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Herman Melville blended Don Quixote and Hamlet in Captain Ahab (with a touch of Milton’s Satan added for seasoning). Ahab desires to avenge himself upon the white whale, while Satan would destroy God, if only he could.
emerge now, carrying all my years on my back,2 with a tale as dry as esparto grass, devoid of invention, deficient in style, poor in ideas, and lacking all erudition and doctrine, without notes in the margins or annotations at the end of the book, when I see that other books, even if they are profane fictions, are so full of citations from Aristotle, Plato, and the entire horde of philosophers that readers are moved to admiration and consider the authors to be well-read, erudite, and eloquent men? Even more so when they cite Holy Scripture!
To which he said: “First, to solve the question of the sonnets, epigrams, or laudatory poems by distinguished and titled people, which you need at the beginning, you must make a certain effort and write them yourself, and then you can baptize them with any name you want, attributing them to Prester John of the Indies3 or to the emperor of Trebizond,4 both of whom, I have heard, were famous poets; and if they were not, and certain pedants and university graduates backbite and gossip about the truth of the attributions, you should not give two maravedís5 for what they say, because even if they
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If you mention evil thoughts, go to the Gospel: De corde exeunt cogitationes malae.
As for putting annotations at the end of the book, certainly you can do it this way: if you name some giant in your book, make him the giant Goliath, and just by doing that, which is almost no trouble at all, you have a nice long annotation, because then you can write: The giant Goliath, or Goliat, was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew with a stone in the valley of Terebint, as recounted in the Book of Kings, and you can easily find the chapter.
In short, all you have to do is to name the names or touch on the histories that I have mentioned, and leave it to me to put in annotations and notes; I swear to you that I’ll fill up the margins and use four quartos of paper at the end.
In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind.
He strung these together with other foolish remarks, all in the manner his books had taught him and imitating their language as much as he could. As a result, his pace was so slow, and the sun rose so quickly and ardently, that it would have melted his brains if he had had any.
“Nothing flows from her, I say, but amber and delicate musk; and she is not blind or humpbacked but as upright as a peak of the Guadarramas. But you will pay for how you have blasphemed against beauty as extraordinary as that of my lady!”
“Well, I have him in Italian,” said the barber, “but I don’t understand it.” “There’s no reason you should,” replied the priest, “and here we would pardon the captain if he had not brought it to Spain and translated it into Castilian, for he took away a good deal of its original value, which is what all who attempt to translate books of poetry into another language will do as well: no matter the care they use and the skill they show, they will never achieve the quality the verses had in their first birth. In fact, I say that this book, and all those you find that deal with the matter of
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All this the barber seconded, and thought it right and proper, for he understood that the priest was so good a Christian and so loved the truth that he would not speak a falsehood for anything in the world.
“Here is Tirant lo Blanc. Let me have it, friend, for I state here and now that in it I have found a wealth of pleasure and a gold mine of amusement. Here is Don Quirieleisón of Montalbán, that valiant knight, and his brother Tomás of Montalbán, and the knight Fonseca, not to mention the battle that the brave Tirant waged against the Alani, and the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and lies of the widow Reposada, and the lady Emperatriz, beloved of Hipólito, her squire. I tell you the truth, my friend, when I say that because of its style, this is the best book in the
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“This book,” said the barber, opening another one, “is The Ten Books of Fortune in Love, composed by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet.”19 “By the orders I received,” said the priest, “since Apollo was Apollo, and the muses muses, and poets poets, no book as amusing or nonsensical has ever been written, and since, in its way, it is the best and most unusual book of its kind that has seen the light of day, anyone who has not read it can assume that he has never read anything entertaining. Give it to me, friend, for I value finding it more than if I were given a cassock of rich Florentine
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“La Galatea, by Miguel de Cervantes,”24 said the barber. “This Cervantes has been a good friend of mine for many years, and I know that he is better versed in misfortunes than in verses. His book has a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing. We have to wait for the second part he has promised; perhaps with that addition it will achieve the mercy denied to it now; in the meantime, keep it locked away in your house, my friend.”
That night, the housekeeper burned and consigned to the flames all the books that were in the corral and in the house, and some must have been in the fire that should have been preserved in perpetual archives; but their destiny, and the sloth of the examiner, did not permit this, and so, as the proverb says, at times the just must pay for sinners.
“That is true,” replied Don Quixote, “and if I do not complain about the pain, it is because it is not the custom of knights errant to complain about any wound, even if their innards are spilling out because of it.”
“If that’s true, I have nothing to say,” Sancho responded, “but God knows I’d be happy if your grace complained when something hurt you. As for me, I can say that I’ll complain about the smallest pain I have, unless what you said about not complaining also applies to the squires of knights errant.”
“Here,” said Don Quixote when he saw it, “we can, brother Sancho Panza, plunge our hands all the way up to the elbows into this thing they call adventures. But be advised that even if you see me in the greatest danger in the world, you are not to put a hand to your sword to defend me, unless you see that those who offend me are baseborn rabble, in which case you certainly can help me; but if they are gentlemen, under no circumstances is it licit or permissible for you, under the laws of chivalry, to help me until you are dubbed a knight.”
“As I have said, here in the margin is written: ‘This Dulcinea of Toboso, referred to so often in this history, they say had the best hand for salting pork of any woman in all of La Mancha.’”
“With confidence in that promise, I shall do him no more harm, although he so richly deserves it.”
According to what I have heard, true love is not divided and must be voluntary, not forced. If this is true, as I believe it is, why do you want to force me to surrender my will, obliged to do so simply because you say you love me? But if this is not true, then tell me: if the heaven that made me beautiful had made me ugly instead, would it be fair for me to complain that none of you loved me? Moreover, you must consider that I did not choose the beauty I have, and, such as it is, heaven gave it to me freely, without my requesting or choosing it. And just as the viper does not deserve to be
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Let him who calls me savage basilisk avoid me as he would something harmful and evil; let him who calls me ungrateful, not serve me, unapproachable, not approach me, cruel, not follow me; let him not seek out, serve, approach, or follow in any way this savage, ungrateful, cruel, unapproachable basilisk. For if his impatience and rash desire killed Grisóstomo, why should my virtuous behavior and reserve be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the company of trees, why should a man want me to lose it if he wants me to keep it in the company of men?
As it happened, Rocinante felt the desire to pleasure himself with the ladies, and as soon as he picked up their scent he abandoned his natural ways and customs, did not ask permission of his owner, broke into a brisk little trot, and went off to communicate his need to them.
and there he was given one of those things called an enema, composed of melted snow and sand, which almost killed him,
“How little you know, Sancho,” Don Quixote responded, “about the matter of chivalry! Be quiet and have patience, for the day will come when you will see with your own eyes how honorable a thing it is to exercise this profession. If not, then tell me: what greater joy can there be in the world, what pleasure can equal that of conquering in battle and defeating one’s enemy? None, most certainly there is none.”
“Do?” said Don Quixote. “Defend and protect the needy and helpless. You must know, Sancho, that the army in front of us is led and directed by the great Emperor Alifanfarón, lord of the great Ínsula Trapobane;2 the other, marching behind us, belongs to his enemy, the king of the Garamantes, Pentapolín of the Tucked-up Sleeve, so-called because he always enters into battle with a bare right arm.”
“Didn’t I tell you, Señor Don Quixote, to come back, that it wasn’t armies you were attacking but flocks of sheep?”
“You should know, Sancho, that a man is not worth more than any other if he does not do more than any other.
For I must tell you, Sancho, that a mouth without molars is like a mill without a millstone,
Don Quixote asked Sancho what had moved him to call him The Knight of the Sorrowful Face at that moment and at no other. “I’ll tell you,” responded Sancho. “I was looking at you for a while in the light of the torch that unlucky man was carrying, and the truth is that your grace has the sorriest-looking face I’ve seen recently, and it must be on account of your weariness after this battle, or the molars and teeth you’ve lost.”
“It seems to me, Sancho, that there is no proverb that is not true, because all of them are judgments based on experience, the mother of all knowledge, in particular the one that says: ‘One door closes and another opens.’ I say this because if last night fortune closed the door on what we were seeking, deceiving us with fulling hammers, now she opens wide another that will lead to a better and truer adventure; if I do not succeed in going through this door, the fault will be mine, and I shall not be able to blame my ignorance of fulling hammers or the dark of night. I say this because, unless
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“And that’s where something else comes in, too,” said Sancho, “because some wicked people say: ‘Don’t ask as a favor what you can take by force,’ though what fits even better is: ‘Escaping punishment is worth more than the pleading of good men.’
“It isn’t the kind of love your grace is thinking about,” said the galley slave. “Mine was a great love for a laundry basket filled with linen, and I loved it so much and embraced it so tightly that if the law hadn’t taken it from me by force, to this day I wouldn’t have let go of it willingly. I was caught red-handed, there was no need for torture, the trial concluded, they kissed my back a hundred times, gave me three in the gurapas, and that was the end of that.”
“How can it be finished,” he responded, “if my life isn’t finished yet? What I’ve written goes from my birth to the moment when they sentenced me to the galleys this last time.”
“And unfortunate,” responded Ginés, “because misfortunes always pursue the talented.”
Each man must bear his own sin; there is a God in heaven who does not fail to punish the wicked or reward the good, and it is not right for honorable men to persecute other men who have not harmed them.
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “withdrawing is not running away, and waiting is not sensible when danger outweighs hope, and wise men know to save something for tomorrow and not risk everything in a single day. And you should know that even though I’m rough and lowborn, I still know something about what people call proper behavior, and so don’t repent of taking my advice but mount Rocinante if you can, and if not I’ll help you, and follow me, because my brains tell me we need our feet now more than our hands.”
“I found them, too,” responded the goatherd, “but I never wanted to pick them up or go near them because I was afraid there’d be trouble and they’d say I stole them; the devil’s sly, and he puts things under our feet that make us stumble and fall, and we don’t know how or why.”
And this denial added more flames to the fire and more ardor to our desire, because, although it silenced our tongues, it could not silence our pens, which, with greater freedom than tongues, tend to reveal to the person we love what is hidden in our soul, for often the presence of the beloved confuses and silences the most determined intention and the boldest tongue.
“Against sane men and madmen, every knight errant is obliged to defend the honor of ladies, no matter who they may be, and especially queens of such high birth and distinction as Queen Madásima, for whom I have a particular regard because of her many virtues; in addition to being beauteous, she was also very prudent and long-suffering in her calamities, of which she had many, and the advice and companionship of Master Elisabat were of great benefit and comfort to her and helped her to endure her travail with prudence and patience. And the vulgar and low-born took advantage of this to say and
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“Therein lies the virtue,” responded Don Quixote, “and the excellence of my enterprise, for a knight errant deserves neither glory nor thanks if he goes mad for a reason. The great achievement is to lose one’s reason for no reason, and to let my lady know that if I can do this without cause, what should I not do if there were cause?
Because you should know, Sancho, if you do not know already, that two things inspire love more than any other; they are great beauty and a good name, and these two things reach their consummation in Dulcinea, for in beauty, no one is her equal, and as for a good name, few can approach her. And to conclude, I imagine that everything I say is true, no more and no less, and I depict her in my imagination as I wish her to be in beauty and in distinction, and Helen cannot approach her, Lucretia cannot match her, nor can any of the other famous women of past ages, Greek, barbarian, or Latin. Let
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“At least, Sancho, I want, because it is necessary, I say 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, and I assure you that you will not recount as many as I intend to perform.”
“For the love of God, Señor, don’t let me see your grace naked, for that will make me feel so bad I won’t be able to stop crying, and my head’s in such a state after the crying I did last night over my gray that I’m in no mood for any more tears; if it’s your grace’s wish that I see some crazy actions, do them fully dressed, and let them be brief and to the point. Especially because none of this is necessary for me, and like I said before, I want to shorten the time it takes me to get back here with the news your grace desires and deserves.
Seeing the agitation of everyone in the house, I dared come out, regardless of whether anyone saw me or not, resolved that if I were seen, I would do something so rash that everyone would understand the righteous determination in my heart to punish the false Don Fernando and even the fickle, swooning traitor; but my fate, which must be saving me for even greater ills, if there can possibly be any, decreed that I would have a surfeit at that moment of the reason I have been lacking ever since; and so, not wishing to take revenge on my greatest enemies, which, since I was so far from their
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“No more: let my praises cease,” Don Quixote said then, “because I am the enemy of any kind of flattery, and even if this is not flattery, such talk offends my chaste ears. What I can say, my lady, is that whether or not I possess valor, whatever valor I do or do not possess will be used in your service until the end of my life; leaving this aside for the moment, I beg your grace, Señor Licentiate, to tell me the reason that has brought you to this place, alone, and so lacking in servants, and so lightly clad that it astounds me.”
“Now I forgive you,” said Don Quixote, “and you must pardon the anger I have shown you; for first impulses are not in the hands of men.”
I forgave you then, and you know what they say: a new sin demands a new penance.”
Lotario carefully began to reduce the number of his visits to Anselmo’s house, for it seemed to him—as it reasonably would seem to all discerning people—that one should not visit or linger at the houses of married friends as if both were still single; although good and true friendship cannot and should not be suspect for any reason, the honor of the married man is so delicate that it apparently can be offended even by his own brothers, let alone his friends.
Lotario also said that a married man needed to have a friend who would alert him to any negligence in his behavior, since it often happens that because of the great love the husband has for his wife, and his desire not to distress her, he does not warn or tell her to do or not do certain things that could either redound to his honor or cause his censure, but being advised by his friend, he could easily resolve everything.
