Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [reading well .txt] 📗

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Proverb 242. ↩

Shelton in a characteristic note apologises for this ballad and that in answer to it in Chapter XLVI by saying that “the verses are made to bee scurvy on purpose by the authour, so he observes neyther verse nor rime.” They are, of course, burlesque ballads, and the rhyme is the assonant which I have endeavoured to imitate. ↩

One of the pearls of the Spanish crown was called La Sola, being unmatched for size. ↩

Hartzenbusch thinks that this outburst is a caricature of a passage in some poem of the day, and that such imitations are not uncommon in Don Quixote. If so, we cannot wonder at it that Cervantes was not beloved by the high-flying poets of the period. ↩

Barato now means cheap, but in old Spanish it was also a substantive meaning a trick or a practical joke. According to Pellicer the “island” was Alcalá del Ebro, a village near Pedrola, on a peninsula formed by a bend of the Ebro. The critics have been much exercised by the identification of Barataria, which has always been with the Cervantistas a favourite hunting ground for political allusions. ↩

The title of Don, like that of Esquire in this country, was beginning to be assumed by persons who had no claim to it. Cervantes evidently had a strong opinion on the subject. ↩

In the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine there is a story resembling this of the two old men. ↩

Cervantes got this story from a very devout work, the Norte de los Estados of Francisco de Osuna, Burgos, 1550. ↩

In the original editions the case of the caps is placed first, but this shows that it should come last. ↩

In the original editions five or six lines are inserted here stating that the duchess despatched a page with Sancho’s letter to his wife; but they are repeated with some trifling changes in Chapter L, which is obviously their proper place, while they come in very awkwardly here. ↩

See this note. ↩

The reja or grating of a Spanish window usually bulges out somewhat at the lower part so as to form a sort of seat for the occupant of the chamber. The cats descending on the projecting part were thus enabled to make their way into the room. ↩

This sentence is very awkwardly constructed in the original; I have partly followed Hartzenbusch’s rearrangement of it. ↩

Peliagudo, furry, means also dangerous, in popular parlance. ↩

Olla podrida (properly rotten), a more savoury olla than the ordinary pot-au-feu, containing pigs’ feet, sausages, and a variety of other ingredients. ↩

Agüero means omen or augury; Tirteafuera (literally “take thyself off”) is a village of La Mancha situated just as the doctor describes. (V. map.) ↩

Proverb 157. ↩

Biscayans mustered strong in the royal service in the reigns of Charles V and Philip II. ↩

Proverb 75. ↩

Proverb 232. ↩

Perlesia, paralysis. ↩

This is Professor Juan Calderón’s explanation; but the passage is rather obscure. ↩

The distinction was necessary, as what is now the province of Santander was then called the Asturias of Santander. ↩

That is from the “Montaña,” the mountain region to the north of Castile and León which was the stronghold of the Spaniards in the earlier days of the great national struggle. Lope and Quevedo, who were also of the mountain stock, use much the same language. ↩

The Guadalajara gate was then very much what the Puerta del Sol is to modern Madrid. ↩

Proverb 161. ↩

Issues were, in fact, very much relied upon as preservatives of health in Spain, just as periodical bloodletting was in England somewhat later. ↩

Proverb 88. ↩

Proverb 51. ↩

Proverb 248. ↩

Proverb 35. A rather obscure proverb. Cantillana is a village to the northeast of Seville. One explanation is that it refers to the doings of one of Jofre Tenorio’s captains in suppressing the disturbances in the reign of Alfonso XI. ↩

Proverb 139. ↩

Cervantes forgets he had given Sancho his supper already. ↩

Played by men on horseback with reed javelins and light bucklers. ↩

Proverbs 148, 150, and 239. ↩

Issues are called fuentes, “fountains,” and the fountains of Aranjuez are as famous in Spain as those of Versailles in France. ↩

See this note. ↩

Argamasilla is almost the only village in La Mancha where such a sight could be seen; an arm of the Guadiana flows past it. ↩

A line from the old ballad, “A Calatrava la Vieja.” Docking the skirts was a punishment for misconduct in old times. ↩

Proverb 66. ↩

A graphic description of the dish as dressed in Spain, where the bacon and eggs are fried together. ↩

Proverb 31. ↩

Proverb 236. ↩

Proverb 184. ↩

Proverb 241. ↩

Proverb 224. ↩

This puzzle is very like one in Aulus Gellius, quoted also in Pedro Mexía’s Silva de Varia Leccion