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By Root 704 0

among others, Señor Licentiate, so that my master doesn’t take it into his head to be an archbishop, which is what I’m afraid of, is that your grace advise him to marry this princess right away, and then he won’t be able to receive archbishopal orders, and he’ll come easily into his empire, and I’ll finally get the thing I desire; I’ve thought about it carefully, and as far as I can tell, it does me no good at all if my master becomes an archbishop because I’m useless for the Church since I’m married, and for me to try now to get a dispensation so that I could have an income from the Church, having, as I do, a wife and children, well, there’d be no end to it. And so, Señor, the thing now is for my master to marry this lady right away, and since I don’t know her title, I’m not calling her by name.”

“Her name,” responded the priest, “is the Princess Micomicona; since her kingdom is called Micomicón, of course that is her name.”

“No doubt about it,” responded Sancho. “I’ve seen lots of people take the name and lineage of the place where they were born, calling themselves Pedro de Alcalá, Juan de Ubeda, or Diego de Valladolid, and they must have the same custom there in Guinea, so queens take the names of their kingdoms.”

“That must be the case,” said the priest, “and as for your master marrying, I’ll do everything in my power to bring that about.”

This made Sancho happy, and the priest was astounded, both by his simplicity and by how his imagination was filled with his master’s nonsensical ideas, for Sancho believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that Don Quixote would become an emperor.

By now Dorotea had mounted the priest’s mule and the barber had attached the oxtail beard to his face, and they told Sancho to lead them to Don Quixote and warned him not to say that he had recognized the licentiate or the barber, because the whole matter of his master becoming emperor depended on their not being recognized; the priest and Cardenio, however, did not want to accompany them, Cardenio because he did not wish to remind Don Quixote of their dispute and the priest because his presence was no longer needed. And so they allowed the others go ahead while they followed slowly on foot. The priest did not fail to remind Dorotea of what she had to do, to which she replied that there was no need to worry; everything would be done to the letter, exactly as demanded and depicted by the books of chivalry.

They had ridden approximately three-quarters of a league when they caught sight of Don Quixote among some crags, dressed now, but not wearing his armor, and as soon as Dorotea saw him and was informed by Sancho that this was Don Quixote, she applied the whip to her palfrey,2 followed by the well-bearded barber. And when they reached him, the squire leaped off the mule and took Dorotea in his arms, and she, dismounting very gracefully, went to kneel before Don Quixote; and al-though he struggled to lift her up, she, still kneeling, spoke to him in this manner:

“I shall not rise up from this place, O valiant and brave knight, until thy goodness and courtesy grant me a boon, which will redound to the honor and renown of thy person and to the benefit of the most disconsolate and aggrieved damsel e’er seen by the sun. And if it be true that the valor of thy mighty arm correspondeth to the accounts of thy immortal fame, thou needs must favor this unfortunate maiden who hath come from such distant lands, following thy famous name and searching for thee to remedy her afflictions.”

“I shall not utter a word, beauteous lady,” responded Don Quixote, “nor shall I hearken to thy concerns until thou hast raised thyself from the ground.”

“I shall not raise myself, my lord,” responded the damsel in distress, “if thy courtesy doth not first grant me the boon I beg of thee.”

“I grant and bestow it upon thee,” responded Don Quixote, “as long as it doth not harm nor diminish my king, my country, and she who holds the key to my heart and liberty.”

“It shall neither harm nor diminish those whom thou sayest, good my lord,” responded the mournful maiden.