Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [429]
When you mount a horse, do not lean your body back over the hind bow of the saddle, or hold your legs stiff and sticking out at an angle from the belly of the horse, or ride so carelessly that it looks as if you were riding your donkey, for riding a horse makes gentlemen of some men and stable boys of others. Be moderate in your sleeping, for the man who does not get up with the sun does not possess the day; and remember, Sancho, that diligence is the mother of good fortune, and sloth, her opposite, never reached the conclusion demanded by good intentions. This final piece of advice that I wish to give you now, although it may not serve for the adornment of the body, I want you to remember very well, for I believe it will be no less useful to you than those I have given you so far, and it is that you should never become involved in arguing about lineages, at least, in comparing one to the other, because of necessity, when they are compared, one has to be better, and you will be despised by the one you place lower, and not rewarded in any way by the one you deem higher. Your dress should be full-length breeches, a long doublet, and a slightly longer cape; absolutely no pantaloons, for they do not become gentlemen or governors. For now, this is what has occurred to me to tell you; time will pass, and my precepts will be appropriate to the occasion, if you are careful to inform me about the circumstances in which you find yourself.”
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “I see very well that everything your grace has told me is good, holy, and beneficial, but what good will the precepts do if I don’t remember a single one? It’s true that what you said about not letting my nails grow and getting married again won’t slip my mind if I can help it, but those other useless and complicated and troublesome things I don’t remember, and I won’t remember them any more than I do yesterday’s clouds, and so you’ll have to write them down for me, and though I don’t know how to read or write, I’ll give them to my confessor so that he can slip them in and remind me of them whenever it’s necessary.”
“O, sinner that I am!” responded Don Quixote. “How bad it seems in governors not to be able to read or write! Because you must know, Sancho, that a man not knowing how to read, or being left-handed, means one of two things: either he was the child of parents who were too poor and lowborn, or he was so mischievous and badly behaved himself that he could not absorb good habits or good instruction. This is a great fault in you, and I would like you at least to learn to sign your name.”
“I know how to sign my name very well,” responded Sancho, “because when I was steward of a brotherhood in my village, I learned to make some letters like the marks on bundles, and they told me that they said my name; better yet, I’ll pretend that my right hand has been hurt, and I’ll have somebody else sign for me; there’s a remedy for everything except death, and since I’ll be in charge of everything, I can do whatever I want; then, too, when your father’s the magistrate….1 And being agovernor, which is more than being a magistrate, just let them come and they’ll see what happens! No, let them make fun of me and speak ill of me: they’ll come for wool and go home shorn; and when God loves you, your house knows it; and the rich man’s folly passes for good judgment in the world; and since that’s what I’ll be, being a governor and a very generous one, which is what I plan to be, nobody will notice any faults in me. No, just be like honey and the flies will go after you; you’re only worth as much as you have, my grandmother used to say; and you won’t get revenge on a well-established man.”
“O, may you be accursed, Sancho!” said Don Quixote at this point. “May sixty thousand devils take you and your proverbs! For the past hour you have been stringing them together and with each one giving me a