[2109.] que antes ha sido, etc., for rather has it been so that I cannot see her.
[2131.] Porque ha mucho que no soy, Because I have not been there for a long time. There is perhaps a play upon ser, "to exist" in this verse.
[2146.] Que más de cuatro manteos, etc., That more than a few (lit. "four") of those mantles of yours with fabrics of gold cover many defects.
[2164.] aceto=acepto.
[2172.] en pelo, bareback. With mock respect doña María asks pardon for using in the presence of people well-bred a term as commonplace as en pelo. Cf. v. 769 and note.
[2217.] Alcance, the present subjunctive with the conjunction que omitted.
[2236.] De cántaro la tenía=Tenía el alma de cántaro. Alma de cántaro is a colloquial term nearly equivalent to our "harebrained fellow."
[2238.] proverbio, that is, the proverbial use of cántaro in the expression alma de cántaro.
[2282.] Atlante, a name usually applied to masculine figures in Greek architecture, which, like the female caryatides, take the place of columns. The reference here seems to be to the mythological Atlas, from which word we have the architectural term Atlante. The author used it in the same sense in one of his sonnets:
Igualará la pluma á la grandeza,
Y el Parnaso de vos favorecido
Tendrá en su frente el cielo como Atlante.
Obras Sueltas, vol. IV, p. 277.