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Thy purpose is to tell the story, Relating how he lost his wits O’er idle tales of love and glory,
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Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose.
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In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.
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His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it.
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for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow.
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for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul.
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So he went on stringing together these and other absurdities, all in the style of those his books had taught him, imitating their language as well as he could; and all the while he rode so slowly and the sun mounted so rapidly and with such fervour that it was enough to melt his brains if he had any.
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happen what might to our adventurer, everything he saw or imagined seemed to him to be and to happen after the fashion of what he read of, the moment he saw the inn he pictured it to himself as a castle with its four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver,
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reading from his account-book as if he were repeating some devout prayer,
Haha
Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, “The Knight of the Cross.” “For the sake of the holy name this book has,” said the curate, “its ignorance might be excused; but then, they say, ‘behind the cross there’s the devil;’ to the fire with it.”
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That night the housekeeper burned to ashes all the books that were in the yard and in the whole house; and some must have been consumed that deserved preservation in everlasting archives, but their fate and the laziness of the examiner did not permit it, and so in them was verified the proverb that the innocent suffer for the guilty.
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on the point he maintained, that knights-errant were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be accomplished the revival of knight-errantry.
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So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack.
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if I make no complaint of the pain it is because knights-errant are not permitted to complain of any wound, even though their bowels be coming out through
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for the same may be said of knight-errantry as of love, that it levels all.”
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“I understand thee, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote; “I perceive clearly that those visits to the wine-skin demand compensation in sleep rather than in music.”
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the soldier who executes what his captain orders does no less than the captain himself who gives the order.
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And now I die, and since there is no hope Of happiness for me in life or death, Still to my fantasy I’ll fondly cling.
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the soul most free is that most bound In thraldom to the ancient tyrant Love.
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but I cannot see how, by reason of being loved, that which is loved for its beauty is bound to love that which loves it;
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it? I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields; in the trees of the mountains I find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and charms.
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the earth alone should enjoy the fruits of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty;
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If I preserve my purity in the society of the trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob me of it?
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there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain which death does not remove.”
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In Which Are Contained the Innumerable Troubles Which the Brave Don Quixote and His Good Squire Sancho Panza Endured in the Inn, Which to His Misfortune He Took to Be a Castle
“Nice nonsense!” said the commissary; “a fine piece of pleasantry he has come out with at last! He wants us to let the king’s prisoners go, as if we had any authority to release them, or he to order us to do so! Go your way, sir, and good luck to you; put that basin straight that you’ve got on your head, and don’t go looking for three feet on a cat.”
it is still some comfort in misfortune to find one who can feel for it.
