These days past, when sending Your Excellency my plays,
that had appeared in print before being shown on the
stage, I said, if I remember well, that Don Quixote
was putting on his spurs to go and render homage to
Your Excellency. Now I say that “with his
spurs, he is on his way.” Should he reach
destination methinks I shall have rendered some service
to Your Excellency, as from many parts I am urged
to send him off, so as to dispel the loathing and
disgust caused by another Don Quixote who, under the
name of Second Part, has run masquerading through the
whole world. And he who has shown the greatest
longing for him has been the great Emperor of China,
who wrote me a letter in Chinese a month ago and sent
it by a special courier. He asked me, or to be
truthful, he begged me to send him Don Quixote, for
he intended to found a college where the Spanish tongue
would be taught, and it was his wish that the book
to be read should be the History of Don Quixote.
He also added that I should go and be the rector of
this college. I asked the bearer if His Majesty
had afforded a sum in aid of my travel expenses.
He answered, “No, not even in thought.”
“Then, brother,” I replied, “you
can return to your China, post haste or at whatever
haste you are bound to go, as I am not fit for so long
a travel and, besides being ill, I am very much without
money, while Emperor for Emperor and Monarch for Monarch,
I have at Naples the great Count of Lemos, who, without
so many petty titles of colleges and rectorships,
sustains me, protects me and does me more favour than
I can wish for.”
Thus I gave him his leave and I beg mine from you,
offering Your Excellency the “Trabajos de Persiles
y Sigismunda,” a book I shall finish within
four months, Deo volente, and which will be either
the worst or the best that has been composed in our
language, I mean of those intended for entertainment;
at which I repent of having called it the worst, for,
in the opinion of friends, it is bound to attain the
summit of possible quality. May Your Excellency
return in such health that is wished you; Persiles
will be ready to kiss your hand and I your feet, being
as I am, Your Excellency’s most humble servant.
From Madrid, this last day of October of the year
one thousand six hundred and fifteen.
At the service of Your Excellency:
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA
VOLUME II.
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader,
how eagerly must thou be looking forward to this preface,
expecting to find there retaliation, scolding, and
abuse against the author of the second Don Quixote—I
mean him who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas
and born at Tarragona! Well then, the truth is,
I am not going to give thee that satisfaction; for,
though injuries stir up anger in humbler breasts, in
