Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [524]
The fact is, at that early hour, some swineherds were taking more than six hundred pigs to a fair to sell them, and the animals made so much noise grunting and snorting that it deafened Don Quixote and Sancho, who could not imagine what the sound could be. The large grunting herd came running in great haste and confusion, and without showing respect for the authority of either Don Quixote or Sancho, they ran over them both, destroying Sancho’s stockade and knocking down not only Don Quixote but Rocinante for good measure. The herd, the grunting, the speed with which the unclean animals ran past, threw into confusion and to the ground the packsaddle, the armor, the gray, Rocinante, Sancho, and Don Quixote.
Sancho struggled to his feet and asked his master for his sword, saying that he wanted to kill half a dozen of those stout and discourteous pigs, for he had realized what they were. Don Quixote said:
“Let them be, my friend, for this affront is chastisement for my sin, and heaven’s just punishment is that a defeated knight errant will be devoured by jackals, and stung by wasps, and trampled by pigs.”
“It must also be heaven’s punishment,” responded Sancho, “that the squires of defeated knights will be bitten by flies, eaten by lice, and attacked by hunger. If we squires were the children of the knights we serve, or close relatives of theirs, it wouldn’t be surprising if the punishment for their faults reached us all the way to the fourth generation, but what do the Panzas have to do with the Quixotes? Well then, let’s get comfortable again and sleep for the rest of the night, and God will send the dawn, and we’ll be fine.”
“You sleep, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “for you were born to sleep, but I, born to stand watch, shall give free rein to my thoughts in the time that remains until daylight, and proclaim them in a madrigal I composed in my mind last night without your knowledge.”
“It seems to me,” responded Sancho, “that thoughts that move you to write verses can’t be very troublesome. Your grace should versify all you want, and I’ll sleep all I can.”
And then, taking all the ground he wished, he curled up and fell fast asleep, undisturbed by guaranties or debts or any sorrow. Don Quixote, leaning against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree—for Cide Hamete Benengeli does not specify what kind of tree it was—sang to the sound of his own sighs:
O Love, when my thoughts turn
to the suffering, dread and fierce, you bring,
I swiftly run toward death,
hoping to end forever the pain I feel;
but when I reach that place,
the port in this rough ocean of my torment,
I feel such joy and gladness
that life grows strong and does not let me pass.
And so my living kills me,
and death insists and gives me back my life.
Mine is a novel state:
I go on living, and constantly die.3
Each of these verses was accompanied by many sighs and no few tears, befitting one whose heart was pierced by the pain of defeat and the absence of Dulcinea.
Then day arrived, the sun shone its rays into Sancho’s eyes, he awoke and stretched, shaking and extending his sluggish limbs; he looked at the destruction wreaked on his provisions by the pigs, and cursed the herd, and even more than that. Finally the pair resumed their journey, and as the afternoon drew to a close, they saw some ten men on horseback and four or five men on foot coming toward them. Don Quixote’s heart beat faster, and Sancho’s was alarmed, because the men approaching carried lances and shields and seemed very warlike. Don Quixote turned to Sancho and said:
“If I could wield my weapons, Sancho, and the promise I gave had not tied my arms, I would deem this group coming toward us as nothing more than mere child’s play, but perhaps it is not what we fear.”
By then the men on horseback had reached them, and raising their lances, and not saying a word, they surrounded Don Quixote and held their weapons to his back and chest, threatening him