[1554]. el Ducado de Borgoña: an error; the duchy of Burgundy, west of the river Saône, had not been a Spanish possession. It was the county of Burgundy, east of the Saône, better known in English as Franche-Comté, that came to the Spanish crown from the house of Austria. It was largely occupied by the French about 1643, though it was restored to Spain at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 and did not become permanently a part of France till thirty years later.
[1555]. el Brasil: Brazil was a Portuguese possession until 1822. In 1630-1644 the Dutch occupied the northern provinces almost down to the capital, Bahia.—el Rosellón: Roussillon, north of the eastern end of the Pyrenees, was formerly a dependency of the crown of Aragon. Louis XIII began its conquest in 1639 and concluded it in 1642.
[1556]. Ormuz: a Portuguese trading station on the East India route until 1622, when it was captured and destroyed by the Persians and English. It was on the strait of the same name, which connects the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.—Pernambuco: a Brazilian state whose colonization dates from the second decade of the sixteenth century. The Dutch seized it in 1630 and held it till 1654.—Hoa: for Goa, a Portuguese trading station in India.
[1559]. Braganza: the house of Braganza was founded by John I of Portugal in the person of his illegitimate son Alfonso. The dukes of Braganza played important rôles in the history of Portugal during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Tedosio II served Philip II faithfully as long as Portugal was a Spanish dependency. In 1630 his son John II succeeded him, and in 1640 was proclaimed king of Portugal as John IV.
[1560]. Villaviciosa: Villa Viçosa, a city of Portugal about twenty miles from Elvas. It is famous for its connection with the house of Braganza.
[1587]. las Salinas: I am unable to identify this place.
[1615-1616.] Mars and Bellona, the god and goddess of war in Latin mythology. Margarita and Quevedo are leading the attack on Olivares. While Quevedo is absent Margarita is idle.
[1685]. Éranse etc.: the stereotyped manner of beginning a story. It has the same touch of quaintness as the English "once upon a time there was," etc.
[1837]. tarantela: the tarantella is a Neapolitan dance, particularly animated and spirited. The sense of the passage is that Quevedo watches his fellow mortals rush feverishly hither and thither with great stir of activity, but accomplishing nothing of value.
[1838]. This name originally was applied to a German dancing mania. Sanz uses it in its modern sense of a disease whose most conspicuous symptom is interference with the control of the muscles.