Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (159 page)

2 “After the darkness I hope for the light,” cited by Martín de Riquer as Job 17:12, although in the King James Bible that line reads, “They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.” Perhaps more important than the biblical source is the fact that the phrase was the motto of the printer Juan de la Cuesta and therefore appears on the frontispiece of the earliest editions of both parts of
Don Quixote.

3 The madrigal is a translation from the Italian of a poem by Pietro Bembo (1470–1547).

4 A nomadic and fierce people from southeastern Europe; their territory, Scythia, lay between the Carpathians and the Don.

5 One of the Cyclopes, he was blinded by Ulysses.

2 This second stanza is from Garcilaso’s third eclogue.

3 With his brother, Minos, he was a judge of the shades in Hades.

4 Martín de Riquer points out that the first edition had
Lite
rather than
Dite
(Spanish for “Dis”), which he thinks resulted from some confusion with
Leteo
(Lethe), the mythical river of oblivion. In any case, Dis is another name for Pluto, or Hades, the god of the underworld.

5 The second part of the proverb is: “…that she didn’t leave any, green or dry.”

6 A cosmetic lotion made of vinegar, alcohol, and aromatic essences.

1 The line is by Garcilaso.

2 The lines are from a ballad.

1 Latin for “given free of charge.”

2 The rest of the proverb is: “with a bare line.”

4 The reference is to Paris abducting Helen, who was married to Menelaus; this incident sparked the Trojan War.

5 In Virgil’s recounting of the legend, Dido, the founder of Carthage, had a love affair with Aeneas, a hero of the Trojan War and the founder of Rome. When he abandoned Dido, she killed herself on a funeral pyre.

6 The joke is based on the repetition of the initial
d
in both Latin and Spanish (
Dé donde diere:
“Give wherever you choose”) and on the duplication of rhythm in the two phrases, which actually have no other connection.

7 The phrase is equivalent to “as it was before”—that is, “up to your old tricks.”

1 Don Álvaro Tarfe is a character in Avellaneda’s
Don Quixote.

2 The madhouse in Toledo, where Avellaneda’s Don Quixote is confined.

3 Martín de Riquer observes that this statement probably alludes to a comic anecdote regarding the fate of a man who had been whipped.

1 Don Quixote’s misunderstanding is based on the fact that in Spanish, the objective pronoun
la
is the equivalent of both “it” and “her” in English.

2 Latin for “a bad sign” or “an evil omen.”

4 As Martín de Riquer observes, Sancho seems to be citing an inappropriate proverb, since he means to say that despite his wretched appearance, he has brought home money.

5 The lines are from a Christmas carol.

6 The origin of the proverb was the tradition of forming flutes or pipes out of green barley stems; it is used when a mature and sensible person does not wish to engage in childish activities.

1 The Italian Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) was the author of
La Arcadia,
the first pastoral novel of the Renaissance.

2 This was recounted by Avellaneda at the end of his book; he also expresses his confidence that another author will take up the task of writing the new adventures of Don Quixote.