NOTES
[Footnote 1: #A quien … comedia.# In spite of the apparent meaning of these words, the character of doña Clarines was not drawn from any one person, to whom the authors were introduced by their boyhood friend, Fr. Bravo Ruiz. What he contributed was the name, taken from a certain shrine consecrated to La Virgen de los Clarines. The authors appropriated to their own ends this hitherto unknown attribute of the Virgin. The combination of bluntness and nobility which they have represented in their heroine is their own creation.]
[Footnote 2: #Guadalema# is an imaginary town of Castile, in which the brothers Quintero have laid the scene of other plays, such as El niño prodigio, La dicha ajena, El amor a oscuras, and Los leales.]
[Footnote 3: #Pos, señó, güeno está#, = pues, señor, bueno está. Escopeta uses the pronunciation of southern Spain, where he was born. A similar manner of speaking is also general among the lower classes in many parts of Spanish America. Many of the comedies of the Quinteros are written entirely in the Andalusian speech, but in this play Escopeta is the only character who employs it. The equivalent Castilian forms will all be found in the Vocabulary.]
[Footnote 4: #¿Qué hay con Tata?# What do you want of Tata?]
[Footnote 5: #era# = sería; the imperfect indicative often replaces the conditional in the main clause of a condition. It conveys greater vividness.]
[Footnote 6: #¿No he de saberlo?# As so often in Spanish conversation, the negative question is equivalent to a positive affirmation. Translate: How could I help knowing it? or Of course I know it.]
[Footnote 7: #¿Qué se le va a hasé?# There's no help for it.]
[Footnote 8: #También son ganas de preguntar …#, you ask only for the sake of asking.]
[Footnote 9: #como quien dice#, so to speak.]
[Footnote 10: #que te agradezco#; supply quiero decir before que.]
[Footnote 11: #Todo está en todo#, one can find anything anywhere.]
[Footnote 12: #¿Te quedan gajes, además de la titular?# Do you get any fees, beside your salary as town physician? It is customary for Spanish municipalities to pay a doctor a certain sum by the year, in return for which he is bound to treat gratis residents who desire it.]
[Footnote 13: #dime con quien andas, te diré quién eres.# A well-known proverb: A man is known by the company he keeps. Doña Clarines means that Basilio's friend is not likely to prove of better calibre than himself.]
[Footnote 14: #seguro está … salir#, it is certain that she will insult him and send him flying. "Seguro está que, vale tanto como es seguro que no," says Bello (Gramática, 14th ed., § 1141). In the present case, the expressed negative and the one understood cancel each other, giving an affirmative. The construction is based on irony, like so many Castilian idioms. See also Hanssen, Gramática histórica, § 644.]
[Footnote 15: #quedarse con el día y la noche#, to give away all she has; lit., "to retain (only) night and day".]
[Footnote 16: #¡Si yo no hago un sueño de dos horas!# I can't sleep two hours at a time!]
[Footnote 17: #hay para no dormir#, there's cause for losing sleep.]
[Footnote 18: #¿Que ha muerto Juan?# Supply ¿Me dice usted before the phrase.]
[Footnote 19: #¿Yo qué he de pensar?# Of course I don't.
Cf. page 5, note 1. (Transcriber's note: Footnote 6)]
[Footnote 20: #Dios lo tenga en su gloria#. It is a Spanish custom to interject some phrase of this kind when the name of a deceased friend is mentioned. In writing these may be abbreviated; thus, E.P.D. = en paz descanse; Q.D.E.P. = que descanse en paz; Q.E.G.E. = que en gloria esté.]
[Footnote 21: #me lo dice a mí#; the present is used with the sense of a future, and the latter, in turn, for an imperative.]
[Footnote 22: #¿Tú ya no vuelves#, you will not go again?]
[Footnote 23: #Y no se diga a las de usted#, and, needless to say, at yours.]
[Footnote 24: #Poco se necesita#, not much is required for that.]
[Footnote 25: #Daría# and #Crispín# are types of the uneducated but racy Spanish peasant, such as the Quinteros take especial delight in depicting. Encarna of La zagala, Quintica of Mundo, mundillo … and Lucío of El genio alegre are the most important of the spirited figures of country youths and maidens which appear in their comedies.]
[Footnote 26: #No entra#, he won't come in.]
[Footnote 27: #que entres#; supply dice before #que#.]
[Footnote 28: #¡Que bien trabajo yo#, for I work myself.]
[Footnote 29: #el segundo intento#, the second attempt (to make him enter).]
[Footnote 30: #En no distrayéndola#, provided he does not distract you.]
[Footnote 31: #No es porque sea mi prima#, I don't say it because she is my cousin.]
[Footnote 32: #que lo balda#; the subject of balda is ella, and there is an ellipsis of tales before que.]
[Footnote 33: #Como si lo yevara impreso#, just as if I had it with me printed.]
[Footnote 34: #¿No había e contestá?# Of course he answered.]
[Footnote 35: #el que tiene por qué callar#, he who had best be silent.]
[Footnote 36: #¡To será que no duerma en mi cama!# I never shall get to bed after all!]
[Footnote 37: #lo que aquí se guisa#, what we are going to discuss here; cf. the English slang, "what we are cooking up".]
[Footnote 38: #Pues usted dirá#, go on, I am listening.]
[Footnote 39: #La niña … con ella.# One gets tired of the girl opposite, after seeing her three days.]
[Footnote 40: #que elogiaba mucho don Quijote#; it is in the Adventure of the Galley-slaves (Part I, chapter 22) that Don Quijote delivers a eulogy of one who acts as intermediary between lovers. It has been called the only passage in which the words of the gentle-hearted knight sound out of character.]
[Footnote 41: #cuando seguramente … nada más#, when one has a lover (lo) _one certainly holds that opinion. Women never
defend men in general, they defend a particular man_.]
[Footnote 42: #La rabieta … palabra#, the fit of temper that came on you, of the silent kind, such that you would not speak …]
[Footnote 43: #un dedo manchado de tinta#; there appears to be in
this scene a reminiscence of Beaumarchais' Barbier de Séville,
Act II, sc. II, where Bartholo discovers the secret letter-writing of
Rosine by means of an ink-stained finger and a missing sheet of paper.]
[Footnote 44: #Si es más bueno#, why, he's the kindest man.]
[Footnote 45: #por# (su) #mal genio#.]
[Footnote 46: #para seguir la vida tan sola#; sola agrees, not with vida, but with yo, the implied subject of seguir.]
[Footnote 47: #ningún# is used on account of the negative idea contained in #eres muy niña para juzgar#, = no puedes juzgar.]
[Footnote 48: #acaso venga#; the subjunctive is used here in what appears to be an independent clause; but in reality acaso = es posible que, and the subjunctive is due to the governing idea of doubt.]
[Footnote 49: #Cualquiera fía en tus negativas#, who can trust your denials? The use of cualquiera with negative force arose no doubt from the ironical sense so often present in Spanish exclamations. It does not appear to be treated adequately in the grammars, but is frequent in conversational language; e.g.: "A cualquier hora le digo yo a doña Lorenza todo eso" (= nunca; Quinteros, La casa de García, I, 10) "Cualquiera sabe quién fue su padre" (= nadie; Santiago Rusiñol, La alegría que pasa, translation of Vital Aza, scene 7).]
[Footnote 50: #haya venido o no#, whether he has already come or not.]
[Footnote 51: #lo diseco# = lo disecaré. The present tense is often used for the future, in order to present the idea of futurity with greater force. The substitution is likely to occur in the principal clause of a future condition.]
[Footnote 52: #Muy cerca ha de andarle#, must come very close to it.]
[Footnote 53: #se tratará#, the future of probability.]
[Footnote 54: #perdía# = perdería. See page 4, note 3.
(Transcriber's note: Footnote 5)]
[Footnote 55: #todos los médicos les parecen pocos#, they can't get doctors enough.]
[Footnote 56: #eso allá usted … Si la tiene#, that is for you to settle with your conscience. If you have one.]
[Footnote 57: #se me sale siempre sin pensarlo#, it always escapes without my thinking it over.]
[Footnote 58: #Esta noche tiene para todos#, everyone is being hit tonight.]
[Footnote 59: #Que si#, whether or not.]
[Footnote 60: #que, …, la encuentro muy bien#; according to Bello, a relative pronoun in the accusative case should not be repeated in a pleonastic object pronoun, unless the two are some distance apart. Such is the case here. See Bello-Cuervo, § 925.]
[Footnote 61: #ésta# is Marcela.]
[Footnote 62: Para no apurarse … en medio#, there's no cause for worry, I suppose! And I shall have to take the straightest course (lit. 'the middle road').]
[Footnote 63: #Si como nació con faldas nace con pantalones#, if she had been born a man instead of a woman. For vividness, nace is used instead of hubiera nacido.]
[Footnote 64: #habrás hecho#, you must have done.]
[Footnote 65: #¡Sópleme … ha entrado aire!# Freely, fan me or I shall faint; lit., 'blow on my eye, for I have caught cold from a draught'.]
[Footnote 66: #que me quiere más# (de lo que puedo decir).]
[Footnote 67: #Paso que daba … inspirado por él#, every step that I took seemed to be by his will.]
[Footnote 68: #¡El Señor nos coja confesados!# freely, I hope we are all prepared to die.]
[Footnote 69: #el don Guillermo#; the use of the definite article with a Christian name is either playful and familiar, or, as here, depreciative.]
[Footnote 70: #De calle se llevaba a la gente#, people flocked after him in the street.]
[Footnote 71: #no los descubriera#, lest it should betray them.]
[Footnote 72: #de cada vez más largas#, each one longer than before.]
[Footnote 73: #séalo ahora#, the neuter form (lo), because it refers to the idea of goodness, not to the feminine noun subject.]
[Footnote 74: The second act takes place two days after the first.]
[Footnote 75: #no me importa que usted lo sepa#, I don't mind if you know it.]
[Footnote 76: #tal día como hoy#, on the day corresponding to this.]
[Footnote 77: #Tiene el pudor de su desgracia#, their misfortunes have not made them brazen.]
[Footnote 78: #Y ellos conmigo#, and they would do the same to me.]
[Footnote 79: #¿qué tal lleva usted …#, how are you getting along with …?]
[Footnote 80: #me está usted poniendo bueno#, you are giving me a fine character.]
[Footnote 81: #no por ello#, not on that account; note that ello does not refer to either noun just used, but is neuter and general in meaning.]
[Footnote 82: #me pasó#, what happened was.]
[Footnote 83: #la ropa … secar#; the poet is Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70), one of the best-known lyric writers of the 19th century, and the favorite author of the Quintero brothers. This line is the last of Rima LXXII. In it the poet represents himself as listening to the songs of three boatmen, one extolling Love, another Glory, and the third Liberty. They invite him to embark with them, but he replies: "I did so long ago; and my clothes are not yet dry" (from the experience).]
[Footnote 84: #que va para largo#, which may take a long time.]
[Footnote 85: #el árbol# is the tree of personal comfort and happiness, which contributes nothing to the welfare of society in general, and is not concerned with the good or evil motives of others.]
[Footnote 86: #usted no pasa por movimiento mal hecho#, you will not tolerate evil impulses (in others).]
[Footnote 87: #¿Por qué vino el hablar de estas cosas?# how did we come to speak of such things?]
[Footnote 88: #habrá#, future of probability.]
[Footnote 89: #eso#, a very depreciative neuter, that creature.]
[Footnote 90: #ya ve usted … loca#, you see what form my madness takes.]
[Footnote 91: #Juegos Florales#. The Floral Games are literary contests; the authors of the poems which have been awarded honors receive at the hands of the Queen of the Games prizes, consisting of flowers, both natural and of precious metals. The ceremony of the awards is made the occasion of an imposing festival, whence the allusion in the text. The Floral Games originated in Toulouse in the days of the Troubadours, in 1324. They have been revived with brilliance of late years in Barcelona and Valencia, and have spread thence to many other Spanish cities.]
[Footnote 92: #esperaba#, the subject is yo.]
[Footnote 93: #Que tires para arriba que tires para abajo#, no matter what I do.]
[Footnote 94: #Como que pensará usted#, I suppose you think.]
[Footnote 95: #dos# criados, not #gustos#.]
[Footnote 96: #es … servido#, will make me forget myself some day.]
[Footnote 97: #Pues más … tanto#, we of this country have more wit, and don't brag so much about it.]
[Footnote 98: #a todo ha de estar Tata#, Tata must look after everything.]
[Footnote 99: #¡Ya le daré yo a ese paisanaje!# I'll settle that habit of saying I'm from his part of the country!]
[Footnote 100: #En mi vida# is an expression always understood as negative, even when no negative word appears in the sentence. There are several other such expressions introduced by en or por.]
[Footnote 101: #Lo que#, how.]
[Footnote 102: #se me va la cabeza#, I am losing my mind.]
[Footnote 103: #Casa con dos puertas, mala# (es) #de guardar#, an old Spanish proverb, used by Calderón as the title of an intrigue play.]
[Footnote 104: #a no contar con usted#, unless we had had your assistance.]
[Footnote 105: #En el moral, ni entro ni salgo#, the ethical side is no affair of mine.]
[Footnote 106: #harán … nieblas de las montañas#, difficulties will melt away before you; lit. 'you will make mists of mountains'.]
[Footnote 107: Vox populi, vox Dei, universal report must be true; lit. 'The voice of the people is the voice of God'.]
[Footnote 108: #Mientras más amigos, más claros#, the better friends we are, the more frank we should be.]
[Footnote 109: #Ahí se le fué la burra a su futuro suegro de usted.#
Compare the Uncle Remus idiom, "There's where he dropped his moneypus".]
[Footnote 110: #Lo de Clarines no es de ahora#, Clarines' trouble is nothing new.]
[Footnote 111: #No me gasten la pólvora en salvas#, don't waste time in greetings; me is a dative of disadvantage, which can hardly be translated.]
[Footnote 112: #¿Qué tienes?—¡El contento de verte aquí!# How are you?—Happy at seeing you here!]
[Footnote 113: #¡Si vieras!# if you had seen! "It is very common to use simple forms instead of compound, when speaking, with implied negation, of a past event." Bello-Cuervo, § 696.]
[Footnote 114: #ponen una valla entre la sociedad y yo#, that is, "prevent me from taking the place I wish in society." Note the nominative case of yo, although it is the object of a preposition. The rule is that "if the form of one of two pronouns, or a noun and a pronoun, governed by entre is identical with that of the nominative and must precede the other, the second assumes the nominative form". Ramsey.]
[Footnote 115: #¿Y qué?# and what of that?]
[Footnote 116: #pasaron#, are done with.]
[Footnote 117: Yo haré … a la vez#, I will soon try to have you believing and laughing at the same time.]
[Footnote 118: #Hoy# is an adverb modifying #acaba#, not its subject, as might be the case in English.]
[Footnote 119: #¡Dónde va a parar! ¡A saber …#, What can she be driving at? I should like to know …]
[Footnote 120: #Como los dos … habláis mal#, as both of you have every reason to speak well of me, I feel sure that you are speaking ill.]
[Footnote 121: #Cosas … piedras#, you have whims, O Cid, that would rouse a stone. These lines are taken from a ballad (romance), no. 818 in Durán's large Romancero general. The ballad is not a very old one (it was first printed in Escobar's Romancero del Cid, 1612); the language is an imitation, and a poor one, of medieval forms. The restoration of the Latin initial f for its Spanish development h, the use of the article before a noun in the vocative, and the older #tenedes# for tenéis, are such imitations.]
[Footnote 122: #de alguna manera#, in some way. #Señora# in this passage is a mere title in the first two instances; in the third it means lady.—#no porque crea#, not because I believe.]
[Footnote 123: #Tú verás cómo escribes#, be careful how you write, that is, how you spell.]
[Footnote 124: #haches#. The word alcahuete or alcahueta, 'a go-between', has a particularly evil connotation in Spanish.]
[Footnote 125: #¿qué entrar y salir trae ese majadero?# What does that fool go in and out so much for?]
[Footnote 126: #para contestarte que sí#, to have me tell you 'yes'. The grammar of this sentence is loose, for strictly the supplied subject of contestar should be tú, since tú is the subject of both inflected verbs. The sense however leaves no choice but to supply yo.]
[Footnote 127: #a ello#, for the purpose.]
[Footnote 128: #mi nombre y mis dos apellidos#; the two surnames are those of one's father and of one's mother, and placed in that order. Thus in the name Juan López y Herrera, the nombre or Christian name is Juan, and the apellidos are the father's name López, and the mother's, Herrera.]
[Footnote 129: la carta está #lista#.]
[Footnote 130: #ni más ni menos que lo que#; before lo que it is usual to employ de after a comparative word. Although Bello (Gramática, § 1016) declares that que may be used equally well in such cases, it is probable that in this sentence the que for de is due to the fact that the sentence is negative, in analogy with the use of #que# before numerals in negative sentences.]
[Footnote 131: #¡Medrados estaríamos!# that would be a fine state of affairs! (if you should compose messages of your own).]
[Footnote 132: militar; perhaps the jest turns on the name
#Escopeta#.]
[Footnote 133: #ésa# does not refer to any expressed feminine noun, but perhaps to one understood, such as pulla.]
[Footnote 134: #Eso … y oro molido que me pidas#, that and much more will I do for you; lit. 'that, and gold-dust if you should ask for it'.]
[Footnote 135: #¡Santa Bárbara bendita#, etc. This crude verse can hardly be translated in a way to make much sense. It is a popular charm against impending misfortune. Scattered through La vida que vuelve, another play of the Quinteros, may be found many more such conjurations.]
[Footnote 136: #rodándolas materialmente#, literally tumbling down them.]
[Footnote 137: #se la plantó con pelos y señales#, she accused him of it to his face, with all the details.]
[Footnote 138: #tanto y más cuanto#, more than a little.]
[Footnote 139: #¡Ni que el mesmo Dios se las dijera al oído!# it's as if God himself had whispered them to her!]
[Footnote 140: #con esta hermana … cominos#, it is impossible to tell what this sister of mine will do. The more usual form of the idiom is "no se puede atar un ochavo de cominos con". The image is that of a string not long enough to hold together a very small quantity of tiny seed.]
[Footnote 141: #¡no se le vaya … rato!# don't let slip the fact that you were here a little while ago.]
[Footnote 142: #Nada … advertirle#, you might easily do so.
Don't mistake my meaning in warning you.]
[Footnote 143: #siempre me parecerá pronto#, I shall never be ready.]
[Footnote 144: #en lo mejor … encontrarnos#, we shall agree upon the main points.]
[Footnote 145: #No es … pintaron#, the doña Clarines who is before me is not the one described to me …]
[Footnote 146: #lo que fué#, the past.]
[Footnote 147: #Tan mal como tú hiciste#, as well as you did badly.]
[Footnote 148: #que hicieron#, which was done. The third person plural is sometimes used with an indefinite subject to replace the English passive.]
[Footnote 149: #para que no salga de los tres#, so that it may never go farther than us three.]
[Footnote 150: #¿Qué ha de ser loca?# Certainly she's not crazy. Cf. p. 5, n. 1. (Transcriber's note: Footnote 6)]
[Footnote 151: #¡Como me han cogido la hora!# how quickly they have learned when I come!]
[Footnote 152: #Gorrión habrá que venga#, there must be some sparrows who come.]
[Footnote 153: #no pelearse#; the infinitive is used as an imperative not infrequently; more often in the negative, but also in the affirmative.]
[Footnote 154: #si se han sentado tres curas#, ¿qué remedio hay? It seems that a true apodosis is to be supplied here. The phrase two lines above, #¡Si no lo hay!# illustrates the transition stage, in which the apodosis is more vague, and si is best rendered 'but'.]
[Footnote 155: #¡Qué se han de levantar!# See page 70, note 3.
(Transcriber's note: Footnote 150)]
[Footnote 156: #¡cualquiera los echa!# no one can drive them away! See page 26, note 4. (Transcriber's note: Footnote 49)]
[Footnote 157: #¡Anda! para que me espante los pajaritos#, serves him right for frightening my birds.]
[Footnote 158: #Como no te sientes en el sombrero#, unless you sit on your own hat (you'll find no place).]
[Footnote 159: #como no mate usted el tiempo … ¡lo que es otra cosa!# if you don't kill time, you won't kill anything!]
[Footnote 160: #No estoy por darle a usted más palique#, I don't feel like talking with you longer.]
[Footnote 161: Todo …existe. This humorada is numbered 10, of the Primera parte, in the Obras completas of Campoamor, vol. 5, Madrid, 1902.]
[Footnote 162: Las niñas … santo, number 10 of the Segunda parte.]
[Footnote 163: #No sé qué me da#, it drives me wild.]
[Footnote 164: Pasan veinte años, etc. This is Campoamor's Dolora number XLIII, entitled Cosas del tiempo. It is quoted here in its entirety. Mañana de sol is hardly more than a genial expansion of this tiny poem.]
[Footnote 165: #Mucho#, very. Muy is changed to mucho when it is repeated without the adjective or adverb which it modified in the first instance.]
[Footnote 166: #De todo había#, there were all kinds.]
[Footnote 167: #llevaría#. The conditional may express probability in past time, just as the future does in present time.]
[Footnote 168: #aquello#, that region.]
[Footnote 169: #De esto hace muchos años#, it is many years since then.]
[Footnote 170: #deje usted#, wait a minute.]
[Footnote 171: ¡Qué formas … humana! Humorada number 31 of the Primera parte.]
[Footnote 172: #¡Anda con ésa!# take that!]
[Footnote 173: #sentiría#. See page 82, note 4. (Transcriber's note:
Footnote 167)]
[Footnote 174: #el nombre de él# is inserted in order to remove the ambiguity of su nombre which may mean 'her name' as well as 'his'.]
[Footnote 175: #muy de usted#, entirely at your service.]