Thou that all the night till morningSleepest on thy downy bed;Gaily with thy legs out-stretched,’twixt two sheets of linen laid:Valiant Knight! thou whom La ManchaKnows none greater or more bold;Purer, blesseder, and chasterThan Arabia’s sifted gold:Hear a woful maid’s complaining,Nurtured well but thriven ill,Whose fond heart the burning sun-raysFrom thine eyes do scorch and kill.Seekest thou thine own adventures;Others’ ventures thou suppliest;Dealest wounds, yet for their healingSalve of plaster thou deniest.Tell me, lusty youth and valiant,May thy wishes all be sped!Was’t in Jaca’s gloomy mountains,Or in Lybia thou wert bred?Say, didst suck thy milk from serpents;Was thine infant babyhoodNurséd by the horrid mountain,Dandled by the rugged wood?Well may Dulcinea, thy charmer,Damsel plump and round, be proud,Conquering that heart of tiger,Softening that bosom rude!This shall make thy name e’er famousFrom Jarama to Henares;From Pisuerga to Arlanza;From Tagus e’en to Manzanares.Might I change with Dulcinea,give her my best petticoat;Rarest silk, of pretty colours,Golden fringe and all to boot!O to live within thine arms, andO to sit beside thy bed!O that poll so sweet to scratch, andBrush the scurf from that dear head!Much I ask, though undeservingOf so notable a grace,Would that I thy feet were stroking,That’s enough for maid so base.What fine night-caps I would work thee;What fine shiny silvern socks;Breeches of the rarest damask;Lovely yellow Holland cloaks!Precious milk-white pearls I’d give thee,Each as big as any gall,Such as, having no companions,Orphans they are wont to call.Gaze not from thy rock TarpeianOn the fire which scorches me,Nero of the world Manchegan!Nor revive it cruelly.Child I am—a tender pullet—Fifteen years I’ve never seen;I vow, by God and on my conscience,I’m only three months past fourteen.Lame I am not, neither crooked,Nothing in my body’s wrong;Locks like lilies, when I stand up,Sweep the ground, they are so long.Though my mouth is like an eagle’s,And a little flat my nose,With my topaz teeth,—of beautyI’ve enough for Heaven, with those.And my voice is, if you listen,Equal to the best, I trow;And I am of form and figureSomething less than middling too.Spoils of thy spear, thy bow and quiver,These my charms and more, are;Maid am I of this here castle,And my name Altisidora!
Thou that all the night till morningSleepest on thy downy bed;Gaily with thy legs out-stretched,’twixt two sheets of linen laid:Valiant Knight! thou whom La ManchaKnows none greater or more bold;Purer, blesseder, and chasterThan Arabia’s sifted gold:Hear a woful maid’s complaining,Nurtured well but thriven ill,Whose fond heart the burning sun-raysFrom thine eyes do scorch and kill.Seekest thou thine own adventures;Others’ ventures thou suppliest;Dealest wounds, yet for their healingSalve of plaster thou deniest.Tell me, lusty youth and valiant,May thy wishes all be sped!Was’t in Jaca’s gloomy mountains,Or in Lybia thou wert bred?Say, didst suck thy milk from serpents;Was thine infant babyhoodNurséd by the horrid mountain,Dandled by the rugged wood?Well may Dulcinea, thy charmer,Damsel plump and round, be proud,Conquering that heart of tiger,Softening that bosom rude!This shall make thy name e’er famousFrom Jarama to Henares;From Pisuerga to Arlanza;From Tagus e’en to Manzanares.Might I change with Dulcinea,give her my best petticoat;Rarest silk, of pretty colours,Golden fringe and all to boot!O to live within thine arms, andO to sit beside thy bed!O that poll so sweet to scratch, andBrush the scurf from that dear head!Much I ask, though undeservingOf so notable a grace,Would that I thy feet were stroking,That’s enough for maid so base.What fine night-caps I would work thee;What fine shiny silvern socks;Breeches of the rarest damask;Lovely yellow Holland cloaks!Precious milk-white pearls I’d give thee,Each as big as any gall,Such as, having no companions,Orphans they are wont to call.Gaze not from thy rock TarpeianOn the fire which scorches me,Nero of the world Manchegan!Nor revive it cruelly.Child I am—a tender pullet—Fifteen years I’ve never seen;I vow, by God and on my conscience,I’m only three months past fourteen.Lame I am not, neither crooked,Nothing in my body’s wrong;Locks like lilies, when I stand up,Sweep the ground, they are so long.Though my mouth is like an eagle’s,And a little flat my nose,With my topaz teeth,—of beautyI’ve enough for Heaven, with those.And my voice is, if you listen,Equal to the best, I trow;And I am of form and figureSomething less than middling too.Spoils of thy spear, thy bow and quiver,These my charms and more, are;Maid am I of this here castle,And my name Altisidora!
Thou that all the night till morningSleepest on thy downy bed;Gaily with thy legs out-stretched,’twixt two sheets of linen laid:
Thou that all the night till morning
Sleepest on thy downy bed;
Gaily with thy legs out-stretched,
’twixt two sheets of linen laid:
Valiant Knight! thou whom La ManchaKnows none greater or more bold;Purer, blesseder, and chasterThan Arabia’s sifted gold:
Valiant Knight! thou whom La Mancha
Knows none greater or more bold;
Purer, blesseder, and chaster
Than Arabia’s sifted gold:
Hear a woful maid’s complaining,Nurtured well but thriven ill,Whose fond heart the burning sun-raysFrom thine eyes do scorch and kill.
Hear a woful maid’s complaining,
Nurtured well but thriven ill,
Whose fond heart the burning sun-rays
From thine eyes do scorch and kill.
Seekest thou thine own adventures;Others’ ventures thou suppliest;Dealest wounds, yet for their healingSalve of plaster thou deniest.
Seekest thou thine own adventures;
Others’ ventures thou suppliest;
Dealest wounds, yet for their healing
Salve of plaster thou deniest.
Tell me, lusty youth and valiant,May thy wishes all be sped!Was’t in Jaca’s gloomy mountains,Or in Lybia thou wert bred?
Tell me, lusty youth and valiant,
May thy wishes all be sped!
Was’t in Jaca’s gloomy mountains,
Or in Lybia thou wert bred?
Say, didst suck thy milk from serpents;Was thine infant babyhoodNurséd by the horrid mountain,Dandled by the rugged wood?
Say, didst suck thy milk from serpents;
Was thine infant babyhood
Nurséd by the horrid mountain,
Dandled by the rugged wood?
Well may Dulcinea, thy charmer,Damsel plump and round, be proud,Conquering that heart of tiger,Softening that bosom rude!
Well may Dulcinea, thy charmer,
Damsel plump and round, be proud,
Conquering that heart of tiger,
Softening that bosom rude!
This shall make thy name e’er famousFrom Jarama to Henares;From Pisuerga to Arlanza;From Tagus e’en to Manzanares.
This shall make thy name e’er famous
From Jarama to Henares;
From Pisuerga to Arlanza;
From Tagus e’en to Manzanares.
Might I change with Dulcinea,give her my best petticoat;Rarest silk, of pretty colours,Golden fringe and all to boot!
Might I change with Dulcinea,
give her my best petticoat;
Rarest silk, of pretty colours,
Golden fringe and all to boot!
O to live within thine arms, andO to sit beside thy bed!O that poll so sweet to scratch, andBrush the scurf from that dear head!
O to live within thine arms, and
O to sit beside thy bed!
O that poll so sweet to scratch, and
Brush the scurf from that dear head!
Much I ask, though undeservingOf so notable a grace,Would that I thy feet were stroking,That’s enough for maid so base.
Much I ask, though undeserving
Of so notable a grace,
Would that I thy feet were stroking,
That’s enough for maid so base.
What fine night-caps I would work thee;What fine shiny silvern socks;Breeches of the rarest damask;Lovely yellow Holland cloaks!
What fine night-caps I would work thee;
What fine shiny silvern socks;
Breeches of the rarest damask;
Lovely yellow Holland cloaks!
Precious milk-white pearls I’d give thee,Each as big as any gall,Such as, having no companions,Orphans they are wont to call.
Precious milk-white pearls I’d give thee,
Each as big as any gall,
Such as, having no companions,
Orphans they are wont to call.
Gaze not from thy rock TarpeianOn the fire which scorches me,Nero of the world Manchegan!Nor revive it cruelly.
Gaze not from thy rock Tarpeian
On the fire which scorches me,
Nero of the world Manchegan!
Nor revive it cruelly.
Child I am—a tender pullet—Fifteen years I’ve never seen;I vow, by God and on my conscience,I’m only three months past fourteen.
Child I am—a tender pullet—
Fifteen years I’ve never seen;
I vow, by God and on my conscience,
I’m only three months past fourteen.
Lame I am not, neither crooked,Nothing in my body’s wrong;Locks like lilies, when I stand up,Sweep the ground, they are so long.
Lame I am not, neither crooked,
Nothing in my body’s wrong;
Locks like lilies, when I stand up,
Sweep the ground, they are so long.
Though my mouth is like an eagle’s,And a little flat my nose,With my topaz teeth,—of beautyI’ve enough for Heaven, with those.
Though my mouth is like an eagle’s,
And a little flat my nose,
With my topaz teeth,—of beauty
I’ve enough for Heaven, with those.
And my voice is, if you listen,Equal to the best, I trow;And I am of form and figureSomething less than middling too.
And my voice is, if you listen,
Equal to the best, I trow;
And I am of form and figure
Something less than middling too.
Spoils of thy spear, thy bow and quiver,These my charms and more, are;Maid am I of this here castle,And my name Altisidora!
Spoils of thy spear, thy bow and quiver,
These my charms and more, are;
Maid am I of this here castle,
And my name Altisidora!
Here ended the lay of the sore-wounded Altisidora, and here began the terror of the courted Don Quixote, who, heaving a deep sigh, said to himself—
“How unhappy an Errant am I, that there is no maiden but looks upon me, who is not enamoured of me! How sad is the fate of the peerless Dulcinea, whom they will not leave free to enjoy my incomparable fidelity! Queens, what do ye want of her? Empresses, why do ye persecute her? Maidens of fourteen and fifteen, wherefore do ye molest her? Leave, O leave the unhappy one to triumph, to rejoice, to glory in the lot which love would assign her inthe rendering her my heart, and delivering to her my soul! Know, ye amorous crew, that for Dulcinea alone am I dough and sugar-paste, and for all the rest of you flint. For her I am honey, and for you aloes. For me Dulcinea alone is the beautiful, the sensible, the chaste, the gay, and the well-bred; and the rest ugly, silly, wanton and base-born. To be her’s and none other’s Nature sent me into the world. Let Altisidora weep or sing; let the lady despair for whose sake they belaboured me in the castle of the enchanted Moor; for Dulcinea’s I must be—roasted or boiled, clean, well-born, and chaste—in spite of all the powers of witchcraft in the world.”
And with that he clapt the window to, and laid down on his bed; where for the present we will leave him, for the great Sancho calls, who is desirous of making a beginning with his famous Governorship.
Of the mode in which the great Sancho Panza began to govern, when he had taken possession of his Isle.
... At this moment there entered the justice-hall two men, one dressed as a labourer and the other as a tailor, for he bore a pair of scissors in his hand, and the tailor said—
“Sir Governor, I and this labouring man have come before your worship for the cause that this good fellow came to my shop yesterday, who, saving your presences, am a licensed tailor, blessed be God! and putting a piece of cloth in my hands, asked me: ‘Sir, would there be enough in this cloth to make me a cap?’I, measuring the stuff, answered him ‘Yes.’He must have suspected, as I suspect, and suspected rightly, that without doubt I wished to rob him of some part of his cloth, founding his belief on his own roguery and the ill-opinion there is of tailors, and he replied that I should look and see if there were enough for two. I guessed his drift, and said, ‘Yes’ and he, riding away on his first damned intent, went on adding caps, and I addingyeses, till we reached five caps; and now at this moment he has come for them, and I am giving them to him; and he will not pay me for the making, but rather demands that I shall pay him, or give him back his cloth.”
“Is all this so, brother?” inquired Sancho.
“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but let your worship make him show the five caps he has made me.”
“With all my heart,” said the tailor, and thrusting his hand suddenly under his cloak he showed five caps on it, placed on the five tops of his fingers, and said: “Here are the five caps which this good man wants of me, and on God and my conscience I have none of the cloth left for myself, and I will give the work to be examined by the inspectors of the trade.”
All those present laughed at the number of caps, and at the novelty of the suit. Sancho set himself to consider a little while, and then said—
“Methinks there need be no long delays in this case, but that it may be decided, according to a wise mans’ judgment, off-hand; and so I decree that the tailor shall lose the making, and the countryman the stuff, the caps to be given to the prisoners in the gaol; and let no more be said.”
This judgment provoked the laughter of the audience, but what the Governor commanded was done.
Of how Don Quixote fell sick, and of the will he made, and of his death.
... The Notary entered with the rest, and after having written the preamble to the will, and Don Quixote had disposed of his soul with all those Christian circumstances which are requisite, coming to the bequests he said—
“Item, it is my will that of certain moneys which Sancho Panza, whom in my madness I made my squire, retains, that because there have been between him and me certain accounts, receipts, and disbursements, I wish that he be not charged with them, nor that any reckoning be asked from him, but that, if there should be any surplus after he has paid himself what I owe him, the residue should be his, which will be very little, and may it do him much good. And if I, being mad, was a party to giving him the governorship of the Isle, now, being sane, I would give him that of a Kingdom, were I able, for the simplicity of his nature and the fidelity of his behaviour deserve it.”
And turning to Sancho, he said to him—
“Pardon me, friend, that I have given thee occasion to appear mad like myself, making thee fall into the error into which I fell, that there were and are Knights Errant in the world.”
“Alack!” responded Sancho, weeping, “don’t you die, your worship, dear master, but take my advice and live many years, for the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without more ado, without anybody killing him, nor other hands to finish him off than those of melancholy. Look you, do not be lazy, but get out of that bed, and we will go into the country, dressed like shepherds, as we have arranged. Mayhap behind some hedge we shall find the lady Donna Dulcinea disenchanted, and as fine as may be seen. If so be that you are dying of fretting at being conquered, put the fault on me, and say they overthrew you because I girthed Rozinante badly; more by token, as your worship must have seen in your books of chivalries, that it was a common thing for some Knights to overthrow others, and he who is conquered to-day may be conqueror to-morrow.”
“It is so,” said Samson, “and honest Sancho is very true about these matters.”
“Gently, sirs,” said Don Quixote,“forin last year’s nests you look not for birds of this year. I was mad, and now I am sane. I was Don Quixote of La Mancha, and to-day I am, as I have said, Alonso Quixano the Good. May my repentance and my sincerity restore me to the esteem you once had for me, and so let Master Notary go on.”
“Item, I bequeath all my estate, without reserve, to Antonia Quixana, my Niece, who is present, there being first deducted from it, as may be most convenient, what is needed for the satisfaction of the bequests which I have made; and the first payment to be made I desire to be of the salary due to my Housekeeper from the time she has been in my service, with twenty ducats more for a dress. I leave as my executors Master Priest, and Master Bachelor Samson Carrasco, who are present. Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my Niece, is inclined to marry, she should wed a man of whom she shall first have evidence that he knows not what books of chivalries are; and in case it shall be discovered that he does know, and yet my Niece wishes to marry with him and does so marry, that she shall forfeit all that I have bequeathed her, which my executors are empowered to distribute in pious works at their pleasure. Item, I beseech the said gentlemen, my executors, that if good fortune should bring them to know the author who, they say, wrote a history which is current hereabout under the title of Second Part of the Exploits of Don Quixote of La Mancha, that they will on my behalf beg him, as earnestly as they can, to pardon the occasion which I unwittingly gave him for writing so many and such enormous follies as therein be written, for I quit this life with some tenderness of conscience for having given him a motive for writing them.”
With this he concluded his testament, and, being taken with a fainting fit, he lay extended at full length upon the bed. They were all alarmed, and ran to his assistance, and during the three days that he lived after the day on which he made his will he fainted very frequently. The house was all in confusion; however, the Niece ate, the Housekeeper drank, and Sancho Panza was cheerful; for this inheriting of something dulls or tempers in the inheritorthe memory of the pain which the dead man naturally leaves behind.
At last came Don Quixote’s end, after he had received all the sacraments, and after he had expressed with many and moving terms his horror at the books of chivalries. The Notary was present, and said that never had he read in any book of chivalries that any Knight Errant had died in his bed so tranquilly and so Christianlike as Don Quixote, who, amidst the tears and lamentations of all who stood by, gave up his spirit,—that is to say, died.
On seeing this, the Priest asked the Notary to give him a certificate that Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed out of this present life, and had died a natural death; declaring that he sought such certificate in order to take away from any other author than Cid Hamet Benengeli the excuse falsely to resuscitate him, and write interminable histories of his deeds.
This was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village Cid Hamet desired not to indicate precisely, in order to let all the cities and towns of La Mancha contend among themselves for the honour of giving him birth and adopting him for their own, as the seven cities of Greece contended for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho, of the Niece, and the Housekeeper of Don Quixote are here omitted, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb; but this was what Samson Carrasco put there:—
“A valiant gentleman here lies,Whose courage reached to such a height,Of death itself he made a prize,When against Death he lost the fight.He reck’d not of the world a jot,The world’s great bugbear and the dread;Strong was his arm, and strange his lot;Stark mad in life,—when sober, dead.“
“A valiant gentleman here lies,Whose courage reached to such a height,Of death itself he made a prize,When against Death he lost the fight.He reck’d not of the world a jot,The world’s great bugbear and the dread;Strong was his arm, and strange his lot;Stark mad in life,—when sober, dead.“
“A valiant gentleman here lies,Whose courage reached to such a height,Of death itself he made a prize,When against Death he lost the fight.He reck’d not of the world a jot,The world’s great bugbear and the dread;Strong was his arm, and strange his lot;Stark mad in life,—when sober, dead.“
“A valiant gentleman here lies,
Whose courage reached to such a height,
Of death itself he made a prize,
When against Death he lost the fight.
He reck’d not of the world a jot,
The world’s great bugbear and the dread;
Strong was his arm, and strange his lot;
Stark mad in life,—when sober, dead.“
“Don Quixote de La Mancha.”Miguel Cervantes(1547-1616).Trans. H. E. Watts.