Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) π

Description
Don Quixote is a novel that doesnβt need much introduction. Not only is it widely considered the greatest Spanish literary work of all time, one of the greatest literary works in history, and a cornerstone of the Western literary canon, itβs also considered one of the firstβif not the firstβmodern novels.
This Standard Ebooks edition is believed to be the first ebook edition of Don Quixote to feature a full transcription of translator John Ormsbyβs nearly 1,000 footnotes. Ormsby as an annotator deftly explains obscure passages, gives background on the life and times of 1600s Spain, references decisions from other contemporary translators, and doesnβt hold back from sharing his views on the geniusβand flawsβof Cervantesβ greatest work.
The story is of the eponymous Don Quixote, a country noble who, in his old age, reads too many chivalric romances and goes mad. After convincing his grubby servant, Sancho Panza, to join him as his squire, he embarks on an absurd and comic quest to do good and right wrongs.
Today Don Quixoteβs two volumes are published as a single work, but their publication came ten years apart. Cervantes saw great success with the publication of his first volume, and appeared to have little desire to write a second volume until a different author wrote a spurious, inferior sequel. This kicked Cervantes into gear and he wrote volume two, a more serious and philosophical volume than the largely comic first volume.
Despite being written in 1605 and translated in 1885, Don Quixote contains a surprising amount of slapstick laughsβeven for the modern readerβand narrative devices still seen in todayβs fiction, including meta-narratives, frame narratives, and metafiction. Many scenes (like Quixoteβs attack on the windmills) and characters (like Sancho Panza and Lothario) are so famous that theyβre ingrained in our collective culture.
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- Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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βThatβs where the truth of the history comes in,β said Sancho.
βAt the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence,β observed Don Quixote; βfor there is no need of recording events which do not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the hero of it into contempt. Aeneas was not in truth and earnest so pious as Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him.β
βThat is true,β said Samson; βbut it is one thing to write as a poet, another to write as a historian; the poet may describe or sing things, not as they were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian has to write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were, without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it.β
βWell then,β said Sancho, βif this seΓ±or Moor goes in for telling the truth,460 no doubt among my masterβs drubbings mine are to be found; for they never took the measure of his worshipβs shoulders without doing the same for my whole body; but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as my master himself says, the members must share the pain of the head.β
βYou are a sly dog, Sancho,β said Don Quixote; βiβ faith, you have no want of memory when you choose to remember.β
βIf I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me,β said Sancho, βmy weals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs.β
βHush, Sancho,β said Don Quixote, βand donβt interrupt the bachelor, whom I entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history.β
βAnd about me,β said Sancho, βfor they say, too, that I am one of the principal presonages in it.β
βPersonages, not presonages, friend Sancho,β said Samson.
βWhat! Another word-catcher!β said Sancho; βif thatβs to be the way we shall not make an end in a lifetime.β
βMay God shorten mine, Sancho,β returned the bachelor, βif you are not the second person in the history, and there are even some who would rather hear you talk than the cleverest in the whole book; though there are some, too, who say you showed yourself over-credulous in believing there was any possibility in the government of that island offered you by SeΓ±or Don Quixote.β
βThere is still sunshine on the wall,β461 said Don Quixote; βand when Sancho is somewhat more advanced in life, with the experience that years bring, he will be fitter and better qualified for being a governor than he is at present.β
βBy God, master,β said Sancho, βthe island that I cannot govern with the years I have, Iβll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah; the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, I know not where; and not that there is any want of head in me to govern it.β
βLeave it to God, Sancho,β said Don Quixote, βfor all will be and perhaps better than you think; no leaf on the tree stirs but by Godβs will.β
βThat is true,β said Samson; βand if it be Godβs will, there will not be any want of a thousand islands, much less one, for Sancho to govern.β
βI have seen governors in these parts,β said Sancho, βthat are not to be compared to my shoe-sole; and for all that they are called βyour lordshipβ and served on silver.β
βThose are not governors of islands,β observed Samson, βbut of other governments of an easier kind: those that govern islands must at least know grammar.β
βI could manage the gram well enough,β said Sancho; βbut for the mar I have neither leaning nor liking, for I donβt know what it is;462 but leaving this matter of the government in Godβs hands, to send me wherever it may be most to his service, I may tell you, seΓ±or bachelor Samson Carrasco, it has pleased me beyond measure that the author of this history should have spoken of me in such a way that what is said of me gives no offence; for, on the faith of a true squire, if he had said anything about me that was at all unbecoming an old Christian, such as I am, the deaf would have heard of it.β
βThat would be working miracles,β said Samson.
βMiracles or no miracles,β said Sancho, βlet everyone mind how he speaks or writes about people, and not set down at random the first thing that comes into his head.β
βOne of the faults they find with this history,β said the bachelor, βis that its author inserted in it a novel called The Ill-Advised Curiosity; not that it is bad or ill-told, but that it is out of place and has nothing to do with the history of his worship SeΓ±or Don Quixote.β
βI will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets,β said Sancho.463
βThen, I say,β said Don Quixote, βthe author of my history was no sage, but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, set about writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, the painter of Γbeda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he was painting, answered, βWhat it may turn out.β Sometimes he would paint a cock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside of it in Gothic letters, βThis is a cock;β and so it will be with my history, which will require a commentary to make it intelligible.β
βNo fear of that,β returned Samson, βfor it is so plain that there is nothing in it to puzzle over; the children turn its leaves, the young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk
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