See Chapter XVIII of the Sergas de Esplandián, where Elisabat's reliability is stressed.

Nevertheless, at the end of the princeps of Primaleón both it and its predecessor are said to have been translated from Greek (quoted, by G. di Stefano in his edition of Palmerín de Olivia, Pisa, 1966, p. 783.

Aside from this, the exceptions are minor: Don Clarisel de las Flores, Floriseo, and Policisne de Boecia are the only ones I am aware of.

This pretense has contributed to an enormous bibliographic muddle, from which the romances of chivalry have not yet completely extricated themselves. Additional confusion has been caused by romances of chivalry in other countries, which, following the Spanish example, said they were translations from other languages, including Spanish. Such is the case with the mysterious Florimón, which Nicolás Antonio assumed existed in Spanish, although this is almost certainly false. See my comment in «Mas datos bibliográficos sobre libros de caballerías españoles», Revista de literatura, XXXIV (1968, publicado en 1970), p. 12.

Quoted from the Seville, n.d. edition (Biblioteca Nacional R-23, 622). This quotation, and later ones taken directly from the old editions, have been modernized.

Feliciano de Silva, at the beginning of Amadís de Grecia, also has separate prologues for the author and translator, as well as a «nota del corrector de la imprenta» -probably inspired in Alonso de Proaza's verses accompanying the Celestina. Of course, Silva wrote the note himself, just as the pseudonymous, A. Jimenez wrote the «nota del linotipista» inserted opposite p. 189 of Picardía mexicana, 36th ed., Mexico, 1969.

BATAILLON, Marcel, Erasmo y España, traducción de A. Vilanova, 2.ª edición, México, 1966, pp. 620-621.

GRISMER, R. L., The Influence of Plautus in Spain before Lope de Vega, New York, 1944, p. 59.

Dares and Dictys, or the «verdadero historiador» Turpin, would also have been familiar at the time. Today, of course, we are so blase that an author must go to ridiculous extremes if he seriously wishes to deceive readers; no one pays the slightest attention if John Updike puts as preface to Bech: a Book a letter from the author whose life is presented, or concludes with a phony bibliography including even a plot outline of one of Bech's supposed works. To fool people nowadays one must do as George Fraser, taking a person from Tom Brown's Schooldays, and involving him in a real event (the first Afghan war). Alternatively, one can steal the plot from a Victorian novel (The Prisoner of Zenda), then claim the novel was based on the person's life whose memoirs are being edited, taking care to present grounds for «some reappraisal» of Otto von Bismarck, and speaking -most important from our point of view- of a manuscript discovery, with some portions remaining to be found (Royal Flash, New York, 1970, p. VII).

Taken from the 1532 edition, Biblioteca Nacional R-4355. English, in contrast with earlier centuries (see the openings of Tristán de Leonís and Oliveros de Castilla) is not a common source language; the only other work I have found it in is Florando de Inglaterra.

Another typical example is found in the preface to Don Silves de la Selva; more accessible is the prologue to Cristalián de España of Beatriz Bernal, quoted by M. Serrano y Sanz in Apuntes para una biblioteca de escritoras españolas, Madrid, 1903, vol. I, p. 157. It is not, however, a parody, as he calls it.