Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

who admitted the Arabs into Spain to revenge himself upon Roderic. ↩

See this note on the original division into parts. ↩

This looks as if some doubt had crossed the mind of Cervantes as to the propriety of introducing these tales and episodes. ↩

A cloth cap, something like a travelling cap in make, worn by the peasants of Central Spain. ↩

See this note. ↩

Cristianos viejos rancios: rancio is applied to anything, like bacon or wine, that has acquired a peculiar flavor from long keeping. ↩

Literally, “hidalgos and even caballeros:” “hidalgo” being a gentleman by birth, “caballero” one by social position or standing. ↩

Proverb 133. ↩

Proverb 222. ↩

Literally, “I am sucking my fingers.” Shelton and Jervas translate literally, and so miss the meaning. ↩

In the immediate neighborhood of Alcalá de Henares. ↩

I have followed here the suggestion of Fernández Cuesta, for the reading in the original edition is obviously corrupt. ↩

The original says “two leagues,” but the context shows it must have been at least thrice as far. ↩

Clemencín and Hartzenbusch point out that to let the fly loose “among the honey” would be worse for him than for it, and the latter, giving a quotation in point from Francisco de Rojas, substitutes “the bear.” ↩

This was the mark from which the ancestor of the Dukes of Medinaceli, Fernando de la Cerda, took his name. ↩

This is a sly hit of Cervantes at Mariana the historian, who makes the troops despatched against Viriatus land at Orsuna, now Osuna. ↩

Cervantes seems to have intended that Ginés de Pasamonte should carry off Don Quixote’s sword, as Brunello did Marfisa’s at the siege of Albracca. ↩

Proverb 60. Pedir cotufas en el golfo⁠—a proverbial expression for seeking impossibilities. Cotufa, according to Salvá, is equivalent to golosina⁠—a dainty: Clemencín says it is the same as Chufa the tuber of the Cyparus esculentus, used as an ingredient in horchata, and in other ways. ↩

Proverb 33. In full it is, “the pitcher that goes often to the well leaves behind either the handle or the spout.” ↩

Proverb 177. ↩

A reference to the proverb “Por el hilo se saca el ovillo” (114). This passage down to “Sancho thanked him,” like that describing the theft of the ass, was first inserted in Juan de la Cuesta’s second edition. This, however, seems to be Cervantes’ own work, as it agrees with Part II Chapter IV. The printer, no doubt, did not see its relevancy, and therefore omitted it in the first edition. ↩

The division here is very awkwardly managed: Chapter XXXI ought to have commenced at “While they were holding this conversation,” in the preceding chapter. ↩

Proverb 176. ↩

A popular phrase like “Well, that’s settled.” ↩

Albricias, from the Arabic al bashara, a reward given to the bearer of good news. ↩

Proverb 135, i.e. a good thing may be acceptable even out of its proper season, as after Easter the weather may be still cold enough to make sleeves comfortable. Cf. the Scotch proverb, “A Yule feast may be done at Pasch.” ↩

Alluding to a common device of the gypsy dealers to improve the pace of a beast for sale. ↩

Proverb 167. ↩

Proverb 21. Sancho, as he almost always does when it is long, makes a muddle of the proverb: the correct form is, “Who has good and chooses evil, let him not complain of the evil that comes to him.” ↩

See this note. ↩

Literally, “Rids us of a thousand gray hairs.” ↩

Don Cirongilio de Tracia was by Bernado de Vargas and appeared at Seville in 1545: for Felixmarte de Hircania see this note. The title of the third is Crónica del Gran Capitan Gonzalo Hernández de Cordoba y Aguilar, to which is added the life of Diego García de Paredes, written by himself. It appeared at Saragossa in 1559. Gonzalo, the reader need hardly be reminded, was the brilliant general whose services against the Moors at Granada and the French in Naples were so ungratefully repaid by Ferdinand. García de Paredes was Gonzalo’s companion-in-arms in both campaigns. His battered corselet in the Armería at Madrid is as good as a ballad. ↩

I.e. the montante marvellous specimens of which may be seen in the Armería at Madrid. ↩

Neither of these feats is mentioned in the memoir of García Paredes appended to the life of the Great Captain. ↩

Made by cutting away part of the pod so as to expose the upper bean which looks something like a friar’s head in the recess of his cowl. ↩

Proverb 181. ↩

Proverb 252. ↩

Curious Impertinent, Shelton’s barbarous translation of Curioso Impertinente, is something worse than nonsense, for Curioso is here a substantive. There is, of course, no concise English translation for the title; the nearest approach to one would be, perhaps, The Inquisitive Man Who Had No Business to Be So. ↩

Estaciones⁠—attendances at church for private devotion at other