See María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, La visión de trasmundo en las literaturas hispánicas, appended to Howard Rollin Patch, El otro mundo en la literatura medieval, trans. J. Hernández Campos (México, D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956), pp. 369-449, at pp. 408-23.

Pages 214-17 in the new edition by Joaquín González Muela (Madrid: Castalia, 1982). This influence was pointed out rather recently, by Roger M. Walker, «Did Cervantes Know the Cavallero Zifar?» BHS, 49 (1972), 120-27, at 125-26. To Walker's very perceptive analysis can be added two further coincidences: at one point Don Quijote refers to his imaginary hero as «el atrevido caballero» (ed. Francisco Rodríguez Marín, 10 vols. [Madrid: Atlas, 1947-49], III, 386 [all citations refer to this edition]), while the protagonist of this same adventure in the Zifar is similarly called «El Caballero Atrevido» (ed. cit., p. 214); and in both accounts emphasis is given to the luxurious manner in which water is served to the knights for washing their hands (Don Quijote: «¿Qué el verle echar agua a manos, toda de ámbar y de olorosas flores destilada?» [p. 387]; Zifar: «las donzellas... diéronles de vestir e luego en pos ello del agua a las manos en seños baçines, amos a dos de finas esmeraldas, e los aguamaniles de finos robís» [p. 217]).

Don Quijote: «andan nadando y cruzando por [el lago] muchas serpientes...» (p. 384); Amadís de Grecia: «[Amadís] se halló cabe un grande lago, en el cual estaban metidas... serpientes...» (Cited by Diego Clemencín, notes to Don Quijote, ed Luis Astrana Marín [Madrid: Castilla, n. d. but 195-], p. 1469, n. 10).

Indeed, the Caballero Atrevido's inclinations are comparable to those of the licentious Galaor, Amadís' disreputable brother.

Don Quijote's frankly unchaste behavior toward Maritornes was foreshadowed in the previous chapter (I, 15), where Rocinante, in accordance with the folkloric rule that a man's personality is reflected in his possessions, breaks away and runs after some mares («a Rocinante le vino en deseo de refocilarse con las señoras facas...» [I, 401]). Much has been written about Don Quijote's erotic impulses; for bibliography, see Carroll B. Johnson, Madness and Lust: A Psychoanalytical Approach to Don Quijote (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press, 1983).

In her book Women in the Medieval Spanish Epic and Lyric Traditions (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1975), Lucy A. Sponsler contends: «Even the noblewoman was expected to devote her time to the care of her husband when he was at home. She had to make sure his guests had all the necessary conveniences, and sometimes she even undressed and bathed the male guests» (p. 2; emphasis added). I have been unable to substantiate this statement both in my own readings and in consultation with medieval specialists, and hence regard it as unfounded.

Several different versions of the Decameron, in Italian and Spanish, were available in Spain. Expurgated editions of the Italian original appeared after 1573, but mainly with the purpose of eliminating references to licentious clerics; see Nancy L. D'Antuono, Boccaccio's Novelle in the Theater of Lope de Vega (Madrid: Porrúa, 1983), pp. 10-12 and 15-16.

«A Salabaetto pareva essere in Paradiso...» (Ed. Vittore Branca, in Tutte le opere, IV [Milan: Mondadori, 1976], 767, §19).

«After this, Iancofiore was pleased that both of them should disrobe and step into the bath, and two of the slave-girls with them. Next, without [p. 146] allowing the slaves to touch him, she herself washed Salabaetto all over with marvellous care, using a soap perfumed with musk and cloves; and then she had the slave-girls bathe her and rub her down. This being done, the slaves brought two very white and finely-woven sheets, which gave off such a fragrant rose scent that the whole bath seemed full of roses; and one girl wrapped Salabaetto in one of the sheets, and the other girl wrapped the lady in the other...» (my translation).

100

«Dove egli non stette guari che due schiave venner cariche: l'una aveva un materasso di bambagia bello e grande... e steso questo materasso in una camera del bagno sopra una lettiera, vi miser sù un paio di lenzuola sottilissime listate di seta e poi una coltre di bucherame cipriana bianchissima con due origlieri lavorati a maraviglie...» (pp. 765-66, §14). «Salabaetto had not long to wait before two female slaves appeared, loaded down; one carried a beautiful large cottonwool mattress... and having laid the mattress on a bedstead in one of the rooms in the bath, they covered it with a pair of sheets of the finest material and edged with silk, and on these they placed a quilt of the whitest Cyprian buckram, together with two marvellously embroidered pillows...».