Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [68]
“In this circumstance that has just happened to us,” Sancho responded, “I would have liked to have the intelligence and valor your grace has mentioned; but I swear to you, by my faith as a poor man, that I need a poultice more than I need talk. Your grace, see if you can stand, and we’ll help Rocinante, though he doesn’t deserve it, because he’s the main reason for this beating. I never would have believed it of Rocinante; I always thought he was a person as chaste and peaceable as I am. Well, like they say, you need a long time to know a person, and nothing in this life is certain. Who would have thought that hard on the heels and so soon after those mighty blows struck by your grace’s sword against that unfortunate knight errant, this great storm of a beating would rain down on our backs?”
“Yours, at least, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “must be accustomed to such cloudbursts; but mine, brought up on cambric and fine Dutch linen, of course will feel more deeply the pain of this misfortune. And if it were not because I imagine…did I say imagine?…because I know for a fact that all these discomforts are an integral part of the practice of arms, I would let myself die here of sheer annoyance.”
To which the squire replied:
“Señor, since these misfortunes are the harvest reaped by chivalry, tell me, your grace, if they happen very often or come only at certain times, because it seems to me that after two harvests like this one, we’ll be useless for the third if God, in His infinite mercy, doesn’t come to our aid.”
“You should know, Sancho my friend,” responded Don Quixote, “that the lives of knights errant are subject to a thousand dangers and disasters, and by the same token they are just as likely to become kings and emperors at any moment, as demonstrated by the experience of many different and diverse knights whose histories I know thoroughly and completely. And I could tell you now, if the pain I feel would allow, of some who, by the sheer valor of their mighty arm, have risen to the high estates I have mentioned to you, and yet, both before and afterward, these same knights have borne all manner of calamities and miseries. For the valorous Amadís of Gaul found himself in the power of his mortal enemy the enchanter Arcalaus, who, as has been verified, tied him to a column in a courtyard and gave him more than two hundred lashes with the reins of his horse. And there is even a little-known author, but a very creditable one, who says that in a certain castle the Knight of Phoebus was caught in a certain trapdoor that opened beneath his feet, and he fell and found himself in a deep pit under the earth, tied hand and foot, and there he was given one of those things called an enema, composed of melted snow and sand, which almost killed him, and if he had not been helped in those dire straits by a wise man who was a great friend of his, things would have gone very badly for the poor knight. And I may certainly suffer along with so many virtuous knights, for they endured greater affronts than the ones we are suffering now. For I want you to know, Sancho, that injuries inflicted by the tools one happens to be holding are not offenses; this is expressly stated in the law of dueling: if the cobbler