Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) ๐
Description
Don Quixote is a novel that doesnโt 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, itโs also considered one of the firstโif not the firstโmodern novels.
This Standard Ebooks edition is believed to be the first ebook edition of Don Quixote to feature a full transcription of translator John Ormsbyโs 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 doesnโt hold back from sharing his views on the geniusโand flawsโof Cervantesโ 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 Quixoteโs 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 laughsโeven for the modern readerโand narrative devices still seen in todayโs fiction, including meta-narratives, frame narratives, and metafiction. Many scenes (like Quixoteโs attack on the windmills) and characters (like Sancho Panza and Lothario) are so famous that theyโre ingrained in our collective culture.
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- Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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โOh, Godโs curse upon thee, Sancho!โ here exclaimed Don Quixote; โsixty thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For the last hour thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs will bring thee to the gallows one day, I promise thee; thy subjects will take the government from thee, or there will be revolts among them. Tell me, where dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou apply them, thou blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it apply properly, I have to sweat and labour as if I were digging.โ
โBy God, master mine,โ said Sancho, โyour worship is making a fuss about very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make use of what is my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock in trade except proverbs and more proverbs; and here are three just this instant come into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket; but I wonโt repeat them, for โsage silence is called Sancho.โโโ803
โThat, Sancho, thou art not,โ said Don Quixote; โfor not only art thou not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity; still I would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy memory, for I have been turning over mine ownโ โand it is a good oneโ โand none occurs to me.โ
โWhat can be better,โ said Sancho, โthan โnever put thy thumbs between two back teeth;โ and โto โget out of my houseโ and โwhat do you want with my wife?โ there is no answer;โ and โwhether the pitcher hits the stove, or the stove the pitcher, itโs a bad business for the pitcher;โ804 all which fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who puts his finger between two back teeth, and if they are not back teeth it makes no difference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governor may say thereโs no answer, any more than to โget out of my houseโ and โwhat do you want with my wife?โ and then, as for that about the stone and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he โwho sees the mote in anotherโs eye had need to see the beam in his own,โ that it be not said of himself, โthe dead woman was frightened at the one with her throat cut;โ and your worship knows well that โthe fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in anotherโs.โโโ805
โNay, Sancho,โ said Don Quixote, โthe fool knows nothing, either in his own house or in anybody elseโs, for no wise structure of any sort can stand on a foundation of folly; but let us say no more about it, Sancho, for if thou governest badly, thine will be the fault and mine the shame; but I comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as earnestly and as wisely as I could; and thus I am released from my obligations and my promise. God guide thee, Sancho, and govern thee in thy government, and deliver me from the misgiving I have that thou wilt turn the whole island upside down, a thing I might easily prevent by explaining to the duke what thou art and telling him that all that fat little person of thine is nothing else but a sack full of proverbs and sauciness.โ
โSeรฑor,โ said Sancho, โif your worship thinks Iโm not fit for this government, I give it up on the spot; for the mere black of the nail of my soul is dearer to me than my whole body; and I can live just as well, simple Sancho, on bread and onions, as governor, on partridges and capons; and whatโs more, while weโre asleep weโre all equal,806 great and small, rich and poor. But if your worship looks into it, you will see it was your worship alone that put me on to this business of governing; for I know no more about the government of islands than a buzzard; and if thereโs any reason to think that because of my being a governor the devil will get hold of me, Iโd rather go Sancho to heaven than governor to hell.โ
โBy God, Sancho,โ said Don Quixote, โfor those last words thou hast uttered alone, I consider thou deservest to be governor of a thousand islands. Thou hast good natural instincts, without which no knowledge is worth anything; commend thyself to God, and try not to swerve in the pursuit of thy main object; I mean, always make it thy aim and fixed purpose to do right in all matters that come before thee, for heaven always helps good intentions; and now let us go to dinner, for I think my lord and lady are waiting for us.โ
XLIVHow Sancho Panza was conducted to his government, and of the strange adventure that befell Don Quixote in the castle.
It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, that when Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did not translate it as he wrote it807โ โthat is, as a kind of complaint the
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