Don Quixote [Trans. by Edith Grossman] (94 page)

“Truly, Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Lorenzo, “I would like to catch your grace in some foolish mistake, and I can’t, because you slip out of my hands like an eel.”

“I do not understand,” responded Don Quixote, “what your grace says or means to say about my slipping away.”

“I’ll explain later,” responded Don Lorenzo, “but for now your grace should listen to the glossed verses and to the gloss, which read like this:

When Don Lorenzo finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote rose to his feet, and in a loud voice that was almost a shout, and grasping Don Lorenzo’s right hand in his own, he said:

“Praise be to heaven on high, magnanimous youth, for you are the best poet on earth, and you deserve to be crowned with a laurel wreath, not by Cyprus or Gaeta, as a poet once said,
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may God forgive him, but by the academies of Athens, if they still existed today, and by those that do in Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca! May it please heaven that the judges who would deprive you of first place be pierced by the arrows of Phoebus, and may the Muses never cross the thresholds of their houses! If you please, Señor, tell me some verses in a long line,
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for I wish to explore your admirable talent thoroughly.”

Is it surprising to anyone that Don Lorenzo was extremely happy to be praised by Don Quixote, even though he considered him mad? O Flattery, how powerful you are, how far you extend, how widespread the boundaries of your pleasant domain! Don Lorenzo gave credence to this
truth by acceding to the request and desire of Don Quixote, and reciting this sonnet on the tale or history of Pyramus and Thisbe:

“Praise be to God!” said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo’s sonnet. “Among the infinite number of consumptive poets, Señor, I have seen a consummate poet, which is what your grace is, and what the artfulness of this sonnet leads me to believe.”

For four days Don Quixote was wonderfully regaled in the house of Don Diego, and at the end of this time he asked permission to leave, telling his host that he was grateful for the kind and generous treatment he had received in his house, but because it did not seem right for knights errant to devote too many hours to idleness and leisure, he wished to fulfill his obligations and go in search of adventures, for he had heard that this land abounded in them, and this was where he hoped to pass the time until the day of the jousts in Zaragoza, when he would vanquish all adversaries; but first he had to enter the Cave of Montesinos, about which so many marvelous things were recounted in that district, and he would also look into and inquire about the origin and true source of the seven Lakes of Ruidera, as they were commonly called.

Don Diego and his son praised his honorable determination and told him to take from their house and estate everything he wished, for they
would serve him most willingly, as they were bound to do because of the worth of his person and the honorable profession he pursued.

At last the day of his departure arrived, as joyful for Don Quixote as it was sad and mournful for Sancho Panza, who was quite content with the abundance in Don Diego’s house and opposed this return to the hunger that was customary in forests and wastelands and in the meagerness of his badly provisioned saddlebags. Despite this, he filled them to the top with what he thought most necessary, and as they took their leave, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo:

“I do not know if I have already told your grace, and if I have, I shall tell you again, that when your grace wishes to save a good deal of time and trouble in your ascent to the inaccessible summit of the temple of Fame, you need do nothing else but leave the narrow path of poetry and follow the even narrower one of knight errantry, which will suffice to make you an emperor in the blink of an eye.”

With these words Don Quixote brought to a close the question of his madness, in particular when he added these, saying:

“God knows I should like to take Señor Don Lorenzo with me, to teach him how one must pardon the meek and subdue and trample the proud, virtues deeply connected to the profession I follow; but since his youth does not ask it, nor his meritorious pursuits consent to it, I shall be content with merely advising your grace that, being a poet, you can achieve fame if you are guided more by other people’s opinions than by your own, for no father or mother thinks their children are ugly, and for those born of the understanding, such deception is an even greater danger.”

Once again the father and son were astonished by the mixed speech of Don Quixote, sometimes intelligent and sometimes utterly foolish, and by the persistence and perseverance of his complete devotion to the search for his misadventurous adventures, which were the object and goal of all his desires. The compliments and courtesies were repeated, and with the kind permission of the lady of the castle, Don Quixote and Sancho, mounted on Rocinante and the donkey, took their leave.

CHAPTER XIX

Don Quixote had not gone very far from Don Diego’s house when he encountered two men who seemed to be clerics or students,
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and two peasants, each riding a donkeyish mount. One of the students carried as a kind of portmanteau a piece of green buckram, and wrapped in it there were, apparently, a piece of fine scarlet cloth and two pairs of ribbed serge hose; the other carried only two new black fencing foils, with leather tips on the points. The peasants carried other things, which were a sign and indication that they were returning from some large city where they had bought them and were carrying them back to their village; both students and peasants experienced the same astonishment felt by all who saw Don Quixote for the first time, and they longed to know who this man might be who was so different from other men.

Don Quixote greeted them, and after he learned the road they were taking, which was the same one he was following, he offered them his company and asked them to slow their pace because their donkeys walked faster than his horse; and to oblige them, in a few brief words he told them who he was, and his calling and profession, which was to be a knight errant who went seeking adventures everywhere in the world. He told them that his proper name was Don Quixote of La Mancha and that his title was
The Knight of the Lions.
For the peasants, all of this was like speaking to them in Greek or in gibberish, but not for the students, who soon understood the weakness in Don Quixote’s mind; even so, they viewed him with admiration and respect, and one of them said:

“Señor Knight, if your grace is not following a specific route, as those searching for adventures usually do not, your grace should come with us, and you will see one of the finest and richest weddings ever celebrated in La Mancha, or for many leagues around.”

Don Quixote asked him if it was a prince’s wedding that he was praising so highly.

“No,” responded the student, “not a prince, but the richest farmer in this entire land, and the most beautiful farmgirl men have ever seen. The preparations for the wedding celebration are extraordinary and remarkable, because it will be held in a meadow near the bride’s village; she is always called fair Quiteria, and the groom is called rich Camacho; she is eighteen and he is twenty-two; they are equals, though certain inquisitive people who have the lineages of the entire world memorized claim that fair Quiteria’s is superior to Camacho’s, but nobody thinks about that nowadays: wealth has the power to mend a good many cracks. In fact, Camacho is extremely generous, and he has taken a notion to weave branches into a bower to cover the entire meadow, so that the sun will have great difficulty if it wants to come in to visit the green grass covering the ground. He also has arranged for dances, with swords and with bells, for there are in his village people who are excellent at ringing and shaking them, and I won’t say anything about the heel-tappers, for the general opinion is that he has a good number of them ready; but none of the things I’ve mentioned, or the many others that I’ve omitted, are what will make this wedding memorable, but rather the things I imagine a desperate Basilio will do. This Basilio is a shepherd from the same village as Quiteria, and his house shared a wall with the house of Quiteria’s parents, allowing love the opportunity to renew in the world the long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe, because Basilio loved Quiteria from his earliest, tenderest youth, and she responded to his desire with a thousand honest favors, so that in the village the love of the two children, Basilio and Quiteria, was recounted with amusement. As they grew older, Quiteria’s father decided to deny Basilio the access to his house that he once had enjoyed, and to spare himself mistrust and endless suspicions, he arranged for his daughter to marry rich Camacho, for it did not seem a good idea to marry her to Basilio, who was better endowed by nature than by fortune; if the truth be told, without envy, he is the most agile youth we know, a great hurler of the bar, an excellent wrestler, a fine pelota player; he runs like a deer, leaps like a goat, and plays bowls as if he were enchanted; he sings like a lark, plays the guitar
so well he makes it speak, and, most of all, he can fence with the best of them.”

“For that one accomplishment,” said Don Quixote, “the youth deserved not only to marry fair Quiteria but Queen Guinevere herself, if she were alive today, in spite of Lancelot and all the others who might wish to prevent it.”

“Try telling that to my wife!” said Sancho Panza, who so far had been listening in silence. “The only thing she wants is for everybody to marry their equal, following the proverb that says ‘Like goes to like.’ What I’d like is for this good Basilio, and I’m growing very fond of him, to marry Señora Quiteria; people who keep people who love each other from marrying should rest in peace, world without end, and I was going to say the opposite.”

“If all people who love each other were to marry,” said Don Quixote, “it would deprive parents of the right and privilege to marry their children to the person and at the time they ought to marry; if daughters were entitled to choose their own husbands, one would choose her father’s servant, and another a man she saw walking on the street, who seemed to her proud and gallant, although he might be a debauchee and a braggart; for love and affection easily blind the eyes of the understanding, which are so necessary for choosing one’s estate, and the estate of matrimony is at particular risk of error, and great caution is required, and the particular favor of heaven, in order to choose correctly. If a person wishes to make a long journey, and if he is prudent, before setting out he will find reliable and peaceful companionship for his travels; then why would he not do the same for the journey that takes a lifetime, until it reaches the resting place of death, and especially if his companion will be with him in bed, at the table, everywhere, which is how a wife accompanies her husband? The companionship of one’s own wife is not merchandise that, once purchased, can be returned, or exchanged, or altered; it is an irrevocable circumstance that lasts as long as one lives: it is a rope that, if put around one’s neck, turns into the Gordian knot, and if the scythe of Death does not cut it, there is no way to untie it. I could say much more with regard to this subject, but I am kept from doing so by my desire to know if the distinguished licentiate has more to tell us of the history of Basilio.”