The History of Don Quixote, Volume II., Complete - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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"That of knight-errantry," said Don Quixote, "which is as good as that of
poetry, and even a finger or two above it."
"I do not know what science that is," said Don Lorenzo, "and until now I
have never heard of it."
"It is a science," said Don Quixote, "that comprehends in itself all or
most of the sciences in the world, for he who professes it must be a
jurist, and must know the rules of justice, distributive and equitable,
so as to give to each one what belongs to him and is due to him. He must
be a theologian, so as to be able to give a clear and distinctive reason
for the Christian faith he professes, wherever it may be asked of him. He
must be a physician, and above all a herbalist, so as in wastes and
solitudes to know the herbs that have the property of healing wounds, for
a knight-errant must not go looking for some one to cure him at every
step. He must be an astronomer, so as to know by the stars how many hours
of the night have passed, and what clime and quarter of the world he is
in. He must know mathematics, for at every turn some occasion for them
will present itself to him; and, putting it aside that he must be adorned
with all the virtues, cardinal and theological, to come down to minor
particulars, he must, I say, be able to swim as well as Nicholas or
Nicolao the Fish could, as the story goes; he must know how to shoe a
horse, and repair his saddle and bridle; and, to return to higher
matters, he must be faithful to God and to his lady; he must be pure in
thought, decorous in words, generous in works, valiant in deeds, patient
in suffering, compassionate towards the needy, and, lastly, an upholder
of the truth though its defence should cost him his life. Of all these
qualities, great and small, is a true knight-errant made up; judge then,
Senor Don Lorenzo, whether it be a contemptible science which the knight
who studies and professes it has to learn, and whether it may not compare
with the very loftiest that are taught in the schools."
"If that be so," replied Don Lorenzo, "this science, I protest, surpasses
all."
"How, if that be so?" said Don Quixote.
"What I mean to say," said Don Lorenzo, "is, that I doubt whether there
are now, or ever were, any knights-errant, and adorned with such
virtues."
"Many a time," replied Don Quixote, "have I said what I now say once
more, that the majority of the world are of opinion that there never were
any knights-errant in it; and as it is my opinion that, unless heaven by
some miracle brings home to them the truth that there were and are, all
the pains one takes will be in vain (as experience has often proved to
me), I will not now stop to disabuse you of the error you share with the
multitude. All I shall do is to pray to heaven to deliver you from it,
and show you how beneficial and necessary knights-errant were in days of
yore, and how useful they would be in these days were they but in vogue;
but now, for the sins of the people, sloth and indolence, gluttony and
luxury are triumphant."
"Our guest has broken out on our hands," said Don Lorenzo to himself at
this point; "but, for all that, he is a glorious madman, and I should be
a dull blockhead to doubt it."
Here, being summoned to dinner, they brought their colloquy to a close.
Don Diego asked his son what he had been able to make out as to the wits
of their guest. To which he replied, "All the doctors and clever scribes
in the world will not make sense of the scrawl of his madness; he is a
madman full of streaks, full of lucid intervals."
They went in to dinner, and the repast was such as Don Diego said on the
road he was in the habit of giving to his guests, neat, plentiful, and
tasty; but what pleased Don Quixote most was the marvellous silence that
reigned throughout the house, for it was like a Carthusian monastery.
When the cloth had been removed, grace said and their hands washed, Don
Quixote earnestly pressed Don Lorenzo to repeat to him his verses for the
poetical tournament, to which he replied, "Not to be like those poets
who, when they are asked to recite their verses, refuse, and when they
are not asked for them vomit them up, I will repeat my gloss, for which I
do not expect any prize, having composed it merely as an exercise of
ingenuity."
"A discerning friend of mine," said Don Quixote, "was of opinion that no
one ought to waste labour in glossing verses; and the reason he gave was
that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or most
frequently it wanders away from the meaning and purpose aimed at in the
glossed lines; and besides, that the laws of the gloss were too strict,
as they did not allow interrogations, nor 'said he,' nor 'I say,' nor
turning verbs into nouns, or altering the construction, not to speak of
other restrictions and limitations that fetter gloss-writers, as you no
doubt know."
"Verily, Senor Don Quixote," said Don Lorenzo, "I wish I could catch your
worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my
fingers like an eel."
"I don't understand what you say, or mean by slipping," said Don Quixote.
"I will explain myself another time," said Don Lorenzo; "for the present
pray attend to the glossed verses and the gloss, which run thus:
Could 'was' become an 'is' for me,
Then would I ask no more than this;
Or could, for me, the time that is
Become the time that is to be!--
GLOSS
Dame Fortune once upon a day
To me was bountiful and kind;
But all things change; she changed her mind,
And what she gave she took away.
O Fortune, long I've sued to thee;
The gifts thou gavest me restore,
For, trust me, I would ask no more,
Could 'was' become an 'is' for me.
No other prize I seek to gain,
No triumph, glory, or success,
Only the long-lost happiness,
The memory whereof is pain.
One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss
The heart-consuming fire might stay;
And, so it come without delay,
Then would I ask no more than this.
I ask what cannot be, alas!
That time should ever be, and then
Come back to us, and be again,
No power on earth can bring to pass;
For fleet of foot is he, I wis,
And idly, therefore, do we pray
That what for aye hath left us may
Become for us the time that is.
Perplexed, uncertain, to remain
'Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life;
'Twere better, sure, to end the strife,
And dying, seek release from pain.
And yet, thought were the best for me.
Anon the thought aside I fling,
And to the present fondly cling,
And dread the time that is to be."
When Don Lorenzo had finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote stood up,
and in a loud voice, almost a shout, exclaimed as he grasped Don
Lorenzo's right hand in his, "By the highest heavens, noble youth, but
you are the best poet on earth, and deserve to be crowned with laurel,
not by Cyprus or by Gaeta--as a certain poet, God forgive him, said--but
by the Academies of Athens, if they still flourished, and by those that
flourish now, Paris, Bologna, Salamanca. Heaven grant that the judges who
rob you of the first prize--that Phoebus may pierce them with his arrows,
and the Muses never cross the thresholds of their doors. Repeat me some
of your long-measure verses, senor, if you will be so good, for I want
thoroughly to feel the pulse of your rare genius."
Is there any need to say that Don Lorenzo enjoyed hearing himself praised
by Don Quixote, albeit he looked upon him as a madman? power of flattery,
how far-reaching art thou, and how wide are the bounds of thy pleasant
jurisdiction! Don Lorenzo gave a proof of it, for he complied with Don
Quixote's request and entreaty, and repeated to him this sonnet on the
fable or story of Pyramus and Thisbe.
SONNET
The lovely maid, she pierces now the wall;
Heart-pierced by her young Pyramus doth lie;
And Love spreads wing from Cyprus isle to fly,
A chink to view so wondrous great and small.
There silence speaketh, for no voice at all
Can pass so strait a strait; but love will ply
Where to all other power 'twere vain to try;
For love will find a way whate'er befall.
Impatient of delay, with reckless pace
The rash maid wins the fatal spot where she
Sinks not in lover's arms but death's embrace.
So runs the strange tale, how the lovers twain
One sword, one sepulchre, one memory,
Slays, and entombs, and brings to life again.
"Blessed be God," said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo's
sonnet, "that among the hosts there are of irritable poets I have found
one consummate one, which, senor, the art of this sonnet proves to me
that you are!"
For four days was Don Quixote most sumptuously entertained in Don Diego's
house, at the end of which time he asked his permission to depart,
telling him he thanked him for the kindness and hospitality he had
received in his house, but that, as it did not become knights-errant to
give themselves up for long to idleness and luxury, he was anxious to
fulfill the duties of his calling in seeking adventures, of which he was
informed there was an abundance in that neighbourhood, where he hoped to
employ his time until the day came round for the jousts at Saragossa, for
that was his proper destination; and that, first of all, he meant to
enter the cave of Montesinos, of which so many marvellous things were
reported all through the country, and at the same time to investigate and
explore the origin and true source of the seven lakes commonly called the
lakes of Ruidera.
Don Diego and his son commended his laudable resolution, and bade him
furnish himself with all he wanted from their house and belongings, as
they would most gladly be of service to him; which, indeed, his personal
worth and his honourable profession made incumbent upon them.
The day of his departure came at length, as welcome to Don Quixote as it
was sad and sorrowful to Sancho Panza, who was very well satisfied with
the abundance of Don Diego's house, and objected to return to the
starvation of the woods and wilds and the short-commons of his
ill-stocked alforjas; these, however, he filled and packed with what he
considered needful. On taking leave, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, "I
know not whether I have told you already, but if I have I tell you once
more, that if you wish to spare yourself fatigue and toil in reaching the
inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, you have nothing to do but to
turn aside out of the somewhat narrow path of poetry and take the still
narrower one of knight-errantry, wide enough, however, to make you an
emperor in the twinkling of an eye."
In this speech Don Quixote wound up the evidence of his madness, but
still better in what he added when he said, "God knows, I would gladly
take Don Lorenzo with me to teach him how to spare the humble, and
trample the proud under foot, virtues that are part and parcel of the
profession I belong to; but since his tender age does not allow of it,
nor his praiseworthy pursuits permit it, I will simply content myself
with impressing it upon your worship that you will become famous as a
poet if you are guided by the opinion of others rather than by your own;
because no fathers or mothers ever think their own children ill-favoured,
and this sort of deception prevails still more strongly in the case of
the children of the brain."
Both father and son were amazed afresh at the strange medley Don Quixote
talked, at one moment sense, at another nonsense, and at the pertinacity
and persistence he displayed in going through thick and thin in quest of
his unlucky adventures, which he made the end and aim of his desires.
There was a renewal of offers of service and civilities, and then, with
the gracious permission of the lady of the castle, they took their
departure, Don Quixote on Rocinante, and Sancho on Dapple.
CHAPTER XIX.
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS
Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego's village,
when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple
of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students
carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau,
what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of-ribbed
stockings; the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencing-foils with
buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on
their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were
taking them home to their village; and both students and peasants were
struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote
for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different
from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after
ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of
his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses
travelled faster than his horse; and then, to gratify them, he told them
in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed,
which was that of a knight-errant seeking adventures in all parts of the
world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha,
and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions.
All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the
students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote's pate; for
all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one
of them said to him, "If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is
the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship
come with us; you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up
to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league
round."
Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince's, that he spoke of it in
this way. "Not at all," said the student; "it is the wedding of a farmer
and a farmer's daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the
fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be
attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be
celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called,
par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho
the rich. She is eighteen, and he twenty-two, and they are fairly
matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the
world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is
better than Camacho's; but no one minds that now-a-days, for wealth can
solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is free-handed, and it is
his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in
overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to
reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not
only sword but also bell-dancers, for in his own town there are those who
ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection; of shoe-dancers I
say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things,
nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make
this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing
Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as
Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of
which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the
long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basilio loved Quiteria
from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless
modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children,
Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As
they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio
his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of
constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with
the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who
had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature; for if the
truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty
thrower of the bar, a first-rate wrestler, and a great ball-player; he
runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the nine-pins
as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it
speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best."
"For that excellence alone," said Don Quixote at this, "the youth
deserves to marry, not merely the fair Quiteria, but Queen Guinevere
herself, were she alive now, in spite of Launcelot and all who would try
to prevent it."
"Say that to my wife," said Sancho, who had until now listened in
silence, "for she won't hear of anything but each one marrying his equal,
holding with the proverb 'each ewe to her like.' What I would like is
that this good Basilio (for I am beginning to take a fancy to him
already) should marry this lady Quiteria; and a blessing and good luck--I
meant to say the opposite--on people who would prevent those who love one
another from marrying."
"If all those who love one another were to marry," said Don Quixote, "it
would deprive parents of the right to choose, and marry their children to
the proper person and at the proper time; and if it was left to daughters
to choose husbands as they pleased, one would be for choosing her
father's servant, and another, some one she has seen passing in the
street and fancies gallant and dashing, though he may be a drunken bully;
for love and fancy easily blind the eyes of the judgment, so much wanted
in choosing one's way of life; and the matrimonial choice is very liable
to error, and it needs great caution and the special favour of heaven to
make it a good one. He who has to make a long journey, will, if he is
wise, look out for some trusty and pleasant companion to accompany him
before he sets out. Why, then, should not he do the same who has to make
the whole journey of life down to the final halting-place of death, more
especially when the companion has to be his companion in bed, at board,
and everywhere, as the wife is to her husband? The companionship of one's
wife is no article of merchandise, that, after it has been bought, may be
returned, or bartered, or changed; for it is an inseparable accident that
lasts as long as life lasts; it is a noose that, once you put it round
your neck, turns into a Gordian knot, which, if the scythe of Death does
not cut it, there is no untying. I could say a great deal more on this
subject, were I not prevented by the anxiety I feel to know if the senor
licentiate has anything more to tell about the story of Basilio."
To this the student, bachelor, or, as Don Quixote called him, licentiate,
replied, "I have nothing whatever to say further, but that from the
moment Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to be married to
Camacho the rich, he has never been seen to smile, or heard to utter
rational word, and he always goes about moody and dejected, talking to
himself in a way that shows plainly he is out of his senses. He eats
little and sleeps little, and all he eats is fruit, and when he sleeps,
if he sleeps at all, it is in the field on the hard earth like a brute
beast. Sometimes he gazes at the sky, at other times he fixes his eyes on
the earth in such an abstracted way that he might be taken for a clothed
statue, with its drapery stirred by the wind. In short, he shows such
signs of a heart crushed by suffering, that all we who know him believe
that when to-morrow the fair Quiteria says 'yes,' it will be his sentence
of death."
"God will guide it better," said Sancho, "for God who gives the wound
gives the salve; nobody knows what will happen; there are a good many
hours between this and to-morrow, and any one of them, or any moment, the
house may fall; I have seen the rain coming down and the sun shining all
at one time; many a one goes to bed in good health who can't stir the
next day. And tell me, is there anyone who can boast of having driven a
nail into the wheel of fortune? No, faith; and between a woman's 'yes'
and 'no' I wouldn't venture to put the point of a pin, for there would
not be room for it; if you tell me Quiteria loves Basilio heart and soul,
then I'll give him a bag of good luck; for love, I have heard say, looks
through spectacles that make copper seem gold, poverty wealth, and blear
eyes pearls."
"What art thou driving at, Sancho? curses on thee!" said Don Quixote;
"for when thou takest to stringing proverbs and sayings together, no one
can understand thee but Judas himself, and I wish he had thee. Tell me,
thou animal, what dost thou know about nails or wheels, or anything
else?"
"Oh, if you don't understand me," replied Sancho, "it is no wonder my
words are taken for nonsense; but no matter; I understand myself, and I
know I have not said anything very foolish in what I have said; only your
worship, senor, is always gravelling at everything I say, nay, everything
I do."
"Cavilling, not gravelling," said Don Quixote, "thou prevaricator of
honest language, God confound thee!"
"Don't find fault with me, your worship," returned Sancho, "for you know
I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether
I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me,
it's not fair to force a Sayago-man to speak like a Toledan; maybe there
are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk."
"That is true," said the licentiate, "for those who have been bred up in
the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all
day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure,
correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly
breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in
Majalahonda; I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not
so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be
accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at
Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear,
plain, and intelligible language."
"If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils
you carry than on dexterity of tongue," said the other student, "you
would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail."
"Look here, bachelor Corchuelo," returned the licentiate, "you have the
most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think
it useless."
"It is no idea on my part, but an established truth," replied Corchuelo;
"and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords
there, and it is a good opportunity; I have a steady hand and a strong
arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make
you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your
positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see
stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I
place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my
back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give
ground."
"As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself,"
replied the master of fence; "though it might be that your grave would be
dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time; I mean that
you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword."
"We shall soon see," replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly,
he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his
beast.
"It must not be that way," said Don Quixote at this point; "I will be the
director of this fencing match, and judge of this often disputed
question;" and dismounting from Rocinante and grasping his lance, he
planted himself in the middle of the road, just as the licentiate, with
an easy, graceful bearing and step, advanced towards Corchuelo, who came
on against him, darting fire from his eyes, as the saying is. The other
two of the company, the peasants, without dismounting from their asses,
served as spectators of the mortal tragedy. The cuts, thrusts, down
strokes, back strokes and doubles, that Corchuelo delivered were past
counting, and came thicker than hops or hail. He attacked like an angry
lion, but he was met by a tap on the mouth from the button of the
licentiate's sword that checked him in the midst of his furious onset,
and made him kiss it as if it were a relic, though not as devoutly as
relics are and ought to be kissed. The end of it was that the licentiate
reckoned up for him by thrusts every one of the buttons of the short
cassock he wore, tore the skirts into strips, like the tails of a
cuttlefish, knocked off his hat twice, and so completely tired him out,
that in vexation, anger, and rage, he took the sword by the hilt and
flung it away with such force, that one of the peasants that were there,
who was a notary, and who went for it, made an affidavit afterwards that
he sent it nearly three-quarters of a league, which testimony will serve,
and has served, to show and establish with all certainty that strength is
overcome by skill.