Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [35]
“Tut, tut!” said the priest. “So there are giants at the ball? By the Cross, I shall burn them before nightfall tomorrow.”
They asked Don Quixote a thousand questions, but the only answer he gave was that they should give him something to eat and let him sleep, which was what he cared about most. They did so, and the priest questioned the farmer at length regarding how he had found Don Quixote. He told the priest everything, including the nonsense Don Quixote had said when he found him and brought him home, giving the licentiate an even greater desire to do what he did the next day, which was to call on his friend, the barber Master Nicolás, and go with him to the house of Don Quixote,
CHAPTER VI
Regarding the beguiling and careful examination carried out by the priest and the barber of the library of our ingenious gentleman
who was still asleep. The priest asked the niece for the keys to the room that contained the books responsible for the harm that had been done, and she gladly gave them to him. All of them went in, including the housekeeper, and they found more than a hundred large volumes, very nicely bound, and many other smaller ones; and as soon as the housekeeper saw them, she hurried out of the room and quickly returned with a basin of holy water and a hyssop and said to the priest:
“Take this, Señor Licentiate, and sprinkle this room, so that no enchanter, of the many in these books, can put a spell on us as punishment for wanting to drive them off the face of the earth.”
The licentiate had to laugh at the housekeeper’s simplemindedness, and he told the barber to hand him the books one by one so that he could see what they contained, for he might find a few that did not deserve to be punished in the flames.
“No,” said the niece, “there’s no reason to pardon any of them, because they all have been harmful; we ought to toss them out the windows into the courtyard, and make a pile of them and set them on fire; or better yet, take them to the corral and light the fire there, where the smoke won’t bother anybody.”
The housekeeper agreed, so great was the desire of the two women to see the death of those innocents; but the priest was not in favor of doing that without even reading the titles first. And the first one that Master Nicolás handed him was The Four Books of Amadís of Gaul,1 and the priest said:
“This one seems to be a mystery, because I have heard that this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain,2 and all the rest found their origin and inspiration here, and so it seems to me that as the proponent of the doctrine of so harmful a sect, we should, without any excuses, condemn it to the flames.”
“No, Señor,” said the barber, “for I’ve also heard that it is the best of all the books of this kind ever written, and as a unique example of the art, it should be pardoned.”
“That’s true,” said the priest, “and so we’ll spare its life for now. Let’s see the one next to it.”
“It is,” said the barber, “the Exploits of Esplandián,3 who was the legitimate son of Amadís of Gaul.”
“In truth,” said the priest, “the mercy shown the father will not help the son. Take it, Señora Housekeeper, open that window, throw it into the corral, and let it be the beginning of the pile that will fuel the fire we shall set.”
The housekeeper was very happy to do as he asked, and the good Esplandián went flying into the corral, waiting with all the patience in the world for the fire that threatened him.
“Next,” said the priest.
“This one,” said the barber, “is Amadís of Greece,4 and I believe that all these over here come from the line of Amadís.”
“Well, let them all go into the corral,” said the priest. “For the sake of burning Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and all his eclogues, and the perverse and complicated language of their author, I would burn along with them the father who sired me if he were to appear in the form of a knight errant.”
“I’m of the