Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [500]
CHAPTER LXI
Regarding what befell Don Quixote when he entered Barcelona, along with other matters that have more truth in them than wit
Don Quixote spent three days and three nights with Roque, and if it had been three hundred years, there would have been no lack of things to observe and marvel at in the way he lived: they awoke here and ate there; at times they fled, not knowing from whom, and at other times they waited, not knowing for whom. They slept on their feet, interrupting their slumber and moving from one place to another. It was always a matter of posting spies, listening to scouts, blowing on the locks of their harquebuses, although they had few of those since everyone used flintlocks. Roque spent the nights away from his men, in locations and places they did not know, because the many edicts issued by the viceroy of Barcelona1 against his life made him uneasy and apprehensive, and he did not dare trust anyone, fearing his own men might kill him or turn him in to the authorities: a life, certainly, that was disquieting and troublesome.
Finally, using abandoned roads, shortcuts, and hidden paths, Roque, Don Quixote, Sancho, and another six squires set out for Barcelona. They reached the shore on the night of St. John’s Eve, and Roque embraced Don Quixote and Sancho, presented the squire with the ten escudos he had promised but had not yet given him, and took his leave, with a thousand services offered on both sides.
Roque returned to the countryside, and Don Quixote remained mounted on his horse, waiting for daybreak, and it was not long before the pale face of dawn began to appear along the balconies of the east, bringing joy to the grass and flowers rather than to the ear, for at that very moment ears were made joyous by the sound of many flageolets and timbrels, the jingling of bells, the “make way, make way, stand aside, stand aside!” of runners who, apparently, were coming from the city. Dawn made way for the sun, whose face, larger than a shield, gradually rose from below the horizon.
Don Quixote and Sancho turned their eyes in all directions; they saw the ocean, which they had not seen before: it seemed broad and vast to them, much larger than the Lakes of Ruidera that they had seen in La Mancha; they saw the galleys near the shore, and when the canopies were raised, their pennants and streamers were revealed, fluttering in the wind and kissing and sweeping the water; from the galleys came the sound of bugles, trumpets, and flageolets, and the breeze carried the sweetly martial tones near and far. The ships began to move, performing a mock skirmish on the quiet waters, and, corresponding in almost the same fashion, an infinite number of knights on beautiful horses and in splendid livery rode out from the city. The soldiers on the galleys fired countless pieces of artillery, to which those who were on the walls and in the forts of the city responded, and the heavy artillery shook the air with a fearsome clamor and was answered by the midship cannon on the galleys. The joyful sea, the jocund land, the transparent air, perhaps clouded only by the smoke from the artillery, seemed to create and engender a sudden delight in all the people.
Sancho could not imagine how those shapes moving on the ocean could have so many feet. And then, the knights in livery, with shouts, lelelíes, and cries, came galloping up to a stupefied and astounded Don Quixote, and one of them, who had been advised by Roque, called in a loud voice to Don Quixote:
“May the model, beacon, light, and polestar of all knight errantry be welcome to our city, world without end. Welcome, I say, to the valorous