Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [564]
13 It is Martín de Riquer’s opinion that the reference is to the commemoration of John the Baptist’s beheading (August 29), not to the celebration of his birth (June 24).
14 The Niarros (Nyerros in Catalan) and the Cadells were the factions in whose wars the historic Roque had been involved.
1 More accurately, the viceroy of Cataluña.
2 A prickly evergreen shrub native to European wastelands.
1 Manjar blanco: a dish made of chicken breasts, rice flour, milk, and sugar.
2 In Avellaneda’s book, Sancho is said to be extremely fond of rissoles.
3 Martín de Riquer is certain the reference is to Michael Scot (d. ca. 1232), who studied at Oxford, Bologna, Paris, and eventually Toledo, where he learned Arabic, the language from which he translated (or supervised the translation of) many of Aristotle’s writings into Latin. Escotillois the diminutive of Escoto, his name in Spanish. For a variety of reasons, including his interests in astrology, alchemy, and the occult sciences, he was widely known as a magician and soothsayer.
4 “Flee, enemies,” a formula used in exorcisms.
5 According to Martín de Riquer, Cervantes is describing the printing house of Sebastián de Cormellas, on Calle del Call, which brought out a good number of the classic works of the Spanish Golden Age.
7 Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa’s translation of II pastor Fido, by Battista Guarini, was published in Naples in 1602; Juan de Jáuregui’s translation of Torquato Tasso’s L’Aminta was published in Rome in 1607.
8 Luz del alma… (Valladolid, 1554), by the Dominican friar Felipe de Meneses, was heavily influenced by Erasmus. For a time it was widely read and had several printings, though none in Barcelona, as far as anyone knows.
9 Avellaneda called himself “a native of the town of Tordesillas.” Apparently there was no Barcelona edition of the “false Quixote” in the seventeenth century; the second printing appeared in Madrid in 1732.
10 The phrase in Spanish is …su San Martín se le llegará, como a cada puerco. “Having your St. Martin’s Day come” is roughly equivalent to “paying the piper” in English, since St. Martin’s Day also refers to the time when animals were slaughtered.
11 An officer in command of four galleys.
1 This meant that they were prepared to row.
2 One of the oarsmen who sat with his back to the stern.
3 The castle of Montjuich, which overlooks Barcelona.
4 Félix (feliz in contemporary Spanish) means “happy” or “fortunate.”
1 He was in charge of the expulsion of the Moriscos from Castilla.
2 Felipe III (1578–1621) became king in 1598 and ruled until his death.
1 These lines by Ariosto are also cited in chapter XIII of the first part.
2 This story is taken from the Floresta general (General Anthology) by Melchor de Santa Cruz, a sixteenth-century student and collector of proverbs.
3 The untranslatable wordplay is based on the verb deber, which is the equivalent of “must” as well as of “owe.”
1 It was believed that goblins turned buried treasure into coal, which is the origin of the phrase tesoro de duende (“goblin’s treasure”) to describe wealth that is squandered.
2 Martín de Riquer points out that despite this essentially satiric depiction of the pastoral novel, Cervantes was very pleased with his pastoral Galatea and was working on its second part at approximately the same time that he wrote this passage.
3 This name is based on a pastoral version of Micolás for Nicolás.
4 At one time it was thought that Nemoroso, in Garcilaso’s first eclogue, was the poet’s friend and fellow poet Boscán (a name related to bosque, or “forest”): Nemushas the same meaning in Latin.
6 Ona is an augmentative ending, so that Teresona is roughly equivalent to “Big Teresa.”
7 The words mean “curry comb,” “to eat lunch,” “carpet,