Sunday, May 20, 2012

Don Quixote making his sun rise on the evil and on the good / sending his rain on the unjust and the just alike

CERVANTES NA FILATELIA ESPANHOLA
"'it is not the responsibility or concern of a knight errant to determine if the afflicted, the fettered, and the oppressed whom he meets along the road are in that condition and suffering that anguish because of misdeeds or kind acts.  His only obligation is to help them because they are in need, turning his eyes to their suffering and not their wickedness.  And I encountered a rosary, a string of disheartened, unfortunate people, and I did for them what my religion asks of me; the rest does not concern me. . . .'"

Project Gutenberg
     "'For the love of God, Señor Knight Errant, if you ever run into me again, even if you see them chopping me to pieces, don't help me and don't come to my aid, but leave me alone with my misfortune; no matter how bad it is, it won't be worse than what will happen to me when I'm helped by your grace, and may God curse you and all the knights errant ever born in this world.'"

     Don Quixote and then Andrés in Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote I.xxx and xxxi (trans. Edith Grossman (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2003), 250 and 266).

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