Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [reading well .txt] 📗

be at the junction of the river Jalon, a few leagues above Saragossa, and this, in a straight line from the inn near the cave of Montesinos, would be something over two hundred miles distant. The most direct and best road would be by Belmonte and Cuenca, and thence across the Albarracín mountains to Calamocha, Daroca, and Calatayud, which would be, at least, one-third more; a distance that, making due allowance for the difficulties of the country, Don Quixote and Sancho, at their rate of travelling, could not have accomplished in thrice the time Cervantes allows. Having myself made the journey on foot, I can speak with some confidence on the point. But Cervantes clearly had no personal knowledge of the region between La Mancha and Saragossa. He would never have allowed Don Quixote to traverse the Cuenca mountains, and the pine woods of the Albarracín, without an adventure, had he been aware of the natural advantages of the country. ↩

Proverb 12. ↩

In the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius (Antwerp, 1600), this phenomenon is said to be observable immediately after passing the Azores. ↩

Hartzenbusch makes a mischievous “emendation” here. He changes “two yards” into “ten yards,” because, he says, if the boat was five yards from the bank, it must have been still farther from the spot where the animals were tied. But Sancho’s meaning is clear: that the boat had not moved five yards out into the stream, or dropped with the stream two yards below the spot they had embarked at; and this he shows by the use of the two words apartado and decantado, as well as by speaking of watching a point on the bank. ↩

Floating mills, moored in midstream, are common on the Ebro. ↩

Proverbs 164 and 41. ↩

According to Pellicer, Don Quixote’s hosts were the Duke and Duchess of Villahermosa, and the scene of the following adventures a country seat of theirs near Pedrola, a village at the foot of the Moncayo, in the angle between Jalon and the Ebro. ↩

Proverb 129. ↩

The reading suggested by Prof. Calderón, in his excellent little book Cervantes Vindicado, etc., Madrid, 1854. ↩

Escudero andado, a play upon the words caballero andante. ↩

“The fig of Spain.” —⁠Henry V, III 6. “And fig me, like the bragging Spaniard.” —⁠Henry IV, V 3 ↩

There are frequent references to the despotism of the confessors in noblemen’s houses, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to tradition, Cervantes has here drawn the portrait of a confessor in the house of the Duke of Béjar, who all but persuaded the duke to refuse the dedication of the First Part of Don Quixote. ↩

I.e., in the belfry out of danger. Proverb 200. ↩

A port to the east of Málaga, where, in 1562, twenty-two galleys under the command of Juan de Mendoza were wrecked in a storm, with a loss of over four thousand men. ↩

“Make haste back from Tembleque, brother”⁠—Vuelva presto de Tembleque, hermano⁠—has grown into a popular phrase, applied in the case of a prolix storyteller. ↩

This remark of Sancho is, of course, an aside to the duke. ↩

The first and all editions that I have seen, Hartzenbusch’s included, have el ancho campo, “the broad field” of ambition; but though a translator and a foreigner has no right to propose emendations of the text, I venture to suggest that camino, “road,” is the more likely word. The case is even stronger here than in Part I Chapter XVIII, where precisely the same substitution has been accepted by all critics. Don Quixote is speaking of ways of life and lines of conduct; it would be absurd to talk of the field of flattery or hypocrisy, and a narrow path is naturally the opposite of a broad road, not of a broad field. ↩

Proverbs 25, 153, and 15. ↩

Biedermann calls this discourse “modèle d’art de déraisonner.” ↩

Proverbs 249 and 243. ↩

I.e., of the Sayago district; see this note. ↩

Proverb 112. ↩

A nautical metaphor; keeping the lead going. ↩

The name given in the ballads to the daughter of Count Julian, seduced by Roderick, according to tradition. ↩

To govern like a gerfalcon is a similitude repeatedly used by Don Quixote and Sancho. The precise drift is not very obvious. In the slang of the Germanía gerifalte means a robber. ↩

Proverb 51. ↩

Water scented with rose, orange flower, thyme, and other perfumes. ↩

These being probably unsatisfactory to drink out of. ↩

The magnificent chair in which, according to the poem and the ballads, he took his seat at the Cortes of Toledo. ↩

Proverb 234. A somewhat obscure popular phrase, rather than proverb, used to describe that which has nothing whatever to do with the subject in hand. Úbeda is a small town in the upper valley of the Guadalquivir (v. map), and some explain the phrase by saying that the country round it being very hilly, travellers are liable to lose their way there. Others say the explanation is that there are no hills there at all. Neither statement is correct; the country is not particularly hilly or flat, nor is there any reason why anyone should lose his way there.