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2 Blazing pots filled with pitch and other flammable material, which were thrown at the enemy.

3 This indicates that what has just been said is either impossible or untrue.

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.

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.

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