8 In this phrase Cervantes takes advantage of two meanings of arrullador: “cooing” and “wooing.” I have translated it as “suitor,” hoping that the idea of billing and cooing is implicit in the word.
9 The constellation of the Pleiades.
10 The wordplay here does not translate into English. Cabrónis both “male goat” and “cuckold”; the sign of the cuckold is horns, as in “the horns of the moon” in the next sentence.
1 A formula indicating complete agreement with another person’s opinions.
2 The cross that is placed at the beginning of the alphabet in a child’s primer.
3 The author of a book of aphorisms, Disticha Catonis, which was so popular a text in schools that primers were called “Catos.”
4 Don Quixote’s advice to Sancho is one of the most famous passages in the novel. Martín de Riquer notes the difficulty of determining Cervantes’s exact sources, although he states that the general influence of Erasmus is evident, and he also cites a handful of books on good government, both classical and Renaissance, available in Spanish at the time. Whatever the sources, Don Quixote’s remarks to the future governor are clearly the polar opposite of Machiavelli’s counsel to the prince.
5 An allusion to a fable by Phaedrus, a Latin fabulist of the first century who wrote in the style of Aesop.
6 This is based on a proverb: “I don’t want it, I don’t want it, just toss it into my hood.”
1 This is the first half of a proverb: “When your father’s the magistrate, you’re safe when you go to trial.”
1 Juan de Mena (1411–1456), probably the most historically significant courtly poet of the fifteenth century.
2 St. Paul, Corinthians 1.
3 Cervantes uses a phrase, dar pantalia, whose exact significance is not clear. It can mean either polishing or repairing shoes (Shelton translates it as “cobble,” but the contemporary French and Italian versions differ).
4 The image of the impoverished gentleman who picks his teeth so that everyone will think he has eaten appeared in the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the first picaresque novel.
5 The allusion is to a pearl that belonged to the Spanish monarchy. Since it had no equal, it was called La Sola, “the Only One.”
6 According to legend, the place on the Capitoline Hill where Nero stood as he watched Rome burn.
1 The invocation is to the sun, whose rays make it necessary to move decanters around in a bucket of snow to keep them cool.
2 These are some appellations of Apollo, god of the sun.
3 A phrase from Aristotle’s Physics, II, 2.
4 The name of the ínsula and the village, and the fact that Sancho did nothing to merit the governorship, are based on the root word barato, “cheap.”
5 In other words, he has been admitted to the tailors guild. He asks to be excused because, at the time, tailors were held in exceptionally bad repute.
6 The judge’s staff of office was used to take sworn testimony.
7 The story, in fact, dates back to the popular life of the saints called The Golden Legend (Legenda aurea) by the Italian Dominican Iacopo da Varazze (1228?–1298).
8 This story appears in Norte de los Estados, by Fr. Francisco de Osuna (Burgos, 1550).
1 A medicinal preparation for treating wounds devised in the sixteenth century by Aparicio de Zubia.
1 The physician’s medical theorizing is based on the idea of the four cardinal humors.
2 A parody of the aphorism Omnis saturatio mala, panis autem pessima (i.e., “bread” instead of “partridges”).
3 A traditional Spanish stew that includes chickpeas, ham, and chicken in addition to the usual meats and vegetables ordinarily found in a stew.
4 “By no means!” in Latin.
5 Recio can mean “vigorous,” “violent,” or “difficult”; agüerois “omen” tirteafuera is roughly equivalent to “get the hell out.”
6 “Evil omen.”
7 Basques were frequently appointed as secretaries because of their reputation for loyalty.
8 The root perl-is related to “pearl”; the term Cervantes uses for “palsied” or “paralyzed” is perlático, allowing for the wordplay in these lines.
1 There were, at the time, two Asturian provinces: Asturias de Oviedo and Asturias de Santillana.
2 People from the northern mountains were considered to be noble because, compared to other Spaniards, they had relatively few Jewish or Moorish forebears in their family backgrounds.
3 If one came across a distinguished person in the street, it was a sign of respect (though it more often indicated self-interested flattery) to leave one’s own route and accompany him.
4 Since there was no earlier indication of the lady’s rank, Martín de Riquer believes that the printer confused this noblewoman with Doña Rodríguez’s current employer.
5 An incision cut into the body to allow the discharge of harmful substances.
1 A dish of chopped meat flavored with salt, pepper, vinegar, onion, and sometimes oil and anchovies.
2 As indicated earlier, this is a traditional Spanish stew; podridaliterally means “rotten” or “putrid.”
3 The identity of Andradilla is not known. A note in Shelton’s translation identifies him as “Some famous cheater in Spain,” but, as Martín de Riquer says, this clarifies nothing.
4 A battle game played on horseback with canes instead of lances.
5 It was a commonplace, when people suffered a misfortune, to say that it helped reduce the number of sins they would have to atone for.
1 Frequently, among the lower classes, a wife was called by the feminine form of her husband’s given name.
2 Aranjuez is a royal palace famous for its fountains; fuenteis the word for both “fountain” and “issue,” which allows the wordplay.
3 This was a way of publicly insulting a woman.
4 A saying that seems to mean “A person cannot do more than give you what he has.”
5 A Castilian dry measure, approximately 4.6 liters and roughly equivalent to a peck.
6 “…says how crude, how crude,” a proverb aimed at the poor who prosper and then scorn their old friends.
7 “St. Augustine places that in doubt,” a phrase used by students in doctrinal controversies.
8 A phrase quoted in chapter XXV; it is based on John 10:38: “…though ye believe not me, believe the works.”
9 A courteous formula for inviting someone to eat with you.
1 “Be a friend to Plato, but a better friend to the truth.”
2 A dry measure roughly equivalent to 1.6 bushels in Spain.
1 The phrase is based on a proverb: “When you have a good day, put it in the house,” which is roughly equivalent to “Make hay while the sun shines.”
2 A phrase that alludes to the Final Judgment, suggesting punishment for sin; in English we would say, figuratively, that something we disapprove of is a “sin” or a “crime.”
3 A village in the present-day province of Teruel.
1 Currently a literary term for “summer” (verano); when the year was divided into three seasons, estío was the season that began at the vernal equinox and ended at the autumnal equinox.
2 Blazing pots filled with pitch and other flammable material, which were thrown at the enemy.
4 An allusion to the story of a man who sucked on an egg, and when the chick peeped in his throat, he said: “You peeped too late.”
5 Shoes worn by the nobility were often decorated with holes and cutouts.
1 The equivalent phrases in Spanish, mentir por mitad de la barbaand mentir por toda la barba (“to lie through half of one’s beard” and “to lie through one’s whole beard”), mean essentially the same thing; unfortunately, the contrast between “half” and “whole” makes little sense in English.
2 Martín de Riquer indicates that hoodlums and thieves frequently dressed as pilgrims.
3 “Money” in German.
4 A person of Muslim descent, living in
territory controlled by Christians, who had ostensibly, and often forcibly, been converted to Christianity.
5 Between 1609 and 1613, public proclamations ordered the immediate expulsion from Spain of the Moriscos, who were accused of continuing to practice Islam in secret and of having a pernicious influence on Spanish society.
6 In contemporary Spanish, the word is spelled caviar.
7 This phrase is taken from a ballad that begins: “Nero, on Tarpeian Rock, / watched as Rome went up in flames; / crying ancients, screaming infants, / and not one thing caused him sorrow.”
8 The word in Spanish is sagitario, which in underworld slang also meant a person who was whipped through the streets by the authorities. Martín de Riquer speculates that since this meaning seems out of place here, Sancho may simply be repeating a word he has heard Don Quixote use or is referring indirectly to the rigor of his governance by alluding to the archers of the Holy Brotherhood who executed criminals at Peralvillo.
1 A legendary Moorish princess whose father, Gadalfe, built gorgeous palaces for her in Toledo, on the banks of the Tajo. She later converted and became the first wife of Charlemagne. The story gave rise to an idiom: if people are not happy with their accommodations, they are often asked if they would prefer the palaces of Galiana. It was also the subject of Maynet, a French epic chanson about the youthful adventures of Charlemagne.
2 A reference to a ballad that begins, “Doña Urraca, that princess,” in which one of the lines reads: “Take up thick ropes and stout cords.”
3 Martín de Riquer believes this may be a game called “four corners;” each of four positions is occupied by one player, a fifth is in the middle, the four change places, and “it” tries to take over a corner, forcing the original occupant into the center.
1 An allusion to Law 19 of the Council of Trent prohibiting challenges and tourneys.
2 A breed of horses that are very strong, with broad hooves.
3 As indicated earlier, this meant to divide the field in such a way that the sun would not be in one combatant’s eyes more than in the other’s.
1 Vireno abandoned Olimpia in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso; Aeneas abandoned Dido in Virgil’s Aeneid.
2 Three card games in which kings, aces, and sevens, respectively, are the most valuable cards.
1 Martín de Riquer points out that there is no ironic or comic intent involved in using the honorific donwith St. George, the patron saint of the crown of Aragón: in medieval Catalonian texts, he was referred to as Monsenyer Sant Jordi.
1 Matthew 11:12.
3 A mythical animal with the body and hind legs of a lion and the head, wings, and forelegs of an eagle.
4 It was traditional to attribute superstitious beliefs to people named Mendoza.
5 The phrase in Spanish is ¡Santiago, y cierra España! The verb cerrarusually means “to close,” but Martín de Riquer points out that it could also mean “attack,” so that the battle cry, with the addition of a comma, should be “St. James, and attack, Spain!” He also remarks on the fact that Don Quixote does not answer Sancho’s very reasonable question.
6. Hagar, Abraham’s concubine and the mother of Ishmael, is considered the mother of all Arab peoples and, by extension, of Muslims.
7 Vulcan, married to Venus, threw a net over her and Mars while they were making love.
8 Originally a rural district in the Peloponnesus, Arcadia subsequently became the preferred setting in Renaissance pastoral literature.
9 Luiz Vaz de Camoes, the great Portuguese poet of the sixteenth century (1524?–1580).
10 A hunter who came upon Diana when she was bathing; she turned him into a stag, and he was then torn to pieces by his own dogs.
1 In the Don Quixoteby Avellaneda, which is the book the two travelers are discussing, Don Quixote renounces his love for Dulcinea and is then called the Disenamored Knight.
2 According to Martín de Riquer, these are the insults directed at Cervantes that are mentioned in the prologue to the authentic part II.
3 Many critics have attempted to prove that Avellaneda was Aragonese on the basis of this statement, but Martín de Riquer states that it cannot be proved. He points out that the omission of articles has never been a characteristic of the Aragonese dialect or of writers from Aragón; further, in Avellaneda’s book there are only four cases of missing articles, something that could just as easily be found in texts by Cervantes. If Cervantes uses “articles” to mean “particles” (as some contemporary grammarians did), there are more instances of this kind of omission in the “False Quixote,” but it is still not a characteristic of Aragonese writing.
4 As Martín de Riquer points out, the error is less Avellaneda’s than Cervantes’s; in part I, Sancho’s wife had four different names, one of which was Mari Gutiérrez.
5 According to Martín de Riquer, Avellaneda’s Sancho, unlike the original, is stupid, slovenly, and coarse.
6 The idiom (hecho equis) means “staggering drunk” and is based on the image of the shape an inebriated person’s legs assume when he stumbles and struggles to keep his balance.
7 A chivalric activity in which men on horseback would gallop past a ring hanging from a cord and attempt to catch it on the tip of their lance.
8 The verses and epigrams, normally alluding to their ladies, on the shields carried by knights in jousts.
9 Martín de Riquer indicates that this objection is not justified, since Avellaneda’s descriptions of the liveries worn at the Zaragozan jousts are adequate.
1 This parodies a celebrated statement attributed to Duguesclin (also known as Beltrán del Claquín), a French knight of the fourteenth century who came to Spain with an army of mercenaries to assist Enrique de Trastámara in his war with Pedro el Cruel: “I depose no king, I impose no king, but I shall help my lord.”
2 These are lines from one of the ballads about the Infantes of Lara.
1. Published in their complete version in 1508, these are the first in the long series of novels of chivalry devoted to the exploits of Amadís, a prototypical knight, and his descendants.
2. The Catalan novel Tirant lo Blanc was published in 1490; Cervantes probably knew only the translation into Castilian, which was not published until 1511.
3. This is the fifth book of the Amadís series and was published in 1521.
4. Published by Feliciano de Silva in 1535, it is the ninth book of the Amadís series.
5. Published by Antonio de Torquemada in 1564. In 1600, his Jardín de flores (Garden of Flowers) was translated into English as The Spanish Mandeville.
6. Published by Lenchor Ortega de Ubeda in 1556.
7. Published anonymously in 1533, this is the fourth book of the series about Palmerín, another fictional knight.
8. Published anonymously, it has two parts, which appeared in 1521 and 1526, respectively.
9. An unfaithful prose translation of Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato (Roland in Love), it was published in three parts in 1533, 1536, and 1550, respectively. The first two are attributed to López de Santa Catalina and the third to Pedro de Reynosa.
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