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

Don Quixote, “for unless the name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses were made for her.”

They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for their expedition.

V

Of the shrewd and droll conversation that passed between Sancho Panza and his wife Teresa Panza, and other matters worthy of being duly recorded.

The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and therefore he went on to say:

Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, “What have you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?”

To which he replied, “Wife, if it were God’s will, I should be very glad not to be so well pleased as I show myself.”

“I don’t understand you, husband,” said she, “and I don’t know what you mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God’s will, not to be well pleased; for, fool as I am, I don’t know how one can find pleasure in not having it.”

“Hark ye, Teresa,” replied Sancho, “I am glad because I have made up my mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again, for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at home, without taking me out into the byways and crossroads⁠—and he could do it at small cost by merely willing it⁠—it is clear my happiness would be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if it were God’s will, not to be well pleased.”

“Look here, Sancho,” said Teresa; “ever since you joined on to a knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no understanding you.”

“It is enough that God understands me, wife,” replied Sancho; “for he is the understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you must look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit to take arms; double his feed, and see to the packsaddle and other harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors.”

“I know well enough, husband,” said Teresa, “that squires-errant don’t eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune.”

“I can tell you, wife,” said Sancho, “if I did not expect to see myself governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot.”

“Nay, then, husband,” said Teresa; “let the hen live, though it be with her pip;483 live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world; you came out of your mother’s womb without a government, you have lived until now without a government, and when it is God’s will you will go, or be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same, and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world is hunger,484 and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with some government, don’t forget me and your children. Remember that Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church. Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if we marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband as you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better ill married than well whored.”

“By my faith,” replied Sancho, “if God brings me to get any sort of a government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sancha that there will be no approaching her without calling her ‘my lady.’ ”

“Nay, Sancho,” returned Teresa; “marry her to her equal, that is the safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out of the plain ‘Marica’ and ‘thou,’ into ‘Doña So-and-so’ and ‘my lady,’ the girl won’t know where she