Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [133]
The two men, who wanted nothing else but to hear from Cardenio’s own lips the reason for his ills, asked that he tell it to them and said they would do only what he wished, either to help or to console him; then the aggrieved gentleman began his pitiful history with almost the same words and phrases he had used to relate it to Don Quixote and the goatherd a few days earlier, when, as this history has recounted, because of Master Elisabat and Don Quixote’s punctilious defense of chivalric decorum, the tale was not concluded. But now it was their good fortune that the attack of madness was over, giving Cardenio an opportunity to narrate his tale to the end; and so, when he came to the letter Don Fernando had found in the volume of Amadís of Gaul, Cardenio said he knew it by heart, and what it said was this:
LUSCINDA TO CARDENIO
Each day I discover in you virtues that oblige and compel me to value you even more; and therefore, if you wished to free me from this debt without attaching my honor, you could do so very easily. I have a father who knows you and loves me, and he, without forcing my will, can meet the obligation of what it is reasonable for you to have, if in fact you value me as you say, and as I believe you do.
This letter moved me to ask for Luscinda’s hand, as I have told you; it was the reason Don Fernando considered Luscinda to be one of the most intelligent and prudent women of her time; this letter was the one that filled him with the desire to destroy me before my own desires could be realized. I told Don Fernando what Luscinda’s father had said about my father’s asking for her hand, which I did not dare mention to my father for fear he would not agree, not because he did not know Luscinda’s quality, worth, virtue, and beauty, or that she possessed more than enough excellent traits to ennoble any family in Spain, but because I understood that he did not wish me to marry until he knew what Duke Ricardo had planned for me. In short, I told him I had not risked speaking to my father, for this reason and many others that made me fearful although I did not know precisely what they were, except that it seemed to me that what I desired would never become a reality. To all of this Don Fernando replied that he would assume the responsibility of speaking to my father and persuading him to speak to Luscinda’s father.
O ambitious Marius, O cruel Catilina, O wicked Sulla, O lying Galalón, O traitorous Vellido, O vengeful Julián, O greedy Judas! Traitorous, cruel, vengeful, and lying man, what disservice had been done to you by this wretch who so openly revealed to you the secrets and joys of his heart? How did I offend you? What words did I say, what advice did I give that was not intended to increase your honor or your advantage? But woe is me! Why do I complain? Everyone knows that when misfortunes are brought by the course of the stars, hurtling down from on high with fury and violence, no power on earth can stop them, no human effort can prevent them. Who could imagine that Don Fernando, an illustrious and intelligent nobleman under obligation to me for my services, and able to attain whatever his amorous desire might demand no matter where it turned, would, as they say, bother to burden his conscience by taking from me my only sheep, one that I did not yet possess?
But let us put such considerations aside, for