Don Quixote Chapter 8

 Bonus: 

They don't exactly align, but I'm several chapters ahead of the songs at this point.

Summary: DQ is a highwayman! THE WINDMILLS!

Commentary:

Ornsby: A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, “Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me.” 

Laaame

Grossman: Just then a gust of wind began to blow, and the great sails began to move, and, seeing this, Don Quixote said:

"Even if you move more arms than the giant Briareus, you will answer to me."

I do like him yeeing and thouing though.

And then he attacks a group of friars to take their stuff. What a hero!

Don Quixote Chapter 7

 Bonus: 

A different playlist!

Summary: DQ wakes up and takes "holy tummy" as his squire. He ditches his wife and kids.

Commentary: Sancho Panza is about one step up from Fat Albert.

Don Quixote Chapter 6

 Bonus: 

Women just don't understand knight errantry...

Summary: Book burning! But not the ones the priest likes.

Commentary: I like the little crash course on the books Cervantes is mocking here. I'm pretty sure they'd censor the titles if you did this today. "Ah, B*tman. Burn that one." "Oh, Spydar-Ma'am. That can stay."

Don Quixote Chapter 5

 Bonus:

I was totally pronouncin it "Dull-Seen-Ah" in my head"

Summary: DQ gets found by a neighbor and goes home. Apparently he used to be smart, and his original name was Quijana.

Commentary: It's interesting to see the contrast between how little the narrators and characters have for Don Quixote, but not for Quijana, who they say was smart and respected.

Don Quixote Chapter 4

Bonus:

I think I'd heard this before, and didn't realize it was from Man of La Mancha

Summary: DQ fails to stop a beating, is bad at math, and gets beat up.

Commentary: I was mistaken, he did not murder anyone yesterday.

Holy Grail is very Don Quixote. He can't count, there's a "penalty of the penalty" joke, which is very "those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked."

Don Quixote Chapters 1-3

 Bonus: 

Late, sleepy, cop out

Summaries:

Ch 1: Don Quixote reads too many chivalric romances and ruins his brain.

Ch 2: DQ goes to an inn (which he thinks is a castle).

Ch 3: He murders a guy and gets knighted.

Commentary: The narrator has no respect. No one does.

"his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind."

Some whores laugh at him.

Based on the footnote, Dulcinea's given name is basically Becky.

The whole thing is written very "read aloud"ily (oral traditionally?)

I learned a new word: Varlet=scoundrel. (It used to me squire.)

I love this quote (pinched the Ormsby for easier copy-pasty): 

where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain

Such a fun book! 

Don Quixote, Prologue 2

 

I grew up vaguely near him.

Summary: A bunch of fake quotes about how awesome Don Quixote is.

Commentary: I assume this is the first of many possible firsts by DQ, the fake quote intro/praise. It's funny already. I think you see this more as a fake review snippet than as an epigraph today, but it works either way.

Notably, Grossman and Rutherford both maintain the Versos de Cabo Roto format and cut the last syllable from some of the poems, Ormsby does not. Curious if there's some wordplay missing here from the original. It'd be quite challenging to translate it, cut the syllable, have it make sense, and have there be another word that happened to end almost the same.