Tilting at Windmills
Don Quixote seizes his chance to capture a giant for his lady-love, Dulcinea.
Published 1605
King James I 1603-1625
Don Quixote Tilting at a Windmill, by William Watson.
‘Don Quixote tilting at a windmill’, by Edinburgh artist William Stewart Watson (1800-1870). ‘Tilting at windmills’ properly speaking means ‘fighting the imaginary’. Some people also use it to mean ‘fighting the invincible’. Philip Marshall Brown of the American Peace Society issued the following warning to the US Senate on May 1st, 1939: “We have the attitude of crusaders, the idealists who feel we should go out tilting at windmills. I would ask that those crusaders take into account whether or not their crusade is likely to be effective. I think it is likely to be ineffective, and if they should find themselves left behind on one side, why then it would be tilting at windmills.” As it turned out, the quixotic idealists were being more practical than Brown realised.
Introduction
Quexana is a woolly-headed, Spanish country gentleman, bordering fifty, from La Mancha, southeast of Madrid. Bewitched by tales of romance, he has dubbed himself Don Quixote, Knight, and set out in search of ‘adventures’ with his companion Sancho Panza. His quest is to capture a giant as a love-offering to his lady Dulcinea (a pleasing fantasy inspired by an old flame) and he has just been promising Sancho his own realm too.
Translated and abridged by Herbert Lord Havell (1863-1913).
CHATTING thus they reached the top of a rising ground, and saw before them thirty or forty windmills in the plain below; and as soon as Don Quixote set eyes on them he said to his squire:
“Friend Sancho, we are in luck to-day! See, there stands a troop of monstrous giants, thirty or more, and with them I will forthwith do battle, and slay them every one. With their spoils we will lay the foundation of our fortune, as is the victor’s right; moreover, it is doing heaven good service to sweep this generation of vipers from off the face of the earth.”
“What giants do you mean?” asked Sancho Panza.
“Those whom thou seest yonder,” answered his master, “with the long arms, which in such creatures are sometimes two leagues in length.”*
“What is your honour thinking of?” cried Sancho. “These are not giants, but windmills, and their arms, as you call them, are the sails, which, being driven by the wind, set the millstones going.”
* In English, this name may be pronounced kwik-sut or kwix-oat (like boat), though people who want to make it sound closer to the Spanish pronounce it key-ho-tay. The adjective ‘quixotic’ is pronounced kwik-sot-ik. According to Brewer’s dictionary, “a quixotic man is a dreamy, unpractical, but essentially good, man — one with a ‘bee in his bonnet’.”
* A league is three miles, obviously an absurd measure.
