Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [521]
“Señor,” responded Sancho, “if you want to know the truth, I’m not convinced that lashing my backside has anything to do with disenchanting the enchanted, because it would be like saying, ‘If you have a headache, put some ointment on your knees.’ I’d swear, at least, that in all the histories about knight errantry that your grace has read, you’ve never seen a disenchantment by flogging; but, whether that’s true or not, I’ll give myself the lashes when I feel like it and it’s a convenient time for me to punish myself.”
“May it be God’s will,” responded Don Quixote, “and may the heavens grant you the grace to realize the obligation you have to help my lady, who is yours as well, since you are my servant.”
They were conversing as they continued on their way, until they reached the same place and spot where they had been trampled by the bulls. Don Quixote recognized it and said to Sancho:
“This is the meadow where we encountered the beautiful shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who wanted to restore and imitate pastoral Arcadia here, a thought as original as it is intelligent, and like them, if you think it is a good idea, I should like, O Sancho, for us to become shepherds, at least for the time I must be retired. I shall buy some sheep, and all the other things needed for the pastoral exercise, and my name will be Shepherd Quixotiz and yours Shepherd Pancino, and we shall roam the mountains, the woods, and the meadows, singing here, lamenting there, drinking the liquid crystal of the fountains, or the limpid streams, or the rushing rivers. With a copious hand the oaks will give us their sweetest fruit; the hard cork trees, their trunks as seats; the willows, their shade; the roses, their fragrance; the broad meadows, carpets of a thousand shades and colors; the clear, pure air, our breath; the moon and stars, our light in spite of night’s darkness; pleasure will give us our songs; joy, our weeping; Apollo, our verses; love, our conceits; and with these we shall make ourselves eternal and famous, not only in the present but in times to come.”2
“By God,” said Sancho, “that sort of life squares so well with me it even corners; besides, as soon as Bachelor Sansón Carrasco and the barber Master Nicolás see it, they’ll want to lead that life and become shepherds along with us; God willing, the priest will decide to join the fold, too, he’s so good-natured and fond of enjoying himself.”
“You have spoken very well,” said Don Quixote, “and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as he undoubtedly will, can call himself Shepherd Sansonino, or even Shepherd Carrascón; Barber Nicolás can be Miculoso,3 as old Boscán was called Nemoroso;4 I do not know what name we could give the priest, unless it is one derived from his profession, and we call him Shepherd Curiambro.5 As for the shepherdesses whose lovers we shall be, we can choose their names as if we were picking pears, and since my lady’s fits a shepherdess as well as a princess, there is no reason for me to try to find another that would be more suitable; you, Sancho, can call yours whatever you like.”
“I don’t plan,” responded Sancho, “to give her any name but Teresona, which will suit her plumpness6 and the name she already has, which is Teresa; besides, I’ll celebrate her in my verses and reveal my chaste desires, for I don’t plan to go looking for trouble in other men’s houses. It won’t be good for the priest to have a shepherdess, because he ought to set a good example, but if the bachelor wants to have one, his soul is his own business.”
“God save me!” said Don Quixote. “What a life we shall lead, Sancho my friend! What flageolets will reach our ears, what Zamoran pipes, what timbrels, what tambourines, and what rebecs! Well, and what if in the midst of all this music albogues should resound! Then