En otras cosas peores se podría ocupar el hombre y que menos provecho le trujesen

This article deals with several aspects of translation as they pertain to Don Quixote, beginning with the novel's numerous translations into English shortly after its publication in Spanish. The first two commentaries on the novel, which were published in 1781 and 1798, were also in English. The first translation into French, covering only the first part of Don Quixote, was published in 1614; the first Italian translation, in 1622, and the first German translation, containing only twenty-two chapters, probably in 1621. Another aspect of translation in connection with Don Quixote has to do with the idea of the novel as a fictitious translation. In Chapter 9 of the first part of the book Cervantes explains that his work is based on Tales of Don Quixote written by Cide Hamete Benengeli. Little is said about the person responsible for translating it from Arabic into Spanish, despite his diligent work and the advice he repeatedly gives the novel's second author. But Don Quixote contains references not just to fictitious translation, but to real translation as well. In Chapter 6 of the first part of the novel, the translated version of Orlando furioso is severely criticized, along with all those who engage in translating rhymed works. ?Was Cervantes familiar with Saint Jerome's and Dante's views on the impossibility of rendering good translations of works in verse? The passage in Don Quixote that dwells the most on the topic of translation is Chapter 62 in the second part, when Don Quixote chats with the translator of Le bagatele and mockingly praises his work by comparing his translations with the wrong side of a tapestry. Finally, there is reference to a madrigal that Don Quixote tries to pass as his own, when it was actually translated from an Italian madrigal.