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

the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipolito⁠—in truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world. Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life. Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said is true.”93

“As you will,” said the barber; “but what are we to do with these little books that are left?”

“These must be, not chivalry, but poetry,” said the curate; and opening one he saw it was the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all the others to be of the same sort, “these,” he said, “do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one.”

“Ah, señor!” said the niece, “your worship had better order these to be burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable and infectious malady.”

“The damsel is right,” said the curate, “and it will be well to put this stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend’s way. To begin, then, with the Diana of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned, but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse: let it keep, and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the first of books of the kind.”

“This that comes next,” said the barber, “is the Diana, entitled the Second Part, by the Salamancan, and this other has the same title, and its author is Gil Polo.”

“As for that of the Salamancan,” replied the curate, “let it go to swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo’s be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself:94 but get on, gossip, and make haste, for it is growing late.”

“This book,” said the barber, opening another, “is the ten books of the Fortune of Love, written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet.”

“By the orders I have received,” said the curate, “since Apollo has been Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having found it than if they had given me a cassock of Florence stuff.”95

He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on, “These that come next are The Shepherd of Iberia, Nymphs of Henares, and The Enlightenment of Jealousy.”96

“Then all we have to do,” said the curate, “is to hand them over to the secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never have done.”

“This next is the Pastor de Filida.”

“No Pastor that,” said the curate, “but a highly polished courtier; let it be preserved as a precious jewel.”97

“This large one here,” said the barber, “is called The Treasury of Various Poems.”

“If there were not so many of them,” said the curate, “they would be more relished: this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain vulgarities which it has with its excellences; let it be preserved because the author is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other more heroic and loftier works that he has written.”98

“This,” continued the barber, “is the Cancionero of López de Maldonado.”99

“The author of that book, too,” said the curate, “is a great friend of mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when he chants them: it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is good was never yet plentiful:100 let it be kept with those that have been set apart. But what book is that next it?”

“The Galatea of Miguel de Cervantes,” said the barber.

“That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but brings nothing to a conclusion: we must wait for the Second Part it promises: perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full measure of grace that is now denied it; and in the mean time do you, señor gossip, keep it shut up in your own quarters.”101

“Very good,” said the barber; “and here come three together, the Araucana of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the Austriada of Juan Rufo, Justice of Cordova, and the Montserrate of Christobal de Virues, the Valencian poet.”102

“These three books,” said the curate, “are the best that have been written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most famous of Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry that Spain possesses.”

The curate was tired and would not look