: Sigüenza was a minor university, and its graduates had the reputation of being not very well educated.
4. A historical figure (eleventh century) who has passed into legend and literature.
5. A legendary hero, the subject of ballads as well as poems and plays.
6. The site in the Pyrenees, called Roncesvaux in French, where Charlemagne’s army fought the Saracens in 778.
7. A hero of the French chansons de geste; in some Spanish versions, he takes part in the battle of Roncesvalles.
8. The traitor responsible for the defeat of Charlemagne’s army at Roncesvalles.
17 An encounter that was also cited in the Crónica de Juan II.
18 Turpin is the fictitious author of a chronicle about Charlemagne.
1 This detail seems comically incongruous, yet picking one’s teeth after a meal was so common during the Renaissance that it was employed as a kind of trope for the necessary deceptions of genteel poverty, for example in Lazarillo de Tormes, when the hungry gentleman walks down the street wielding a toothpick to indicate that he has eaten.
1 In the first edition, the character is called Rosa twice and Roca once; subsequent editions, including many modern ones, call him Roca; in the first English, French, and Italian translations, which are cited by Martín de Riquer, Shelton calls him “Vincente of the Rose,” Oudin calls him “Vincent de la Roque,” and Franciosini calls him “Vincenzio della Rosa.”
2 The identities of these two men are not known; according to Martín de Riquer, it is possible that the manuscript read “Garci Lasso,” who was cited earlier, in chapter XLIX, with García de Paredes.
3 In Spanish, as in many other languages, varying degrees of deference, distance, familiarity, intimacy, and significant class distinctions can be shown by the form of address, either second or third person, singular or plural.
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