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1. The Horn is the constellation of Ursa Minor; Sancho refers to a method of telling the time by the stars in which the person would extend his arms in the shape of a cross and calculate the hour by determining the position of the Horn in relationship to his arms.

2. Sancho is alluding to Cato the Censor, or Cato Censorino, who was popularly considered to be a source of proverbs and sayings; in the process, he mispronounces his title, calling him zonzorino, which suggests “simpleminded.”

4. For the next few sentences, Don Quixote uses a more formal mode of address with Sancho (a change that cannot be rendered in modern English) to indicate extreme displeasure and his desire for distance between them.

5. Latin for “in the Turkish manner.”

6. This is the second half of a proverb: “It doesn’t matter if the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher: it will be bad for the pitcher.”

1. An enchanted helmet worn by Reinaldos de Montalbán.

2. Sancho is citing part of a proverb—“May it please God that this is oregano and not caraway”—which warns against fool’s gold (oregano was considered more valuable than caraway).

3. Castor, a strong-smelling secretion of the beaver’s sexual glands, was used in making perfume.

4. Vulcan made armor for Mars, but not a helmet.

5. Sancho means “Mambrino.”

6. An idiom, used earlier, that means to flee an unexpected danger.

8. It should be noted that Don Quixote’s tale is a perfect plot summary of a novel of chivalry.

9. Under certain circumstances, it was a privilege of the gentry to collect five hundred sueldos as recompense for damages or injuries.

1. The speech of the galley slaves is peppered with underworld slang. Here, for example, the convict says that his sentence was a hundred lashes plus a term of three years in the galleys.

2. The allusion is to the public flogging and humiliation of convicted criminals.

3. There is a certain intentional confusion or ambiguity regarding “go-between” in the ensuing dialogue, where it alternately implies “matchmaker” and “procurer.”

4. A kind of metal collar placed under the chin, which prevented a prisoner from lowering his head.

5. Cervantes is alluding to the picaresque novel in Ginés’s discussion of his book, just as he suggests the pastoral in the story of Marcela. These genres, along with novels of chivalry, were the most popular forms of prose fiction in Spain during the sixteenth century.

6. A traditional expression that means, “Don’t go looking for trouble.”

1. Martín de Riquer faithfully follows the first edition of Don Quixote, published in 1605; the second edition, printed a few months later by Juan de la Cuesta, the same printer, introduces a brief passage here, indicating that Ginés de Pasamonte, who is also in the mountains, steals Sancho’s donkey. The thorny and ambiguous question of why Cervantes does not mention the theft of the donkey in the first edition (usually attributed to an author’s oversight or a printer’s error) is alluded to in the second part of Don Quixote, published in 1615.

2. By the third edition of Don Quixote, printed by Juan de la Cuesta, the references to Sancho’s donkey in the Sierra Morena had been deleted; here, for example, the revised text says that Sancho was on foot and carrying the donkey’s load, “thanks to Ginesillo de Pasamonte.”

1. A lost play by Shakespeare, The History of Cardenio, was apparently based on Cardenio’s tale. An English translation of the first part of Don Quixote appeared only a few years after its initial publication in 1605.

2. A promise of marriage was considered a legally binding contract.

3. This is the eleventh of the books about Amadís and his descendants.

4. Queen Madásima, a character in the Amadís of Gaul, did not have a romantic relationship with the surgeon Elisabat.

1. The knight’s penance is a favorite topic in the books of chivalry. Beltenebros