Belated wishes

[cross-posted at 400 Windmills]

Last Friday was Cervantes' 459th birthday, but it's taken me this long to do something about it. Better late than never!

"Sueña Alonso Quijano"

El hombre se despierta de un incierto
sueño de alfanjes y de campo llano
y se toca la barba con la mano
y se pregunta si está herido o muerto.
¿No lo perseguirán los hechiceros
que han jurado su mal bajo la luna?
Nada. Apenas el frío. Apenas una
dolencia de sus años postrímeros.
El hidalgo fue un sueño de Cervantes
y don Quijote un sueño del hidalgo.
El doble sueño los confunde y algo
está pasando que pasó mucho antes.
Quijano duerme y sueña. Una batalla:
los mares de Lepanto y la metralla.

~ Jorge Luis Borges, Cervantes y el Quijote


["Alonso Quijano Dreams"

The man awakes in an uncertain
dream of sabers and flat fields
and he strokes his beard with his hand
and he asks whether he's wounded or dead.
Don't the sorcerers pursue him
that have sworn to his ill under the moon?
Nothing. Barely the cold. Barely an
illness of his recent years.
The hidalgo was a dream of Cervantes'
and Don Quixote a dream of the hidalgo.
The double dream confuses them and something
is happening that happened a long time ago.
Quijano sleeps and dreams. A battle:
the seas of Lepanto and the shrapnel.]