Readers
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Reflects Borges's Admiration for Cervantes
This short poem links reading, memory and identity through the figure of a bookish knight whose adventures are dreamed rather than lived. Borges aligns himself with that readerly destiny, suggesting his imaginative life is formed and preserved in a personal library of past books. The poem reflects Borges’ lifelong engagement with literature and his particular admiration for Cervantes, framing books as repositories of an essential, buried self.
Read Complete AnalysesOf that knight with the sallow, dry Complexion and heroic bent, they guess That, always on the verge of adventure, He never sallied from his library. The precise chronicle of his urges And its tragic-comical reverses Was dreamed by him, not by Cervantes, It’s no more than a chronicle of dream. Such my fate too. I know there’s something Immortal and essential that I’ve buried Somewhere in that library of the past In which I read the history of the knight. The slow leaves recall a child who gravely Dreams vague things he cannot understand.
Translations into English by A. S. Kline
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