THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
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Don Quixote
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Idle
reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this book, as it is the child of my
brain, were the
fairest,
gayest, and cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not
counteract Nature's law that everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this sterile,
illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry,
shrivelled, whimsical offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into any other
imagination--just what might be
begotten in a
prison, where every misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes its
dwelling?
Tranquillity, a cheerful
retreat,
pleasant fields, bright skies,
murmuring brooks, peace of mind, these are the things that go far to make even the most barren
muses
fertile, and bring into the world births that fill it with wonder and delight. Sometimes when a father has an ugly, loutish son, the
love he
bears him so
blindfolds his eyes that he does not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mind and body, and talks of them to his friends as wit and grace. I, however--for though I pass for the
father, I am but the
stepfather to "Don Quixote"--have no desire to go with the current of custom, or to implore thee,
dearest reader, almost with
tears in my eyes, as others do, to pardon or excuse the defects thou wilt perceive in this child of mine. Thou art neither its kinsman nor its friend, thy soul is thine own and thy will as free as any
man's, whate'er he be, thou art in
thine own house and master of it as much as the king of his taxes and thou
knowest the common saying, "Under my cloak I
kill the king;" all which exempts and frees thee from every
consideration and obligation, and thou canst say what thou wilt of the story without
fear of being abused for any ill or
rewarded for any good thou mayest say of it.
My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any
embellishment of
preface or
uncountable muster of
customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading. Many times did I take up my pen to
write it, and many did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times, as I was pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my
ear, my
elbow on the
desk, and my
cheek in
my hand, thinking of what I should say, there came in unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine, who, seeing me so deep in thought, asked the reason; to which I, making no mystery of it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to make for the story of "Don Quixote," which so troubled me that I had a mind not to make any at all, nor even publish the achievements of so noble a
knight.
"For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient lawgiver they call the
Public will say when it sees me, after slumbering so many
years in the silence of
oblivion, coming out now with all my
years upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush, devoid of invention, meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting in
learning and wisdom, without quotations in the margin or
annotations at the end, after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all
fables and
profanity, are so full of
maxims from
Aristotle, and
Plato, and the whole herd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement and convince them that the authors are men of
learning,
erudition, and eloquence. And then, when they quote the
Holy Scriptures!- anyone would say they are
St. Thomases or other doctors of the
Church, observing as they do a decorum so ingenious that in one sentence they describe a distracted lover and in the next deliver a
devout little
sermon that it is a pleasure and a treat to
hear and read. Of all this there will be nothing in my book, for I have nothing to quote in the margin or to note at the end, and still less do I know what authors I follow in it, to place them at the beginning, as all do, under the letters A, B, C, beginning with Aristotle and ending with
Xenophon, or
Zoilus, or
Zeuxis, though one was a slanderer and the other a painter. Also my book
must do without sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose
authors are
dukes,
marquises,
counts,
bishops,
ladies, or famous
poets. Though if I were to ask two or three obliging friends, I know they would give me them, and such as the productions of those that have the highest reputation in our
Spain could not equal.
"In short, my friend," I continued, "I am
determined that Senor
Don Quixote shall remain
buried in the archives of his own
La Mancha until
Heaven provide some one to
garnish him with all those things he stands in need of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of
learning,
unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and careless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say without them. Hence the
cogitation and
abstraction you found me in,
and reason enough, what you
have heard from me."
Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead and breaking into a
hearty laugh, exclaimed, "Before
God,
Brother, now am I
disabused of an
error in which I have been living
all this
long time I have known you, all through which I have taken you to be
shrewd and sensible in all you do; but now I see you are as far from that as the heaven is from the
earth. It is possible that things of so little
moment and so easy to set right can occupy and perplex a ripe wit like yours, fit to break through and crush far greater obstacles? By my faith, this comes, not of any want of ability, but of too much
indolence and
too little knowledge of life. Do you want to know if
I am telling the truth? Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in the opening and shutting of an
eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply all those deficiencies which you say check and discourage you from bringing before the world the story of your
famous Don Quixote, the
light and
mirror of all knight-errantry."
"Say on," said I,
listening to his talk; "how do you propose to make up for my diffidence, and reduce to
order this
chaos of perplexity I am in?"
To which he made answer, "Your first difficulty about the
sonnets,
epigrams,
or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and
rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards
baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on
Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they were not, and any
pedants or
bachelors should attack you and question the fact, never care two
maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with.
"As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you take the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is only contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you may happen to have by
heart, or at any rate that will not give you much trouble to look up; so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, to insert
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro;
and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said it; or, if you allude to the power of
death, to come in with-
Pallida mors Aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres.
If it be friendship and the
love God bids us
bear to our enemy, go at once to the Holy Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount of
research, and quote no less than the words of God himself:
Ego autem dico vobis:
diligite inimicos vestros. If you speak of
evil thoughts, turn to the
Gospel: De corde exeunt cogitationes malae. If of the
fickleness of friends, there is
Cato, who will give you his distich:
Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.
With these and such like bits of Latin they will take you for a
grammarian at all events, and that
now-a-days is no small
honour and
profit.
"With regard to adding
annotations at the end of the book, you may safely do it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book contrive that it shall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which will cost you almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can put- The giant Golias or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mighty stone-cast in the Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book of Kings- in the chapter where you find it written.
"Next, to prove yourself a
man of erudition in polite
literature and cosmography, manage that the river
Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting forth- The river
Tagus was so called after a
King of
Spain: it has its source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it has golden sands,
&c. If you should have anything to do with robbers, I will give you the story of
Cacus, for I have it by
heart; if with loose women, there is the
Bishop of Mondonedo, who will give you the loan of Lamia, Laida, and Flora, any reference to whom will bring you great credit; if with hard-
hearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with Medea; if with witches or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil Circe; if with valiant captains, Julius Caesar himself will lend you himself in his own '
Commentaries,' and Plutarch will give you a thousand
Alexanders. If you should deal with
love, with two ounces you may know of
Tuscan you can go to
Leon the
Hebrew, who will supply you to your
heart's content; or if you should not care to go to foreign
countries you have at home
Fonseca's 'Of
the Love of God,' in which is
condensed all that you or the most imaginative mind can want on the subject. In short, all you have to do is to manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I have mentioned, and leave it to me to insert the
annotations and
quotations, and I
swear by all that's good to fill your margins and use up four
sheets at the end of the book.
"Now let us come to those
references to
authors which other books have, and you want for yours. The
remedy for this is very
simple: You have only to look out for some book
that quotes them all, from
A to Z as you say
yourself, and then insert the very same
alphabet in your book, and though the
imposition may be
plain to see, because you have so little need to borrow from them
, that is no matter; there will probably be some
simple enough to believe that you have
made use of them all in this plain,
artless story of yours. At any rate, if it
answers no other purpose, this long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of authority to your book.
Besides, no one will
trouble himself to
verify whether you have
followed them or
whether you have not, being no
way concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of
chivalry, of which
Aristotle never dreamt, nor
St. Basil said a word, nor
Cicero had any knowledge; nor do
the niceties of truth nor the observations of
astrology come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometrical
measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human and divine, a sort of motley in which no
Christian understanding should dress itself. It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in its
composition, and the more perfect the imitation the better the work will be. And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to
destroy the
authority and influence which books of chivalry have in the world and with the public, there is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from
Holy Scripture,
fables from
poets,
speeches from
orators, or
miracles from
saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with
clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power, and putting your ideas
intelligibly, without
confusion or
obscurity.
Strive, too, that in
reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made
merrier still; that the simple
shall not be
wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it.
Finally, keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that
ill-founded edifice of
the books of
chivalry, hated by some and praised by many more; for if you
succeed in this you will have
achieved no small
success."
In
profound silence I
listened to what my friend said, and his
observations made such an impression on me that, without
attempting to
question them, I
admitted their soundness, and out of them I
determined to make this
Preface; wherein, gentle reader, thou wilt
perceive my friend's
good sense, my
good fortune in finding such an adviser in such a time of need, and what thou hast gained in receiving, without
addition or
alteration, the
story of the famous
Don Quixote of La Mancha, who is
held by all the
inhabitants of the district of the
Campo de Montiel to have been the
chastest lover and the bravest knight that has for many
years been seen in that
neighbourhood. I have no desire to magnify the service I render thee in making thee
acquainted with so
renowned and honoured a
knight, but I do desire thy thanks for the
acquaintance thou wilt make with the famous
Sancho Panza, his squire, in whom, to my thinking, I have given thee
condensed all the
squirely drolleries that are scattered through the
swarm of the
vain books of
chivalry. And so- may
God give thee
health, and not
forget me.
Vale.
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Don Quixote
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