Note 40 — ACTO PRIMERO

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."