PART I - CHAPTER LI.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE WHO WERE CARRYING OFF DONQUIXOTEThree leagues from this valley there is a village which, though small, isone of the richest in all this neighbourhood, and in it there lived afarmer, a very worthy man, and so much respected that, although to be sois the natural consequence of being rich, he was even more respected forhis virtue than for the wealth he had acquired. But what made him stillmore fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of suchexceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, thateveryone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary giftswith which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she wasbeautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen shewas most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad throughall the villages around--but why do I say the villages around, merely,when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls ofroyalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from allsides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or somewonder-working image?Her father watched over her and she watched over herself; for there areno locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better thanher own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the daughterled many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a wife; but he,as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a jewel, wasperplexed and unable to make up his mind to which of her countlesssuitors he should entrust her. I was one among the many who felt a desireso natural, and, as her father knew who I was, and I was of the sametown, of pure blood, in the bloom of life, and very rich in possessions,I had great hopes of success. There was another of the same place andqualifications who also sought her, and this made her father's choicehang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us his daughter wouldbe well bestowed; so to escape from this state of perplexity he resolvedto refer the matter to Leandra (for that is the name of the rich damselwho has reduced me to misery), reflecting that as we were both equal itwould be best to leave it to his dear daughter to choose according to herinclination--a course that is worthy of imitation by all fathers who wishto settle their children in life. I do not mean that they ought to leavethem to make a choice of what is contemptible and bad, but that theyshould place before them what is good and then allow them to make a goodchoice as they please. I do not know which Leandra chose; I only know herfather put us both off with the tender age of his daughter and vaguewords that neither bound him nor dismissed us. My rival is called Anselmoand I myself Eugenio--that you may know the names of the personages thatfigure in this tragedy, the end of which is still in suspense, though itis plain to see it must be disastrous.About this time there arrived in our town one Vicente de la Roca, the sonof a poor peasant of the same town, the said Vicente having returned fromservice as a soldier in Italy and divers other parts. A captain whochanced to pass that way with his company had carried him off from ourvillage when he was a boy of about twelve years, and now twelve yearslater the young man came back in a soldier's uniform, arrayed in athousand colours, and all over glass trinkets and fine steel chains.To-day he would appear in one gay dress, to-morrow in another; but allflimsy and gaudy, of little substance and less worth. The peasant folk,who are naturally malicious, and when they have nothing to do can bemalice itself, remarked all this, and took note of his finery andjewellery, piece by piece, and discovered that he had three suits ofdifferent colours, with garters and stockings to match; but he made somany arrangements and combinations out of them, that if they had notcounted them, anyone would have sworn that he had made a display of morethan ten suits of clothes and twenty plumes. Do not look upon all thisthat I am telling you about the clothes as uncalled for or spun out, forthey have a great deal to do with the story. He used to seat himself on abench under the great poplar in our plaza, and there he would keep us allhanging open-mouthed on the stories he told us of his exploits. There wasno country on the face of the globe he had not seen, nor battle he hadnot been engaged in; he had killed more Moors than there are in Moroccoand Tunis, and fought more single combats, according to his own account,than Garcilaso, Diego Garcia de Paredes and a thousand others he named,and out of all he had come victorious without losing a drop of blood. Onthe other hand he showed marks of wounds, which, though they could not bemade out, he said were gunshot wounds received in divers encounters andactions. Lastly, with monstrous impudence he used to say "you" to hisequals and even those who knew what he was, and declare that his arm washis father and his deeds his pedigree, and that being a soldier he was asgood as the king himself. And to add to these swaggering ways he was atrifle of a musician, and played the guitar with such a flourish thatsome said he made it speak; nor did his accomplishments end here, for hewas something of a poet too, and on every trifle that happened in thetown he made a ballad a league long.This soldier, then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca, thisbravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by Leandrafrom a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The glitter ofhis showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gaveaway twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits whichhe told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as the devil nodoubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before the presumptionof making love to her had suggested itself to him; and as in love-affairsnone are more easily brought to an issue than those which have theinclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente came to anunderstanding without any difficulty; and before any of her numeroussuitors had any suspicion of her design, she had already carried it intoeffect, having left the house of her dearly beloved father (for mothershe had none), and disappeared from the village with the soldier, whocame more triumphantly out of this enterprise than out of any of thelarge number he laid claim to. All the village and all who heard of itwere amazed at the affair; I was aghast, Anselmo thunderstruck, herfather full of grief, her relations indignant, the authorities all in aferment, the officers of the Brotherhood in arms. They scoured the roads,they searched the woods and all quarters, and at the end of three daysthey found the flighty Leandra in a mountain cave, stript to her shift,and robbed of all the money and precious jewels she had carried away fromhome with her.They brought her back to her unhappy father, and questioned her as to hermisfortune, and she confessed without pressure that Vicente de la Rocahad deceived her, and under promise of marrying her had induced her toleave her father's house, as he meant to take her to the richest and mostdelightful city in the whole world, which was Naples; and that she,ill-advised and deluded, had believed him, and robbed her father, andhanded over all to him the night she disappeared; and that he had carriedher away to a rugged mountain and shut her up in the eave where they hadfound her. She said, moreover, that the soldier, without robbing her ofher honour, had taken from her everything she had, and made off, leavingher in the cave, a thing that still further surprised everybody. It wasnot easy for us to credit the young man's continence, but she asserted itwith such earnestness that it helped to console her distressed father,who thought nothing of what had been taken since the jewel that once lostcan never be recovered had been left to his daughter. The same day thatLeandra made her appearance her father removed her from our sight andtook her away to shut her up in a convent in a town near this, in thehope that time may wear away some of the disgrace she has incurred.Leandra's youth furnished an excuse for her fault, at least with those towhom it was of no consequence whether she was good or bad; but those whoknew her shrewdness and intelligence did not attribute her misdemeanourto ignorance but to wantonness and the natural disposition of women,which is for the most part flighty and ill-regulated.Leandra withdrawn from sight, Anselmo's eyes grew blind, or at any ratefound nothing to look at that gave them any pleasure, and mine were indarkness without a ray of light to direct them to anything enjoyablewhile Leandra was away. Our melancholy grew greater, our patience grewless; we cursed the soldier's finery and railed at the carelessness ofLeandra's father. At last Anselmo and I agreed to leave the village andcome to this valley; and, he feeding a great flock of sheep of his own,and I a large herd of goats of mine, we pass our life among the trees,giving vent to our sorrows, together singing the fair Leandra's praises,or upbraiding her, or else sighing alone, and to heaven pouring forth ourcomplaints in solitude. Following our example, many more of Leandra'slovers have come to these rude mountains and adopted our mode of life,and they are so numerous that one would fancy the place had been turnedinto the pastoral Arcadia, so full is it of shepherds and sheep-folds;nor is there a spot in it where the name of the fair Leandra is notheard. Here one curses her and calls her capricious, fickle, andimmodest, there another condemns her as frail and frivolous; this pardonsand absolves her, that spurns and reviles her; one extols her beauty,another assails her character, and in short all abuse her, and all adoreher, and to such a pitch has this general infatuation gone that there aresome who complain of her scorn without ever having exchanged a word withher, and even some that bewail and mourn the raging fever of jealousy,for which she never gave anyone cause, for, as I have already said, hermisconduct was known before her passion. There is no nook among therocks, no brookside, no shade beneath the trees that is not haunted bysome shepherd telling his woes to the breezes; wherever there is an echoit repeats the name of Leandra; the mountains ring with "Leandra,""Leandra" murmur the brooks, and Leandra keeps us all bewildered andbewitched, hoping without hope and fearing without knowing what we fear.Of all this silly set the one that shows the least and also the mostsense is my rival Anselmo, for having so many other things to complainof, he only complains of separation, and to the accompaniment of arebeck, which he plays admirably, he sings his complaints in verses thatshow his ingenuity. I follow another, easier, and to my mind wisercourse, and that is to rail at the frivolity of women, at theirinconstancy, their double dealing, their broken promises, their unkeptpledges, and in short the want of reflection they show in fixing theiraffections and inclinations. This, sirs, was the reason of words andexpressions I made use of to this goat when I came up just now; for asshe is a female I have a contempt for her, though she is the best in allmy fold. This is the story I promised to tell you, and if I have beentedious in telling it, I will not be slow to serve you; my hut is closeby, and I have fresh milk and dainty cheese there, as well as a varietyof toothsome fruit, no less pleasing to the eye than to the palate.