• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Fortune.

And who augments my grief by seven?

Heaven.

And therefore, in profound unease

I fear I’ll die of this disease,

for my enemies, I can prove,

are heaven, fortune, and love.

Who, then, will improve my fate?

Death.

And who in love claims victory?

Perfidy.

And who can make its ills grow less?

Madness.

And therefore, it’s no act of reason

to attempt to cure this passion

when the remedies, in truth,

are madness, perfidy, and death.

The hour, the weather, the solitude, the voice, and the skill of the one who was singing caused both wonder and pleasure in the two who were listening, and they remained quiet, hoping they would hear more; but seeing that the silence lasted for some time, they resolved to look for the musician who sang with so beautiful a voice. And as they were about to do so, the same voice kept them from moving, for again it reached their ears, singing this sonnet:

SONNET

Most sacred friendship who, with rapid wings,

while your mere semblance stayed here on the ground,

flew, full of joy, up to the vaults of heaven

to mingle with the blessed in paradise,

and there on high, you show us, when you wish,

fair harmony concealed behind a veil

through which, at times, there gleams a fervent zeal

to do good works that ne’er yield ought but ill.

Leave heaven, friendship, or no more allow

deceit to don the livery of your house

and use it to destroy an earnest will;

If you take not your semblance from deceit,

the world will soon return to its first strife,

the chaos and dark disquiet of discord.

The song ended with a profound sigh, and the two men waited again, listening attentively for more singing; but seeing that the music had turned to sobs and pitiful laments, they decided to learn who the aggrieved person was who sang so beautifully and wept so mournfully; before they had gone very far, they walked behind a rocky crag and saw a man whose figure and appearance were the same as those described by Sancho Panza when he told them the story of Cardenio, and this man, when he saw them, did not become agitated but remained motionless, his head lowered as if he were lost in thought, and he did not raise his eyes again to look at them after the first glance, when they had appeared so unexpectedly.

The priest, who was a well-spoken man and already knew of Cardenio’s misfortune, for he had recognized who he was, approached him, and in brief though very perceptive words implored and exhorted him to leave the wretched life he was pursuing there or else he might lose his life, which would be the greatest of all misfortunes. At that moment Cardenio was completely rational, free of the fits of madness that so often drove him to fury, and when he saw them dressed in clothing so different from that worn by the men who wandered those desolate places, he could not help but be astonished, especially when he heard his affairs discussed as if they were common knowledge—for the words the priest said led him to this conclusion—and he responded in this manner:

“I see clearly, Señores, whoever you may be, that heaven, watching over the good, and even the bad very often, through no merit of my own has sent me, in this solitary place so far removed from ordinary human commerce, persons who have set before me, with vivid and varied reasons, how lacking in reason I am to live the life I lead, and have attempted to turn me away from this life and toward a better one; but since you do not know that I know that if I leave this evil I fall into another even greater, perhaps you consider me a man whose power of reasoning is weak and, even worse, one who has no judgment at all. It would not be surprising if that were the case, because it is evident to me that in my imagination the power of my afflictions is so intense and contributes so much to my ruination that I am powerless to prevent it and I become like a stone, bereft of all sense and awareness; I become conscious of this truth only when people tell me and show me the evidence of the things I have done while that terrible attack has control over me,