THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would thisbook, as it is the child of my brain, were the fairest, gayest, andcleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature's lawthat everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this sterile,illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsicaloffspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into anyother imagination--just what might be begotten in a prison, where everymisery 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 makeeven the most barren muses fertile, and bring into the world births thatfill 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 doesnot see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mindand 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 toimplore 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 andthy will as free as any man's, whate'er he be, thou art in thine ownhouse and master of it as much as the king of his taxes and thou knowestthe common saying, "Under my cloak I kill the king;" all which exemptsand frees thee from every consideration and obligation, and thou canstsay what thou wilt of the story without fear of being abused for any illor 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 customarysonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at thebeginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me somelabour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art nowreading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I layit down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times, as I waspondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow on thedesk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say, there camein unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine, who, seeing meso deep in thought, asked the reason; to which I, making no mystery ofit, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to make for thestory of "Don Quixote," which so troubled me that I had a mind not tomake 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 ancientlawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after slumberingso many years in the silence of oblivion, coming out now with all myyears upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush, devoid ofinvention, meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting in learningand wisdom, without quotations in the margin or annotations at the end,after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all fables andprofanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato, and the wholeherd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement andconvince them that the authors are men of learning, erudition, andeloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy Scriptures!--anyone wouldsay they are St. Thomases or other doctors of the Church, observing asthey do a decorum so ingenious that in one sentence they describe adistracted lover and in the next deliver a devout little sermon that itis a pleasure and a treat to hear and read. Of all this there will benothing in my book, for I have nothing to quote in the margin or to noteat the end, and still less do I know what authors I follow in it, toplace 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 dowithout sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose authors aredukes, marquises, counts, bishops, ladies, or famous poets. Though if Iwere to ask two or three obliging friends, I know they would give methem, and such as the productions of those that have the highestreputation in our Spain could not equal."In short, my friend," I continued, "I am determined that Senor DonQuixote shall remain buried in the archives of his own La Mancha untilHeaven provide some one to garnish him with all those things he stands inneed of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want oflearning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy andcareless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say withoutthem. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you found me in, and reasonenough, what you have heard from me."Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead andbreaking into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, "Before God, Brother, now am Idisabused of an error in which I have been living all this long time Ihave known you, all through which I have taken you to be shrewd andsensible in all you do; but now I see you are as far from that as theheaven is from the earth. It is possible that things of so little momentand 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, thiscomes, not of any want of ability, but of too much indolence and toolittle 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 andshutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply allthose deficiencies which you say check and discourage you from bringingbefore the world the story of your famous Don Quixote, the light andmirror of all knight-errantry.""Say on," said I, listening to his talk; "how do you propose to make upfor 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, andwhich ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed ifyou yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwardsbaptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them onPrester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to myknowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they werenot, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question thefact, never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lieagainst you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with."As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom youtake the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is onlycontriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you mayhappen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you muchtrouble to look up; so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, toinsert_Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro;_and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said it; or, if youallude 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 atonce to the Holy Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount ofresearch, and quote no less than the words of God himself: Ego autem dicovobis: diligite inimicos vestros. If you speak of evil thoughts, turn tothe Gospel: De corde exeunt cogitationes malae. If of the fickleness offriends, 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 agrammarian at all events, and that now-a-days is no small honour andprofit."With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may safelydo it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book contrive that itshall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which will cost youalmost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can put--The giant Goliasor Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mightystone-cast in the Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book ofKings--in the chapter where you find it written."Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature andcosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story,and there you are at once with another famous annotation, settingforth--The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has itssource in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing thewalls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it hasgolden sands, etc. If you should have anything to do with robbers, I willgive 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; ifwith hard-hearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with Medea; if with witchesor enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil Circe; if with valiantcaptains, Julius Caesar himself will lend you himself in his own'Commentaries,' and Plutarch will give you a thousand Alexanders. If youshould deal with love, with two ounces you may know of Tuscan you can goto Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you to your heart's content; or ifyou 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 mostimaginative mind can want on the subject. In short, all you have to do isto manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I havementioned, 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 foursheets 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 onlyto look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you sayyourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and thoughthe imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little need toborrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably be some simpleenough 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, thislong catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look ofauthority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verifywhether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no wayconcerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours hasno need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, frombeginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of whichAristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had anyknowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrologycome within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometricalmeasurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything todo with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things humanand divine, a sort of motley in which no Christian understanding shoulddress itself. It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in itscomposition, and the more perfect the imitation the better the work willbe. And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy theauthority and influence which books of chivalry have in the world andwith the public, there is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorismsfrom philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets,speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take carethat your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, withclear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to thebest of your power, and putting your ideas intelligibly, withoutconfusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story themelancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still;that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire theinvention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail topraise it. Finally, keep your aim fixed on the destruction of thatill-founded edifice of the books of chivalry, hated by some and praisedby many more; for if you succeed in this you will have achieved no smallsuccess."In profound silence I listened to what my friend said, and hisobservations made such an impression on me that, without attempting toquestion them, I admitted their soundness, and out of them I determinedto make this Preface; wherein, gentle reader, thou wilt perceive myfriend's good sense, my good fortune in finding such an adviser in such atime of need, and what thou hast gained in receiving, without addition oralteration, the story of the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, who is heldby all the inhabitants of the district of the Campo de Montiel to havebeen the chastest lover and the bravest knight that has for many yearsbeen seen in that neighbourhood. I have no desire to magnify the serviceI render thee in making thee acquainted with so renowned and honoured aknight, but I do desire thy thanks for the acquaintance thou wilt makewith the famous Sancho Panza, his squire, in whom, to my thinking, I havegiven thee condensed all the squirely drolleries that are scatteredthrough the swarm of the vain books of chivalry. And so--may God givethee health, and not forget me. Vale.