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

than with other people? Why dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and another glass? Why must their ruffs be always crinkled like endive leaves, and not crimped with a crimping iron?” (From this we may perceive the antiquity of starch and crimped ruffs.) Then he goes on: “Poor gentleman of good family! always cockering up his honour, dining miserably and in secret, and making a hypocrite of the toothpick with which he sallies out into the street after eating nothing to oblige him to use it! Poor fellow, I say, with his nervous honour, fancying they perceive a league off the patch on his shoe, the sweat-stains on his hat, the shabbiness of his cloak, and the hunger of his stomach!”811

All this was brought home to Don Quixote by the bursting of his stitches; however, he comforted himself on perceiving that Sancho had left behind a pair of travelling boots, which he resolved to wear the next day. At last he went to bed, out of spirits and heavy at heart, as much because he missed Sancho as because of the irreparable disaster to his stockings, the stitches of which he would have even taken up with silk of another colour, which is one of the greatest signs of poverty a gentleman can show in the course of his never-failing embarrassments. He put out the candles; but the night was warm and he could not sleep; he rose from his bed and opened slightly a grated window that looked out on a beautiful garden, and as he did so he perceived and heard people walking and talking in the garden. He set himself to listen attentively, and those below raised their voices so that he could hear these words:

“Urge me not to sing, Emerencia, for thou knowest that ever since this stranger entered the castle and my eyes beheld him, I cannot sing but only weep; besides my lady is a light rather than a heavy sleeper, and I would not for all the wealth of the world that she found us here; and even if she were asleep and did not waken, my singing would be in vain, if this strange Aeneas, who has come into my neighbourhood to flout me, sleeps on and wakens not to hear it.”

“Heed not that, dear Altisidora,” replied a voice; “the duchess is no doubt asleep, and everybody in the house save the lord of thy heart and disturber of thy soul; for just now I perceived him open the grated window of his chamber, so he must be awake; sing, my poor sufferer, in a low sweet tone to the accompaniment of thy harp; and even if the duchess hears us we can lay the blame on the heat of the night.”

“That is not the point, Emerencia,” replied Altisidora, “it is that I would not that my singing should lay bare my heart, and that I should be thought a light and wanton maiden by those who know not the mighty power of love; but come what may; better a blush on the cheeks than a sore in the heart;”812 and here a harp softly touched made itself heard. As he listened to all this Don Quixote was in a state of breathless amazement, for immediately the countless adventures like this, with windows, gratings, gardens, serenades, lovemakings, and languishings, that he had read of in his trashy books of chivalry, came to his mind. He at once concluded that some damsel of the duchess’s was in love with him, and that her modesty forced her to keep her passion secret. He trembled lest he should fall, and made an inward resolution not to yield; and commending himself with all his might and soul to his lady Dulcinea he made up his mind to listen to the music; and to let them know he was there he gave a pretended sneeze, at which the damsels were not a little delighted, for all they wanted was that Don Quixote should hear them. So having tuned the harp, Altisidora, running her hand across the strings, began this ballad:

O thou that art above in bed,
Between the holland sheets,
A-lying there from night till morn,
With outstretched legs asleep;813

O thou, most valiant knight of all
The famed Manchegan breed,
Of purity and virtue more
Than gold of Araby;

Give ear unto a suffering maid,
Well-grown but evil-starr’d,
For those two suns of thine have lit
A fire within her heart.

Adventures seeking thou dost rove,
To others bringing woe;
Thou scatterest wounds, but, ah, the balm
To heal them dost withhold!

Say, valiant youth, and so may God
Thy enterprises speed,
Didst thou the light mid Libya’s sands
Or Jaca’s rocks first see?

Did scaly serpents give thee suck?
Who nursed thee when a babe?
Wert cradled in the forest rude,
Or gloomy mountain cave?

O Dulcinea may be proud,
That plump and lusty maid;
For she alone hath had the power
A tiger fierce to tame.

And she for this shall famous be
From Tagus to Jarama,
From Manzanares to Genil,
From Duero to Arlanza.

Fain would I change with her, and give
A petticoat to boot,
The best and bravest that I have,
All trimmed with gold galloon.

O for to be the happy fair
Thy mighty arms enfold,
Or even sit beside thy bed
And scratch thy dusty poll!

I rave⁠—to favours such as these
Unworthy to aspire;
Thy feet to tickle were enough
For one so mean as I.

What caps, what slippers silver-laced,
Would I on thee bestow!
What damask breeches make for thee;
What fine long holland cloaks!

And I would give thee pearls that should
As big as oak-galls show;
So matchless big that each might well
Be called the great “Alone.”814

Manchegan Nero, look not down
From thy Tarpeian Rock
Upon this burning heart, nor add
The fuel of thy wrath.

A virgin soft and young am I,
Not yet fifteen years old;
(I’m only three