[Page 54].—l. 5. The order of Santiago de la Espada was a military and religious one, the charter of which was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. in 1175.
l. 16. el, i.e., el rey.
[Page 55].—l. 34. contra, i.e., in battle against.
[CARTAGENA]: a member of a family of converted Jews that rose to prominence in the Church. The present song is from the Cancionero General of 1511, and has been translated into English verse by Ticknor, I, 398. The theme is the same as that of St. Theresa in the Glosa on [p. 82].
[RODRÍGUEZ DEL PADRÓN]. Also called Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara, the last representative of the Galician tradition in Spanish poetry. His poems are in the Cancionero General, and the Cancioneros of Stúñiga and Baena. A legend makes him the lover of the wife of the Castilian monarch of the time. Cf. the somewhat fictitious account of him given by Pidal in the notes to the Cancionero of Baena (ed. 1860, II, 347), and see also Ticknor, I, 355.
[Page 58].—l. 11. Penetre: in assonance only with Contemple.
[MOSSÉN JUAN TALLANTE]. The title of this personage may indicate an Aragonese origin for him. His devotional poems are found in the Cancionero General. A verse translation of this one is given by Ticknor, I, 395; cf. note there.
[EL COMENDADOR ESCRIBÁ]. These exquisitely mournful verses are attributed in the Cancionero General to a Comendador Escribá (or Escrivá). They appealed strongly to the great writers of the siglo de oro, for Calderón cited the first stanza (with some variation) in his dramas El mayor monstruo los celos and Manos blancas no ofenden, Cervantes repeated it in Don Quijote, II, ch. 38, and Lope de Vega wrote a gloss upon the poem. Cf. Ticknor, I, 246 f. and II, 386, note. Both Longfellow (Riverside ed. VI, p. 218) and Archdeacon Churton have made poetical versions of it.
[Page 59].—l. 9. de contigo, i.e., de estar contigo.
[JUAN ÁLVAREZ GATO]. The author of love-songs and devotional lyrics that show in him considerable mastery of form. His individual Cancionero exists in manuscript; only the poems found 356 in the Cancionero General have been published. Cf. Romanische Forschungen of Vollmöller, X, 13.