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

the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor. ‘They make as good bread here as in France,’ and ‘by night all cats are grey,’ and ‘a hard case enough his, who hasn’t broken his fast at two in the afternoon,’ and ‘there’s no stomach a hand’s breadth bigger than another,’ and the same can be filled ‘with straw or hay,’ as the saying is, and ‘the little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and caterer,’ and ‘four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of Segovia broadcloth,’ and ‘when we quit this world and are put underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,’ and ‘the Pope’s body does not take up more feet of earth than the sacristan’s,’716 for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then⁠—good night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give me the island because I’m a fool, like a wise man I will take care to give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that ‘behind the cross there’s the devil,’ and that ‘all that glitters is not gold,’717 and that from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if the verses of the old ballads don’t lie.”

“To be sure they don’t lie!” exclaimed Doña Rodriguez, the duenna, who was one of the listeners. “Why, there’s a ballad that says they put King Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried out from within the tomb⁠—

“They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
There where I most did sin.718

“And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him.”

The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said, “Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island, in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho be of good cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade.719 The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals, bearing in mind that they are all loyal and wellborn.”

“As to governing them well,” said Sancho, “there’s no need of charging me to do that, for I’m kindhearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; there’s no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes;’720 and by my faith it won’t do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about ‘tus, tus;’721 I can be wide-awake if need be, and I don’t let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me;722 I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I’ll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.”

“You are right, Sancho,” said the duchess, “for no one is born ready taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the lady Dulcinea, I look upon it as certain, and something more than evident, that Sancho’s idea of practising a deception upon his master, making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did not recognise her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is deceived; and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this, than of anything else we never saw. Señor Sancho Panza must know that we too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at present.”

“All that’s very possible,” said Sancho Panza; “and now I’m willing to believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos, where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress and apparel that I said I had