At my advanced age, 91 years old since last November 1, apart from preparing some songs so that things last, I’m starting to think about what the farewell will be like. In that sense, Miguel de Cervantes – don’t be surprised by the choice – was perhaps the author who most notably said goodbye to his readers and patrons, on the occasion of two specific books. The first ending was placed at the end of the second part of the Ingenious Gentleman, with these words: Gentlemen, said Don Quixote, let’s go little by little, because in the nests of yesteryear, there are no birds today. I was crazy and I am now sane; I was Don Quixote of La Mancha and I am now, as I have said, Alonso Quijano the Good. With your graces, may my repentance and my truth return to the estimation that was held of me…
So laconic was the famous knight’s first disconnection from the sad figure of the people around him, and more notably from Sancho. The second goodbye, a few months later, was formulated with very heartfelt words of gratitude:
With my foot already in the stirrup, due to the desire for death, great sir, I am writing to you. Yesterday they gave me last rites. Time is short, desires grow, hopes diminish, and with all this, I lead life based on the desire I have to live…
That was the dedication/farewell inscribed in the last book that the Manco of Lepanto wrote, Persiles and Sigismunda, which he dedicated to the Count of Lemos, his benefactor, to whom he said he owed so much. If you try to make your own farewell, things are not so easy, and you will have to think about how to say your last goodbye with peace of mind and thinking very hard about a second life. This is a somewhat diffuse topic, as Wittgenstein said in paragraph number 6.52 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Read it early in the morning, there is time…