Part One: The Gentleman and the Windmills
keep your aim on bringing down the ill-founded machine of these chivalric books, tedious to many and praised by even more.
Explanation and analysis
In the prologue, the author tells how he sat stuck before the blank page, not knowing how to give the book the notes, citations, and praise the common reader expects. A witty friend joins the conversation and teaches him how to manufacture all of it: a name plucked at random, like that of the giant Goliath, makes a grand annotation, with a reference to a chapter no one will bother to check. Having shown the trick, the friend says the book does not even need him, and it is at this point that the quoted sentence comes.
The sentence gives the book a task and a target. The target is not a man; it is an "ill-founded machine": the whole body of chivalric books, tedious to many and at the same time praised by even more. The friend adds that these books have never heard of Aristotle, so the new book needs no erudition to bring them down, and that it should make the melancholy laugh, the cheerful laugh even more, and the discerning admire, without wearying the simple. What is promised, therefore, is a satire for a broad public.
Note who speaks. It is not the author but a friend, and the book's purpose is born from a conversation that the prologue itself stages. The program also leaves an open question, which the following chapters answer little by little: when the first reader struck down by the books appears, the gentleman of La Mancha, does the promised laughter hold or grow complicated? The text asks the reader to follow the answer.
in short, he became so absorbed in his reading that his nights were spent reading from dusk to dawn and his days from dim to dim, and so, from little sleep and much reading, his brain dried up, to such a degree that he came to lose his wits.
Explanation and analysis
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as everything this adventurer of ours thought, saw, or imagined seemed to him made and done in the manner of what he had read, so as soon as he saw the inn a castle rose before him, with its four towers and spires of gleaming silver, with drawbridge and deep moat not lacking, and with all the trappings such castles bear in paintings.
Explanation and analysis
those you see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails, which, turned by the wind, make the millstone spin.
Explanation and analysis
turning back at once to Castilian, the Arab said it read: History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Arab historian.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: Marcela and the Inn
Happy age and happy centuries those to which the ancients gave the name golden, not because gold, which in this our iron age is so highly prized, was obtained in that fortunate time without any toil, but because the people who lived then were unaware of these two words: mine and yours.
Explanation and analysis
but I cannot see how, for the reason of being loved, one who is loved for being beautiful is obliged to love the one who loves him.
Explanation and analysis
I was born free, and to be able to live free I chose the solitude of the fields. The trees of these mountains are my company, the clear waters of these streams my mirrors.
Explanation and analysis
wounds dealt with whatever instruments happen to be at hand do not insult; and this is in the law of the duel, written in explicit words: that if a cobbler strikes another with the last he holds in his hand, even though it is truly of wood, the one it hits shall not for that reason be said to have been cudgeled.
Explanation and analysis
If they do not let themselves be seen, they let themselves be felt, said Sancho; if not, let my back tell it.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: The Galley Slaves and the Sierra
for by right you have left me crooked, leaving me with a broken leg that will never be seen straight all the days of its life; and the wrong you undid in me was to leave me wronged in such a way that I shall stay wronged forever.
Explanation and analysis
all the things he saw, he very easily fitted to his wild chivalries and wandering thoughts.
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I am Ginés de Pasamonte, whose life is written by these thumbs.
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it is not right for honorable men to be the executioners of other men when nothing is at stake for them.
Explanation and analysis
If you wish, gentlemen, that I tell you in a few words the immensity of my misfortunes, you must promise me that you will not interrupt the thread of my sad story with any question or anything else; for at the point where you do, that is where my telling will stop.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: The Penance and Micomicona
for a knight-errant to go mad with reason earns neither merit nor gratitude: the trick is to rave without cause and to make my lady understand that if I do this dry, what would I not do wet?
Explanation and analysis
So, Sancho, as far as I am concerned, Dulcinea del Toboso is worth as much as the highest princess on earth [...] I paint her in my imagination as I desire her, both in beauty and in preeminence.
Explanation and analysis
I am your vassal, but not your slave; neither does the nobility of your blood have, nor should it have, the power to dishonor and hold in low esteem the humility of mine; and I esteem myself, a commoner and a farm woman, as much as you, lord and knight.
Explanation and analysis
it is neither the business nor within the power of knights-errant to inquire whether the afflicted, chained, and oppressed whom they meet along the roads go that way, or are in that anguish, through their faults or through their graces; it is for them only to help them as the needy, fixing their eyes on their sufferings and not on their knaveries.
Explanation and analysis
that wise necromancer who looks after my affairs and is my friend [...] some wise friend must have carried you off on flights without your feeling it.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: The Curious Impertinent
as if I did not know how many are five and where my shoe pinches! [...] being printed with the license of the lords of the Royal Council, as if they were people who would let so much lying be printed all together.
Explanation and analysis
a woman is good only to the extent that she is or is not sought after, and only she is strong who does not bend to the promises, gifts, tears, and continual importunities of attentive lovers.
Explanation and analysis
This novella pleases me well, said the priest, but I cannot persuade myself that it is true; and if it is made up, the author invented it badly, because one cannot imagine a husband so foolish as to undertake so costly an experiment as Anselmo's. If this case were set between a gallant and a lady, it might pass, but between husband and wife there is something impossible about it.
Explanation and analysis
you cannot be the beautiful Luscinda's, because you are mine, nor can she be yours, because she belongs to Cardenio; and it will be easier for you, if you consider it, to bring your will to want whoever adores you than to bring her who abhors you to want you well.
Explanation and analysis
I would believe all that, answered Sancho, if my blanketing had been a thing of that sort; but it was not, it was real and true; and I saw the innkeeper who is here today holding one corner of the blanket and tossing me up toward heaven with much grace and spirit, and with as much laughter as strength; and where people are known, I hold, though simple and a sinner, that there is no enchantment at all, but a great deal of pounding and much bad luck.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: The Arms and the Captive
and so, considering this, I am inclined to say that in my soul it weighs on me to have taken up this exercise of knight-errantry in an age as detestable as this one in which we now live; because, although no danger puts fear in me, it nonetheless worries me to think whether gunpowder and lead shot will take from me the opportunity to make myself famous and known for the valor of my arm and the edge of my sword.
Explanation and analysis
it so happened that I was taken captive in his power, and I alone was the sad one among so many cheerful men, and the captive among so many free ones; for fifteen thousand Christians won the longed-for liberty that day, all of whom had come rowing in the Turkish fleet.
Explanation and analysis
I have seen many Christians through this window, and none has seemed a knight to me but you. I am very beautiful and young, and I have a great deal of money to take with me: see whether you can manage how we are to go, and you shall be my husband there, if you wish; and if you do not wish, it will make no difference to me, for Lela Marién will give me someone to marry.
Explanation and analysis
Allah knows well that I could do nothing but what I did, and that these Christians owe nothing to my will, for even if I wished not to go with them and to stay in my house, it would have been impossible for me, given the haste my soul imposed on me to carry out this deed, which seems to me as good as you, beloved father, judge it bad.
Explanation and analysis
Take, my lady, this hand, or, to put it better, this executioner of the world's evildoers; take this hand, I say, which no other woman's hand has ever touched, not even hers who has entire possession of my whole body.
Explanation and analysis
Part One: The Cage and the Canon
Who was the ignoramus who signed a warrant of arrest against a knight like me? Who did not know that knights-errant are exempt from every judicial forum, and that their law is their sword, their privileges their spirit, and their decrees their will?
Explanation and analysis
I have not seen any book of chivalry that makes a whole fable with all its members, so that the middle answers to the beginning, and the end to the beginning and the middle [...] and for that reason they are worthy of being banished from the Christian commonwealth as useless people.
Explanation and analysis
I know and I hold that I am enchanted, and this is enough for the security of my conscience; it would weigh very heavily on it if I thought I was not enchanted and let myself stay in this cage, lazy and cowardly, cheating the aid I could give to many needy and destitute people who must, at this very hour, be in their precise and extreme need of my help and support.
Explanation and analysis
that is a good one, replied Don Quixote. Books printed with the license of kings and the approval of those to whom they were submitted, and that with general delight are read and celebrated by great and small, poor and rich, learned and ignorant, plebeians and knights, in short, by every kind of person, of whatever state and condition they may be, were to be lies? [...] and moreover carrying so much appearance of truth, for they tell us of the father, the mother, the homeland, the relatives, the age, the place, and the feats, point by point and day by day, that such a knight did, or knights did.
Explanation and analysis
for which the author asks of those who read it, as a reward for the immense labor it cost him to inquire into and search all the Manchegan archives to bring it to light, nothing but that they give it the same credit that discerning people customarily give to books of chivalry, which are so esteemed in the world.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: The Printed Book
you would like me to call him an ass, a madman, and an insolent fellow, but that does not even enter my mind: let his sin punish him, let him eat his bread and fend for himself.
Explanation and analysis
to write as a poet is one thing, as a historian another: to the poet it falls to tell, or sing, things not as they were but as they ought to be; to the historian, to write them not as they ought to be but as they were, adding nothing and taking nothing away from the truth.
Explanation and analysis
for the saying goes that whoever covers you also uncovers you. At the poor man everyone glances in passing, but at the rich they stop; and if that rich man was once poor, there is murmuring and slander, and the worst is the perseverance of the slanderers, who are found on those streets by the heap, like swarms of bees.
Explanation and analysis
didn't I tell you a thousand times that in all the days of my life I have not seen the peerless Dulcinea, nor have I ever crossed the threshold of her palace, and that I am in love only from hearing others speak of her and from her great fame for beauty and discretion?
Explanation and analysis
it will not be very difficult to make him believe that a farm woman, the first I come across around here, is the lady Dulcinea.
Explanation and analysis
since the wicked enchanter pursues me, he has put clouds and cataracts over my eyes and, only for them and not for others, has changed and transformed your matchless beauty and face into those of a poor farm girl, if indeed mine has not also been changed into that of some little monster, to make me loathsome in your eyes.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: Mirrors, Lions, and Camacho
when I saw this cart, I imagined some great adventure was appearing to me; and now I say that it is necessary to feel the appearances in order to make room for disillusion.
Explanation and analysis
saw, says the history, the very face, the same figure, the same look, the same features, the same effigy, the very perspective of the bachelor Sansón Carrasco.
Explanation and analysis
the difference between these two madmen is that the one who is so by force will always be so, and the one who is so by his own choice will stop being so whenever he pleases.
Explanation and analysis
the generous lion, more restrained than arrogant, paying no heed to childish things or bravado, after looking to one side and the other, turned his back and showed Don Quixote his hindquarters, and with great phlegm and calm lay down again in the cage.
Explanation and analysis
not even as many doctors and good scribes as the world has will remove him from the blot of his madness: he is an intermittent madman, full of lucid intervals.
Explanation and analysis
note that love and war are the same thing, and just as in war it is lawful and customary to use wiles and stratagems to defeat the enemy, so in amorous contests and rivalries, tricks and deceptions done to achieve the desired end are held to be good, provided they are not to the detriment and dishonor of the beloved. [...] Camacho is rich, and can buy his pleasure whenever, wherever, and however he likes. Basilio has no more than this one ewe, and no one will take it from him, however powerful he may be; for the man cannot separate those whom God has joined.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: Montesinos and the Puppet Show
I saw that he was not asleep, but truly awake [...] they assured me that I was there, at that moment, what I am here now.
Explanation and analysis
I cannot make out, nor can I persuade myself, that the valiant Don Quixote really experienced everything that is written in the previous chapter [...] and if this adventure seems apocryphal, I am not to blame; and so, without affirming it false or true, I write it down.
Explanation and analysis
one alone cannot insult a kingdom, a province, a city, a republic, or an entire people.
Explanation and analysis
they went back to their beasts, and to being beasts, Don Quixote and Sancho, and this was how the adventure of the enchanted boat ended.
Explanation and analysis
that was the first day on which he fully knew and believed himself a true knight-errant, and not a fantastic one, seeing himself treated in the same way that he had read such knights were treated in past centuries.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: The Duke and Duchess and Clavileño
if the knights, the magnificent, the generous, the high-born held me for a fool, I would take it as an irreparable affront; but that students, who have never entered or trodden the paths of chivalry, hold me for a madman, I do not care a fig: I am a knight and a knight I shall die, if it pleases the Most High.
Explanation and analysis
God knows whether there is a Dulcinea in the world or not, or whether she is fantastic or not fantastic; and these are not among the things whose inquiry must be carried to the end. Neither did I beget nor give birth to my lady, although I contemplate her as it is fitting that a lady should be, one who contains within herself the gifts that can make her famous in every part of the world.
Explanation and analysis
I hold my lord Don Quixote for a complete madman, though at times he says things that, in my opinion and in that of all who hear him, are so discreet and so well directed along a good track that Satan himself could not say them better; but with all that, truly and without scruple, I have settled that he is a madman. [...] I dare to make him believe what has neither feet nor head, as was that business of the answer to the letter, and the one of six or eight days ago, which is not yet in history; to wit: the enchantment of my lady Dulcinea, which I led him to believe is enchanted, when it is no more true than that the hills of Úbeda are enchanted.
Explanation and analysis
The insula I promised you is neither movable nor fugitive: its roots are so deep, cast down into the abysses of the earth, that with three tugs they will not uproot it or move it from where it stands.
Explanation and analysis
Sancho, since you want me to believe what you saw in the sky, I want you to believe me about what I saw in Montesinos's Cave; and I will say no more.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: The Governorship of the Island
the guilty man who falls under your jurisdiction, consider him a wretched man, subject to the conditions of our depraved nature, and in everything that lies within your power, without doing injury to the opposing party, show yourself merciful and compassionate, for although all of God's attributes are equal, the attribute of mercy shines forth and stands out more, in our view, than that of justice.
Explanation and analysis
my sister, if you had shown the same spirit and courage in defending your body as you showed in defending this purse, or even half as much, the strength of Hercules could not have overpowered you.
Explanation and analysis
from here on I declare that for this once I renounce my gentility, and I lower and match myself to the plain station of the offender, making myself his equal so that he may be fit to fight me; and thus, though he is absent, I challenge and defy him.
Explanation and analysis
come here, my companion and friend, bearer of my labors and miseries: when I got along with you and had no other thoughts than those of mending your harness and feeding your little body, my hours, my days, and my years were happy; but after I left you and climbed the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand labors, and four thousand disquiets have entered deep into my soul.
Explanation and analysis
let me return to my former freedom; let me go in search of my past life, so that it may raise me from this present death.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: Ricote, Roque, and Barcelona
Liberty, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts heaven has given to men; no treasure the earth holds or the sea hides can equal it; for liberty, as for honor, one can and should risk life, and, on the contrary, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall men.
Explanation and analysis
for that very reason, Don Quixote replied, I will not set foot in Zaragoza, and so I will take from the public square of the world the lie of that modern historian, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he describes.
Explanation and analysis
I neither dethrone kings nor crown them, Sancho replied, but I help myself, since I am my own lord.
Explanation and analysis
translating from one language into another, unless it be from the queens of languages, Greek and Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, which, though the figures can be seen, are full of threads that darken them, and are not seen with the smoothness and sheen of the right side.
Explanation and analysis
Part Two: The Defeat and Death
Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight on earth, and it is not right that my weakness should defraud this truth. Tighten your grip on the lance, knight, and take my life, for you have taken my honor.
Explanation and analysis
open your eyes, longed-for homeland, and see that Sancho Panza, your son, returns to you, if not very rich, then very well flogged. Open your arms and receive also your son Don Quixote, who, though he comes defeated by the arms of another, comes victorious over himself, which, as he told me, is the greatest victory one can desire. I bring money with me, for if good beatings were what paid me, I would be going home a proper knight.
Explanation and analysis
congratulate me, good sirs, for I am no longer Don Quixote de la Mancha, but Alonso Quijano, whom my conduct has called the Good. I am now the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole endless horde of his lineage.
Explanation and analysis
Don Quixote was born for me alone, and I for him; he knew how to act, and I how to write; only the two of us are made for each other, despite and to the sorrow of the counterfeit writer of Tordesillas.