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1 As Martín de Riquer points out, Leonela says “us” because she was complicit in their affair.

2 Martín de Riquer indicates that Dorotea uses this term mockingly.

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.

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.

4 In this context, the word means a Moor who knew a Romance language.

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.”

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.

3 Gonzalo Fernández was the Great Captain, so called for his military exploits during the reign of the Catholic Sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella.

1 Penitents in Spain, for example those still seen today in Holy Week processions, and those brought before the tribunals of the Inquisition, wore sheets and hoods that bear an unfortunate resemblance to the outfits of the Ku Klux Klan.

4 The Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Cervantes’s protector.

2 The ordinary clothing of the clergy and of scholars; the term is used here mockingly, as if it were the habit of one of the great military orders, such as the order of Santiago (St. James).

6 The housekeeper, mentioned a few sentences down, clearly comes in now, too, but because of an oversight or an error, by Cervantes or his printer, she is not alluded to here.

4 It was the custom in universities to write on the walls, in red paint, the names of those who had been awarded professorships.

6 Cranes were supposed to post sentinels at night, when the rest of the flock was sleeping, and during the day, when they were feeding. All of these concepts regarding animals were fairly commonplace.

4 Augustus exiled Ovid to these islands in the Black Sea.

3 A village near Madrid.

2 The reference is to the expert swordsman whom they met on the road at the beginning of chapter XIX and who obviously accompanied them throughout the episode of Camacho’s wedding.

12 A monastery near Naples that is visible from the sea and invoked by mariners.

10 The episode was mentioned in chapter V of the first part.

2 The characters and story are taken from Spanish ballads. Gaiferos, Charlemagne’s nephew, was about to marry Charlemagne’s daughter Melisendra, when she was captured by Moors. For some reason Gaiferos spends seven years in Paris, not thinking of her, until Charlemagne persuades him to free her. Roland lends him weapons and a horse, Gaiferos reaches Sansueña, where Melisendra is being held by King Almanzor, and sees her at a window. He rescues her and they flee, pursued so closely by the Moors that Gaiferos has to dismount and do battle with them; he is victorious, and he and Melisendra return to Paris in triumph.

4 This was a nickname given to the Andalusian town of Espartinas because, as the story goes, a clock was needed for the church tower, and the priest sent away to Sevilla for a “nice little pregnant female clock” (relojais the nonexistent feminine form of reloj, or “clock”) so that the baby clocks could subsequently be sold. The same story was also told about other towns.

2 An adage that means “Life is full of surprises.”

2 This is an allusion to death.

3 The original proverb is “Straw and hay and hunger’s away” (De paja y de heno, el vientre lleno).

5 A wizard,