THE HISTORY
OF
DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA.

The history

of

Don Quixote de la Mancha.

From the Spanish of Cervantes.


REVISED FOR GENERAL READING.



TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A Sketch of the Life and Writings of the Author.



Second Edition,

WITH ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS.



London:
James Burns
mdcccxlviii.

CONTENTS.

Preface.

When we reflect upon the great celebrity of the "Life, Exploits, and Adventures of that ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote de la Mancha," and how his name has become quite proverbial amongst us, it seems strange that so little should be known concerning the great man to whose imagination we are indebted for so amusing and instructive a tale. We cannot better introduce our present edition than by a short sketch of his life, adding a few remarks on the work itself and the present adapted reprint of it.

The obscurity we have alluded to is one which Cervantes shares with many others, some of them the most illustrious authors which the world ever produced. Homer, Hesiod,—names with which the mouths of men have been familiar for centuries,—how little is now known of them! And not only so, but how little was known of them even by those who lived comparatively close upon their own time! How scattered and unsatisfactory are the few particulars which we have of the life of our own poet William Shakspere!

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born at Alcala de Henares, a town of New Castile, famous for its University, founded by Cardinal Ximenes. He was of gentle birth, both on his father's and mother's side. Rodrigo de Cervantes, his father, was descended from an ancient family of Galicia, of which several branches were settled in some of the principal cities of Spain. His mother's name was Leonora de Cortēnas. We find by the parish register of Santa Maria la Mayor, at Alcala de Henares, that Miguel was baptised in that church on Sunday, the 9th of October, 1547; in which year we may conclude, therefore, that he was born. The discovery of this baptismal register set at rest a dispute which had for some time been going on between seven different cities, each of which claimed the honour of being the native place of our author: these were, besides the one already mentioned, Seville, Madrid, Esquivias, Toledo, Lucena, and Alcazar de San Juan. In this respect we cannot avoid drawing a comparison between the fame of Cervantes and the prince of poets, Homer.

From a child he discovered a great liking for books, which no doubt determined his parents, whose fortune, notwithstanding their good family, was any thing but affluent, to educate him for one of the learned professions, by which alone at that time there was any chance of getting wealth. Miguel, however, did not take to the strict studies proposed to him: not that he was idle; his days were spent in reading books of amusement, such as novels, romances, and poems. It was of the materials afforded by such a pursuit that his fame was afterwards built.

Cervantes continued at Madrid till he was in his twenty-first year, during which time he remained with his learned tutor Juan Lopez de Hoyos. He seems to have been a great favourite with him; for, in a collection of "Luctus," published by Juan on the death of the Queen, we find an elegy and a ballad contributed by the editor's "dear and beloved disciple Miguel de Cervantes." Under the same editorial care Cervantes himself tells us, in his Viage de Parnasso, that he published a pastoral poem of some length, called 'Filena,' besides several ballads, sonnets, canzonets, and other small poems.

Notwithstanding the comparative insignificance of these productions, they probably excited some little attention; for it appears not unlikely that it was to them that Cervantes owed his appointment to an office, which we find him holding, in 1569, at Rome,—that of chamberlain to his eminence the Cardinal Julio Aquaviva, an ecclesiastic of considerable learning. Such an appointment, however, did not suit the active disposition and romantic turn of one so deeply read in the adventures of the old knights, the glory of which he longed to share; from which hope, however, the inactivity and monotony of a court-life could not but exclude him.

In 1571 there was concluded a famous league between Pope Pius V., Philip II. of Spain, and the Venetian Republic, against Selim, the Grand Turk, who was attacking Cyprus, then belonging to Venice. John of Austria, natural son of the celebrated Emperor Charles V., and brother of the king of Spain, was made commander-in-chief of the allied forces, both naval and military; and under him, as general of the Papal forces, was appointed Mario Antonio Colonna, Duke of Paliano. It became fashionable for the young men of the time to enlist in this expedition; and Cervantes, then about twenty-four years of age, soon enrolled himself under the standard of the Roman general. After various success on both sides, in which the operations of the Christians were not a little hindered by the dissensions of their commanders, to which the taking of Nicosia by the Turks may be imputed, the first year's cruise ended with the famous battle of Lepanto; after which the allied forces retired, and wintered at Messina.

Cervantes was present at this famous victory, where he was wounded in the left hand by a blow from a scymitar, or, as some assert, by a gunshot, so severely, that he was obliged to have it amputated at the wrist whilst in the hospital at Messina; but the operation was so unskilfully performed, that he lost the use of the entire arm ever afterwards. He was not discouraged by this wound, nor induced to give up his profession as a soldier. Indeed, he seems, from his own words, to be very proud of the honour which his loss conferred upon him. "My wound," he says, "was received on the most glorious occasion that any age, past or present, ever saw, or that the future can ever hope to see. To those who barely behold them, indeed, my wounds may not seem honourable; it is by those who know how I came by them that they will be rightly esteemed. Better is it for a soldier to die in battle than to save his life by running away. For my part I had rather be again present, were it possible, in that famous battle, than whole and sound without sharing ill the glory of it. The scars which a soldier exhibits in his breast and face are stars to guide others to the haven of honour and the love of just praise."

The year following the victory of Lepanto, Cervantes still continued with the same fleet, and took part in several attacks on the coast of the Morea. At the end of 1572, when the allied forces were disbanded, Colonna returned to Rome, whither our author probably accompanied him, since he tells us that he followed his "conquering banners." He afterwards enlisted in the Neapolitan army of the king of Spain, in which he remained for three years, though without rising above the rank of a private soldier; but it must be remembered that, at the time of which we are now speaking, such was the condition of some of the noblest men of their country; it was accounted no disgrace for even a scion of the nobility to fight as a simple halberdier, or musqueteer, in the service of his prince.

On the 26th of September, 1575, Cervantes embarked on board a galley, called the 'Sun,' and was sailing from Naples to Spain, when his ship was attacked by some Moorish corsairs, and both he and all the rest of the crew were taken prisoners, and carried off to Algiers. When the Christians were divided amongst their captors, he fell to the lot of the captain, the famous Arnauté Mami, an Albanian renegade, whose atrocious cruelties are too disgusting to be mentioned. He seems to have treated his captive with peculiar harshness, perhaps hoping that by so doing he might render him the more impatient of his servitude, and so induce him to pay a higher ransom, which the rank and condition of his friends in Europe appeared to promise. In this state Cervantes continued five years. Some have thought that in "the captive's" tale, related in Don Quixote, we may collect the particulars of his own fortunes whilst in Africa; but even granting that some of the incidents may be the same, it is now generally supposed that we shall be deceived if we regard them as any detailed account of his captivity. A man of Cervantes' enterprise and abilities was not likely to endure tamely the hardships of slavery; and we accordingly find that he was constantly forming schemes for escape. The last of these, which was the most bold and best contrived of all, failed, because he had admitted a traitor to a share in his project.

There was at Algiers a Venetian renegade, named Hassan Aga, a friend of Arnauté Mami; he had risen high in the king's favour, and occupied an important post in the government of Algiers. We have a description of this man's ferocious character in Don Quixote, given us by the Captain de Viedma. Cervantes was often sent by his master as messenger to this man's house, situated on the sea-shore, at a short distance from Algiers. One of Hassan's slaves, a native of Navarre, and a Christian, had the management of the gardens of the villa; and with him Cervantes soon formed an acquaintance, and succeeded in persuading him to allow the making of a secret cave under the garden, which would form a place of concealment for himself and fifteen of his fellow captives, on whom he could rely. When the cavern was finished, the adventurers made their escape by night from Algiers, and took up their quarters in it. Of course an alarm was raised when they were missing; but, although a most strict search after the fugitives was made, both by their masters and by Ochali, then despot of Algiers, here they lay hid for several months, being supplied with food by the gardener and another Christian slave, named El Dorador.

One of their companions, named Viana, a gentleman of Minorca, had been left behind them, so that he might bear a more active part in the escape of the whole party. A sum of money was to be raised for his ransom, and then he was to go to Europe and return with a ship in which Cervantes and his friends, including the gardener and El Dorador, were to embark on an appointed night, and so get back to their country. Viana obtained his liberty in September 1577, and having reached Minorca in safety, he easily procured a ship and came off the coast of Barbary, according to the pre-concerted plan; but before he could land, he was seen by the Moorish sentry, who raised an alarm and obliged him to put out to sea again, lest he should by coming too close attract attention to the cavern. This was a sore disappointment to Cervantes and his companions, who witnessed it all from their retreat. Still knowing Viana's courage and constancy, they had yet hopes of his returning and again endeavouring to get them off. And this he most probably would have done had it not been for the treachery at which we hinted above. El Dorador just at this time thought fit to turn renegade; and of course he could not begin his infidel career better than by infamously betraying his former friends. In consequence of his information Hassan Aga surrounded the entrance to the cave with a sufficient force to make any attempt at resistance utterly unavailing, and the sixteen poor prisoners were dragged out and conveyed in chains to Algiers. The former attempts which he made to escape caused Cervantes to be instantly fixed on as the contriver and ringleader of this plot; and therefore, whilst the other fifteen were sent back to their masters to be punished as they thought fit, he was detained by the king himself, who hoped through him to obtain further information, and so implicate the other Christians, and perhaps also some of the renegades. Even had he possessed any such information, which most likely he did not, Cervantes was certainly the very last man to give it: notwithstanding various examinations and threats, he still persisted in asserting that he was the sole contriver of the plot, till at length, by his firmness, he fairly exhausted the patience of Ochali. Had Hassan had his way, Cervantes would have been strangled as an example to all Christians who should hereafter try to run away from their captivity, and the king himself was not unwilling to please him in this matter; but then he was not their property, and Mami, to whom he belonged, would not consent to lose a slave whom he considered to be worth at least two hundred crowns. Thus did the avarice of a renegade save the future author of Don Quixote from being strangled with the bowstring. Some of the particulars of this affair are given us by Cervantes himself; but others are collected from Father Haedo, the contemporary author of a history of Barbary. "Most wonderful thing," says the worthy priest, "that some of these gentlemen remained shut up in the cavern for five, six, even for seven months, without even so much as seeing the light of day; and all the time they were sustained only by Miguel de Cervantes, and that too at the great and continual risk of his own life; no less than four times did he incur the nearest danger of being burnt alive, impaled, or strangled, on account of the bold things which he dared in hopes of bestowing liberty upon many. Had his fortune corresponded to his spirit, skill, and industry, Algiers might at this day have been in the possession of the Christians, for his designs aspired to no less lofty a consummation. In the end, the whole affair was treacherously discovered; and the gardener, after being tortured and picketed, perished miserably. But, in truth, of the things which happened in that cave during the seven months that it was inhabited by these Christians, and altogether of the captivity and various enterprises of Miguel de Cervantes, a particular history might easily be formed. Hassan Aga was wont to say that, 'could he but be sure of that handless Spaniard, he should consider captives, barks, and the whole city of Algiers in perfect safety.'"

And Ochali seems to have been of the same opinion; for he did not consider it safe to leave so dangerous a character as Cervantes in private hands, and so we accordingly find that he himself bought him of Mami, and then kept him closely confined in a dungeon in his own palace, with the utmost cruelty. It is probable, however, that the extreme hardship of Cervantes' case did really contribute to his liberation. He found means of applying to Spain for his redemption; and in consequence his mother and sister (the former of whom had now become a widow, and the latter, Donna Andrea de Cervantes, was married to a Florentine gentleman named Ambrosio) raised the sum of two hundred and fifty crowns, to which a friend of the family, one Francisco Caramambel, contributed fifty more. This sum was paid into the hands of Father Juan Gil and Father Antonio de la Vella Trinitarios, brethren of the 'Society for the Redemption of Slaves,'[1] who immediately set to work to ransom Cervantes. His case was, however, a hard one; for the king asked a thousand crowns for his freedom; and the negotiation on this head caused a long delay, but was at last brought to an issue by the abatement of the ransom to the sum of five hundred crowns; the two hundred still wanting were made up by the good fathers, the king threatening that if the bargain were not concluded, Cervantes should be carried off to Constantinople; and he was actually on board the galley for that purpose. So by borrowing some part of the required amount, and by taking the remainder from what was originally intrusted for the ransoming of other slaves, these worthy men procured our author his liberty, and restored him to Spain in the spring of 1581.