PART II - CHAPTER LXXIII.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND OTHERINCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORYAt the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw twoboys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor one of whom said to theother, "Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it again as longas thou livest."Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, "Dost thou not mark,friend, what that boy said, 'Thou shalt never see it again as long asthou livest'?""Well," said Sancho, "what does it matter if the boy said so?""What!" said Don Quixote, "dost thou not see that, applied to the objectof my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcinea more?"Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted by seeing ahare come flying across the plain pursued by several greyhounds andsportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter and hide itself underDapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it to Don Quixote, who wassaying, "Malum signum, malum signum! a hare flies, greyhounds chase it,Dulcinea appears not.""Your worship's a strange man," said Sancho; "let's take it for grantedthat this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing it the malignantenchanters who turned her into a country wench; she flies, and I catchher and put her into your worship's hands, and you hold her in your armsand cherish her; what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to befound here?"The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, andSancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered bythe one who had said, "Thou shalt never see it again as long as thoulivest," that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy,and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho tookout four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage,which he placed in Don Quixote's hands, saying, "There, senor! there arethe omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with ouraffairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year's clouds; andif I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that itdoes not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to thesesilly things; and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago,telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools; but there'sno need of making words about it; let us push on and go into ourvillage."The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gavethem. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the townthey came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy withtheir breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by wayof a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, thebuckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at theduke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixedthe mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration thatever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both thecurate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. DonQuixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace; and the boys,who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and camerunning to see it, calling out to one another, "Come here, boys, and seeSancho Panza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beastleaner than ever."So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by thecurate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, andproceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of which they found hishousekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached.It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho's wife, as well, and she withher hair all loose and half naked, dragging Sanchica her daughter by thehand, ran out to meet her husband; but seeing him coming in by no meansas good case as she thought a governor ought to be, she said to him, "Howis it you come this way, husband? It seems to me you come tramping andfootsore, and looking more like a disorderly vagabond than a governor.""Hold your tongue, Teresa," said Sancho; "often 'where there are pegsthere are no flitches;' let's go into the house and there you'll hearstrange things. I bring money, and that's the main thing, got by my ownindustry without wronging anybody.""You bring the money, my good husband," said Teresa, "and no matterwhether it was got this way or that; for, however you may have got it,you'll not have brought any new practice into the world."Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought her anything,for she had been looking out for him as for the showers of May; and shetaking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and his wife by the hand,while the daughter led Dapple, they made for their house, leaving DonQuixote in his, in the hands of his niece and housekeeper, and in thecompany of the curate and the bachelor.Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season, withdrew inprivate with the bachelor and the curate, and in a few words told them ofhis defeat, and of the engagement he was under not to quit his villagefor a year, which he meant to keep to the letter without departing ahair's breadth from it, as became a knight-errant bound by scrupulousgood faith and the laws of knight-errantry; and of how he thought ofturning shepherd for that year, and taking his diversion in the solitudeof the fields, where he could with perfect freedom give range to histhoughts of love while he followed the virtuous pastoral calling; and hebesought them, if they had not a great deal to do and were not preventedby more important business, to consent to be his companions, for he wouldbuy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds; and the most importantpoint of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he hadgiven them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked what theywere. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherdQuixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate theshepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino.Both were astounded at Don Quixote's new craze; however, lest he shouldonce more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of hischivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured,fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one,and offered to share the life with him. "And what's more," said SamsonCarrasco, "I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I'll bealways making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into myhead, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall beroaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choosethe name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and thatwe should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up andcarving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of love-smittenshepherds.""That's the very thing," said Don Quixote; "though I am relieved fromlooking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there's thepeerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, the ornamentof these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of all the graces,and, in a word, the being to whom all praise is appropriate, be it everso hyperbolical.""Very true," said the curate; "but we the others must look about foraccommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way oranother.""And," added Samson Carrasco, "if they fail us, we can call them by thenames of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Filidas,Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for as they sell themin the market-places we may fairly buy them and make them our own. If mylady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be called Ana, I'll singher praises under the name of Anarda, and if Francisca, I'll call herFrancenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for it all comes to the same thing; andSancho Panza, if he joins this fraternity, may glorify his wife TeresaPanza as Teresaina."Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curatebestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution he hadmade, and again offered to bear him company all the time that he couldspare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leave of him,recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health and treathimself to a suitable diet.It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the three ofthem said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to DonQuixote, and said the niece, "What's this, uncle? Now that we werethinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectablelife there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?' Nay!indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.'""And," added the housekeeper, "will your worship be able to bear, out inthe fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and thehowling of the wolves? Not you; for that's a life and a business forhardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they werein swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be aknight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, senor; take my advice--and I'mnot giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fiftyyears upon my head--stay at home, look after your affairs, go often toconfession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comesto you.""Hold your peace, my daughters," said Don Quixote; "I know very well whatmy duty is; help me to bed, for I don't feel very well; and rest assuredthat, knight-errant now or wandering shepherd to be, I shall never failto have a care for your interests, as you will see in the end." And thegood wenches (for that they undoubtedly were), the housekeeper and niece,helped him to bed, where they gave him something to eat and made him ascomfortable as possible.