How we cite our quotes: (Part.Book.Chapter.Paragraph) We use the P. A. Motteux translation from 1712 for our quotes. Some familiar character names appear differently in this edition (Sancho Panza is Sancho Panca here, Rocinante is Rozinante, and Doña Rodriguez is Donna Rodriguez). We preserve Motteux's spellings in our quotes but use the more familiar versions of these names in our analysis.
Quote #7
"Thus life each moment makes me die, / And if death itself new life can give' / I hopeless and tormented lie, / And neither truly die nor live." (2.1.68.4)
As the novel draws to a close, Don Quixote begins to worry that he'll never see the beautiful face of his fair Dulcinea. The only way he knows how to vent his bad feelings is to recite a poem he has written about love and death. But in this poem, instead of dying outright, he lives in a sort of zombie state between life and death: he can't bring himself to commit suicide, yet he can't live a full life without his lover.
Quote #8
As all human things, especially the lives of men, are transitory, their very beginnings being but steps to their dissolution; so Don Quixote, who was no way exempted from the common fate, was snatched away by death. (2.1.74.1)
Just like that, Don Quixote dies. It doesn't take all that long, either, and there isn't a whole lot of ceremony around it. But as the narrator tells us, all of our lives are transitory, and we're all going to die someday. There's no one who can escape this fate, which basically means that in the eyes of death, we're all the same.
Quote #9
"The body of a knight lives here, / So brave, that to his latest breath/ Immortal glory was his care,/ And makes him triumph over death." (2.1.74.17)
Don Quixote's epitaph (the message on his tombstone) makes it sound as if the guy has achieved a victory over death by living such a glorious life. And to be sure, we're still reading about him hundreds of years later. (On the other hand, Don Quixote was never a real guy, but maybe that isn't the point.) Don Quixote's tombstone raises some interesting questions about whether being remembered in history counts as beating death.