Proverb 168. ↩
Proverb 180. ↩
Proverb 207. ↩
A town in Aragón, between Teruel and Morella. ↩
So the passage stands in the original: and so no doubt Cervantes wrote it. ↩
Proverb 206. ↩
The favourite noontide mess of the Andalusian peasantry; consisting of cucumbers shred fine, breadcrumbs, oil, vinegar, and water fresh from the spring. ↩
Proverb 73. ↩
Proverb 118. ↩
Proverb 162. ↩
Proverb 187. ↩
A phrase for lying impudently. ↩
A line from the ballad of Mira Nero de Tarpeya, Duran No. 571. ↩
Proverb 208. ↩
The edict Ricote refers to was that published September 22, 1609, commanding the Moriscoes under pain of death to hold themselves in readiness to embark for Africa at three days’ notice. The date is significant. It was six months after the signature of the treaty that virtually recognised the independence of the United Provinces, and acknowledged the defeat of the Church in the struggle for domination in the Netherlands. The victory of the Netherlanders, in fact, recoiled upon the unhappy Moriscoes. The anti-Morisco movement had been hitherto confined to Valencia and the Valencian clergy; but now the priesthood throughout Spain, in their fury at the escape of the northern heretics, took it up and turned it into a popular agitation. Cervantes quotes here some of the stock arguments of the agitators, but in the novel of the Colloquy of the Dogs he gives them in fuller detail. The Church in this instance adopted the usual tactics of the demagogue, and appealed to the stupidity and the cupidity of the masses, frightening them with the bugbear of another Mohammedan invasion aided by these aliens, and pointing out that the Morisco by his industry, frugality, skill, and businesslike qualities was everywhere taking the bread out of the mouth of the Christian Spaniard. The real offence of the Moriscoes was, of course, that, in spite of all the Church could do, from baptism to burning, they still remained unsatisfactory Christians. As Cervantes with exquisite naivete says in the Colloquy, “It would be a miracle to find one of them that has a genuine belief in the holy Christian faith.” Very likely. It can hardly have gained fervour from the fires of the Inquisition with Moriscoes who remembered their own old faith that for seven centuries had respected Church and Synagogue, and left Jew and Christian to worship in peace. The king, a kindhearted man, bigot as he was, shrank from the wholesale cruelty of the Church proposals, but he was frightened into yielding. For Lerma resistance would have been an immediate fall from power. The opposition of the nobles was futile; the men who had made Spain a great nation were powerless now against the combined forces of stupidity and fanaticism that were undoing their work. The sufferings of the wretched Moriscoes, the massacres of those that resisted, the miseries of those that submitted, are a tale that has been told often enough; and as for the effects on Spain, to quote the words of Don Florencio Janer, who has written one of the ablest and most impartial books on the subject, “it may be said that from an Arabia Felix it was converted into an Arabia Deserta.” A sad story; and hardly less sad to find noble Cervantes lifting up his voice on the side of the silliest agitation, the stupidest policy, and the cruelest measure that ever history has had occasion to record. ↩
Proverb 22. ↩
This is historically true; in 1613 it was found necessary to order a second expulsion of returned Moriscoes. ↩
At first a certain amount of property was permitted to be carried away, but ultimately the deported Moriscoes were not allowed to carry anything with them. ↩
Sancho’s meaning is not very clear here. Sagittarius in the Germanía slang is one who is whipped through the streets. ↩
Proverb 24. ↩
Proverb 173. ↩
A Moorish princess, the remains of whose palace may still be seen, so the Toledans say, near the bridge of Alcántara at Toledo. ↩
Proverb 131. ↩
Proverb 89. ↩
Proverb 224. ↩
Proverb 5. ↩
Proverb 226. ↩
Proverb 195. ↩
Proverb 73. ↩
An allusion to a kind of game of leapfrog. ↩
Proverb 151. ↩
Proverb 73. ↩
Bireno, Duke of Zealand, who deserted Olimpia, daughter of the Count of Holland, very much as Theseus deserted Ariadne. Orlando Furioso, Cantos 9 and 10. There is a ballad on the subject, with a refrain which may have suggested that introduced here. ↩
Proverb 123. ↩
Proverb 34. ↩
The elaborate carved work that rises at the back of the altar in Spanish churches. ↩
Proverb 71. ↩
Proverb 90. ↩
According to Covarrubias, family superstitions were very common in Spain; Quevedo, always a valuable illustrator of Cervantes, in The Book of All Things refers to this of the Mendoza family. “If you upset the salt cellar,” he says, “and are a Mendoza, rise from table without dining, and the omen will be fulfilled; for as it is a misfortune not to dine, a
