Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [394]
“That is so,” said the duke. “But Señor Don Quixote must give me permission to say what I am obliged to say because of the history of his deeds which I have read, and from which one infers that even if it is conceded that Dulcinea exists, in Toboso or outside it, and that she is as exceptionally beautiful as your grace depicts her for us, in the matter of noble lineage she cannot compare with the Orianas, Alastrajareas, Madásimas, or other ladies of that kind who fill the histories which your grace knows so well.”
“To that I can say,” responded Don Quixote, “that Dulcinea is the child of her actions, and that virtues strengthen the blood, and that a virtuous person of humble birth is to be more highly esteemed and valued than a vice-ridden noble, especially since Dulcinea possesses a quality2 that can make her a queen with a crown and scepter; for the merits of a beautiful and virtuous woman extend to performing even greater miracles, and in her she carries, virtually if not formally, even greater good fortune.”
“Señor Don Quixote,” said the duchess, “I say that in everything your grace says you proceed with great caution and, as they say, with the sounding line in your hand; from now on I shall believe, and make my entire household believe, and even my lord the duke, if necessary, that Dulcinea exists in Toboso, and that she lives in our day, and is beautiful, and nobly born, and worthy of having a knight like Señor Don Quixote serving her, which is the highest praise I can give, and the highest I know of. But I cannot help having one scruple, and feeling a certain animosity toward Sancho Panza: the scruple is that the aforementioned history says that Sancho Panza found the lady Dulcinea, when he brought her a missive on behalf of your grace, sifting a sack of grain, and, apparently, that it was buckwheat, which makes me doubt the nobility of her lineage.”
To which Don Quixote responded:
“Señora, your highness must know that all or almost all the things that befall me go beyond the ordinary scope of things that happen to other knights errant, whether they are directed by the inscrutable will of fate or by the malevolence of some envious enchanter; and since it is well-known about all or almost all the famous knights errant that one has the ability never to be enchanted, and another has impenetrable flesh and cannot be wounded, such as the famous Roland, one of the Twelve Peers of France, of whom it is said that he could not be wounded except on the sole of his left foot, and only with the point of a large pin and not with any other kind of weapon; and so, when Bernardo del Carpio killed him at Roncesvalles, seeing that he could not wound him with his blade, he lifted him off the ground and strangled him, for he had recalled how Hercules killed Antaeus, the fierce giant they say was the child of Earth. I wish to infer from what I have said that I may have one of these abilities; but not the one that keeps me from being wounded, for experience has often shown me that my flesh is weak and not at all impenetrable; and not the one that keeps me from being enchanted, for I have found myself locked in a cage, although the entire world would not have had the strength to put me in there if it were not for enchantments. And since I freed myself from that enchantment, I should like to believe there will not be any other that can harm me; and so these enchanters, seeing that they cannot use their evil craft against my person, wreak their vengeance on the things I love most, and wish to take my life by mistreating Dulcinea, by whose grace I live. And therefore I believe that when my squire carried my message to her, they transformed her into a peasant engaged in labor so menial as sifting grain; but I have already said that the grain was neither buckwheat nor wheat but Oriental pearls; and as proof