[The following brief notes, based on Barrera's commentary, and corrected or supplemented in the light of subsequent research, have been drawn up in the hope that they may be of use to the general reader. In a certain number of cases it has, unfortunately, been impossible to trace the writings of those mentioned in the text. I should gratefully receive any information concerning the men or their works. In dealing with famous authors like Lope de Vega or Góngora, whose subsequent careers have fulfilled Cervantes's prophecies, it has been thought unnecessary to give details which can be found in every history of Spanish literature. It has occasionally happened that a writer is made the subject of a longer note than his actual importance might seem, at first sight, to deserve. The justification for this lies in the fact that such minor authors are more or less intimately associated with Cervantes, or that the mention of their names affords a convenient opportunity for discussing some point of interest in connexion with his life or writings.
For the sake of convenience in referring from one author to another, the notes to the Canto de Calíope have been numbered consecutively throughout. J. F.-K.]
FOOTNOTES:
[117] As the Canto de Calíope professes to deal solely with living poets—algunos señalados varones que en esta vuestra España viven, y algunos en las apartadas Indias á ella sujetas—the Diego Mendoza mentioned in the twentyfifth stanza cannot refer to the celebrated historian who died ten years before the Galatea was published. But the above lament for Meliso is unquestionably dedicated to his memory. The phrase el aprisco veneciano is an allusion to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's embassy in Venice (1539-1547). It is not generally known that Mendoza visited England as special Plenipotentiary in 1537-1538 with the object of arranging two marriages: one between Mary Tudor and Prince Luiz of Portugal, and one between Henry VIII. and Charles V.'s handsome, witty niece, Dorothea of Denmark (afterwards Duchess of Milan), who declined the honour on the ground that she had only one head. Mendoza's mission was a diplomatic failure: nor does he seem to have enjoyed his stay here. He was made much of, was banqueted at Hampton Court, and confessed that life in England was pleasant enough; but he sighed for Barcelona, and was glad to pass on to the Low Countries and thence to Venice. See the Calendar of State Papers (Spain), vol. v. J. F.-K.
[118] Leiva's work would seem to have disappeared. In the Casa de Memoria, which forms part of the Diversas Rimas (1591), Espinel refers to an Alonso de Leiva in much the same terms as Cervantes uses here:—
El ánimo gentil, el dulce llanto,
El blando estilo, con que enternecido
Don Alonso de Leyva quando canta
A Venus enamora, á Marte espanta.
[119] Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga was born at Madrid in 1533. He was page to Philip II at the latter's marriage with Mary Tudor in Winchester Cathedral. He sailed for South America in 1555, served against the Araucanos under García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete, quarrelled with a brother officer named Juan de Pineda, was sentenced to death, reprieved at the last moment, and is said to have been exiled to Callao. Ercilla returned to Spain in 1562, bringing with him the First Part of his epic poem, La Araucana, which he had composed during his campaigns. The original draft was scribbled on stray pieces of paper and scraps of leather: "que no me costó después poco trabajo juntarlos." This First Part was published at Madrid in 1569: the Second Part appeared in 1578, and the Third in 1590. The author died, a disappointed man, in 1594. For a sound appreciation of his talent see L'Araucana, poème épique por D. Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga. Morceaux choisis précedés d'une étude biographique et littéraire, suivis de notes grammaticales, et de versification et de deux lexiques (Paris, 1900) by M. Jean Ducamin. A critical edition of La Araucana by the eminent Chilean scholar, Sr. D. José Toribio Medina, is in preparation.
Cervantes expresses the highest opinion of La Araucana in Don Quixote (Part I., chap. vi.) where he brackets it with Rufo's Austriada and Virués's Monserrate:—"These three books," said the curate, "are the best that have been written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most famous of Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry that Spain possesses."
[120] Barrera believed that the reference is to Juan de Silva, Conde de Portalegre, afterwards Governor and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Portugal. A collection of his letters is said to be in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid: Silva is further stated to have revised the manuscript of Hurtado de Mendoza's Historia de la Guerra de Granada, first published (posthumously) by Luis de Tribaldos de Toledo at Lisbon in 1627. He certainly wrote the introduction to Tribaldos de Toledo's edition.