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By Root 1032 0

let the actions of Amadís come to mind and show me where I must begin to imitate them. I already know that for the most part he prayed and commended himself to God, but what shall I use for a rosary, since I do not have one?”

Then he thought of what he could do, and he tore a long strip from his shirttails and tied eleven knots in it, one larger than the rest, and this served as his rosary during the time he was there, when he said a million Ave Marías.1 He was greatly troubled at not finding a hermit nearby who would hear his confession and console him, and so he spent his time walking through the meadow, writing and scratching on the tree trunks and in the fine sand many verses, all of them suited to his sorrow and some of them praising Dulcinea. But the only ones that were found complete, and that could be read after they were discovered, were these:

O trees, grasses, and plants

that in this spot do dwell

so verdant, tall, abundant,

if you find no joy in my ill

then hear my honest complaints.

Let not my grief alarm you

even when it brings dire fears,

for to pay and recompense you,

Don Quixote here shed tears

for his absent Dulcinea

of Toboso.

Here in this place, this season,

the truest, most faithful lover

hides his face from his lady,

and has been made to suffer

untold torments without reason.

Love buffets him about

in merciless battle and quarrel;

and so, till he filled a barrel

Don Quixote here shed tears

for his absent Dulcinea

of Toboso.

Questing for high adventures

among boulders and rocky tors,

and cursing a heart made of stone,

for in this wild desolation

he finds nought but misadventures,

love lashed him with a cruel whip,

not with a gentle cordon;

and when it scourged his nape

Don Quixote here shed tears

for his absent Dulcinea

of Toboso.

A cause of no small laughter in those who discovered these verses was the of Toboso appended to the name of Dulcinea, because they imagined that Don Quixote must have imagined that if, when he named Dulcinea, he did not also say of Toboso, the stanza would not be understood, and this in fact was true, as he later confessed. He wrote many other stanzas, but, as we have said, no more than these three could be read in their entirety. He spent his time writing, sighing, and calling on the fauns and satyrs of the woods, and the nymphs of the rivers, and on grieving, tearful Echo to answer and console and hear him; he also searched for plants that would sustain him until Sancho returned, and if the squire had taken three weeks instead of three days, the Knight of the Sorrowful Face would have been so altered that not even his own mother would have known him.

It would be a good idea to leave him enveloped in sighs and verses and to recount what befell Sancho Panza as he traveled on his mission. When he came out onto the king’s highway, he began to look for the road to Toboso, and the next day he reached the inn where he had suffered the misfortune of the blanket, and no sooner had he seen it than it seemed to him that once again he was flying through the air, and he did not want to go inside even though he had arrived at an hour when he could and should have done so, since it was time to eat and he longed to enjoy something hot, because for many days he had eaten nothing but cold food.

This necessity drove him to approach the inn, still doubtful as to whether he should go in or not, and while he was hesitating, two people came out of the inn and recognized him immediately. And one said to the other:

“Tell me, Señor Licentiate, that man on the horse, isn’t he Sancho Panza, the one our adventurer’s housekeeper said had left with her master to be his squire?”

“It is,” said the licentiate, “and that’s the horse of our Don Quixote.”

And they knew him so well because they were the priest and barber of his village, the ones who had held a public proceeding and scrutinized the books. As soon as they recognized Sancho Panza and Rocinante, they wished to have news of Don Quixote, and they approached, and the priest called him by name, saying:

“Friend