Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [401]
When the long-awaited day arrived, Don Quixote put on his armor, Sancho donned his outfit, and, riding his donkey, for he did not wish to leave him behind even though they had provided him with a horse, he joined the troop of hunters. The duchess rode out in splendid attire, and Don Quixote, in his courtesy and politeness, took the reins of her palfrey although the duke did not wish to allow it, and finally they reached a forest that lay between two high mountains, where, having set up their posts, their blinds, and their traps, and assigning people to different positions, the hunt began with so great a clamor, so much shouting and calling and barking of dogs and sounding of horns, that they could not hear one another speak.
The duchess dismounted and, holding a sharp javelin in her hands, took up a post where she knew wild boar usually passed by. The duke and Don Quixote also dismounted and stationed themselves on either side of her; Sancho, who was behind them all, did not dismount the donkey, for he did not dare abandon him in the event some mishap befell him. And as soon as they and a good number of other servants had taken their places, then, pursued by the dogs and followed by the trackers, they saw a huge wild boar rushing toward them, grinding its teeth and tusks and foaming at the mouth; when he saw it, Don Quixote grasped his shield and drew his sword and stepped forward to meet it. The duke did the same with his javelin, but the duchess would have gone ahead of all of them if the duke had not stopped her. Only Sancho, when he saw the valiant beast, abandoned his donkey, and began to run as fast as he could, and attempted to climb to the top of a tall oak but failed; instead, when he was halfway up the tree, holding on to a branch as he struggled to reach the top, his luck was so bad and he was so unfortunate that the branch broke, and when it fell to the ground he was still in the air, caught on the stump of a branch and unable to reach the ground. And seeing himself in this situation, and his green tunic tearing, and thinking that if the wild animal ran past it could reach him, he began to give so many shouts and to call for help with so much urgency that everyone who heard him and did not see him believed he was in the jaws of a savage beast.
Finally, the tusked boar was run through by the sharp points of the many javelins it encountered; Don Quixote, turning his head in the direction of Sancho’s shouting, for he had realized that the shouts were his, saw him hanging upside down from the oak, his donkey beside him, for the gray did not abandon him in his calamity, and Cide Hamete says he rarely saw Sancho Panza without his donkey, or the donkey without Sancho: such was the friendship and good faith that existed between the two of them.
Don Quixote approached and unhooked Sancho, who, finding himself free and on the ground, looked at how badly torn the hunting tunic was, and it pained him deeply, for he had thought of his outfit as an inheritance. In the meantime, the powerful boar was lain across a mule, covered with sprigs of rosemary and sprays of myrtle, and taken, as a sign of the spoils of victory, to some large field tents that had been pitched in the middle of the wood; there they found the tables prepared and the meal ready, a banquet so sumptuous and large that one could easily see in it the greatness and magnificence of the person who offered it. Sancho, showing the duchess the tears in his ripped tunic, said:
“If this had been a hunt of hares or small birds, my tunic would not have suffered this damage. I don’t know what pleasure there is in