Borges cita el siguiente texto de Cervantes:

"...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor."

Y despues cita a la obra reescrita de Menard:

"...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor."

En Los ochenta Craig Owens cita a Borges sobre esta reflección:

"I know that at one time the allegorical art was considered quite charming... and is now intolerable. We feel that, besides being intolerable, it is stupid and frivolous. Neither Dante, who told the story of his passion in the Vita Nuova; nor the Roman Boethius, writing his de consolatione in the tower of Pavia, in the shadow of his executioner’s sword, would have understood our feeling. How can I explain that difference in outlook without simply appealing to the principle of changing tastes?"