"Have done with these fooleries," said Don Quixote; "let us pushon straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range toour fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life."
With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to theirvillage.CHAPTER LXXIII
OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, ANDOTHER INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY
AT THE entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote sawtwo boys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor one of whom saidto the other, "Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it againas long as thou livest."
Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, "Dost thou notmark, friend, what that boy said, 'Thou shalt never see it again aslong as thou livest'?"
"Well," said Sancho, "what does it matter if the boy said so?"
"What!" said Don Quixote, "dost thou not see that, applied to theobject of my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcineamore?"
Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted byseeing a hare come flying across the plain pursued by severalgreyhounds and sportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter andhide itself under Dapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it toDon Quixote, who was saying, "Malum signum, malum signum! a hareflies, greyhounds chase it, Dulcinea appears not."
"Your worship's a strange man," said Sancho; "let's take it forgranted that this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing itthe malignant enchanters who turned her into a country wench; sheflies, and I catch her and put her into your worship's hands, andyou hold her in your arms and cherish her; what bad sign is that, orwhat ill omen is there to be found here?"
The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare,and Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He wasanswered by the one who had said, "Thou shalt never see it again aslong as thou livest," that he had taken a cage full of crickets fromthe other boy, and did not mean to give it back to him as long as helived. Sancho took out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them tothe boy for the cage, which he placed in Don Quixote's hands,saying, "There, senor! there are the omens broken and destroyed, andthey have no more to do with our affairs, to my thinking, fool as Iam, than with last year's clouds; and if I remember rightly I haveheard the curate of our village say that it does not become Christiansor sensible people to give any heed to these silly things; and evenyou yourself said the same to me some time ago, telling me that allChristians who minded omens were fools; but there's no need ofmaking words about it; let us push on and go into our village."
The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixotegave them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance ofthe town they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrascobusy with their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho hadthrown, by way of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundleof armour, the buckram robe painted with flames which they had putupon him at the duke's castle the night Altisidora came back tolife. He had also fixed the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddesttransformation and decoration that ever ass in the world underwent.They were at once recognised by both the curate and the bachelor,who came towards them with open arms. Don Quixote dismounted andreceived them with a close embrace; and the boys, who are lynxesthat nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and came running tosee it, calling out to one another, "Come here, boys, and see SanchoPanza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beastleaner than ever."
So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompaniedby the curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into thetown, and proceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of whichthey found his housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival hadalready reached. It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho's wife,as well, and she with her hair all loose and half naked, draggingSanchica her daughter by the hand, ran out to meet her husband; butseeing him coming in by no means as good case as she thought agovernor ought to be, she said to him, "How is it you come this way,husband? It seems to me you come tramping and footsore, and lookingmore like a disorderly vagabond than a governor."
"Hold your tongue, Teresa," said Sancho; "often 'where there arepegs there are no flitches;' let's go into the house and thereyou'll hear strange things. I bring money, and that's the mainthing, got by my own industry without wronging anybody."
"You bring the money, my good husband," said Teresa, "and nomatter whether it was got this way or that; for, however you mayhave got it, you'll not have brought any new practice into the world."
Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought heranything, for she had been looking out for him as for the showers ofMay; and she taking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and hiswife by the hand, while the daughter led Dapple, they made for theirhouse, leaving Don Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece andhousekeeper, and in the company of the curate and the bachelor.
Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season,withdrew in private with the bachelor and the curate, and in a fewwords told them of his defeat, and of the engagement he was undernot to quit his village for a year, which he meant to keep to theletter without departing a hair's breadth from it, as became aknight-errant bound by scrupulous good faith and the laws ofknight-errantry; and of how he thought of turning shepherd for thatyear, and taking his diversion in the solitude of the fields, where hecould with perfect freedom give range to his thoughts of love while hefollowed the virtuous pastoral calling; and he besought them, ifthey had not a great deal to do and were not prevented by moreimportant business, to consent to be his companions, for he wouldbuy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds; and the most importantpoint of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he hadgiven them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked whatthey were. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called theshepherd Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and thecurate the shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino.
Both were astounded at Don Quixote's new craze; however, lest heshould once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit ofhis chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might becured, fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as abright one, and offered to share the life with him. "And what's more,"said Samson Carrasco, "I am, as all the world knows, a very famouspoet, and I'll be always making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as itmay come into my head, to pass away our time in those secluded regionswhere we shall be roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is thateach of us should choose the name of the shepherdess he means toglorify in his verses, and that we should not leave a tree, be it everso hard, without writing up and carving her name on it, as is thehabit and custom of love-smitten shepherds."
"That's the very thing," said Don Quixote; "though I am relievedfrom looking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there's thepeerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, theornament of these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of allthe graces, and, in a word, the being to whom all praise isappropriate, be it ever so hyperbolical."
"Very true," said the curate; "but we the others must look about foraccommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way oranother."
"And," added Samson Carrasco, "if they fail us, we can call themby the names of the ones in print that the world is filled with,Filidas, Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for asthey sell them in the market-places we may fairly buy them and makethem our own. If my lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens tobe called Ana, I'll sing her praises under the name of Anarda, andif Francisca, I'll call her Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for itall comes to the same thing; and Sancho Panza, if he joins thisfraternity, may glorify his wife Teresa Panza as Teresaina."
Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curatebestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution hehad made, and again offered to bear him company all the time that hecould spare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leaveof him, recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health andtreat himself to a suitable diet.
It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the threeof them said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them camein to Don Quixote, and said the niece, "What's this, uncle? Now thatwe were thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quietrespectable life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements,and turn 'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherdgoing there?' Nay! indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipesof.'"
"And," added the housekeeper, "will your worship be able to bear,out in the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter,and the howling of the wolves? Not you; for that's a life and abusiness for hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from thetime they were in swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils,it's better to be a knight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, senor;take my advice- and I'm not giving it to you full of bread and wine,but fasting, and with fifty years upon my head- stay at home, lookafter your affairs, go often to confession, be good to the poor, andupon my soul be it if any evil comes to you."
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