[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.]