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

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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
Read book online Β«Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) πΒ». Author - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
In the middle of this conversation Sanchica came in with her skirt full of eggs, and said she to the page, βTell me, seΓ±or, does my father wear trunk-hose since he has been governor?β
βI have not noticed,β said the page; βbut no doubt he wears them.β
βAh! my God!β said Sanchica, βwhat a sight it must be to see my father in tights! Isnβt it odd that ever since I was born I have had a longing to see my father in trunk-hose?β
βAs things go you will see that if you live,β said the page; βby God he is in the way to take the road with a sunshade if the government only lasts him two months more.β
The curate and the bachelor could see plainly enough that the page spoke in a waggish vein; but the fineness of the coral beads, and the hunting suit that Sancho sent (for Teresa had already shown it to them) did away with the impression; and they could not help laughing at Sanchicaβs wish, and still more when Teresa said, βSeΓ±or curate, look about if thereβs anybody here going to Madrid or Toledo, to buy me a hooped petticoat, a proper fashionable one of the best quality; for indeed and indeed I must do honour to my husbandβs government as well as I can; nay, if I am put to it and have to, Iβll go to Court and set a coach like all the world; for she who has a governor for her husband may very well have one and keep one.β
βAnd why not, mother!β said Sanchica; βwould to God it were today instead of tomorrow, even though they were to say when they saw me seated in the coach with my mother, βSee that rubbish, that garlic-stuffed fellowβs daughter, how she goes stretched at her ease in a coach as if she was a she-pope!β But let them tramp through the mud, and let me go in my coach with my feet off the ground. Bad luck to backbiters all over the world; βlet me go warm and the people may laugh.β853 Do I say right, mother?β
βTo be sure you do, my child,β said Teresa; βand all this good luck, and even more, my good Sancho foretold me; and thou wilt see, my daughter, he wonβt stop till he has made me a countess; for to make a beginning is everything in luck; and as I have heard thy good father say many a time (for besides being thy father heβs the father of proverbs too), βWhen they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter;854 when they offer thee a government, take it; when they would give thee a county, seize it; when they say, βHere, here!β to thee with something good, swallow it.β Oh no! go to sleep, and donβt answer the strokes of good fortune and the lucky chances that are knocking at the door of your house!β
βAnd what do I care,β added Sanchica, βwhether anybody says when he sees me holding my head up, βThe dog saw himself in hempen breeches,β and the rest of it?β855
Hearing this the curate said, βI do believe that all this family of the Panzas are born with a sackful of proverbs in their insides, every one of them; I never saw one of them that does not pour them out at all times and on all occasions.β
βThat is true,β said the page, βfor SeΓ±or Governor Sancho utters them at every turn; and though a great many of them are not to the purpose, still they amuse one, and my lady the duchess and the duke praise them highly.β
βThen you still maintain that all this about Sanchoβs government is true, seΓ±or,β said the bachelor, βand that there actually is a duchess who sends him presents and writes to him? Because we, although we have handled the present and read the letters, donβt believe it and suspect it to be something in the line of our fellow-townsman Don Quixote, who fancies that everything is done by enchantment; and for this reason I am almost ready to say that Iβd like to touch and feel your worship to see whether you are a mere ambassador of the imagination or a man of flesh and blood.β
βAll I know, sirs,β replied the page, βis that I am a real ambassador, and that SeΓ±or Sancho Panza is governor as a matter of fact, and that my lord and lady the duke and duchess can give, and have given him this same government, and that I have heard the said Sancho Panza bears himself very stoutly therein; whether there be any enchantment in all this or not, it is for your worships to settle between you; for thatβs all I know by the oath I swear, and that is by the life of my parents whom I have still alive, and love dearly.β
βIt may be so,β said the bachelor; βbut dubitat Augustinus.β
βDoubt who will,β said the page; βwhat I have told you is the truth, and that will always rise above falsehood as oil above water;856 if not operibus credite, et non verbis. Let one of you come with me, and he will see with his eyes what
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