“From want of food.”
B. “Rail at the squire, then.”—R.
“Why, what’s the good?
I might indeed complain of
him, I grant ye,
But, squire or master, where’s the
difference?
They’re both as sorry
hacks as Rocinante.”
Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any
oath that I would this book, as it is the child of
my brain, were the fairest, gayest, and cleverest
that could be imagined. But I could not counteract
Nature’s law that everything shall beget its
like; and what, then, could this sterile, illtilled
wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled,
whimsical offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts
and such as never came into any other imagination—just
what might be begotten in a prison, where every misery
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 make even the most barren
muses fertile, and bring into the world births that
fill 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 does not see his
defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms
of mind and 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 to implore 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 and thy will
as free as any man’s, whate’er he be, thou
art in thine own house and master of it as much as
the king of his taxes and thou knowest the common
saying, “Under my cloak I kill the king;”
all which exempts and frees thee from every consideration
and obligation, and thou canst say what thou wilt
of the story without fear of being abused for any ill
or 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 customary sonnets, epigrams,
and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning
of books. For I can tell thee, though composing
it cost me some labour, I found none greater than
the making of this Preface thou art now reading.
Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many
did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write.
One of these times, as I was pondering with the paper
before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow on the desk,
and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should
say, there came in unexpectedly a certain lively,
clever friend of mine, who, seeing me so deep in thought,
asked the reason; to which I, making no mystery of
it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had
to make for the story of “Don Quixote,”
which so troubled me that I had a mind not to make
any at all, nor even publish the achievements of so
noble a knight.
