Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [396]
The duchess was convulsed with laughter when she saw the anger and heard the words of Sancho, but Don Quixote was not very pleased to see him so badly adorned with the streaked and spotted towel, and so surrounded by so many kitchen scullions; and after making a deep bow to the duke and duchess, as if asking their permission to speak, he spoke to the mob in a tranquil voice, saying:
“Hello, Señores! Your graces must leave the young man alone and return to the place from which you came, or anywhere else you like; my squire is as clean as any other, and those little bowls are for him small and narrow-mouthed vessels. Take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I have any fondness for mockery.”
Sancho caught his words as they left his mouth and continued, saying:
“No, let them come and mock the bumpkin, and I’ll put up with that the way it’s nighttime now! Bring a comb here, or whatever you want, and curry this beard, and if you find anything there that offends cleanliness, then you can shear me willy-nilly.”
At this point, the duchess, who was still laughing, said:
“Sancho Panza is correct in everything he has said, and everything he will say: he is clean and, as he says, he has no need of washing; if our custom does not please him, that should be the end of it, especially since you, ministers of cleanliness, have been far too remiss and negligent, and perhaps I should say insolent, in bringing to such a person and such a beard, not basins and pitchers of pure gold, and damask towels, but wooden bowls and pans and cleaning rags. But, after all, you are wicked and base and, like the scoundrels you are, cannot help showing the ill will you bear toward the squires of knights errant.”
The roguish ministrants, and even the butler who had come in with them, believed that the duchess was speaking seriously, and so they removed the burlap from Sancho’s chest, and disconcerted, and almost embarrassed, they went away and left him alone; and he, seeing himself free of what had seemed to him an extreme danger, went to kneel before the duchess and said:
“From great ladies, great favors are expected; the one your grace has granted me today cannot be repaid unless it is with my desire to see myself dubbed a knight errant so that I can spend all the days of my life serving so high a lady. I am a peasant, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have children, and I serve as a squire; if with any of these things I can be of service to your highness, I will take less time to obey than your ladyship will to command.”
“It certainly seems, Sancho,” responded the duchess, “that you have learned to be courteous in the school of courtesy itself; it certainly seems, I mean to say, that you have been nurtured in the bosom of Señor Don Quixote, who must be the cream of courtesy and the flower of ceremonies, or cirimonies, as you call them. Good fortune to such a master and such a servant, the one for being the polestar of knight errantry, the other for being the star of squirely fidelity. Arise, Sancho my friend, and I shall repay your courtesies by having the duke my lord, as quickly as he can, fulfill the promised favor of a governorship for you.”
With this their conversation ended, and Don Quixote went to take his siesta, and the duchess requested that if Sancho had no great desire to sleep, he should come and spend the afternoon with her and her maidens in a room that was cool and pleasant. Sancho replied that although it was true that he was in the habit