PART I - CHAPTER XXVI.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE PLAYED THEPART OF A LOVER IN THE SIERRA MORENAReturning to the proceedings of him of the Rueful Countenance when hefound himself alone, the history says that when Don Quixote had completedthe performance of the somersaults or capers, naked from the waist downand clothed from the waist up, and saw that Sancho had gone off withoutwaiting to see any more crazy feats, he climbed up to the top of a highrock, and there set himself to consider what he had several times beforeconsidered without ever coming to any conclusion on the point, namelywhether it would be better and more to his purpose to imitate theoutrageous madness of Roland, or the melancholy madness of Amadis; andcommuning with himself he said:"What wonder is it if Roland was so good a knight and so valiant aseveryone says he was, when, after all, he was enchanted, and nobody couldkill him save by thrusting a corking pin into the sole of his foot, andhe always wore shoes with seven iron soles? Though cunning devices didnot avail him against Bernardo del Carpio, who knew all about them, andstrangled him in his arms at Roncesvalles. But putting the question ofhis valour aside, let us come to his losing his wits, for certain it isthat he did lose them in consequence of the proofs he discovered at thefountain, and the intelligence the shepherd gave him of Angelica havingslept more than two siestas with Medoro, a little curly-headed Moor, andpage to Agramante. If he was persuaded that this was true, and that hislady had wronged him, it is no wonder that he should have gone mad; butI, how am I to imitate him in his madness, unless I can imitate him inthe cause of it? For my Dulcinea, I will venture to swear, never saw aMoor in her life, as he is, in his proper costume, and she is this day asthe mother that bore her, and I should plainly be doing her a wrong if,fancying anything else, I were to go mad with the same kind of madness asRoland the Furious. On the other hand, I see that Amadis of Gaul, withoutlosing his senses and without doing anything mad, acquired as a lover asmuch fame as the most famous; for, according to his history, on findinghimself rejected by his lady Oriana, who had ordered him not to appear inher presence until it should be her pleasure, all he did was to retire tothe Pena Pobre in company with a hermit, and there he took his fill ofweeping until Heaven sent him relief in the midst of his great grief andneed. And if this be true, as it is, why should I now take the trouble tostrip stark naked, or do mischief to these trees which have done me noharm, or why am I to disturb the clear waters of these brooks which willgive me to drink whenever I have a mind? Long live the memory of Amadisand let him be imitated so far as is possible by Don Quixote of LaMancha, of whom it will be said, as was said of the other, that if he didnot achieve great things, he died in attempting them; and if I am notrepulsed or rejected by my Dulcinea, it is enough for me, as I have said,to be absent from her. And so, now to business; come to my memory yedeeds of Amadis, and show me how I am to begin to imitate you. I knowalready that what he chiefly did was to pray and commend himself to God;but what am I to do for a rosary, for I have not got one?"And then it occurred to him how he might make one, and that was bytearing a great strip off the tail of his shirt which hung down, andmaking eleven knots on it, one bigger than the rest, and this served himfor a rosary all the time he was there, during which he repeatedcountless ave-marias. But what distressed him greatly was not havinganother hermit there to confess him and receive consolation from; and sohe solaced himself with pacing up and down the little meadow, and writingand carving on the bark of the trees and on the fine sand a multitude ofverses all in harmony with his sadness, and some in praise of Dulcinea;but, when he was found there afterwards, the only ones completely legiblethat could be discovered were those that follow here: Ye on the mountain side that grow, Ye green things all, trees, shrubs, and bushes, Are ye aweary of the woe That this poor aching bosom crushes? If it disturb you, and I owe Some reparation, it may be a Defence for me to let you know Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. The lealest lover time can show, Doomed for a lady-love to languish, Among these solitudes doth go, A prey to every kind of anguish. Why Love should like a spiteful foe Thus use him, he hath no idea, But hogsheads full--this doth he know-- Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. Adventure-seeking doth he go Up rugged heights, down rocky valleys, But hill or dale, or high or low, Mishap attendeth all his sallies: Love still pursues him to and fro, And plies his cruel scourge--ah me! a Relentless fate, an endless woe; Don Quixote's tears are on the flow, And all for distant Dulcinea Del Toboso. The addition of "Del Toboso" to Dulcinea's name gave rise to no littlelaughter among those who found the above lines, for they suspected DonQuixote must have fancied that unless he added "del Toboso" when heintroduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible; whichwas indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote manymore, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that could beplainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing and callingon the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the streams, andEcho, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear him, as well as inlooking for herbs to sustain him, he passed his time until Sancho'sreturn; and had that been delayed three weeks, as it was three days, theKnight of the Rueful Countenance would have worn such an alteredcountenance that the mother that bore him would not have known him: andhere it will be well to leave him, wrapped up in sighs and verses, torelate how Sancho Panza fared on his mission.As for him, coming out upon the high road, he made for El Toboso, and thenext day reached the inn where the mishap of the blanket had befallenhim. As soon as he recognised it he felt as if he were once more livingthrough the air, and he could not bring himself to enter it though it wasan hour when he might well have done so, for it was dinner-time, and helonged to taste something hot as it had been all cold fare with him formany days past. This craving drove him to draw near to the inn, stillundecided whether to go in or not, and as he was hesitating there cameout two persons who at once recognised him, and said one to the other:"Senor licentiate, is not he on the horse there Sancho Panza who, ouradventurer's housekeeper told us, went off with her master as esquire?""So it is," said the licentiate, "and that is our friend Don Quixote'shorse;" and if they knew him so well it was because they were the curateand the barber of his own village, the same who had carried out thescrutiny and sentence upon the books; and as soon as they recognisedSancho Panza and Rocinante, being anxious to hear of Don Quixote, theyapproached, and calling him by his name the curate said, "Friend SanchoPanza, where is your master?"Sancho recognised them at once, and determined to keep secret the placeand circumstances where and under which he had left his master, so hereplied that his master was engaged in a certain quarter on a certainmatter of great importance to him which he could not disclose for theeyes in his head."Nay, nay," said the barber, "if you don't tell us where he is, SanchoPanza, we will suspect as we suspect already, that you have murdered androbbed him, for here you are mounted on his horse; in fact, you mustproduce the master of the hack, or else take the consequences.""There is no need of threats with me," said Sancho, "for I am not a manto rob or murder anybody; let his own fate, or God who made him, killeach one; my master is engaged very much to his taste doing penance inthe midst of these mountains;" and then, offhand and without stopping, hetold them how he had left him, what adventures had befallen him, and howhe was carrying a letter to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, the daughter ofLorenzo Corchuelo, with whom he was over head and ears in love. They wereboth amazed at what Sancho Panza told them; for though they were aware ofDon Quixote's madness and the nature of it, each time they heard of itthey were filled with fresh wonder. They then asked Sancho Panza to showthem the letter he was carrying to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. He saidit was written in a note-book, and that his master's directions were thathe should have it copied on paper at the first village he came to. Onthis the curate said if he showed it to him, he himself would make a faircopy of it. Sancho put his hand into his bosom in search of the note-bookbut could not find it, nor, if he had been searching until now, could hehave found it, for Don Quixote had kept it, and had never given it tohim, nor had he himself thought of asking for it. When Sancho discoveredhe could not find the book his face grew deadly pale, and in great hastehe again felt his body all over, and seeing plainly it was not to befound, without more ado he seized his beard with both hands and pluckedaway half of it, and then, as quick as he could and without stopping,gave himself half a dozen cuffs on the face and nose till they werebathed in blood.Seeing this, the curate and the barber asked him what had happened himthat he gave himself such rough treatment."What should happen me?" replied Sancho, "but to have lost from one handto the other, in a moment, three ass-colts, each of them like a castle?""How is that?" said the barber."I have lost the note-book," said Sancho, "that contained the letter toDulcinea, and an order signed by my master in which he directed his nieceto give me three ass-colts out of four or five he had at home;" and hethen told them about the loss of Dapple.The curate consoled him, telling him that when his master was found hewould get him to renew the order, and make a fresh draft on paper, as wasusual and customary; for those made in notebooks were never accepted orhonoured.Sancho comforted himself with this, and said if that were so the loss ofDulcinea's letter did not trouble him much, for he had it almost byheart, and it could be taken down from him wherever and whenever theyliked."Repeat it then, Sancho," said the barber, "and we will write it downafterwards."Sancho Panza stopped to scratch his head to bring back the letter to hismemory, and balanced himself now on one foot, now the other, one momentstaring at the ground, the next at the sky, and after having half gnawedoff the end of a finger and kept them in suspense waiting for him tobegin, he said, after a long pause, "By God, senor licentiate, devil athing can I recollect of the letter; but it said at the beginning,'Exalted and scrubbing Lady.'""It cannot have said 'scrubbing,'" said the barber, "but 'superhuman' or'sovereign.'""That is it," said Sancho; "then, as well as I remember, it went on, 'Thewounded, and wanting of sleep, and the pierced, kisses your worship'shands, ungrateful and very unrecognised fair one; and it said somethingor other about health and sickness that he was sending her; and from thatit went tailing off until it ended with 'Yours till death, the Knight ofthe Rueful Countenance."It gave them no little amusement, both of them, to see what a good memorySancho had, and they complimented him greatly upon it, and begged him torepeat the letter a couple of times more, so that they too might get itby heart to write it out by-and-by. Sancho repeated it three times, andas he did, uttered three thousand more absurdities; then he told themmore about his master but he never said a word about the blanketing thathad befallen himself in that inn, into which he refused to enter. He toldthem, moreover, how his lord, if he brought him a favourable answer fromthe lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was to put himself in the way ofendeavouring to become an emperor, or at least a monarch; for it had beenso settled between them, and with his personal worth and the might of hisarm it was an easy matter to come to be one: and how on becoming one hislord was to make a marriage for him (for he would be a widower by thattime, as a matter of course) and was to give him as a wife one of thedamsels of the empress, the heiress of some rich and grand state on themainland, having nothing to do with islands of any sort, for he did notcare for them now. All this Sancho delivered with so muchcomposure--wiping his nose from time to time--and with so littlecommon-sense that his two hearers were again filled with wonder at theforce of Don Quixote's madness that could run away with this poor man'sreason. They did not care to take the trouble of disabusing him of hiserror, as they considered that since it did not in any way hurt hisconscience it would be better to leave him in it, and they would have allthe more amusement in listening to his simplicities; and so they bade himpray to God for his lord's health, as it was a very likely and a veryfeasible thing for him in course of time to come to be an emperor, as hesaid, or at least an archbishop or some other dignitary of equal rank.To which Sancho made answer, "If fortune, sirs, should bring things aboutin such a way that my master should have a mind, instead of being anemperor, to be an archbishop, I should like to know whatarchbishops-errant commonly give their squires?""They commonly give them," said the curate, some simple benefice or cure,or some place as sacristan which brings them a good fixed income, notcounting the altar fees, which may be reckoned at as much more.""But for that," said Sancho, "the squire must be unmarried, and mustknow, at any rate, how to help at mass, and if that be so, woe is me, forI am married already and I don't know the first letter of the A B C. Whatwill become of me if my master takes a fancy to be an archbishop and notan emperor, as is usual and customary with knights-errant?""Be not uneasy, friend Sancho," said the barber, "for we will entreatyour master, and advise him, even urging it upon him as a case ofconscience, to become an emperor and not an archbishop, because it willbe easier for him as he is more valiant than lettered.""So I have thought," said Sancho; "though I can tell you he is fit foranything: what I mean to do for my part is to pray to our Lord to placehim where it may be best for him, and where he may be able to bestow mostfavours upon me.""You speak like a man of sense," said the curate, "and you will be actinglike a good Christian; but what must now be done is to take steps to coaxyour master out of that useless penance you say he is performing; and wehad best turn into this inn to consider what plan to adopt, and also todine, for it is now time."Sancho said they might go in, but that he would wait there outside, andthat he would tell them afterwards the reason why he was unwilling, andwhy it did not suit him to enter it; but he begged them to bring him outsomething to eat, and to let it be hot, and also to bring barley forRocinante. They left him and went in, and presently the barber broughthim out something to eat. By-and-by, after they had between themcarefully thought over what they should do to carry out their object, thecurate hit upon an idea very well adapted to humour Don Quixote, andeffect their purpose; and his notion, which he explained to the barber,was that he himself should assume the disguise of a wandering damsel,while the other should try as best he could to pass for a squire, andthat they should thus proceed to where Don Quixote was, and he,pretending to be an aggrieved and distressed damsel, should ask a favourof him, which as a valiant knight-errant he could not refuse to grant;and the favour he meant to ask him was that he should accompany herwhither she would conduct him, in order to redress a wrong which a wickedknight had done her, while at the same time she should entreat him not torequire her to remove her mask, nor ask her any question touching hercircumstances until he had righted her with the wicked knight. And he hadno doubt that Don Quixote would comply with any request made in theseterms, and that in this way they might remove him and take him to his ownvillage, where they would endeavour to find out if his extraordinarymadness admitted of any kind of remedy.