Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [539]
“Moreover,” said Sansón Carrasco, “as everyone already knows, I am a celebrated poet and shall constantly compose pastoral verses, or courtly ones, or whatever seems most appropriate, to entertain us as we wander those out-of-the-way places; and what is most necessary, Señores, is for each to choose the name of the shepherdess to be celebrated in his verses, the name he will carve and inscribe on every tree, no matter how hard, as is the usage and custom of enamored shepherds.”
“That is quite fitting,” responded Don Quixote, “although I do not need to find the name of a feigned shepherdess, for there is the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso, glory of these fields, ornament of these meadows, mainstay of beauty, flower of all graces, and, in short, a subject on whom all praise sits well, no matter how hyperbolic.”
“That is true,” said the priest, “but we shall have to find some well-mannered shepherdesses, and if their names don’t suit us, we can trim them to fit.”
To which Sansón Carrasco added:
“And if our invention fails, we can give them the names that have been published and printed and that fill the world: Phyllida, Amaryllis, Diana, Flerida, Galatea, and Belisarda; since they’re sold on every square, we can certainly buy them and keep them for our own. If my lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be named Ana, I shall celebrate her under the name Anarda, and if her name is Francisca, I shall call her Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for that’s all it amounts to; and Sancho Panza, if he joins our fraternity, can celebrate his wife, Teresa Panza, with the name Teresaina.”
Don Quixote laughed at the aptness of the name, and the priest praised to the skies his honest and honorable resolution and once again offered to accompany him in the time he was not occupied in attending to his obligations. And with this they took their leave of Don Quixote and implored him and advised him to take care of his health and to eat well.
It so happened that the niece and the housekeeper heard the conversation of the three men, and as soon as the visitors left, the two women entered the room to see Don Quixote, and his niece said:
“What is this, Uncle? We thought your grace would stay at home again and lead a quiet and honorable life, and now you want to go into new labyrinths and become
Little shepherd, now you’re coming,
little shepherd, now you’re going?5
Well, the truth is that the stem’s too hard for making flutes.6
To which the housekeeper added:
“And there in the countryside will your grace be able to endure the heat of summer, the night air of winter, the howling of the wolves? No, certainly not; this is work for strong, hard men who’ve been brought up to the life almost from the time they’re in swaddling clothes. No matter how bad it is, it’s better to be a knight errant than a shepherd. Look, Señor, take my advice; I’m giving it to you not when I’m full of bread and wine, but when I’m fasting, and based on what I’ve learned in my fifty years: stay in your house, tend to your estate, go to confession often, favor the poor, and let it be on my soul if that does you any harm.”
“Be quiet, my dears,” responded Don Quixote, “for I know what I must do. Take me to my bed, because I think I am not well, and you can be certain that regardless of whether I am a knight errant or a shepherd on the verge of wandering, I shall always provide for you, as my actions will prove.”
And the two good women, which the housekeeper and niece undoubtedly were, took him to his bed, where they fed him and pampered him as much as possible.
CHAPTER LXXIV
Which deals with how Don Quixote fell ill, and the will he made, and his death
Since human affairs, particularly the lives of men, are not eternal and are always in a state of decline from their beginnings until they reach their final end, and since the life of Don Quixote had no privilege from heaven to stop its natural course, it reached