[1448. ]The nouns and infinitives in this and the following lines are objects of siente, l. 1456.
[1703. ]Y si, lector, etc.: 'And if, reader, you say it is a fabrication, I tell it to you as they told it to me.' León Medina, "Frases literarias afortunadas," Revue hispanique, Vol. XVIII, p. 226, states that these two verses are a quotation from Juan de Castellanos, an obscure poet of the sixteenth century, author of Elegías de Varones Ilustres de Indias. (The first three parts of this work may be found in Vol. IV of the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles; Part IV has been edited by Paz y Melia for the Colección de Escritores Castellanos, Vols. XLIV and XLIX. The passage in question may be found in Canto II, octave 8.) Churchman, "Byron and Espronceda," Revue hispanique, Vol. XX, p. 210, adds the information that Espronceda probably took the lines directly from Villalta, who had quoted them in his historical novel El Golpe en Vago, Madrid, 1835. This is made probable by the fact that whereas Castellanos had written correctly os lo cuento, Villalta wrote te lo cuento, Espronceda following him in this grammatical error.
The form dijerdes, an old form for the second plural of the future subjunctive (modern dijereis), represents the syncopation of a still older dijéredes. Grammatically the pronoun os should have been used. Evidently both Villalta and Espronceda considered dijerdes to be a second singular form. A modern editor cannot undertake to correct a mistake made by the author. In Old Spanish infinitives could be very loosely used. It was not necessary that the subject of a dependent infinitive should be the same as that of the verb on which it depended.
The word comento here has the meaning "fiction," "fabrication." I find this meaning given in none of the dictionaries, but it can readily be inferred from the word comentador, which had as one of its meanings "an inventor of false reports." Comento, like Latin commentum, has as one of its meanings "fiction," "fabrication."
The writers of leyendas were fond of stressing the traditional nature of their poems. Thus Zorrilla concludes his "Capitán Montoya":
El pueblo me lo contó
Sin notas ni aclaraciones,
Con sus mismas espresiones
Se lo cuento al pueblo yo.
CANCIÓN DEL PIRATA