Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [156]
Sancho was so displeased by what his master had said about not wanting to marry that he became very angry, and raising his voice, he said:
“I vow and I swear, Señor Don Quixote, that your grace is not in your right mind. How can your grace have any doubts about marrying a princess as noble as this one? Does your grace think fate will offer you good fortune like this around every corner? Is my lady Dulcinea, by some chance, more beautiful? No, certainly not, not even by half, and I’d go so far as to say she can’t even touch the shoes of the lady we have before us. So woe is me, I’ll never get the rank I’m hoping for if your grace goes around asking for the moon. Marry, marry right now, Satan take you, and take the kingdom that has dropped into your hands without you lifting a finger, and when you’re king make me a marquis or a governor, and then the devil can make off with all the rest.”
Don Quixote could not endure hearing such blasphemies said against his lady Dulcinea; he raised his lance, and without saying a word to Sancho, in absolute silence, he struck him twice with blows so hard he knocked him to the ground, and if Dorotea had not called to him and told him to stop, he no doubt would have killed him then and there.
“Do you think,”5 he said after a while, “base wretch, that you will always be able to treat me with disrespect, that it will always be a matter of your erring and my forgiving you? You are mistaken, depraved villain, something you undoubtedly are since you dare speak ill of the incomparable Dulcinea. Do you not realize, you coarse, contemptible ruffian, that if it were not for the valor she inspires in my arm, I should not have the strength to kill a flea? Tell me, insidious viper’s tongue, who do you think has won this kingdom and cut off the head of this giant and made you a marquis, all of which I consider already accomplished, concluded, and finished, if not the valor of Dulcinea, wielding my arm as the instrument of her great deeds? In me she does combat, and in me she conquers, and I live and breathe in her, and have life and being. Oh, foul whoreson! What an ingrate you are, for you see yourself raised from the dust of the earth to be a titled lord, and you respond to this great benefit by speaking ill of the one who performed it for you!”
Sancho was not so badly beaten that he did not hear everything his master said to him, and after getting to his feet in some haste, he went to stand behind Dorotea’s palfrey, and from there he said to his master:
“Tell me, Señor: if your grace is determined not to marry this great princess, it’s clear the kingdom won’t be yours; and if it isn’t, what favors can you do for me? That’s what I’m complaining about; your grace should marry this queen for now, when we have her here like a gift from heaven, and afterwards you can go back to my lady Dulcinea; there must have been kings in the world who lived with their mistresses. As for beauty, I won’t get involved in that; if truth be told, they both seem fine to me, though I’ve never seen the lady Dulcinea.”
“What do you mean, you have not seen her, you blasphemous traitor?” said Don Quixote. “Have you not just brought me a message from her?”
“I mean I didn’t look at her so carefully,” said Sancho, “that I could notice her beauty in particular and her good features point by point, but on the whole, she seemed fine to me.”
“Now I forgive you,” said Don Quixote, “and you must pardon the anger I have shown you; for first impulses are not in the hands of men.”
“I can see that,” responded Sancho, “just like in me a desire to talk is always my first impulse, and I can never help saying, not even once, what’s on my tongue.”
“Even so,