Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) 📕

said the tailor; and drawing his hand from under his cloak he showed five caps stuck upon the five fingers of it, and said, “there are the caps this good man asks for; and by God and upon my conscience I haven’t a scrap of cloth left, and I’ll let the work be examined by the inspectors of the trade.”

All present laughed at the number of caps and the novelty of the suit; Sancho set himself to think for a moment, and then said, “It seems to me that in this case it is not necessary to deliver long-winded arguments, but only to give offhand the judgment of an honest man; and so my decision is that the tailor lose the making and the labourer the cloth, and that the caps go to the prisoners in the gaol, and let there be no more about it.”

If the previous decision about the cattle dealer’s purse excited the admiration of the bystanders, this provoked their laughter;820 however, the governor’s orders were after all executed. All this, having been taken down by his chronicler, was at once despatched to the duke, who was looking out for it with great eagerness; and here let us leave the good Sancho; for his master, sorely troubled in mind by Altisidora’s music, has pressing claims upon us now.

XLVI

Of the terrible bell and cat fright that Don Quixote got in the course of the enamoured Altisidora’s wooing.

We left Don Quixote wrapped up in the reflections which the music of the enamourned maid Altisidora had given rise to. He went to bed with them, and just like fleas they would not let him sleep or get a moment’s rest, and the broken stitches of his stockings helped them. But as Time is fleet and no obstacle can stay his course, he came riding on the hours, and morning very soon arrived. Seeing which Don Quixote quitted the soft down, and, nowise slothful, dressed himself in his chamois suit and put on his travelling boots to hide the disaster to his stockings. He threw over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder the baldric with his good trenchant sword, took up a large rosary that he always carried with him, and with great solemnity and precision of gait proceeded to the antechamber where the duke and duchess were already dressed and waiting for him. But as he passed through a gallery, Altisidora and the other damsel, her friend, were lying in wait for him, and the instant Altisidora saw him she pretended to faint, while her friend caught her in her lap, and began hastily unlacing the bosom of her dress.

Don Quixote observed it, and approaching them said, “I know very well what this seizure arises from.”

“I know not from what,” replied the friend, “for Altisidora is the healthiest damsel in all this house, and I have never heard her complain all the time I have known her. A plague on all the knights-errant in the world, if they be all ungrateful! Go away, Señor Don Quixote; for this poor child will not come to herself again so long as you are here.”

To which Don Quixote returned, “Do me the favour, señora, to let a lute be placed in my chamber tonight; and I will comfort this poor maiden to the best of my power; for in the early stages of love a prompt disillusion is an approved remedy;” and with this he retired, so as not to be remarked by any who might see him there.

He had scarcely withdrawn when Altisidora, recovering from her swoon, said to her companion, “The lute must be left, for no doubt Don Quixote intends to give us some music; and being his it will not be bad.”

They went at once to inform the duchess of what was going on, and of the lute Don Quixote asked for, and she, delighted beyond measure, plotted with the duke and her two damsels to play him a trick that should be amusing but harmless; and in high glee they waited for night, which came quickly as the day had come; and as for the day, the duke and duchess spent it in charming conversation with Don Quixote.821

When eleven o’clock came, Don Quixote found a guitar in his chamber; he tried it, opened the window, and perceived that some persons were walking in the garden; and having passed his fingers over the frets of the guitar and tuned it as well as he could, he spat and cleared his chest, and then with a voice a little hoarse but full-toned, he sang the following ballad, which he had himself that day composed:822

Mighty Love the hearts of maidens
Doth unsettle and perplex,
And the instrument he uses
Most of all is idleness.

Sewing, stitching, any labour,
Having always work to do,
To the poison Love instilleth
Is the antidote most sure.

And to proper-minded maidens
Who desire the matron’s name
Modesty’s a marriage portion,
Modesty their highest praise.

Men of prudence and discretion,
Courtiers gay and gallant knights,
With the wanton damsels dally,
But the modest take to wife.

There are passions, transient, fleeting,
Loves in hostelries declar’d,
Sunrise loves, with sunset ended,
When the guest hath gone his way.

Love that springs up swift and sudden,
Here today, tomorrow flown,
Passes, leaves no trace behind it,
Leaves no image on the soul.

Painting that is laid on painting
Maketh no display or show;
Where one beauty’s in possession
There no other can take hold.

Dulcinea del Toboso
Painted on my heart I wear;
Never from its tablets, never,
Can her image be eras’d.

The quality of all in lovers
Most esteemed is constancy;
’Tis by this that love works wonders,
This exalts them to the skies.

Don Quixote had got so far with his song, to which the duke, the duchess, Altisidora, and nearly the whole household of the castle were listening, when all