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Don Quixote

Part 1 Chapter 1

Word Count: 2019    |    Released on: 18/11/2017

k, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with t

; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the s

ed conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." 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 extract

awn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. 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. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio

of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in

iency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week t

us, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; 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 orde

story have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to mak

e one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'?" Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-

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1 Part 1 The Author's Preface2 Part 1 Chapter 13 Part 1 Chapter 24 Part 1 Chapter 35 Part 1 Chapter 46 Part 1 Chapter 57 Part 1 Chapter 68 Part 1 Chapter 79 Part 1 Chapter 810 Part 1 Chapter 911 Part 1 Chapter 1012 Part 1 Chapter 1113 Part 1 Chapter 1214 Part 1 Chapter 1315 Part 1 Chapter 1416 Part 1 Chapter 1517 Part 1 Chapter 1618 Part 1 Chapter 1719 Part 1 Chapter 1820 Part 1 Chapter 1921 Part 1 Chapter 2022 Part 1 Chapter 2123 Part 1 Chapter 2224 Part 1 Chapter 2325 Part 1 Chapter 2426 Part 1 Chapter 2527 Part 1 Chapter 2628 Part 1 Chapter 2729 Part 1 Chapter 2830 Part 1 Chapter 2931 Part 1 Chapter 3032 Part 1 Chapter 3133 Part 1 Chapter 3234 Part 1 Chapter 3335 Part 1 Chapter 3436 Part 1 Chapter 3537 Part 1 Chapter 3638 Part 1 Chapter 3739 Part 1 Chapter 3840 Part 1 Chapter 3941 Part 1 Chapter 4042 Part 1 Chapter 4143 Part 1 Chapter 4244 Part 1 Chapter 4345 Part 1 Chapter 4446 Part 1 Chapter 4547 Part 1 Chapter 4648 Part 1 Chapter 4749 Part 1 Chapter 4850 Part 1 Chapter 4951 Part 1 Chapter 5052 Part 1 Chapter 5153 Part 1 Chapter 5254 Part 2 The Author's Preface55 Part 2 Chapter 156 Part 2 Chapter 257 Part 2 Chapter 358 Part 2 Chapter 459 Part 2 Chapter 560 Part 2 Chapter 661 Part 2 Chapter 762 Part 2 Chapter 863 Part 2 Chapter 964 Part 2 Chapter 1065 Part 2 Chapter 1166 Part 2 Chapter 1267 Part 2 Chapter 1368 Part 2 Chapter 1469 Part 2 Chapter 1570 Part 2 Chapter 1671 Part 2 Chapter 1772 Part 2 Chapter 1873 Part 2 Chapter 1974 Part 2 Chapter 2075 Part 2 Chapter 2176 Part 2 Chapter 2277 Part 2 Chapter 2378 Part 2 Chapter 2479 Part 2 Chapter 2580 Part 2 Chapter 2681 Part 2 Chapter 2782 Part 2 Chapter 2883 Part 2 Chapter 2984 Part 2 Chapter 3085 Part 2 Chapter 3186 Part 2 Chapter 3287 Part 2 Chapter 3388 Part 2 Chapter 3489 Part 2 Chapter 3590 Part 2 Chapter 3691 Part 2 Chapter 3792 Part 2 Chapter 3893 Part 2 Chapter 3994 Part 2 Chapter 4095 Part 2 Chapter 4196 Part 2 Chapter 4297 Part 2 Chapter 4398 Part 2 Chapter 4499 Part 2 Chapter 45100 Part 2 Chapter 46