Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [352]
Sancho heard this, and to himself he said:
“This master of mine, when I talk about things of pith and substance, usually says that I could take a pulpit in hand and go through the world preaching fine sermons; and I say of him that when he begins to string together judgments and to give advice, he could not only take a pulpit in hand but hang two on each finger, and go through the squares and say exactly the right thing. What a devil of a knight errant you are, and what a lot of things you know! I thought in my heart that he would only know things that had to do with his chivalry, but there’s nothing he doesn’t pick at or poke his spoon into.”
Sancho was mumbling this, and his master heard him and asked:
“What are you mumbling about, Sancho?”
“I’m not saying anything, and I’m not mumbling anything,” responded Sancho. “I was just saying to myself that I wish I’d heard what your grace said here before I married; maybe then I’d be saying now: ‘The ox who’s free can lick where he pleases.’”1
“Is your Teresa so bad, Sancho?” said Don Quixote.
“She’s not very bad,” responded Sancho, “but she’s not very good, either; at least, she’s not as good as I’d like.”
“It is wrong of you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “to speak ill of your wife, who is, in fact, the mother of your children.”
“We don’t owe each other a thing,” responded Sancho, “because she speaks ill of me too whenever she feels like it, especially when she’s jealous, and then not even Satan himself can bear her.”
In short, they spent three days with the newlyweds and were regaled and entertained as if they were kings. Don Quixote asked the skilled licentiate2 to give him a guide who would lead him to the Cave of Montesinos,3 because he had a great desire to enter it and see with his own eyes if the marvels told about it throughout the surrounding area were true. The licentiate said that he would give him one of his cousins, who was a famous student and very fond of reading novels of chivalry, and would be very happy to bring him to the mouth of the cave and show him the Lakes of Ruidera, famous in all of La Mancha, and even in all of Spain; and he said that he would find him pleasant company because he was a lad who knew how to write books that would be printed and how to dedicate them to princes. At last, the cousin arrived on a pregnant donkey, its packsaddle covered by a small striped rug or brightly colored burlap. Sancho saddled Rocinante, readied the donkey, and provisioned his saddlebags that then joined the cousin’s, which were also well-stocked, and after commending themselves to God and taking their leave of everyone, they set out on their journey, traveling in the direction of the famous Cave of Montesinos.
On the road, Don Quixote questioned the cousin regarding the character and nature of his activities, his profession, and his studies, to which he responded that his profession was being a humanist, his activities and studies, composing books for publishing, all of them very beneficial and no less diverting for the nation; one was entitled On Liveries, in which he depicts seven hundred and three liveries with their colors, devices, and emblems, from which courtier knights could pick and choose the ones they liked for festivals and celebrations and would not have to go begging them from anybody or overtaxing their brains, as they say, in order to find ones that matched their desires and intentions.
“Because I give to the jealous, the disdained, the forgotten,