Duelos y Quebrantos

I was back from a run in time to see a raccoon family scamper across the street and disappear in the dark between the neighbor’s house and ours. I think I counted two adults and three young ones.

A delightful footnote on the first page of Ozell’s revision of Peter Motteux’s translation of Don Quixote, where we learn, “His diet consisted more of Beef than Mutton; and with minc’d Meat on most Nights, Lentils on Fridays, Eggs and Bacon on Saturdays,” and so on — the footnote being this, on Bacon and Eggs:

“Strictly, Sorrow for his Sops, on Saturdays. Duelos y Quebrantos; in English, Gruntings and Groanings. He that can tell what Sort of Edible the Author means by those Words, Erit mihi magnus Apollo. Cæser Oudin, the famous French Traveller, Negotiator, Translator and Dictionary-maker, will have it to be Eggs and Bacon, as above. Our Translator and Dictionary-maker, Stevens, has it, Eggs and Collops, (I suppose he means Scotch-Collops) but that’s too good a Dish to mortify withal. Signor Sobrino’s Spanish Dictionary says, Duelos y Quebrantos is Pease-Soup. Mr Jarvis translates it an Amlet (Aumulette in French) which Boyer says is a Pancake made of Eggs, tho’ I always understood Aumulette to be Bacon-froise (or rather Bacon-fryze, from its being fry’d, from frit in French). Some will have it to mean Brains fry’d with Eggs, which, we are told by Mr Jarvis, the Church allows in poor Countries in Defect of Fish. Others have guest it to mean some windy kind of Diet, as Peas, Herbs, &c. which are apt to occasion Cholicks, as if one should say, Greens and Gripes on Saturdays. To conclude, the ’forecited Author of the new Translation (if a Translator may be call’d an Author) absolutely says, Duelos y Quebrantos is a Cant-Phrase for some Fasting-Day-Dish in use in la Mancha. After all these learned Disquisitions, Who knows but the Author means a Dish of Nichils!”

(The typing of which, if Nothing else, gave me absolute Fits!)

Pollution, traffic jams, homeless encampments, shootings, sirens, and their individual and collective physical, psychological toll.

Read The Rambler, Numb. 22. Saturday, June 2, 1750, by Samuel Johnson. The contentious story of Wit and Learning, beginning from Wit’s birth by Euphrosyne and Learning’s birth by Sophia, the father of both being Apollo; and continuing on to their marriage and their own offspring, “a numerous progeny of Arts and Sciences.”

November 14, 2023.

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