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

canon is quite right: there is no historical foundation for three-fourths of the achievements attributed to him by the ballads and crónicas. As to Bernardo del Carpio, there may be, of course, some nucleus of fact round which the legends have clustered, but that is all that can be said for his existence. The saddle of the Cid is not now among the treasures of the Armería at Madrid, if indeed it ever was. ↩

In la Cuesta’s third edition of 1608 a passage is inserted here for which there is neither authority nor necessity. ↩

The phrase used only by a player who wishes to withdraw from a game. ↩

The original editions have “Gante y Luna,” which are not names of persons known in connection with any feats of the kind described. Garcilaso (see here) is much more likely to be the name mentioned with Deigo García de Paredes. ↩

Hartzenbusch, who will never admit an error in taste or judgment in Cervantes, explains the conduct of the canon and curate on this occasion by pointing out that it was after dinner. ↩

It is commonly said that Sancho, though he would have understood what isla meant, had no conception of the meaning of insula, the antiquated word for island Don Quixote always uses; but it appears from this that he understood perfectly what an insula is. ↩

Proverb 138. ↩

One of his grievances against the books of chivalry being that they led astray not merely the silly, thoughtless, and uncritical, but vast numbers of people who ought to know better. ↩

Whether or not this is to be held an indication of some grudge on the part of Cervantes against the authorities of the town, it is, at any rate, conclusive that Don Quixote’s village, “the name of which he did not care to call to mind,” was Argamasilla. Monicongo may be translated “mannikin”; Paniaguado is a sort of parasite hanging about the house of a patron for such scraps as he can pick up; Burlador means a joker, and cachidiablo a hobgoblin. Except, perhaps, in the sonnet on Sancho Panza, there is not much drollery or humor in these verses, but it would not be fair to criticise them severely, as they are obviously nothing more than a mere outburst of reckless nonsense to finish off with; a sort of flourish or rubrica like that commonly appended to a Spanish signature. ↩

In the second and third editions trono⁠—“throne”⁠—was changed into tronco, which Hartzenbusch considers a blundering alteration. I am inclined to think, however, that he is wrong, and that what Cervantes meant was not a diamond-studded throne, but an adamant pillar, a trophy in fact. But it is no great matter; the sonnet was meant for nonsense, and is successful either way. ↩

Brillador was Orlando’s horse; Bayard, Rinaldo’s:

“Ouel Brigliador si bello e si gagliardo
Che non ha paragon, fuorche Baiardo.”

Orlando Furtoso, IX 60

↩

Misquoted from Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXX 16:

“Forse altri canterà con miglior plettro.”

Cervantes, it will be seen, leaves it very uncertain whether he means to give a continuation of the adventures of Don Quixote or not, and here almost seems to invite some other historian to undertake the task. ↩

The spurious “Second Part,” which came out in the autumn of 1614, was described on the title-page as the work of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, of Tordesillas, and was licensed and printed at Tarragona. ↩

Proverbial phrase. See this note. ↩

Avellaneda, in his coarse and scarrilous preface, charged Cervantes with attacking Lope de Vega, obviously alluding to the passages on the drama in Part I Chapter XLVIII, and attributed the attack to envy. Lope was not, however, a familiar of the Inquisition at the time Cervantes was writing the First Part of Don Quixote, as the words used here would imply. ↩

Podenco, a kind of small greyhound, hunting by nose as well as by sight, and generally used for rabbits. ↩

The municipal authorities of Seville, Cordova, and Granada were called Veintiquatros, from being twenty-four in number. The passage is, of course, a quotation from some popular interlude of the day. ↩

Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas was Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, and brother of the Duke of Lerma, the Prime Minister. ↩

Las Coplas de Mingo Revulgo is the title given to an old versified satire on the reign of Henry IV absurdly attributed by some to Juan de Mena, by others to Rodrigo Cota, or Fernando del Pulgar. ↩

Ni Rey ni Roque⁠—“neither king nor rook”⁠—a popular phrase somewhat like “gentle or simple,” or “high or low.” According to Clemencín probably derived from the game of chess, rook or rock (Pers. rokh) being the same thing as the castle. ↩

The ballad referred to has not been identified so far as I am aware. ↩

Cuerpo de tal⁠—like the English⁠—a less irreverent form of “God’s body!” ↩

Andar estaciones properly means to visit certain churches, for the purpose of offering up the prayers required to obtain indulgences. ↩

Proverb 49. ↩

The first nine are heroes of Spanish chivalry romance; the others are from Boiardo and Ariosto. There never was any such book as Turpin’s Cosmography; it was Ariosto himself who traced