Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [388]
“I do not recall anything, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote. “Say whatever you wish, as long as you say it quickly.”
“Well, what I want to say,” said Sancho, “is so true that my master, Don Quixote, who is here, won’t let me lie.”
“As far as I am concerned,” replied Don Quixote, “you can lie, Sancho, as much as you wish, and I shall not stop you, but watch your tongue.”
“I’ve watched and rewatched it so much that the bell ringer is safe, as you’ll soon see.”
“It would be good,” said Don Quixote, “if your highnesses were to have this fool taken away from here, for he will make a thousand witless remarks.”
“By the life of the duke,” said the duchess, “Sancho is not to go even a smidgen away from me; I love him dearly, because I know he is very wise.”
“May your holiness live many wise days,” said Sancho, “on account of the good opinion you have of me, though I don’t deserve it. And the story I want to tell you is this: an invitation was given by a nobleman in my village, very rich and influential because he was one of the Alamos of Medina del Campo, and he married Doña Mencía de Quiñones, who was the daughter of Don Alonso de Marañón, a knight of the Order of Santiago,3 who drowned at La Herradura,4 and there was a dispute about him some years ago in our village, and as I understand it, my master, Don Quixote, took part in it, and Tomasillo the Rogue, the son of Balbastro the blacksmith, was wounded…. Isn’t all of this true, Señor? Say it is, on your life, so that these noble folk won’t take me for a lying babbler.”
“So far,” said the ecclesiastic, “I take you more for a babbler than a liar, but from now on I don’t know what I shall take you for.”
“You cite so many witnesses, Sancho, and so many particulars, that I cannot help but say that you must be telling the truth. But proceed, and shorten the story, because you are on the way to not concluding for another two days.”
“To please me,” said the duchess, “he must not shorten it; rather, he must tell it in the fashion that he knows, even if he does not finish in six days, and if it were to take that long, in my opinion they would be the best days I’d ever spent in my life.”
“Well, then, Señores,” Sancho continued, “I say that this nobleman, and I know him like I know my own hands because it’s only the distance of a crossbow shot from my house to his, gave an invitation to a farmer who was poor but honorable.”
“Go on, brother,” the cleric said at this point. “You’re on the way to not finishing your story until you’re in the next world.”
“I’ll stop when I’m less than halfway there, God willing,” responded Sancho. “And so, I say that when this farmer came to the house of this nobleman, and may his soul rest in peace because he’s dead now, and he died the death of an angel from what people tell me, since I wasn’t present at the time because I had gone to Tembleque to work in the harvest—”
“On your life, my son, return quickly from Tembleque, and without burying the nobleman, and unless you want more funerals, finish your story.”
“Well, the fact of the matter is,” replied Sancho, “that when the two of them were ready to sit down at the table, and it seems to me I can see both of them now as clear as ever…”
The duke and duchess greatly enjoyed the annoyance the good cleric was displaying at the delays and pauses used by Sancho in the recounting of his story, but Don Quixote was consumed with rage and fury.
“And so I say,” said Sancho, “that, like I said, when the two of them were going to sit down at the table, the farmer insisted that the nobleman should sit at the head of the table, and the nobleman also insisted that the farmer should sit there because in his house his orders had to be followed; but the farmer, who was proud of his courtesy and manners, refused to do it, until the nobleman became angry, and putting both hands on his shoulders, he forced