[4.] Narcisos. Now a common noun and written with a small letter. In origin the word is derived from the mythological character, Narcissus, the son of the river Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was insensible to the charms of all the nymphs, who at last appealed to Nemesis for revenge. She made him fall in love with his own image reflected in a fountain; because he could not grasp it he longed for death and, according to Ovid, was metamorphosed into the flower which bears his name. A century before Lope it had evidently not yet passed into such common usage, for in the Celestina we read: "Por fe tengo que no era tan hermoso aquel gentil Narciso, que se enamoró de su propia figura cuando se vido en las aguas de la fuente." (Novelistas Anteriores á Cervantes, p. 25.)
[8.] consultas are reports or advice submitted to a ruler, hence the use of alteza.
[10.] entre otras partes. The Parisian edition of 1886, for no evident reason, reads, entre otros partes.
[12.] el duque de Medina. Gaspar Alonzo de Guzmán, duque de Medina-Sidonia, was a relative of Olivares and head of the great house of Guzmán of which the prime minister was a descendant through a younger branch. He was immensely wealthy and enjoyed high favor at court during the first years of the reign of Philip IV. Later, as governor of Andalusia, he conceived the idea of establishing a separate kingdom, as his brother-in-law, Juan de Braganza, had done in Portugal in 1640. His plans were discovered and as punishment and humiliation he was compelled to challenge the king of Portugal to a duel for the aid the latter was to give to the projected uprising in Andalusia. He made the journey to the Portuguese border only to find that Braganza had ignored his challenge. Covered with ridicule by the affair he passed the rest of his life in obscurity and disgrace. At the time Lope de Vega was writing La Moza de Cántaro he seems to have been seeking the favor of Olivares and therefore made the leading character of the play a relative of the favorite and the Duque de Medina-Sidonia.
[16.] Señora is now regularly written in such cases with a small letter, as well as similar titles hereafter encountered in the play.
[17.] Lindamente... vanidad, You know my weakness! You are trying to flatter me.
[21.] Sevilla, the metropolis of Andalusia and a city always noted for the beauty of its women.
[29.] Éste. Supply papel as suggested by line 3.
[35.] quiere en la memoria de la muerte, etc., that is, after he has died for her.
After [40.] Con hermoso, etc. The author evidently intends to make the suitor write a wordy letter void of clear meaning, and that he is striking a blow at the then popular literary affectation known as culteranismo is indicated beyond a doubt by the word culto in line 43. A comparison of the passage with Cervantes' celebrated quotation from Feliciano de Silva, "La razón de la sinrazón" is interesting. (See Don Quijote, Part I, Chap. I.) A possible translation of the letter is as follows: "With fair though stern, not sweet, yet placid countenance, lady mine, appearances deceiving you, there gazed at me last week your disdain, imbued with all benevolence and yet rigid, and withal its brilliancy not solicitous, (benevolence) which with celestial candor illumines your face."