Tilting at windmills
art
Thomas Shelton's _Don Quixote_ , Part 1.
The First Part VIII. Of the Good Success Don Quixote Had, in the
Dreadful and Never-Imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with Other
Accidents Worthy to Be Recorded
AS they discoursed, they discoVERED some thirty or forty windmills,
that are in that field; and as soon as Don Quixote espied them, he
said to his squire, ‘Fortune doth address our affairs better than we
ourselves could desire; for behold there, friend Sancho Panza, how
there appears thirty or forty monstrous giants, with whom I mean to
fight, and deprive them all of their lives, with whose spoils we will
begin to be rich;
for this is a good war, and a great service unto God, to take away so
bad a seed from the face of the earth.’
‘What giants?’ quoth Sancho Panza.
‘Those that thou seest there,’ quoth his lord, ‘with the long arms;
and some there are of that race whose arms are almost TWO leagues
long.’
‘I pray you UNDERSTAND,’ quoth Sancho Panza, ‘that those which appear
there are no giants, but windmills; and that which seems in them to be
arms, are their sails, that, swung about by the wind, do also make the
mill go.’
‘It seems well,’ quoth Don Quixote ‘that thou art not yet acquainted
with matter of adventures. They are giants; and, if thou beest afraid,
go aside and pray, whilst I enter into cruel and unequal battle with
them.’ And, saying so, he spurred his horse Rozinante, without taking
heed to his squire Sancho’s cries, advertising him how they were
doubtless windmills that he did assault, and no giants; but he went so
fully persuaded that they were giants as he neither heard his squire’s
outcries, nor did discern what they were, although he drew very near
to them, but rather said, so loud as he could, ‘Fly not, ye cowards
and vile creatures! for it is only one knight that assaults you.’
With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn about;
which Don Quixote espying, said, ‘Although thou movest more arms than
the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.’ And, after saying this,
and commending himself most devoutly to his Lady Dulcinea, desiring
her to succor him in that trance, covering himself well with his
buckler, and setting his lance on his rest, he spurred on Rozinante,
and encountered with the first mill that was before him, and, striking
his lance into the sail, the wind swung it about with such fury, that
it broke his lance into shiVERS, carrying him and his horse after it,
and finally tumbled him a good way off from it on the field in evil
plight.
Sancho Panza repaired presently to succor him as fast as his ass could
drive; and when he arrived he found him not able to stir, he had
gotten such a crush with Rozinante. ‘Good God!’ quoth Sancho, ‘did I
not foretell unto you that you should look well what you did, for they
were none other than windmills? nor could any think otherwise, unless
he had also windmills in his brains.’
‘Peace, Sancho,’ quoth Don Quixote; ‘for matters of war are more
subject than any other thing to continual change; how much more,
seeing I do verily persuade myself, that the wise Frestron, who robbed
my study and books, hath transformed these giants into mills, to
deprive me of the glory of the victory, such in the enmity he bears
towards me. But yet, in fine, all his bad arts shall but little
prevail against the goodness of my sword.’
‘God grant it as he may!’ said Sancho Panza, and then helped him to
*ARISE* ; and presently he mounted on Rozinante, who was half shoulder-
pitched by rough encounter; and, discoursing upon that adventure, they
followed on the way which guided towards the passage or gate of
Lapice; for there, as Don Quixote avouched, it was not possible but to
find many adventures, because it was a thoroughfare much frequented;
and yet he affirmed that he went very much grieved, because he wanted
a lance; and, telling it to his squire, he said, ‘I remember how I
have read that a certain Spanish knight, called *DiEgo pEREs of
Vargas* , having broken his sword in a battle, tore off a great branch
or stock from an *OAK-tree* , and did such marvels with it that day,
and battered so many Moors, as he remained with the surname of
Machuca, which signifies a *STUMP* , and as well he as all his progeny
were EVER after that day called Vargas and Machuca>>
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Tilting at windmills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills
Tilting at windmills by Gustav Dore
http://tinyurl.com/yzs7c46
<<Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking
imaginary enemies, or fighting unwinnable or futile battles. The word
“tilt”, in this context, comes from jousting. The phrase originated in
the novel Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. The phrase is sometimes
used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly
perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or
misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. In the
novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that he imagines to be giants.
Quixote sees the windmill blades as the giant's arms, for instance.
When Cervantes was a soldier, during the 1570s, the Spanish Empire
included the Netherlands, a country known for its windmills. Cervantes
wrote and published Don Quixote during the Eighty Years' War, or Dutch
War of Independence, (1568–1648), a revolt by the Habsburg Netherlands
to end Spanish rule. In Don Quixote, the protagonist, Don Quixote,
consistently misinterprets his own, his adversaries', and his allies'
actions and motives - regularly resulting in apparently unjustified
violent actions and consequences. Don Quixote's tilting at windmills
can be interpreted as an allegory to promote critical, skeptical, or
satrical evaluation of either a hero's motives, rationales, & actions
or a nation's foreign policies.>>
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http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/tilting-at-windmills.html
<<John Cleveland published The character of a London diurnall in 1644
(a diurnall was, as you might expect, part-way between a diary or
journal): "The Quixotes of this Age fight with the Wind-mills of their
owne Heads."
The full form of the phrase isn't used until towards the end of the
19th century. For example, in The New York Times, April 1870: "They
[Western Republicans] have not thus far had sufficient of an
organization behind them to make their opposition to the Committee's
bill anything more than tilting at windmills.">>
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Art Neuendorffer