Part 31 (2/2)

FOOTNOTES

[1] Rodrigo de Bivar, or the Cid, the national champion of Spain.

[2] Some biographers have it that the house was in the Calle de Leon, afterwards the royal asylum, and that his wife and sister had belonged to the third order of St. Francis for seven years before his death.

[3] Showing that Cervantes was familiar with the Bible as well as Latin cla.s.sics.

[4] Showing also his familiarity with aesop.

[5] The king's morsel is better than the lord's bounty.

[6] Certain churches, with indulgences, appointed to be visited, either for pardon of sins, or for procuring blessings. Madmen, probably, in their lucid intervals, were obliged to this exercise.

[7] ”From a friend to a friend, a bug in the eye,” is a proverb applied to the false professions of friends.h.i.+p.

[8] Cervantes makes frequent use of Bible quotations.

[9] A Sicilian, native of Catania, who lived in the latter part of the sixteenth century. He was commonly called Pesce-cola, or Fish-Nicholas, and is said to have lived so much in the water from his infancy, that he could cleave the waters in the midst of a storm like a marine animal.

[10] _Zapateadores_: dancers that strike the soles of their shoes with the palms of their hands, in time and measure.

[11] The phrase, _No quiero de tu capilla_, alludes to the practice of friars, who, when charity is offered, hold out their hoods to receive it, while they p.r.o.nounce a refusal with their tongues.

[12] The entire proverb is: ”He whose father is mayor goes safe to his trial.”

[13] The proverb is: ”To keep silence well is called _Santo_.”

[14] Jarvis's translation.

[15] Trunk-hose were prohibited by royal decree shortly after the publication of _Don Quixote_.

[16] It was customary for men of quality to wear a veil or mask depending from the covering worn on the head, in order to s.h.i.+eld the face from the sun.

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