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
While fair Altisidora, who the sport
Of cold Don Quixoteβs cruelty hath been,
Returns to life, and in this magic court
The dames in sables come to grace the scene,
And while her matrons all in seemly sort
My lady robes in baize and bombazine,
Her beauty and her sorrows will I sing
With defter quill than touched the Thracian string.970
But not in life alone, methinks, to me
Belongs the office; Lady, when my tongue
Is cold in death, believe me, unto thee
My voice shall raise its tributary song.
My soul, from this strait prison-house set free,
As oβer the Stygian lake it floats along,
Thy praises singing still shall hold its way,
And make the waters of oblivion stay.
At this point one of the two that looked like kings exclaimed, βEnough, enough, divine singer! It would be an endless task to put before us now the death and the charms of the peerless Altisidora, not dead as the ignorant world imagines, but living in the voice of fame and in the penance which Sancho Panza, here present, has to undergo to restore her to the long-lost light. Do thou, therefore, O Rhadamanthus, who sittest in judgment with me in the murky caverns of Dis, as thou knowest all that the inscrutable fates have decreed touching the resuscitation of this damsel, announce and declare it at once, that the happiness we look forward to from her restoration be no longer deferred.β
No sooner had Minos the fellow judge of Rhadamanthus said this, than Rhadamanthus rising up said:
βHo, officials of this house, high and low, great and small, make haste hither one and all, and print on Sanchoβs face four-and-twenty smacks, and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms; for upon this ceremony depends the restoration of Altisidora.β
On hearing this Sancho broke silence and cried out, βBy all thatβs good, Iβll as soon let my face be smacked or handled as turn Moor. Body oβ me! What has handling my face got to do with the resurrection of this damsel? βThe old woman took kindly to the blits;β971 they enchant Dulcinea, and whip me in order to disenchant her; Altisidora dies of ailments God was pleased to send her, and to bring her to life again they must give me four-and-twenty smacks, and prick holes in my body with pins, and raise weals on my arms with pinches! Try those jokes on a brother-in-law;972 βIβm an old dog, and βtus, tusβ is no use with me.βββ973
βThou shalt die,β said Rhadamanthus in a loud voice; βrelent, thou tiger; humble thyself, proud Nimrod; suffer and be silent, for no impossibilities are asked of thee; it is not for thee to inquire into the difficulties in this matter; smacked thou must be, pricked thou shalt see thyself, and with pinches thou must be made to howl. Ho, I say, officials, obey my orders; or by the word of an honest man, ye shall see what ye were born for.β
At this some six duennas, advancing across the court, made their appearance in procession, one after the other, four of them with spectacles, and all with their right hands uplifted, showing four fingers of wrist to make their hands look longer, as is the fashion nowadays. No sooner had Sancho caught sight of them than, bellowing like a bull, he exclaimed, βI might let myself be handled by all the world; but allow duennas to touch meβ βnot a bit of it! Scratch my face, as my master was served in this very castle; run me through the body with burnished daggers; pinch my arms with red-hot pincers; Iβll bear all in patience to serve these gentlefolk; but I wonβt let duennas touch me, though the devil should carry me off!β
Here Don Quixote, too, broke silence, saying to Sancho, βHave patience, my son, and gratify these noble persons, and give all thanks to heaven that it has infused such virtue into thy person, that by its sufferings thou canst disenchant the enchanted and restore to life the dead.β
The duennas were now close to Sancho, and he, having become more tractable and reasonable, settling himself well in his chair presented his face and beard to the first, who delivered him a smack very stoutly laid on, and then made him a low curtsey.
βLess politeness and less paint, seΓ±ora duenna,β said Sancho; βby God your hands smell of vinegar-wash.β
In fine, all the duennas smacked him and several others of the household pinched him; but what he could not stand was being pricked by the pins; and so, apparently out of patience, he started up out of his chair, and seizing a lighted torch that stood near him fell upon the
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