Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [501]
Don Quixote did not say a word, and the knights did not wait for him to respond, but wheeling and turning with all their entourage behind them, they began to move in caracoles around Don Quixote, who turned to Sancho and said:
“These men know us very well: I would wager that they have read our history, and even the one recently published by the Aragonese.”
The knight who had spoken to Don Quixote returned, saying:
“Your grace, Señor Don Quixote, come with us, for we are all your servants and great friends of Roque Guinart’s.”
To which Don Quixote responded:
“If courtesy engenders courtesy, yours, Señor Knight, is the daughter or close relative of the great Roque’s. Take me wherever you wish, for I shall have no will but yours, above all if you desire to employ mine in your service.”
The knight responded with words no less courtly, and the others encircled Don Quixote, and to the sound of flageolets and timbrels they rode with him to the city, and as they entered it, there were the Evil One, who ordains all wickedness, and boys, who are more evil than the Evil One; two of them who were particularly mischievous and impudent made their way through all the people, and one lifted the gray’s tail and the other lifted Rocinante’s, and there they placed and inserted branches of furze2 in each one. The poor animals felt these new spurs, and when they pressed down their tails, they increased their discomfort to such an extent that they reared and bucked a thousand times and threw their riders to the ground. Don Quixote, enraged and affronted, hurried to remove the plumage from the tail of his nag, and Sancho did the same for his gray. Those who were escorting Don Quixote wanted to punish the insolence of the boys, but it was not possible because they hid among the thousand others who were following them.
Don Quixote and Sancho remounted; accompanied by the same acclamation and music, they arrived at the house of their guide, which was large and imposing, as befitted a wealthy gentleman, and there we shall leave them for now, since this is the wish of Cide Hamete.
CHAPTER LXII
Which relates the adventure of the enchanted head, as well as other foolishness that must be recounted
Don Antonio Moreno was the name of Don Quixote’s host, a wealthy and discerning gentleman, very fond of seemly and benign amusements, who, finding Don Quixote in his house, sought ways to make his madness public without harming him; for jests that cause pain are not jests, and entertainments are not worthwhile if they injure another. The first thing he did was to have Don Quixote remove his armor and to take him, dressed in the tight-fitting chamois clothes we have already described and depicted, out to a balcony that overlooked one of the principal streets in the city, in plain view of passersby and boys, who looked at him as if he were a monkey. Once again the horsemen in livery galloped before him, as if they had put on finery for him alone and not to celebrate the feast day, and Sancho was extremely happy because it seemed to him that without knowing how or why, he found himself at another Camacho’s wedding, another house like Don Diego de Miranda’s, another castle like the duke’s.
Some of Don Antonio’s friends ate dinner with him that day, and they all honored Don Quixote and treated him as if he were a knight errant, which so filled him with pride and vanity that he could hardly contain his joy. Sancho made so many comical remarks that all the servants in the house, and everyone else who heard him, hung on his every word. When they were at the table, Don Antonio said to Sancho:
“We have heard, good Sancho, that you are so fond of white morsels,1 and of rissoles, that if any are left over, you keep them in your shirt for the next day.”2
“No, Señor, that isn’t so,” responded Sancho, “because I’m more