Read Don Quixote in the original
Fifty passages of the 1605 and 1615 text exactly as they were printed, with the old Spanish explained. Free, like the rest of the site.
C1: reading the sentence of 1605
How the language itself worked. Old forms, forms of address, the long period, and the two registers the book runs on.
- The first sentence of Don Quixote, word by wordPart One, Chapter 1
- Vuestra merced: how people addressed each other in 1605Part One, Chapter 2
- The innkeeper's advice: money and clean shirtsPart One, Chapter 3
- La Tolosa and la Molinera: who gets to be called doñaPart One, Chapter 3
- Cada uno es hijo de sus obras: the boy tied to the oakPart One, Chapter 4
- The merchants of Toledo: believe without seeingPart One, Chapter 4
- Sancho Panza enters the story: a good man with little saltPart One, Chapter 7
- Archaic Spanish: non fuyades, and why it is a jokePart One, Chapter 8
- The Basque squire: broken Castilian on purposePart One, Chapter 8
- The long sentence: Cervantes and the periodic stylePart One, Chapter 11
- Marcela and the speech that answers backPart One, Chapter 14
- Sancho's goat story: how spoken Spanish tells a talePart One, Chapter 20
- Basin or helmet: what looks like one thing to youPart One, Chapter 25
- Deliberate archaism: the letter to DulcineaPart One, Chapter 25
- Aldonza Lorenzo: Sancho describes the real DulcineaPart One, Chapter 25
- Sancho and the proverbs: spoken Spanish in 1605Part One, Chapter 25
- Arms and letters: don Quixote argues at dinnerPart One, Chapter 37
- ¡Jo, que te estrego! The peasant girl answers backPart Two, Chapter 10
- ¿Leoncitos a mí? The adventure of the lionsPart Two, Chapter 17
- Tanto vales cuanto tienes: Sancho at the wedding feastPart Two, Chapter 20
- Sancho's letter to Teresa: writing the way you talkPart Two, Chapter 36
- Don Quixote's advice to Sancho the governorPart Two, Chapter 42
- Abrid camino: Sancho gives up his islandPart Two, Chapter 53
- No se muera vuestra merced: Sancho at the deathbedPart Two, Chapter 74
- The will of Alonso Quijano: legal Spanish and the plain stylePart Two, Chapter 74
C2: what a Spanish reader hears
Not the language now but the intention behind it. Irony, the unreliable narrator, bureaucratic Spanish, and the literary quarrel the book was written inside.
- The royal licence of 1605: Spanish bureaucracy at full lengthPart One, front matter
- The prologue that mocks prologuesPart One, prologue
- Urganda's poem: verses with the endings cut offPart One, front matter
- The best book in the world: the priest on Tirant lo BlancPart One, Chapter 6
- Cide Hamete: the novel that pretends to be a translationPart One, Chapter 9
- The galley slaves: thieves' cant and the art of the euphemismPart One, Chapter 22
- Princess Micomicona forgets her own namePart One, Chapter 30
- The canon of Toledo: a lie is better the truer it looksPart One, Chapter 47
- The emperor of China: the dedication of 1615Part Two, dedication
- The madman who inflated dogs: the prologue of 1615Part Two, prologue
- Children leaf through it: the novel reads its own reviewsPart Two, Chapter 3
- Who stole the donkey? The mistakes in the bookPart Two, Chapter 4
- The chapter the translator thinks is fakePart Two, Chapter 5
- The cave of Montesinos: the author writes in the marginPart Two, Chapter 24
- The braying aldermen: two officials and a lost donkeyPart Two, Chapter 25
- Llaneza, muchacho: Cervantes against prose that shows offPart Two, Chapter 26
- The countess Trifaldi and the plague of superlativesPart Two, Chapter 38
- Clavileño: what Sancho saw from the skyPart Two, Chapter 41
- ¡Guelte! ¡Guelte! Pilgrims, gestures and RicotePart Two, Chapter 54
- Ricote: we weep for Spain wherever we arePart Two, Chapter 54
- Roque Guinart: a bandit explains himselfPart Two, Chapter 60
- Translation as the back of a tapestryPart Two, Chapter 62
- Defeat on the beach: Dulcinea is still the most beautifulPart Two, Chapter 64
- Don Álvaro Tarfe: a character from the other bookPart Two, Chapter 72
- The fake Part Two, and the last page of the bookPart Two, prologue and Chapter 74