DON QUIXOTE

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please all parties, so much the better; but his first duty is to those
who look to him for as faithful a representation of his author as it is
in his power to give them, faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is
practicable, faithful to the spirit so far as he can make it.

My purpose here is not to dogmatise on the rules of translation, but to
indicate those I have followed, or at least tried to the best of my
ability to follow, in the present instance. One which, it seems to me,
cannot be too rigidly followed in translating "Don Quixote," is to avoid
everything that savours of affectation. The book itself is, indeed, in
one sense a protest against it, and no man abhorred it more than
Cervantes. For this reason, I think, any temptation to use antiquated or
obsolete language should be resisted. It is after all an affectation, and
one for which there is no warrant or excuse. Spanish has probably
undergone less change since the seventeenth century than any language in
Europe, and by far the greater and certainly the best part of "Don
Quixote" differs but little in language from the colloquial Spanish of