Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [reading well .txt] 📗

are very old-fashioned, if you think that I have made a bad choice in So-and-so, fool as he seems; because for all I want with him he knows as much and more philosophy than Aristotle.’ In the same way, Sancho, for all I want with Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as good as the most exalted princess on earth. It is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy names they give them, had any such mistresses. Thinkest thou that the Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the Dianas, the Galateas,269 the Filidas, and all the rest of them, that the books, the ballads, the barber’s shops, the theatres are full of, were really and truly ladies of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorify and have glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous; and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one will examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her,270 and I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world. For thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in Dulcinea in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in good name few approach her; and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I persuade myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and I picture her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in beauty as in condition; Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come up to her, nor any other of the famous women of times past, Greek, Barbarian, or Latin; and let each say what he will, for if in this I am taken to task by the ignorant, I shall not be censured by the critical.”

“I say that your worship is entirely right,” said Sancho, “and that I am an ass. But I know not how the name of ass came into my mouth, for a rope is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged;271 but now for the letter, and then, God be with you, I am off.”

Don Quixote took out the notebook, and, retiring to one side, very deliberately began to write the letter, and when he had finished it he called to Sancho, saying he wished to read it to him, so that he might commit it to memory, in case of losing it on the road; for with evil fortune like his anything might be apprehended. To which Sancho replied, “Write it two or three times there in the book and give it to me, and I will carry it very carefully, because to expect me to keep it in my memory is all nonsense, for I have such a bad one that I often forget my own name; but for all that repeat it to me, as I shall like to hear it, for surely it will run as if it was in print.”

“Listen,” said Don Quixote, “this is what it says:

“Sovereign and exalted Lady⁠—The pierced by the point of absence, the wounded to the heart’s core, sends thee, sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso, the health that he himself enjoys not. If thy beauty despises me, if thy worth is not for me, if thy scorn is my affliction, though I be sufficiently long-suffering, hardly shall I endure this anxiety, which, besides being oppressive, is protracted. My good squire Sancho will relate to thee in full, fair ingrate, dear enemy, the condition to which I am reduced on thy account: if it be thy pleasure to give me relief, I am thine; if not, do as may be pleasing to thee; for by ending my life I shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire.

“Thine till death,

“The Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”

“By the life of my father,” said Sancho, when he heard the letter, “it is the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in ‘The Knight of the Rueful Countenance’ into the signature. I declare your worship is indeed the very devil, and there is nothing you don’t know.”

“Everything is needed for the calling I follow,” said Don Quixote.

“Now then,” said Sancho, “let your worship put the order for the three ass-colts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may recognise it at first sight.”

“With all my heart,” said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read it to this effect:

“Mistress Niece⁠—By this first of ass-colts please pay to Sancho Panza, my squire, three of the five I left at home in your charge: said three ass-colts to be paid and delivered for the same number received here in hand, which upon this and upon his receipt shall be duly paid. Done in the heart of the Sierra Morena, the twenty-seventh of August of this present year.”

“That will do,” said Sancho; “now let your worship sign it.”

“There is no need to sign it,” said Don Quixote, “but merely to put my flourish,272 which is the same as a signature, and enough for three asses, or even three hundred.”

“I can trust your worship,” returned Sancho; “let me go and saddle Rocinante, and be ready to give me your blessing, for I mean to go at once without seeing the fooleries your worship