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
Read book online ยซDon Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
โTell me, dog,โ said the general, โwhat led thee to kill my soldiers, when thou sawest it was impossible for thee to escape? Is that the way to behave to chief galleys? Knowest thou not that rashness is not valour? Faint prospects of success should make men bold, but not rash.โ
The rais was about to reply, but the general could not at that moment listen to him, as he had to hasten to receive the viceroy, who was now coming on board the galley, and with him certain of his attendants and some of the people.
โYou have had a good chase, seรฑor general,โ said the viceroy.
โYour excellency shall soon see how good, by the game strung up to this yard,โ replied the general.
โHow so?โ returned the viceroy.
โBecause,โ said the general, โagainst all law, reason, and usages of war they have killed on my hands two of the best soldiers on board these galleys, and I have sworn to hang every man that I have taken, but above all this youth who is the rais of the brigantine,โ and he pointed to him as he stood with his hands already bound and the rope round his neck, ready for death.
The viceroy looked at him, and seeing him so well-favoured, so graceful, and so submissive, he felt a desire to spare his life, the comeliness of the youth furnishing him at once with a letter of recommendation. He therefore questioned him, saying, โTell me, rais, art thou Turk, Moor, or renegade?โ
To which the youth replied, also in Spanish, โI am neither Turk, nor Moor, nor renegade.โ
โWhat art thou, then?โ said the viceroy.
โA Christian woman,โ replied the youth.
โA woman and a Christian, in such a dress and in such circumstances! It is more marvellous than credible,โ said the viceroy.
โSuspend the execution of the sentence,โ said the youth; โyour vengeance will not lose much by waiting while I tell you the story of my life.โ
What heart could be so hard as not to be softened by these words, at any rate so far as to listen to what the unhappy youth had to say? The general bade him say what he pleased, but not to expect pardon for his flagrant offence. With this permission the youth began in these words.
โBorn of Morisco parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise, upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor would my uncles believe it; on the contrary, they treated it as an untruth and a subterfuge set up to enable me to remain behind in the land of my birth; and so, more by force than of my own will, they took me with them. I had a Christian mother, and a father who was a man of sound sense and a Christian too; I imbibed the Catholic faith with my motherโs milk, I was well brought up, and neither in word nor in deed did I, I think, show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth; and great as was the seclusion in which I lived
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