All 3 Uses of
digress
in
Don Quixote
- Be not weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions; my sorrow is not one of those that can or should be told tersely and briefly, for to me each incident seems to call for many words.†
Chpt 1.27-28digressions = wanderings from a direct or straight course -- especially verbally
- ...the translator of the history thought it best to pass over these and other details of the same sort in silence, as they are not in harmony with the main purpose of the story, the strong point of which is truth rather than dull digressions.
Chpt 2.17-18 *digressions = wanderings off the main topic
- It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, that when Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did not translate it as he wrote it—that is, as a kind of complaint the Moor made against himself for having taken in hand a story so dry and of so little variety as this of Don Quixote, for he found himself forced to speak perpetually of him and Sancho, without venturing to indulge in digressions and episodes more serious and more interesting.†
Chpt 2.43-44digressions = wanderings from a direct or straight course -- especially verbally
Definition:
wander from a direct or straight course -- typically verbally