Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

mounted”⁠—ir caballero⁠—implies also “to go like a gentleman.” ↩

This is another example of the loose construction and confusion into which Cervantes fell at times. Of course he meant to say that Rocinante would not have been behind them in complaining. ↩

The entrance of a Spanish venta or posada is almost always a wide gateway through which both man and beast enter to their respective quarters. The high road⁠—camino real⁠—was the Madrid and Seville road, and on it, or some little distance one side or the other of it, all the adventures of the First Part are supposed to take place. From its distance from the Sierra Morena this venta would be somewhere near Valdepeñas, in the great wine-growing district. The scene of the release of the galley slaves in Chapter XXII would be near Almuradiel. ↩

Proverb 6. ↩

Estrellado seems to have puzzled most of the translators. Shelton omits it, and Jervas renders it “illustrious.” ↩

The carrier business, Pellicer points out, was extensively followed by the Moriscoes, as it afforded them an excuse for absenting themselves from Mass. ↩

Crónica de Tablante de Ricamonte, a romance of uncertain date and origin, based upon the Arthurian legend. The Conde Tomillas was a personage at the Court of Charlemagne mentioned in the Montesinos ballads, but no book of his deeds is known. ↩

We were told just before that Sancho was unable to sleep. ↩

The words quoted are the beginning of one of the Cid ballads, “Por el val de las estacas.” ↩

Nevertheless Orlando in the Morgante Maggiore is called upon to leave his horse in pledge for his reckoning. Morg. Magg. Chapter XXI st. 129. ↩

Cornado, a coin of infinitesimal value, about one-sixth of a maravedi. ↩

The “Fair” was a low quarter in Seville. ↩

“The roome was high-roofed and fitted for their purpose.⁠ ⁠… They began to blanket me and to toss me up in the air as they used to doe to dogges at Shrovetide.” —⁠Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache, Part I Book III Chapter I (James Mabbe’s translation). As the First Part of Guzman was published in 1599, it may have suggested the scene to Cervantes. ↩

Proverbial expression (47)⁠—“Andar de Ceca en Meca y de zoca en colodra”⁠—somewhat like our phrase, “from post to pillar.” The Ceca (properly a mint or a shrine) was the name given to part of the Great Mosque of Cordova, once second to Mecca only as a resort of pilgrims. Zoca properly means a wooden shoe, but here a vessel hollowed out of wood. ↩

Amadís of Greece, not Amadís of Gaul. ↩

The word in the original is cuajada⁠—“curdled”⁠—which Clemencín objects to as obscure, and would replace by causada⁠—“caused.” ↩

Suero de Quiñones, the hero of the “Paso Honroso” at the bridge of Orbigo in 1434, used to fight against the Moors with his right arm bare. ↩

Rastrear means properly to track by following the footprints, and hence to keep close to the ground; the motto, therefore, is probably meant to have a double signification, either “in Fortune’s footsteps” or “my fortune creeps on the ground,” in allusion to the asparagus, which is a low-growing plant. ↩

From Tartessus, a city of Betica, supposed to have been situated somewhere in the neighborhood of Tarifa. ↩

In part of its course through La Mancha the Guadiana flows underground. ↩

See Chapter VII. ↩

Dr. Andreas Laguna, who translated Dioscorides into Spanish with copious notes in 1570. ↩

Proverb 125. ↩

Camino real⁠—one of the main roads connecting the provinces or chief cities with the capital. ↩

Maskers wearing shirts (camisas) over their clothes, who marched in procession carrying torches on festival nights. As there is no English translation of the word, it is better to give the Spanish instead of some roundabout descriptive phrase. ↩

A quibble on the words derecho and tuerto which mean “straight” and “crooked,” as well as “right” and “wrong.” ↩

The original has “for such I always believed,” etc., which is an obvious slip, either of the pen or of the press. It can not be that Cervantes intended a side blow at ecclesiastics, for he expressly disclaims any such intention, and the “you” clearly refers to these particular processionists alone. ↩

It has been frequently objected that figura does not mean the face or countenance, but the whole figure; but no matter what dictionaries may say, it is plain from what follows that Sancho applies the word here to his master’s face, made haggard by short commons and loss of teeth, and uses it as synonymous with cara; and that Don Quixote himself never could have contemplated painting a full-length on his shield, but merely a face. As a matter of fact, however, the dictionaries do not support the objection. The two best, that of the Academy and of Vicente Salvá, explain figura as the “external form of a body,” and add that it is commonly used for the face alone, por solo el rostro. ↩

Referring to the apochryphal legend which forms the subject of the ballad, “A concilio dentro en Roma.” Among Lockhart’s ballads there is a lively version