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aquí comen los caballeros, y duermen, y mueren en sus camas, y hacen testamento antes de su muerte, con otras cosas de que todos los demás libros deste género carecen. Con todo eso, os digo que merecía el que lo compuso, pues no hizo tantas necedades de industria, que le echaran á galeras por todos los días de su vida.[1]
- [Footnote: the Knights eat and sleep and die in their beds, and make their
wills before dying, with other things that are wanting in all other books of this sort. For all this, I say that he who wrote it is well-deserving; for he did not commit follies purposely which should send him to the galleys for the term of his life—Don Quixote of La Mancha, translated by Henry Edward Watts, London, 1888.]*
- ↑ Cervantes, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edited and annotated by Francisco Rodríguez Marín, Madrid, 1911; vol. I, chap. vi, pp. 160-163. The last sentence of this quotation is not clear. It has become the subject of many comments and discussions, but no wholly satisfactory explanation has resulted. Menéndez y Pelayo intimates that probably the sign of negation should be omitted from the clause "pues no hizo tantas necedades de industria." If this were done the passage would make good sense. In the second volume, page 76, of his Introducción a los Orígenes de la Novela he suggests another explanation. He quotes a passage from Juan Rufo which reads as follows: "mas a fe que en algo errárades, y yo fuera presidente, que os avia de echar a galeras pues no podiades hazello de ignorancia." He is of the opinion that Cervantes expressed or intended to express the same idea as that contained in the words just quoted, but that in some way "industria" was substituted for "ignorancia." If Cervantes had used the latter word instead of the former, the sentence in question would be free from obscurity. However that may be, it is evident that the judgment of Cervantes concerning Tirant lo Blanch was expressed in a humorous way. Almost the whole of it consists of words of praise. The only adverse criticism is to be found in the last sentence, whereby Cervantes voices his objections to the nonsense and obscene features of the work. According to Menéndez y Pelayo, the whole sentence would be clear if the clause, "pues no hizo tantas necedades de industria," were not one of negation. It seems to me possible and practicable
