Volume II (1615)
Regarding the decision Don Quixote made to become a shepherd and lead a pastoral life until the year of his promise had passed, along with other incidents that are truly pleasurable and entertaining
If many thoughts had troubled Don Quixote before his fall, many more troubled him after he was toppled. As has been said, he was in the shade of the tree, and there, like flies swarming around honey, thoughts came to him and stung him: some had to do with the disenchantment of Dulcinea and others with the life he would have to live in his forced retirement. Then Sancho arrived and praised the liberality of the footman Tosilos.
“Is it possible,” said Don Quixote, “Oh, Sancho, that you still think he is the real footman? It seems you have forgotten that you saw Dulcinea changed and transformed into a peasant, and the Knight of the Mirrors into Bachelor Carrasco, the work, in both cases, of the enchanters who pursue me. But tell me now: did you ask the man you call Tosilos what God has done with Altisidora? Did she weep over my absence, or has she already placed in the hands of oblivion the amorous thoughts that so troubled her in my presence?”
“Mine were not the kind,” responded Sancho, “that would let me ask about nonsense. By God, Señor, is your grace interested now in asking about other people’s thoughts, especially amorous ones?”
“Look, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “there is a great difference between the actions one takes because of love and those taken because of gratitude. A knight may well be unenamored, but strictly speaking, he can never be ungrateful. Altisidora, it seems, loved me dearly; she gave me the three nightcaps, which you know about, she wept at my departure, she cursed me, she reviled me, she complained, despite all modesty, publicly; all of these were signs that she adored me, for the anger of lovers often ends in curses. I had no hopes to offer her or treasures to present to her, because all of mine I have given to Dulcinea, and the treasures of knights errant are, like those of goblins,631 apparent and false, and I can give her only the innocent memories I have of her; as for those I have of Dulcinea, you offend her with your slackness in administering the lashes and in punishing that flesh—may I see it devoured by wolves—which you would rather preserve for the worms than use for the relief of that poor lady.”
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “if you want to know the truth, I’m not convinced that lashing my backside has anything to do with disenchanting the enchanted, because it would be like saying, ‘If you have a headache, put some ointment on your knees.’ I’d swear, at least, that in all the histories about knight errantry that your grace has read, you’ve never seen a disenchantment by flogging; but, whether that’s true or not, I’ll give myself the lashes when I feel like it and it’s a convenient time for me to punish myself.”
“May it be God’s will,” responded Don Quixote, “and may the heavens grant you the grace to realize the obligation you have to help my lady, who is yours as well, since you are my servant.”
They were conversing as they continued on their way, until they reached the same place and spot where they had been trampled by the bulls. Don Quixote recognized it and said to Sancho:
“This is the meadow where we encountered the beautiful shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who wanted to restore and imitate pastoral Arcadia here, a thought as original as it is intelligent, and like them, if you think it is a good idea, I should like, O Sancho, for us to become shepherds, at least for the time I must be retired. I shall buy some sheep, and all the other things needed for the pastoral exercise, and my name will be Shepherd Quixotiz and yours Shepherd Pancino, and we shall roam the mountains, the woods, and the meadows, singing here, lamenting there, drinking the liquid crystal of the fountains, or the limpid streams, or the rushing rivers. With a copious hand the oaks will give us their sweetest fruit; the hard cork trees, their trunks as seats; the willows, their shade; the roses, their fragrance; the broad meadows, carpets of a thousand shades and colors; the clear, pure air, our breath; the moon and stars, our light in spite of night’s darkness; pleasure will give us our songs; joy, our weeping; Apollo, our verses; love, our conceits; and with these we shall make ourselves eternal and famous, not only in the present but in times to come.”632
“By God,” said Sancho, “that sort of life squares so well with me it even corners; besides, as soon as Bachelor Sansón Carrasco and the barber Master Nicolás see it, they’ll want to lead that life and become shepherds along with us; God willing, the priest will decide to join the fold, too, he’s so good-natured and fond of enjoying himself.”
“You have spoken very well,” said Don Quixote, “and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as he undoubtedly will, can call himself Shepherd Sansonino, or even Shepherd Carrascón; Barber Nicolás can be Miculoso, 633 as old Boscán was called Nemoroso; 634 I do not know what name we could give the priest, unless it is one derived from his profession, and we call him Shepherd Curiambro. 635 As for the shepherdesses whose lovers we shall be, we can choose their names as if we were picking pears, and since my lady’s fits a shepherdess as well as a princess, there is no reason for me to try to find another that would be more suitable; you, Sancho, can call yours whatever you like.”
“I don’t plan,” responded Sancho, “to give her any name but Teresona, which will suit her plumpness636 and the name she already has, which is Teresa; besides, I’ll celebrate her in my verses and reveal my chaste desires, for I don’t plan to go looking for trouble in other men’s houses. It won’t be good for the priest to have a shepherdess, because he ought to set a good example, but if the bachelor wants to have one, his soul is his own business.”
“God save me!” said Don Quixote. “What a life we shall lead, Sancho my friend! What flageolets will reach our ears, what Zamoran pipes, what timbrels, what tambourines, and what rebecs! Well, and what if in the midst of all this music albogues should resound! Then we would have all the pastoral instruments.”
“What are albogues?” asked Sancho. “I’ve never heard of them or seen them in my life.”
“Albogues,” responded Don Quixote, “are something like brass candlesticks, and when you hit one with the other along the empty or hollow side, it makes a sound that is not unpleasant, though it may not be very beautiful or harmonious, and it goes well with the rustic nature of pipes and timbrels; this word albogues is Moorish, as are all those in our Castilian tongue that begin with al, for example: almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacén, alcancía, 637 and other similar words; our language has only three that are Moorish and end in the letter i, and they are borceguí, zaquizamí, and maravedí. 638 Alhelí and alfaquí, 639 as much for their initial al as for the final i, are known to be Arabic. I have told you this in passing because it came to mind when I happened to mention albogues; one thing that will help us a great deal to achieve perfection in this endeavor is that I am something of a poet, as you know, and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco is even better. I say nothing about the priest, but I would wager that he has a touch of the poet, and Master Nicolás as well, I have no doubt about that, because all barbers, or most of them, are guitarists and rhymers. I shall complain of absence; you will praise yourself as a steadfast lover; Shepherd Carrascón will lament being scorned; the priest Curiambro, whatever he chooses; and so things will go so well that no one could ask for more.”
To which Sancho responded:
“I am, Señor, so unfortunate, that I fear the day will never come when I can join this exercise. Oh, how polished I’ll keep the spoons when I’m a shepherd. What soft bread, what cream, what garlands, what pastoral odds and ends that, if they don’t earn me fame as a wise man, can’t help but earn me fame as a clever one! Sanchica, my daughter, will bring food up to our flocks. But wait! She’s a good-looking girl, and there are shepherds more wicked than simple, and I wouldn’t want her to go for wool and come back shorn; love and unchaste desires are as likely in the countryside as in the cities, in shepherd’s huts as in royal palaces, and if you take away the cause, you take away the sin, and if your eyes don’t see, your heart doesn’t break, and a jump over the thicket is better than the prayers of good men.”
“No more proverbs, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for any one of those you have said is enough to explain your thoughts; I have often advised you not to be so prodigal in your proverbs and to restrain yourself from saying them, but it seems that is like preaching in the desert, and ‘My mother punishes me, and I deceive her.’”
“It seems to me,” responded Sancho, “that your grace is like the pot calling the kettle black. You reprove me for saying proverbs, and your grace strings them together two at a time.”
“Look, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “I say proverbs when they are appropriate, and when I say them they fit like the rings on your fingers, but you drag them in by the hair, and pull them along, and do not guide them, and if I remember correctly, I have already told you that proverbs are brief maxims derived from the experience and speculation of wise men in the past, and if the proverb is not to the point, it is not a maxim, it is nonsense. But let us leave this for now, and since night is approaching, let us withdraw some distance from the king’s highway, and spend the night there, and God alone knows what tomorrow will bring.”
They withdrew and had a scant, late supper, much against the will of Sancho, to whom it seemed that the austerities of knight errantry were common in the forests and mountains, while abundance was displayed in castles and houses, as much in the house of Don Diego de Miranda or Don Antonio Moreno as at the wedding of the wealthy Camacho, but he considered that it could not always be day, and it could not always be night, and so he spent that night sleeping, while his master kept watch.
