WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS THEY ARE
NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY


He who translated this great history from the original written by its
first author, Cide Hamete Benengeli, says that on coming to the chapter
giving the adventures of the cave of Montesinos he found written on the
margin of it, in Hamete's own hand, these exact words:

"I cannot convince or persuade myself that everything that is written in
the preceding chapter could have precisely happened to the valiant Don
Quixote; and for this reason, that all the adventures that have occurred
up to the present have been possible and probable; but as for this one of
the cave, I see no way of accepting it as true, as it passes all
reasonable bounds. For me to believe that Don Quixote could lie, he being
the most truthful gentleman and the noblest knight of his time, is
impossible; he would not have told a lie though he were shot to death
with arrows. On the other hand, I reflect that he related and told the
story with all the circumstances detailed, and that he could not in so
short a space have fabricated such a vast complication of absurdities;
if, then, this adventure seems apocryphal, it is no fault of mine; and
so, without affirming its falsehood or its truth, I write it down. Decide
for thyself in thy wisdom, reader; for I am not bound, nor is it in my
power, to do more; though certain it is they say that at the time of his
death he retracted, and said he had invented it, thinking it matched and
tallied with the adventures he had read of in his histories." And then he
goes on to say:

The cousin was amazed as well at Sancho's boldness as at the patience of