Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (87 page)

I say, then, that it is said that the author wrote that he compared
their friendship to that of Nisus and Euryalus, and Pylades and Orestes,
²
and if this is true, we can infer, to widespread admiration, how deep the friendship of these two peaceable animals must have been, to the shame of human beings who do not know how to maintain their friendships. For this reason, it has been said:

and this, that was sung:

No one should think that the author digressed by comparing the friendship of these animals to that of men, for men have learned a good deal from animals and have been taught many important things by them, for example: from storks, the enema,
⁴
from dogs, vomiting
⁵
and gratitude; from cranes, vigilance;
⁶
from ants, foresight; from elephants, chastity; and loyalty from the horse.

Finally Sancho fell asleep at the foot of a cork tree, and Don Quixote dozed under a hardy oak; not too much time had gone by when he was awakened by a noise at his back, and starting to his feet, he began to listen and to look in the direction of the sound, and he saw that there were two men on horseback and that one, dropping to the ground, said to the other:

“Get down, my friend, and unbridle the horses, for it seems to me that this spot has an abundance of grass for them, and the silence and solitude that I require for my amorous thoughts.”

Saying this and lying down on the ground were all one, and as he lay down, the armor he was wearing made a noise, a clear sign by which Don Quixote recognized that he must be a knight errant; and going up to
Sancho, who was asleep, he grasped his arm and with no small effort brought him back to consciousness, and in a quiet voice he said:

“Brother Sancho, we have an adventure.”

“May God make it a good one,” responded Sancho. “And where, Señor, is her grace this lady adventure?”

“Where, Sancho?” replied Don Quixote. “Turn around and look, and there you will see a knight errant lying on the ground, and from what I can deduce he is not very happy, because I saw him get down from his horse and stretch out on the ground showing certain signs of discouragement, and when he lay down I could hear his armor clattering.”

“Well, what makes your grace think,” said Sancho, “that this is an adventure?”

“I do not mean to say,” responded Don Quixote, “that this is a complete adventure, but rather the start of one; this is the way adventures begin. But listen: it seems as if he is tuning a lute or vihuela,
⁷
and considering how he is spitting and clearing his throat, he must be preparing to sing something.”

“By my faith, that’s true,” responded Sancho, “and so he must be a knight in love.”

“There is no knight errant who is not,” said Don Quixote. “Let us listen to him, and if he does sing, by following the thread we shall discover the skein of his thoughts, for the tongue speaks from the overflowing abundance of the heart.”

Sancho wanted to reply, but the voice of the Knight of the Wood, which was neither very bad nor very good, prevented him from doing so, and the two men listened in amazement as he sang this sonnet:

With an
Oh!
torn, apparently, from the very depths of his heart, the Knight of the Wood ended his song, and then, a short while later, in a sad and sorrowful voice, he said:

“O most beautiful and ungrateful woman in the world! How can you, most serene Casildea of Vandalia, allow this your captive knight to be consumed and to perish in continual wanderings and harsh and rigorous labors? Is it not enough that I have obliged all the knights of Navarra, León, Andalucía, Castilla, and La Mancha to confess that you are the most beautiful woman in the world?”

“Oh no,” said Don Quixote, “for I am from La Mancha, and I have confessed no such thing, and I could not and ought not confess anything so prejudicial to the beauty of my lady; now you can see, Sancho, that this knight is talking nonsense. But let us listen: perhaps he will say more about himself.”

“He’s bound to,” replied Sancho, “because he seems ready to complain for a month without stopping.”

But that did not happen, because the Knight of the Wood, hearing voices speaking nearby, lamented no further but rose to his feet and said in a loud but courteous voice:

“Who is it? Who are you? Do you count yourself among the contented or the afflicted?”

“The afflicted,” responded Don Quixote.

“Then approach,” responded the Knight of the Wood, “and you shall realize that you are approaching sorrow and affliction personified.”

Don Quixote, seeing that his reply was gentle and courteous, approached him, and Sancho did the same.

The lamenting knight grasped Don Quixote’s arm, saying:

“Sit here, Señor Knight; for me to understand that you are a knight, and one who professes knight errantry, it is enough to find you in this place, where solitude and the night dews are your companions, the natural couches and proper lodgings of knights errant.”

To which Don Quixote responded:

“I am a knight, of the profession you say, and though sorrow, sadness, and misfortune have their own places in my soul, this does not mean that the compassion I feel for other people’s afflictions has fled. I gathered from what you sang a little while ago that your woes are amorous, I
mean, the result of the love you have for that beautiful ingrate you named in your lamentations.”

During this conversation they sat together on the hard ground, in peace and good fellowship, as if at break of day they would not need to break each other’s heads.

“By any chance, Señor Knight,” the Knight of the Wood asked Don Quixote, “are you in love?”

“Unfortunately I am,” responded Don Quixote, “although the adversities born of well-placed thoughts should be considered mercies rather than misfortunes.”

“That is true,” said the Knight of the Wood, “if too much disdain does not confound our reason and understanding and begin to resemble revenge.”

“I never was disdained by my lady,” responded Don Quixote.

“No, of course not,” said Sancho, who was close to them, “because my lady is as meek as a lamb: she’s as soft as butter.”

“Is this your squire?” asked the Knight of the Wood.

“Yes, it is,” responded Don Quixote.

“I have never seen a squire,” replied the Knight of the Wood, “who would dare speak when his master was speaking: at least, there stands mine, as big as his father, and no one can prove he has even moved his lips while I am speaking.”

“Well, by my faith,” said Sancho, “I have spoken, and can speak, in front of any…enough said, we’ll let sleeping dogs lie.”

The squire of the Knight of the Wood took Sancho by the arm and said:

“Let’s go where we can talk in a squirely way about anything we like, and leave these master gentlemen of ours to argue and tell each other stories about their loves; I’ll bet they’re still at it at dawn, and no closer to finishing.”

“All right, then,” said Sancho, “and I’ll tell your grace who I am, and then you can tell me whether or not I’m a match for any talkative squire.”

Saying this, the two squires moved away, and their conversation was as amusing as the one between their masters was solemn.

CHAPTER XIII

Knights and squires were separated, the latter recounting their lives and the former their loves, but the history first relates the conversation of the servants and then goes on to that of their masters, and so it says that as they moved a short distance away, the Squire of the Wood said to Sancho:

“We have a difficult life, Señor, those of us who are squires to knights errant: the truth is we eat our bread by the sweat of our brow, which is one of God’s curses on our first parents.”

“You could also say,” added Sancho, “that we eat it in the icy cold of our bodies, because who suffers more heat and cold than the wretched squires of knight errantry? If we ate, it would be easier because sorrows fade with a little bread, but sometimes we can go a day or two with nothing for our breakfast but the wind that blows.”

“All of this is made bearable and tolerable,” said the Squire of the Wood, “by our hope of a reward, because if the knight errant is not too unfortunate, in a little while the squire who serves him will be rewarded with an attractive governorship of an ínsula or a fine countship.”

“I,” replied Sancho, “have already told my master that I’ll be content with the governorship of an ínsula, and he’s so noble and generous that he’s promised it to me on many different occasions.”

“I,” said the Squire of the Wood, “will be satisfied with a canonship as payment for my services, and my master has already set one aside for me, and what a nice canonship it is!”

“Your grace’s master,” said Sancho, “must be an ecclesiastical kind of knight who can do favors like that for his good squires, but mine is a lay
knight, though I do remember when some very wise people, though I think they were malicious, too, advised him to become an archbishop, but he only wanted to be an emperor, and I was trembling at the thought that he’d decide to enter the Church, because I didn’t think I was qualified to hold any benefices, because I can tell your grace that even though I look like a man, I’m nothing but an animal when it comes to entering the Church.”

“Well, the truth is your grace is mistaken,” said the Squire of the Wood, “because not all insular governorships are good. Some are crooked, some are poor, and some are gloomy, and even the proudest and best of them bring a heavy burden of cares and troubles that has to be borne on the shoulders of the unlucky man who happens to be governor. It would be much better for those of us who perform this miserable service to return home and do some easier work, like hunting or fishing, for is there any squire in the world so poor he doesn’t have a horse, a couple of greyhounds, and a fishing pole to help him pass the time?”

“I have all those things,” responded Sancho. “Well, the truth is I don’t have a horse, but my donkey is worth twice as much as my master’s nag. May God send me evil days, starting tomorrow, if I’d ever trade with him, even if he threw in four bushelweights of barley. Your grace must think I’m joking about the value I put on my gray, for gray is the color of my donkey. And I wouldn’t need greyhounds because there are plenty of them in my village; besides, hunting is much nicer when you do it at somebody else’s expense.”

“The truth of the matter, Señor Squire,” responded the Squire of the Wood, “is that I’ve decided and resolved to leave the crazy goings-on of these knights and go back to my village and rear my children, for I have three as beautiful as Oriental pearls.”

“I have two,” said Sancho, “who could be presented to the pope himself, especially the girl, who I’m bringing up to be a countess, God willing, though her mother’s against it.”

“And how old is this lady who’s being brought up to be a countess?” asked the Squire of the Wood.

“Fifteen, give or take a couple of years,” responded Sancho, “but she’s as tall as a lance, and as fresh as a morning in April, and as strong as a laborer.”

“Those are qualities,” responded the Squire of the Wood, “for being not only a countess but a nymph of the greenwood. O whoreson, but that damned little whore must be strong!”

To which Sancho replied, rather crossly:

“She isn’t a whore, and neither was her mother, and neither of them will ever be one, God willing, as long as I’m alive. And speak more politely; for somebody who’s spent time with knights errant, who are courtesy itself, your grace isn’t very careful about your words.”

“Oh, Señor Squire, how little your grace understands,” replied the Squire of the Wood, “about paying a compliment! Can it be that you don’t know that when a knight gives the bull in the square a good thrust with the lance, or when anybody does anything well, commoners always say: ‘Oh whoreson, but that damned little whoreson did that well!’? And in that phrase, what seems to be an insult is a wonderful compliment, and you should disavow, Señor, any sons or daughters who do not perform deeds that bring their parents that kind of praise.”

“I do disavow them,” responded Sancho, “and in that sense and for that reason your grace could dump a whole whorehouse on me and my children and my wife, because everything they do and say deserves the best compliments, and I want to see them again so much that I pray God to deliver me from mortal sin, which would be the same as delivering me from this dangerous squirely work that I’ve fallen into for a second time, tempted and lured by a purse with a hundred
ducados
that I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena; and the devil places before my eyes, here, there, not here but over there, a sack filled with
doblones,
and at every step I take I seem to touch it with my hand, and put my arms around it, and take it to my house, and hold mortgages, and collect rents, and live like a prince, and when I’m thinking about that, all the trials I suffer with this simpleton of a master seem easy to bear, even though I know he’s more of a madman than a knight.”