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“What are albogues?” asked Sancho. “I’ve never heard of them or seen them in my life.”

“Albogues,” responded Don Quixote, “are something like brass candlesticks, and when you hit one with the other along the empty or hollow side, it makes a sound that is not unpleasant, though it may not be very beautiful or harmonious, and it goes well with the rustic nature of pipes and timbrels; this word albogues is Moorish, as are all those in our Castilian tongue that begin with al, for example: almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacén, alcancía,7 and other similar words; our language has only three that are Moorish and end in the letter i, and they are borceguí, zaquizamí, and maravedí.8 Alhelí and alfaquí,9 as much for their initial al as for the final i, are known to be Arabic. I have told you this in passing because it came to mind when I happened to mention albogues; one thing that will help us a great deal to achieve perfection in this endeavor is that I am something of a poet, as you know, and Bachelor Sansón Carrasco is even better. I say nothing about the priest, but I would wager that he has a touch of the poet, and Master Nicolás as well, I have no doubt about that, because all barbers, or most of them, are guitarists and rhymers. I shall complain of absence; you will praise yourself as a steadfast lover; Shepherd Carrascón will lament being scorned; the priest Curiambro, whatever he chooses; and so things will go so well that no one could ask for more.”

To which Sancho responded:

“I am, Señor, so unfortunate, that I fear the day will never come when I can join this exercise. Oh, how polished I’ll keep the spoons when I’m a shepherd. What soft bread, what cream, what garlands, what pastoral odds and ends that, if they don’t earn me fame as a wise man, can’t help but earn me fame as a clever one! Sanchica, my daughter, will bring food up to our flocks. But wait! She’s a good-looking girl, and there are shepherds more wicked than simple, and I wouldn’t want her to go for wool and come back shorn; love and unchaste desires are as likely in the countryside as in the cities, in shepherd’s huts as in royal palaces, and if you take away the cause, you take away the sin, and if your eyes don’t see, your heart doesn’t break, and a jump over the thicket is better than the prayers of good men.”

“No more proverbs, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for any one of those you have said is enough to explain your thoughts; I have often advised you not to be so prodigal in your proverbs and to restrain yourself from saying them, but it seems that is like preaching in the desert, and ‘My mother punishes me, and I deceive her.’”

“It seems to me,” responded Sancho, “that your grace is like the pot calling the kettle black. You reprove me for saying proverbs, and your grace strings them together two at a time.”

“Look, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “I say proverbs when they are appropriate, and when I say them they fit like the rings on your fingers, but you drag them in by the hair, and pull them along, and do not guide them, and if I remember correctly, I have already told you that proverbs are brief maxims derived from the experience and speculation of wise men in the past, and if the proverb is not to the point, it is not a maxim, it is nonsense. But let us leave this for now, and since night is approaching, let us withdraw some distance from the king’s highway, and spend the night there, and God alone knows what tomorrow will bring.”

They withdrew and had a scant, late supper, much against the will of Sancho, to whom it seemed that the austerities of knight errantry were common in the forests and mountains, while abundance was displayed in castles and houses, as much in the house of Don Diego de Miranda or Don Antonio Moreno as at the wedding of the wealthy Camacho, but he considered that it could not always be day, and it could not always be night, and so he spent that night sleeping, while his master kept watch.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Regarding the porcine adventure that