The History of Don Quixote De La Mancha
1605
The History of Don Quixote De La Mancha
1605
Translated by Peter Anthony Motteux
The novel that invented modern fiction. When Alonso Quijano, a gentleman of La Mancha, loses his mind to books of chivalry, he renames himself Don Quixote de la Mancha, arms himself with rusted armor, and rides forth on his emaciated horse Rocinante to revive the age of chivalry. His first adventure: mistaking a roadside inn for a castle, its prostitutes for noble ladies, and his own madness for divine purpose. He acquires a squire in the earthy farmer Sancho Panza, whose crude pragmatism becomes the perfect counterweight to Quixote's soaring delusions. Together they tilt at windmills, free convicts they mistake for oppressed knights, and wander from one comic disaster to the next. But beneath the laughter lies a question that still haunts us: is Quixote insane, or is he the only one brave enough to see the world as it should be rather than as it is? Cervantes created something unprecedented, a novel that is simultaneously the funniest and most tragic in Western literature, and the foundation upon which all subsequent fiction was built.
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“I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“I want you to see me naked and performing one or two dozen mad acts, which will take me less than half an hour, because if you have seen them with your own eyes, you can safely swear to any others you might wish to add.””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“En un lugar de la Mancha de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme...””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“¿Qué gigantes?””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“La razón de la sinrazón que a mi razón se hace, de tal manera mi razón enflaquece, que con razón me quejo de la vuestra fermosura. Y también cuando””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“-Mira, Sancho, por el mesmo que denantes juraste te juro - dijo don Quijote - que tienes el más corto entendimiento que tiene ni tuvo escudero en el mundo. ¿Que es posible que en cuanto ha que andas conmigo no has echado de ver que todas las cosas de los caballeros andantes parecen quimeras, necedades y desatinos, y que son todas hechas al revés? Y no porque sea ello ansí, sino porque andan entre nosotros siempre una caterva de encantadores, que todas nuestras cosas mudan y truecan, y les vuelven según su gusto, y según tienen la gana de favorecernos o destruirnos; y así, eso que a ti te parece bacía de barbero, me parece a mí el yelmo de Mambrino, y a otro le parecerá otra cosa.””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“Tú, con tu señor a acuestas; y yo, encima de ti, citando el oficio para que Dios me echó al mundo. (Don Quijote)””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“Thy false promise, and my certain misfortune, do carry me to such a place, as from thence thou shalt sooner receive news of my death than reasons of my just complaints. Thou hast disdained me, O ingrate! for one that hath more, but not for one that is worth more than I am; but if virtue were a treasure of estimation, I would not emulate other men’s fortunes, nor weep thus for mine own misfortunes. That which thy beauty erected, thy works have overthrown; by it I deemed thee to be an angel, and by these I certainly know thee to be but a woman. Rest in peace, O causer of my war! and let Heaven work so that thy spouse’s deceits remain still concealed, to the end thou mayst not repent what thou didst, and I be constrained to take revenge of that I desire not.””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“Everyone is the son of his works.””
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
