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
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βI am going to Granada, seΓ±or,β said the gentleman, βto my own country.β
βAnd a goodly country,β said Don Quixote; βbut will your worship do me the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more importance to me to know it than I can tell you.β
βMy name is Don Γlvaro Tarfe,β replied the traveller.
To which Don Quixote returned, βI have no doubt whatever that your worship is that Don Γlvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published by a new author.β
βI am the same,β replied the gentleman; βand that same Don Quixote, the principal personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine, and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going myself; indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme rashness.β986
βTell me, SeΓ±or Don Γlvaro,β said Don Quixote, βam I at all like that Don Quixote you talk of?β
βNo indeed,β replied the traveller, βnot a bit.β
βAnd that Don Quixoteβ ββ said our one, βhad he with him a squire called Sancho Panza?β
βHe had,β said Don Γlvaro; βbut though he had the name of being very droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it.β
βThat I can well believe,β said Sancho at this, βfor to come out with drolleries is not in everybodyβs line; and that Sancho your worship speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and thief, all in one; for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more drolleries than if it rained them; let your worship only try; come along with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I donβt know what I am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows, the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master; all other Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries.β
βBy God I believe it,β said Don Γlvaro; βfor you have uttered more drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He was more greedy than well-spoken, and more dull than droll; and I am convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I donβt know what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del Nuncio at Toledo,987 and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very different one from mine.β
βI donβt know whether I am good,β said Don Quixote, βbut I can safely say I am not βthe Bad;β and to prove it, let me tell you, SeΓ±or Don Γlvaro Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I have seen it. In a word, SeΓ±or Don Γlvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship knew.β
βThat I will do most willingly,β replied Don Γlvaro; βthough it amazes me to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in name as they differ in demeanour; and again I say and declare that what I saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened.β
βNo doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,β said Sancho; βand would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what Iβm giving myself for her, for Iβd lay them on without looking for anything.β
βI donβt understand that about the lashes,β said Don Γlvaro. Sancho replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they happened to be going the same road.
By this dinnertime arrived, and Don Quixote and Don Γlvaro dined together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a petition before him, showing that it was requisite for his rights that Don Γlvaro Tarfe, the gentleman there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know Don Quixote
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