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VOLUME[ PART 2  ]  

CHAPTER[ XIX. IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER

WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS

Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego's village,

when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple

of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students

carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau,

what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of-ribbed

stockings; the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencing-foils with

buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on

their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were

taking them home to their village; and both students and peasants were

struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote

for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different

from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after

ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of

his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses

travelled faster than his horse; and then, to gratify them, he told them

in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed,

which was that of a knight-errant seeking adventures in all parts of the

world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha,

and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions.

All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the

students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote's pate; for

all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one

of them said to him, "If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is

the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship

come with us; you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up

to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league

round."

Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince's, that he spoke of it in

this way. "Not at all," said the student; "it is the wedding of a farmer

and a farmer's daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the

fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be

attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be

celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called,

par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho

the rich. She is eighteen, and he twenty-two, and they are fairly

matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the

world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is

better than Camacho's; but no one minds that now-a-days, for wealth can

solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is free-handed, and it is

his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in

overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to

reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not

only sword but also bell-dancers, for in his own town there are those who

ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection; of shoe-dancers I

say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things,

nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make

this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing

Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as

Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of

which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the

long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basilio loved Quiteria

from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless

modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children,

Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As

they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio

his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of

constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with

the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who

had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature; for if the

truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty

thrower of the bar, a first-rate wrestler, and a great ball-player; he

runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the nine-pins

as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it

speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best."

"For that excellence alone," said Don Quixote at this, "the youth

deserves to marry, not merely the fair Quiteria, but Queen Guinevere

herself, were she alive now, in spite of Launcelot and all who would try

to prevent it."

"Say that to my wife," said Sancho, who had until now listened in

silence, "for she won't hear of anything but each one marrying his equal,

holding with the proverb 'each ewe to her like.' What I would like is

that this good Basilio (for I am beginning to take a fancy to him

already) should marry this lady Quiteria; and a blessing and good luck--I

meant to say the opposite--on people who would prevent those who love one

another from marrying."

"If all those who love one another were to marry," said Don Quixote, "it

would deprive parents of the right to choose, and marry their children to

the proper person and at the proper time; and if it was left to daughters

to choose husbands as they pleased, one would be for choosing her

father's servant, and another, some one she has seen passing in the

street and fancies gallant and dashing, though he may be a drunken bully;

for love and fancy easily blind the eyes of the judgment, so much wanted

in choosing one's way of life; and the matrimonial choice is very liable

to error, and it needs great caution and the special favour of heaven to

make it a good one. He who has to make a long journey, will, if he is

wise, look out for some trusty and pleasant companion to accompany him

before he sets out. Why, then, should not he do the same who has to make

the whole journey of life down to the final halting-place of death, more

especially when the companion has to be his companion in bed, at board,

and everywhere, as the wife is to her husband? The companionship of one's

wife is no article of merchandise, that, after it has been bought, may be

returned, or bartered, or changed; for it is an inseparable accident that

lasts as long as life lasts; it is a noose that, once you put it round

your neck, turns into a Gordian knot, which, if the scythe of Death does

not cut it, there is no untying. I could say a great deal more on this

subject, were I not prevented by the anxiety I feel to know if the senor

licentiate has anything more to tell about the story of Basilio."

To this the student, bachelor, or, as Don Quixote called him, licentiate,

replied, "I have nothing whatever to say further, but that from the

moment Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to be married to

Camacho the rich, he has never been seen to smile, or heard to utter

rational word, and he always goes about moody and dejected, talking to

himself in a way that shows plainly he is out of his senses. He eats

little and sleeps little, and all he eats is fruit, and when he sleeps,

if he sleeps at all, it is in the field on the hard earth like a brute

beast. Sometimes he gazes at the sky, at other times he fixes his eyes on

the earth in such an abstracted way that he might be taken for a clothed

statue, with its drapery stirred by the wind. In short, he shows such

signs of a heart crushed by suffering, that all we who know him believe

that when to-morrow the fair Quiteria says 'yes,' it will be his sentence

of death."

"God will guide it better," said Sancho, "for God who gives the wound

gives the salve; nobody knows what will happen; there are a good many

hours between this and to-morrow, and any one of them, or any moment, the

house may fall; I have seen the rain coming down and the sun shining all

at one time; many a one goes to bed in good health who can't stir the

next day. And tell me, is there anyone who can boast of having driven a

nail into the wheel of fortune? No, faith; and between a woman's 'yes'

and 'no' I wouldn't venture to put the point of a pin, for there would

not be room for it; if you tell me Quiteria loves Basilio heart and soul,

then I'll give him a bag of good luck; for love, I have heard say, looks

through spectacles that make copper seem gold, poverty wealth, and blear

eyes pearls."

"What art thou driving at, Sancho? curses on thee!" said Don Quixote;

"for when thou takest to stringing proverbs and sayings together, no one

can understand thee but Judas himself, and I wish he had thee. Tell me,

thou animal, what dost thou know about nails or wheels, or anything

else?"

"Oh, if you don't understand me," replied Sancho, "it is no wonder my

words are taken for nonsense; but no matter; I understand myself, and I

know I have not said anything very foolish in what I have said; only your

worship, senor, is always gravelling at everything I say, nay, everything

I do."

"Cavilling, not gravelling," said Don Quixote, "thou prevaricator of

honest language, God confound thee!"

"Don't find fault with me, your worship," returned Sancho, "for you know

I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether

I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me,

it's not fair to force a Sayago-man to speak like a Toledan; maybe there

are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk."

"That is true," said the licentiate, "for those who have been bred up in

the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all

day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure,

correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly

breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in

Majalahonda; I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not

so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be

accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at

Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear,

plain, and intelligible language."

"If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils

you carry than on dexterity of tongue," said the other student, "you

would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail."

"Look here, bachelor Corchuelo," returned the licentiate, "you have the

most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think

it useless."

"It is no idea on my part, but an established truth," replied Corchuelo;

"and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords

there, and it is a good opportunity; I have a steady hand and a strong

arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make

you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your

positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see

stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I

place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my

back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give

ground."

"As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself,"

replied the master of fence; "though it might be that your grave would be

dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time; I mean that

you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword."

"We shall soon see," replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly,

he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his

beast.

"It must not be that way," said Don Quixote at this point; "I will be the

director of this fencing match, and judge of this often disputed

question;" and dismounting from Rocinante and grasping his lance, he

planted himself in the middle of the road, just as the licentiate, with

an easy, graceful bearing and step, advanced towards Corchuelo, who came

on against him, darting fire from his eyes, as the saying is. The other

two of the company, the peasants, without dismounting from their asses,

served as spectators of the mortal tragedy. The cuts, thrusts, down

strokes, back strokes and doubles, that Corchuelo delivered were past

counting, and came thicker than hops or hail. He attacked like an angry

lion, but he was met by a tap on the mouth from the button of the

licentiate's sword that checked him in the midst of his furious onset,

and made him kiss it as if it were a relic, though not as devoutly as

relics are and ought to be kissed. The end of it was that the licentiate

reckoned up for him by thrusts every one of the buttons of the short

cassock he wore, tore the skirts into strips, like the tails of a

cuttlefish, knocked off his hat twice, and so completely tired him out,

that in vexation, anger, and rage, he took the sword by the hilt and

flung it away with such force, that one of the peasants that were there,

who was a notary, and who went for it, made an affidavit afterwards that

he sent it nearly three-quarters of a league, which testimony will serve,

and has served, to show and establish with all certainty that strength is

overcome by skill.

Corchuelo sat down wearied, and Sancho approaching him said, "By my

faith, senor bachelor, if your worship takes my advice, you will never

challenge anyone to fence again, only to wrestle and throw the bar, for

you have the youth and strength for that; but as for these fencers as

they call them, I have heard say they can put the point of a sword

through the eye of a needle."

"I am satisfied with having tumbled off my donkey," said Corchuelo, "and

with having had the truth I was so ignorant of proved to me by

experience;" and getting up he embraced the licentiate, and they were

better friends than ever; and not caring to wait for the notary who had

gone for the sword, as they saw he would be a long time about it, they

resolved to push on so as to reach the village of Quiteria, to which they

all belonged, in good time.

During the remainder of the journey the licentiate held forth to them on

the excellences of the sword, with such conclusive arguments, and such

figures and mathematical proofs, that all were convinced of the value of

the science, and Corchuelo cured of his dogmatism.

It grew dark; but before they reached the town it seemed to them all as

if there was a heaven full of countless glittering stars in front of it.

They heard, too, the pleasant mingled notes of a variety of instruments,

flutes, drums, psalteries, pipes, tabors, and timbrels, and as they drew

near they perceived that the trees of a leafy arcade that had been

constructed at the entrance of the town were filled with lights

unaffected by the wind, for the breeze at the time was so gentle that it

had not power to stir the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the

life of the wedding, wandering through the pleasant grounds in separate

bands, some dancing, others singing, others playing the various

instruments already mentioned. In short, it seemed as though mirth and

gaiety were frisking and gambolling all over the meadow. Several other

persons were engaged in erecting raised benches from which people might

conveniently see the plays and dances that were to be performed the next

day on the spot dedicated to the celebration of the marriage of Camacho

the rich and the obsequies of Basilio. Don Quixote would not enter the

village, although the peasant as well as the bachelor pressed him; he

excused himself, however, on the grounds, amply sufficient in his

opinion, that it was the custom of knights-errant to sleep in the fields

and woods in preference to towns, even were it under gilded ceilings; and

so turned aside a little out of the road, very much against Sancho's

will, as the good quarters he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don

Diego came back to his mind.

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