Don Quixote_ Translation by Edith Grossman (HarperCollins) - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra [69]
“They didn’t give me a chance,” Sancho responded, “to look at them so carefully, because as soon I put my hand on my sword they made the sign of the cross on my shoulders with their pinewood, so that they took the sight from my eyes and the strength from my feet, knocking me down where I’m lying now, where it doesn’t hurt at all to think about whether the beating they gave me with their staffs was an offense or not, unlike the pain of the beating, which will make as much of an impression on my memory as it has on my back.”
“Even so, I want you to know, brother Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “that there is no memory that time does not erase, no pain not ended by death.”
“Well, what misfortune can be greater,” replied Panza, “than waiting for time to end it and death to erase it? If this misfortune of ours was the kind that could be cured with a couple of poultices, it wouldn’t be so bad, but I can see that all the poultices in a hospital won’t be enough to set us straight again.”
“Stop that now and find strength in weakness, Sancho,” Don Quixote responded, “and I shall do the same, and let us see how Rocinante is, because it seems to me the poor animal may have gotten the worst of this misfortune.”
“There’s no reason to be surprised at that,” Sancho responded, “since he’s such a good knight errant; what does surprise me is that my donkey walked away without any costs while we were left without any ribs.”3
“Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity so that it can be remedied,” said Don Quixote. “I say this because the beast can make up for the lack of Rocinante and carry me from here to some castle where my wounds may be cured. Further, I shall not consider such a mount a dishonor, because I remember reading that when Silenus, the good old tutor and teacher of the merry god of laughter,4 entered the city of one hundred gates,5 he rode very happily mounted on a beautiful jackass.”
“It may be true that he rode mounted, as your grace says,” Sancho responded, “but there’s a big difference between riding mounted and riding slung across the animal’s back like a sack of trash.”
To which Don Quixote replied:
“The wounds received in battles bestow honor, they do not take it away; and so, Panza my friend, do not answer me any further, but as I have already told you, stand the best you can and put me any way you choose on the back of your donkey, and let us leave before night falls upon us in this deserted place.”
“I’ve heard your grace say,” said Panza, “that it’s very common for knights errant to sleep in deserted places and wastelands most of the year, and that they consider it good fortune.”
“That is so,” said Don Quixote, “when it cannot be helped or when they are in love; and this is so true that there have been knights who stayed on a rocky crag, in sun and in shadow and in all kinds of weather, for two years, and their ladies never learned of it. One of these was Amadís when, calling himself Beltenebros, he lived on Peña Pobre, I do not know if it was for eight years or eight months: I am not absolutely certain regarding the length of time; it is enough to know that he was there doing penance for some sorrow or other that his lady Oriana had caused him. But let us talk no more of this, Sancho, and hurry, before the donkey suffers a misfortune like the one that befell Rocinante.”
“That would be the devil’s work, too,” said Sancho.
And emitting thirty groans and sixty sighs, and hurling a hundred twenty curses and blasphemies at the one who had brought him there, Sancho struggled to his feet, remaining bent double like a Turkish arch when he was halfway up, unable to stand straight;